The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

dean took her time getting to the phone. Being on hold was better than sitting outside her office, in any case, and I made use of the time by sorting through my mail and email and checked my calendar to see what was coming up the rest of the summer. I clicked on August and saw that because of my laxity the last few days, an important birthday had almost gotten by me. Bruce’s niece, Melanie, would be turning ten years old in a couple of weeks, on August fourth, the birthday of John Venn. We needed to make plans for a significant present and a visit to Boston to celebrate double digits with her.
    Bruce had laughed when I’d told him what a great start in life his niece had, born on the same day as the author of definitive texts on logic and the creator of the widely used Venn diagrams. As it turned out, Melanie was outstanding in math. I doubted my stream of math-related presents and my online tutoring of her had more to do with it than her birthday.
    Lame music continued to pour in over the line. Where was the dean? Had she guessed what urgent agenda I had with her? Maybe she’d fled to Canada. I was eager to get the meeting over with and return to normal life.
    Even my busiest class days during the regular semester were less hectic than today had been. I’d started out with an early breakfast with Lucy, made two trips to the police station, role-played at A Hill of Beads, and now one more errand before I’d let myself enjoy dinner with Bruce.
    “What’s this about, Dr. Knowles?” The dean’s voice interrupted the so-called music. I didn’t know which sounded worse.
    My mind went blank, trying to make the transition from the mushroom sauce I’d be having soon, to the dean’s shady past. I hadn’t thought through how to get the dean to agree to a meeting where I could use the script Ariana and I had practiced.
    “I need to see you,” I stammered.
    “What in the world is so urgent?”
    “It’s about what’s in a box from Keith Appleton’s office,” I said.
    The long pause told me I’d hit on something. I thought I’d been put on hold again, this time without music. Finally I heard the dean’s voice, almost pleading.
    “I can explain,” she said.
    I was beginning to like the concept of bluffing.
     
     
    I pulled into the southwest gate, now fairly used to the deserted look of the campus compared to last week. As I climbed the front steps of the admin building, I wondered if I even needed to rehearse my lines, as modeled by Ariana. It seemed entirely possible that the dean would pour out an unsolicited confession. An easy mark. Who would have thought?
    A bigger issue was whether the dean knew of Hal’s arrest. I was sure she or Courtney would have mentioned it if the word had gotten to them.
    I asked myself one more time why I was doing this, since the murder case was solved. There was no question that whatever Keith had been holding over the dean, it had not led her to murder him.
    Was I trying to get even with Dean Underwood for all the small annoyances she was bent on dealing me? I sincerely hoped not.
    On a positive note, I could show the dean what a good researcher I was, ferreting out her past, and therefore deserving of that promotion to full professor. The absurd reasoning made me smile.
    I’d come to the realization that getting a promotion wasn’t as important as many other things in my life. If it had been, I would have bowed to the dean’s warning immediately and put my career above my commitment to helping Rachel and, even more important, figuring out who among us was a killer. I’d seen no compromise on the journey to uncover the truth of the event that would mark Henley forever.
    The important thing for me now was a sense of completion. I’d done my best on a project and I needed to clear up loose ends, like wrapping up a geometric proof that was particularly sticky.
     
     
    The dean was waiting for me this time. As Courtney would have said, quelle twist.
    She was standing at her open office door holding a sheet of paper.
    “I saw you pull in. Come, Sophie.”
    I followed the dean into her office where a pitcher of iced tea—lemon zinger, I guessed—stood ready next to two glasses. The dean poured tea and handed me a glass. Nothing about this meeting was as usual. Even if it was Courtney who’d prepared the tea before she left, here was the dean serving it to me. Not your ordinary Tuesday evening.
    Witnessing the dean’s dejected state clouded my delight in maybe