The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

with our students to a mutually satisfying conclusion to the summer session. The staff was working on a memorial to be held in this very hall as soon as arrangements could be made.
    We stood for a moment of silence, during which I wondered how exactly they did send a body across the country. Maybe Bruce would know.
     
     
    Ten minutes later, after a hot, sweaty trudge across campus, the Henley College math and science faculties reconvened in Franklin Hall. Although all of us had keys to the front door, we waited on the wide landing at the top of the steps for the last person to arrive, then entered the building as a group, practically shoulder to shoulder. It wasn’t hard to guess why.
    The hallway was dark and hostile. We were greeted by the indeterminate sounds of an empty building, followed by buzzing fluorescents when we flicked on the lights. We walked past classrooms and laboratories and right past my office; I still hadn’t entered it since Friday afternoon. Afraid of what I’d find behind my desk? I couldn’t explain it.
    Strangely, no one spoke until we reached the lounge on the first floor where the two sides of the L met.
    We were minus only a couple of instructors who were too far away on vacation to make it back, and the physics department chair who was still doing research on the other side of the Atlantic.
    The Franklin Hall lounge, where we last met for a party, was more like a funeral parlor today. Where a few days ago the long table against the wall had held cake, frosted cookies, drinks, and colorful celebration napkins, today the gold lamè cloth had been replaced by a stark white paper covering. On it were iced tea, lemonade, and simple shortbread cookies. It was what my Catholic friends told me Lent was all about. I assumed Robert Michaels, Keith’s chairman, had made arrangements for this spread. In a normal time, it would have been Rachel’s chore.
    As clear as day, I pictured Rachel slipping a piece of Hal’s cake onto a small paper plate. The next image was of Rachel bending over Keith’s body, realizing he wasn’t reaching for something that had fallen behind his desk. In my mind I saw her place the cake on the floor outside the door, but then the cake flew back on its own, landing on the chair in the office, and then flying out again, hovering over Woody’s barrel in the hallway, ultimately descending into the trash.
    While I was mentally drawing the trajectory of the cake and starting to plot the course of the yellow sheets of paper, the meeting came to order in a weird kind of way.
    The three department heads sat on the only couch, at one end of the room: Fran Emerson, head of mathematics; Judith Donohue, head of biology; and Robert Michaels, head of chemistry, who looked the most despondent of all.
    Robert, mid-thirties, I guessed, with a thick shock of reddish hair, was serving his first term as department chair. He spoke first. “It’s unreal, isn’t it?” he asked. “One minute you’re at your desk, and the next . . .” His voice trailed away.
    Murmurs and short exchanges rippled through the room in answer. I noticed Lucy Bronson keeping to herself and thought again how difficult it must be for her, with only five weeks under her belt at Henley. If I remembered correctly, she’d come from a small school in Maine and, therefore, had little of the support needed at a time like this. I made a note to reach out to her, if only to invite her to a beading class.
    Robert pulled a greeting card from his briefcase. “I’m going to send this around the room now for everyone to sign, and I’d like to arrange for flowers to be sent to Keith’s family also. Since we don’t have a secretary for the summer, Sophie, can you do that? And can you see to it that the family gets the card?”
    “Of course,” said I, the official liaison with Keith Appleton’s family.
    Fran shot me a look that said, “I knew you were his best friend.”
    The department chairs took turns going over which classes remained to be brought to an orderly end. I’d neglected to mention to Fran that I’d jumped the gun with three of my students, combining the conference on grades with an interrogation. One that had yielded interesting results, by the way. I didn’t feel guilty in any way for not waiting to follow department procedure. All that mattered in my book was that each student finish the summer term and that my grades be in by the deadline.
    Another announcement from Robert brought sighs of