The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

sheet of paper. My word puzzle, completed. The one everyone else at the party had complained about and declared impossible.
    “Terrific. You did it.” All it took was one positive response to cheer me, and Gil was often the one who gave it to me.
    “It took me a little longer than usual, but I like that kind of challenge.”
    Suddenly the dean stood, and everyone stood with her.
    “Well, I must get to the reason I came by in the first place,” she said. She held up a stack of books and pointed to the returns desk.
    I wouldn’t have thought the dean would be subject to the same circulation policy as the rest of us, but, hey, what did I know?
    “Dean Underwood,” Bruce said, nodding. I was proud of my guy’s good manners.
    I was ready to return to my interview corner, but the dean beckoned me to her side with one of her crooked fingers. “Sophie,” she said.
    I gulped. Hearing the dean address me by my first name was, ironically, like hearing my mother use my full name, as in “Sophie Saint Germain Knowles,” followed by, “Stop that this instant.”
    Bruce and Gil seemed be involved in a conversation of their own now. I heard phrases like rotor downwash, high payload, and something about a new litter, which I took to be not about puppies or kittens.
    “Yes?” I croaked at the dean.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw Pam, Liz, and Casey approaching. All I needed was for one of them to ask if I was through with my questioning them as part of a murder investigation.
    “I’ll see you in my office immediately,” the dean said.
    On a Sunday? Wait a minute. The dean might be able to make or break me careerwise, but she wasn’t in charge of my weekends.
    I swung my arm in the direction of the students who now stood a discreet distance away, thankfully, as if they were in line for an ATM. “I’m holding my student conferences this morning, to plan out the end of my summer classes. As President Aldridge requested.”
    I’d learned a long time ago how rank-conscious the dean was. Name-dropping was always a good bet for gaining the upper hand.
    She pushed back the sleeve of her pale linen jacket, her idea of casual Sunday attire, and looked at her watch. Could it be that she had a life? I doubted it. I’d often thought that the reason she and Keith got along so well was that he didn’t have one either. They were each other’s nonlife.
    “Very well, then. I’ll see you in my office right after President Aldridge’s all-faculty meeting in the morning.”
    “President Aldridge also called for each department to hold a meeting after the all-hands assembly.” I was almost huffy this time.
    The dean let out a long, annoyed breath. “Of course you’ll follow that directive. But, for now”—in a most unusual gesture, she took hold of my elbow and ushered me to a spot in the stacks, farther from the students—“you are to return to me the boxes of material you took from Dr. Appleton’s office immediately.”
    “What are you—”
    The dean’s “don’t you dare deny it” look cut me off. She stomped off in her sensible pumps.
    “See you then,” I said to her back, then flapped away in my sandals.

CHAPTER 14
     
    I’d had no time to dwell on the boxes except to think about hiring a PI to locate them for me. My phone rang as I was on my way to my temporary conference table at the back of the library. I clicked my phone on and used hand signals to tell Casey to meet me there in five minutes.
    When did my life become so complicated? On Friday, when Keith Appleton was murdered, I remembered.
    Bruce was calling me from the other end of the library. I’d seen Gil leave the building and Bruce wander off to the periodical rack, maybe to slip in copies of Rotor magazine as a recruiting device.
    “I heard the dean call you ‘Sophie.’ That couldn’t have been good,” my perceptive boyfriend said.
    I growled. “She wants the boxes back.”
    “Good luck with that.”
    “Bruce!” The volume was low but the tone was a shout.
    “Kidding. Want me to help? I can call Virge.”
    “You can’t call Virge.”
    “Because you’re a thief? You know I love a good heist movie. The Score, The Thomas Crown Affair— ”
    “Bruce!”
    “Go take care of your students. Let me see what I can do, okay? Do you need your car for an hour or so?”
    “Where are you going?”
    “Don’t know yet.”
    “You can take my car, but you can’t call Virge,” I repeated. “And I didn’t do a heist.”
     
     
    I had