The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

a very good friend.”
    I was used to this by now. I had no explanation for why Keith went around telling everyone what good friends we were but butted up against me at every turn on faculty committees. As recently as graduation last June, Keith became a one-man campaign against the speaker I’d proposed, a noted Harvard scholar in linguistics. Keith had serious disagreements with the man’s political views. I’d argued that it was a coup for Henley to get him, that we weren’t inviting him to talk about politics and, anyway, that shouldn’t matter. This was America, wasn’t it? In the end, after winning over the dean, Keith had prevailed and our substitute speaker was a retired botanist with no views whatsoever.
    Elteen had been going on about her cousin. I came in at, “He was very good to us. I can’t tell you how many times he bailed us out when Teddy got sick and couldn’t work. And our Delia is going to a wonderful private high school thanks to her uncle Keith.”
    Here was a further glimpse into Keith Appleton’s other life. The Keith who called me his friend, gave money to his relatives and to the school janitor. The kindly Uncle Keith.
    “How generous of him.”
    “Oh, he was very generous. I feel so bad that he died so young. And right when he was finally starting to keep company with someone, too. A nice young woman, he said.”
    Excuse me? Did keeping company mean what I thought it did? Had Keith hooked up with someone? Bruce had claimed I was oblivious to things like that. But wouldn’t I have known if Keith were dating? Or if Rachel and Hal had something going as Gil thought? Was I so buried in my job—make that jobs—that I didn’t see what was going on around me? Well, too late now.
    “Did you ever get to meet his friend?” I asked, trying to keep it gender neutral, just in case.
    “Oh dear, no. You know he only met her this summer. Bonnie, wasn’t it? Or Annie?”
    Of course I knew. I was his best friend. I mumbled a name and changed the subject.
    “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you,” I said.
    “That’s very kind of you.”
    I wondered if I dared try to use this condolence call to ask a question of a cousin who saw Keith only in the most favorable light. The “any known enemies” query died on my lips.
    “We’re all very blessed to have known him,” I said, and left it at that.
    I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used the word “blessed.” How strange that it should be Keith Appleton who inspired it.
     
     
    Roasted peppers and balsamic vinegar notwithstanding, the tofu recipe didn’t cut it for either of us tonight and Ariana and I ended up in my den with large bowls of mocha chip ice cream, cruising television channels until we gave up on finding anything decent. Nothing could make me laugh and no script was as dramatic as the one playing itself out in my life.
    I watched Ariana clean her bowl with her long, thin index finger, which she then licked, a microcosmic symbol of what I loved about her. She had this endearing quality of being able to find the best in any culture. One minute she was burning incense, the next she was reading an international geopolitical thriller; she ate rice cakes one day and ordered fries with ketchup the next.
    “Should I be worried about you?” Ariana asked.
    “Nah. I mean, it’s hard not to be upset about what happened to Keith. It’s going to take time to get used to. He was a strong presence on campus.” I almost said, “We were blessed to have him,” but that moment had passed.
    The notes to Come Fly With Me filled the room .
    I looked over at my cell phone, charging on my end table. Bruce calling.
    “I’m going to take this,” I said.
    Ariana got up and pointed to the clock on the kitchen wall, a room away. Twenty after twelve. “I should be going anyway.”
    We waved good-bye and blew kisses as I unplugged the charging cord and swished the phone on.
    “You home?” Bruce asked.
    “All fed and watered,” I said. “Ariana, the cook and the queen of soothing gestures, is just leaving.”
    We spent a few minutes catching up on the day—Bruce had worked an evacuation drill and one real emergency call between nine and eleven thirty tonight, meaning hardly any turnaround or downtime.
    “We worked with the Marines on the drill,” he said.
    “Very cool. We could handle the truth.”
    “Huh?”
    “Don’t you remember in A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson yells out at Tom Cruise, ‘You