The Square Root of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

figuring out the dean’s secret and her need to get her hands on the material in Keith’s office.
    The dean held out the sheet of paper. “This is what you were looking for.”
    “I don’t really need to see it.”
    “I need to tell you.”
    It appeared Virgil was right. Once people got on a path to confession, it was impossible to stop them. “I was a college student, and I tried to do the right thing. I think about my decision every day of my life.”
    That was quite a bit of regret for a little hash.
    I took the paper and saw immediately what it was. A birth certificate.
    “This is—”
    “Yes, that’s the birth certificate. I assume you found out about it another way. Maybe Dr. Appleton told you? It’s not unlikely that he’d bring a partner into his schemes.”
    I started. “What? No, he didn’t. Make me a partner,” I said. I was still trying to process the new information. The dean had a child. The simple sentence sounded like the start of a riddle.
    “I’m sorry I suggested your complicity, Sophie. I should have known you wouldn’t resort to something like this. You never have. You’ve always been open and honest with me.”
    After all these years, was this a compliment from the dean? “I . . . uh . . . I’ve tried.”
    “You’ve given me every reason to trust you.” She smiled. “Except for the story about the boxes.”
    I returned her smile and hung my head. “Sorry.”
    “That’s the copy from Keith’s files on me. It was in an envelope, along with family birth certificates and licenses and such, marked ‘Appleton Family History,’ as a security measure against an unlawful rifling of his desk by an intruder.”
    Or by the police in the event that he was murdered.
    “So you were fairly confident the police wouldn’t single it out as relevant to this case.”
    “I hoped not.”
    I had to be clear. I held up the paper. “This is your baby.” I tried to make it sound like a statement, consistent with the bluff that I’d known all along.
    The dean took a long sip of tea and came back slowly. “I had a son out of wedlock. I was a few months from graduation and had my life all planned out, plans that didn’t include motherhood.” She sucked in her breath. “I gave him up for adoption.”
    “And Keith found out.”
    She nodded. “I think he was always looking for ways to discredit me, not for the sake of it, or to be mean, but to gain some leverage for the changes he saw as good for Henley College. And as we know, in today’s new computer world”—here the dean’s expression said she’d liked the old world better—“it’s easy to find just about anything if you’re determined.”
    I went back to “out of wedlock.” Who even used that phrase anymore? I thought it had gone the way of “love child.”
    “But surely if this came out, it wouldn’t threaten your career,” I said. “Would the board of trustees really care about something so far back in your past? It’s hard to see how Keith could have used the information as a bargaining chip. You did nothing criminal.” Like smoking pot, for example.
    “Keith knew the technicalities didn’t matter to me. It was the attention and the embarrassment it would cause me after my firm stand on—”
    “Everything,” I said, without thinking.
    Was that an audible laugh coming from Dean Phyllis Underwood’s mouth?
    “I know I’ve been hard on you, Sophie, and there’s no reason you should give me any consideration. You can keep that copy and do what you want with it.”
    I tore up the certificate and handed her the pieces.
    To make this a truly memorable Tuesday, Dean Underwood and I shared a silent embrace.

CHAPTER 24
     
    I rolled down my windows and sat in my car in the parking lot for a few minutes, letting the new information gel. I’d learned a lot, and not just that Dean Underwood had a son out there somewhere. I couldn’t imagine her having to make a decision like that, and living with it for the rest of her life. It might account for a measurable percent of her overall disgruntled outlook on life.
    I drew a huge red X around the picture I’d created of Phyllis Underwood lying around with her scraggly-haired friends in an orange-fringed caftan snacking on brownies laced with marijuana.
    If I were writing an essay about what I did this summer, I’d title it “Research Gone Wrong.”
    There were so many more lessons to be learned about the complexity of people I thought I knew. The picture of Keith