by Madison, Ada
A large female medical professional with a matching set of blue scrubs glanced at me where I was standing a foot or so inside the room. She turned away, continued fiddling with apparatus, and said, “You can have five minutes.”
“Thanks,” I said, stepping in.
“Don’t agitate her,” she added in a tone as serious as a military command.
Did I look like an agitator? I wore a simple mauve sweater with a matching scarf—calming, I thought. “I’ll be very careful,” I answered, glad, in a way, that Jenn was in the hands of someone as protective of her as her family and friends were.
I hoped my five minutes started only when the woman finally left the room, leaving in her wake a scowl, aimed at me.
I tiptoed to the head of the bed. Jenn was flat on her back, sleeping, I thought. Close up, the bruises looked even more lethal. Her white bandage was thicker than any I’d ever seen, with the possible exception of one on Bruce’s head after an ice-climbing incident (he never acknowledged “accidents”).
I’d read strange stories of people waking up from a coma. They came back to flood my brain. A young German man who woke up unable to speak anything but fluent French, which his parents claimed he’d had only a cursory knowledge of before his accident; a middle-aged woman, shy and reclusive all her life, who woke from a coma as chatty, outgoing, and the life of the party; a car mechanic who became so agitated and confused when he emerged from his coma that he had to be restrained. I shivered and pulled my sweater around me. I looked down at Jenn and hoped her recovery would be the most normal on record.
More than ever, I wanted to find the person who did this to my student. Whether his name was Einstein or Dillinger, I wanted him in custody.
I hesitated to wake her now. I’d forgotten to ask the Marshalls if Jenn had said anything other than she wanted to speak to me. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d imagined she’d said anything at all, eager as they’d been to make contact with their daughter.
I bent over her, to be sure she was breathing. She snapped up, almost knocking our foreheads together. I let out a little (I hoped) yelp.
“Sorry,” Jenn said (possibly) in a muffled voice.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Sorry,” she said again.
I took her hand, the one without the needle, and stumbled over a few words I intended to be soothing. “You’re doing so well.” “It’s wonderful to have you back.” “We’ve missed you.” I wished it hadn’t felt so much like a funeral.
As desperately as I wanted to ask Jenn cop-type questions, I couldn’t bring myself to agitate someone in such a fragile state, and wouldn’t have, even if I hadn’t been warned by the large nurse-like person. I decided instead to talk about positive things like school and her future.
“All your friends and teachers are waiting to welcome you back,” I began. “I’ve been thinking about how to make it easy for you to finish the Intersession and get your full credit, working from home. Once you’re up to it, you can do a book report for the math history seminar. I have a new book on mathematics as a language that I think you’d find interesting, and another one that’s a biography of Blaise Pascal’s sister, Gilberte. Remember, she’s the one who—”
“Sorry,” Jenn whispered for a third time.
I leaned in. “Am I talking too much?” I asked.
She shook her head, which for her was to turn her neck about fifteen degrees to each side. She raised her untethered arm to her bandages and multicolored face.
“Why are you sorry, Jenn? You don’t think this is your fault, do you?”
“Money,” she said.
Money? Again? Maybe the commuters were right about some things.
“Tell me about money,” I said.
“Took some.” Two consecutive words seemed to drain her energy. Tears formed in her eyes.
“I know. He took your money. But please, please, Jenn, don’t worry about that. We’ll make sure—”
“Wrong,” she said, her head now moving faster, back and forth, in a decisive “no.”
“Jenn, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Are you telling me I’m wrong? That the man who beat you didn’t take your money?” I was confused, and aware that Jenn was becoming excited. I saw full on tears now. I took a risk. “Do you know who attacked you? Or why? Does it have to do with your money?”
I’d kept my voice low and smooth, I thought, but still Jenn’s body tensed. Her fingers clenched, her feet wiggled under the thin white blanket, and her head rolled as much as forty-five degrees, back and forth.
“Jenn, please calm down,” I begged, looking for a button to call a nurse.
Before I could figure out how to get help, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall came through the doorway. I hadn’t realized they’d been standing in the hallway, close to the threshold probably the whole time of my visit.
“That’s enough, please, Dr. Knowles,” Mrs. Marshall said. The large lady in blue was on their heels, summoned by them (possibly); it was time for me to leave (certainly), and I did.
The lady ushered the Marshalls out a minute later. We reconvened in the waiting room.
“I was telling Jenn she doesn’t need to worry about school at all,” I told them.
“Why was she so upset then?” Mrs. Marshall asked.
“I don’t know.” Only a small lie, since I wasn’t absolutely sure. I wasn’t about to tell them their daughter seemed worried about money.
“That’s not good for her,” Mr. Marshall added.
“She’s not supposed to get excited,” Mrs. Marshall said, her voice as strained as when Jenn was first hospitalized.
“She shouldn’t be moving around like that,” Mr. Marshall said, shaking his head. He might as well have pointed a scolding finger at me.
“I know, and I don’t know what upset her. I was simply telling her that I would take care of the logistics for finishing her classes this term.”
“You can do that?” Mr. Marshall asked, his attention drawn away from his censuring.
I nodded. “And even if she’s still in Fitchburg at the beginning of the spring term, I can talk to the dean. I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange something. Maybe a special project that she can do on her own. We’ll get creative.”
I felt confident that the administration would be willing to cooperate with anything that put things right for a student who was attacked on our campus going about her business in the middle of the day. It was the least we could do. Besides reevaluating our network of security cameras.
The Marshalls thanked me as I donned my outerwear. The expressions on their faces were somewhere between pleasant and neutral, but I noticed they stood solidly, shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, between me and their daughter.
• • •
I walked the red line to the hospital exit as quickly as I could. I’d lost track of time and now realized Judy must have been circling the hospital entrance looking for me.
As I rushed along the hallway, I revisited the few words Jenn had spoken.
Sorry (three times). Money. Took some. Wrong.
Not quite haiku, but adding snowy day might make the difference. My first thought had been that Jenn was worried that the mugger took her money, which was a “wrong” thing to do. Now, due to her apparent turmoil and three apologies—from guilt?—I had to admit another possibility. The only other thing that made sense was that it was Jenn who took—I couldn’t bring myself to say “stole”—money. She knew she was wrong and now she was sorry. But what money? Whose money? Einstein’s? Was that why he attacked her, because she took his money?
No reasonable scenario came to mind. Except one that was so ridiculous it brought a smile to my face: Jenn, all in black, with a team of questionable characters, à la Patty Hearst and Kirsten Packard, robbing a bank, frightening a teller, forcing him to hand over a pile of money. My mind did strange things when I hadn’t had enough sleep. Possibly even when I had.
I
wondered if Jenn’s parents knew more than they were saying. They might have been ready to cut my visit short even if Jenn hadn’t become restive.
Rring, rring. Rring, rring.
Judy calling. I hoped her dinner with Virgil, brief as it was, had put her in a forgiving mood.
“Sorry,” I said, echoing Jenn. I checked the signage on the walls, thought back to my trip into Jenn’s wing, and calculated that I had one long hallway and two short ones before I’d be at the exit, where all colors met. “I should be at the entrance in five minutes.”
“No problem. Are you sure you’re ready to leave?” Judy asked.
“More than ready.”
• • •
Eager as I was to talk about the few minutes I’d spent with Jenn and the Marshalls, I let Judy lead the conversation on the way to my house in Virgil’s Camry.
“I like him,” Judy said.
“He’s a likable guy,” I said. “Most of the time.”
Judy laughed. “Except when he’s not reading you into an investigation?”
“Hmmm. I hope you didn’t waste too much of your first date talking about me,” I said.
Judy laughed and gave away no secrets.
When we pulled up in front of my house behind an unmarked police car, I knew the answer to one of my questions: No, the police had not yet found Einstein. No, he wasn’t in custody, pouring out a confession to crimes old and new. Wouldn’t it have been great if he’d been picked up on a lesser charge, like shoplifting, or driving without a license—the way that Al Capone had been nabbed, only for cheating on his taxes—but then Einstein would blurt out all his other crimes, from robbery to murder.
I came out of my reverie. “Do you want to come in for coffee?” I asked Judy.
“No, thanks. I’m going to return Virgil’s car.”
I looked at my watch. Eight o’clock. “Do you think he’ll be home? He’s been known to work late.”
“I have a key,” she said.
“Good for you,” I said, smiling, thinking, fast work. It still boggled my mind that truffles-and-champagne Judy Donohue and pizza-and-beer Virgil Mitchell were dating. It also occurred to me that someone at this moment might be marveling at the partnership of stay-at-home-and-do-puzzles Sophie Knowles and Yosemite-is-an-easy-winter-climb Bruce Granville.
As I unbuckled my seat belt, Judy let out a little gasp. “Sophie, I never asked you how Jenn is. What’s happening to me? I’m reverting to sixteen years old. Talking about me, me, me. I can’t believe it. Tell me, how is she?”
“I would have stopped you if there were anything big to report. I had less than five minutes with Jenn,” I said, taking the easy way out.
It was too late to tell Judy how the words Jenn spoke were still running around in my head and that I had conflicting theories about what they might mean. I didn’t have the energy to bring her up to speed on my trip to Boston. She didn’t know that I’d found Kirsten Packard’s physics major roommate, Wendy Carlson. She didn’t know I’d found out that Ted had lied when he claimed he hardly remembered Kirsten and couldn’t remember her roommate’s name. I couldn’t tell her one thing without dragging every other little thing along. I didn’t miss the irony that I now had more interesting tidbits of information than the self-proclaimed mistress of gossip.
“Is she awake and talking?” Judy asked.
“Not really, just mumbling.”
“Poor kid,” she said.
“I told her and her parents we’d work something out so she doesn’t have to drop her Intersession classes, and then we’ll see where she is when the spring semester begins.”
“That’s nice. You should talk to Claire in the dean’s office. She helped us with that last year when Mona Farrell had her ski accident.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
“I’ll bet Jenn and her parents were thrilled that you were there.”
“Oh yeah,” I said.
I waved good-bye to Judy and hello to the cops and went into my well-protected home.
• • •
The police car notwithstanding, I went through my house, room by room, closet by closet. Nice that I could laugh as I asked myself a critical question: What was my plan if there was someone behind the shower curtain or my rocker or inside a kitchen cabinet? Scream? Offer a cup of coffee? At least I should carry my portable phone so I could hit nine-one-one immediately. And a weapon would be useful. My father’s old metal slide rule was handy, hanging in its leather case on the wall above my computer. Nothing to worry about.
I almost shouted, “Clear!” when I’d finished the tour of my cottage. I could now turn to the mountain of catch-up work waiting for me. Check my email; review notes for both of tomorrow’s classes; finish a summer-themed crossword puzzle for a magazine editor who was waiting for it; follow up on the changes I’d had to make for paying bills with my credit card; answer dozens of legitimate emails from students, or friends in Africa and Florida.
The thought of Florida brought images of my BFF, Ariana, who was due back home next week and would be on my case about how far I’d gotten (not) on my beading project for the class I was taking at her shop. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t called her for a couple of days. At the moment I couldn’t even have said for sure where the half-finished hair clip was. I’d stuck it in one of my “miscellaneous” drawers before my guests arrived the other night. I might never see it again.
I also needed a spreadsheet for the logistics of the last couple of days. I took time to tick off a few reminders: I now had my cell phone charger, but not my cell phone, which was still in the hands of the HPD. Bruce’s car was in front of my house from his cleanup and visit. Bruce had my car but not his phone, which was in my hands. Virgil’s car was on its way to him through Judy, who’d driven me home with it, but I was out of that loop.
All set. I could go to work.
What I really wanted to tackle first were all the threads of Kirsten Packard’s death in the distant past and Jenn Marshall’s attack in the recent past. I was haunted by the idea that Jenn had stolen Einstein’s money and he beat her up to get it back. It wasn’t the Jenn I knew, but it would explain the worried, preoccupied state she seemed to be in lately. I’d attributed her mood to fatigue, but it could just as likely have been guilt.
I recalled seeing or hearing about Jenn’s new laptop and smartphone. Patty Reynolds would probably be able to tell us if her roommate had made any other out-of-the-ordinary purchases recently. I hated the road I was traveling with these thoughts, but I saw no way to avoid it.
I turned to something simple, like setting up an example for using the disc method to calculate a volume of revolution around an axis. Then the weekend caught up with me. The total number of hours of sleep I’d had since Thursday night didn’t add up to double digits, and for most of them, I’d been sitting in a chair or riding in a car going at highway speed.
I exchanged my sweater for a robe and stumbled down the hall to my guest room, hitting the up arrow on the thermostat on the way. I fell into a bed that was fully outfitted, thanks to Bruce. I dozed off, Jenn’s words swimming in my head. In my dreams I was pummeled from all directions by car keys, belonging to me, Bruce, Virgil, Judy, and cops in two counties of the Commonwealth. I kept warding them all off, muttering about a man named Kenny, who was pretending to be a copyeditor. If Andrew found my email scammer without too much effort, I’d put him to work on finding Kenny. My evil twin had some ideas for him as well.
Clang, clang. Clang, clang. Bells ringing.
I woke up at ten o’clock to the sound of my alarm clock. What? I smashed down on the button to turn it off. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d set the clock in the guest room, or when any guest had done so. I picked up the vexing clock and checked the back panel. Sure enough, the alarm had been set for ten PM. Either Bruce had done it accidently when he reassembled the items on my nightstand earlier today, or my intruder was the playful type and wanted to rattle me.
I sat up and resigned m
yself to the fact that I might never again sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. I adjusted my robe around me and wondered also if I’d ever again wear nightclothes to bed. Who was it who’d said “Sleep is overrated”? Maybe I could convince myself it was true.
I tried to recall what I’d been doing before I fell asleep. Trying to solve a puzzle. What else was new?
Clang, clang. Clang, clang. The bells again.
Apparently, I’d hit the snooze button instead of the off button. I could fiddle with the tiny switches in the back or I could stop this nonsense once and for all by throwing the clock across the room. I chose the reasonable route and, not surprising, triggered the bells again.
But this time the ring set off something in my head. Not the equation for the volume of revolution, but everything else. I felt as though I’d been awakened by a large carillon bell, perhaps the more than eighteen-ton bourdon that was pictured in the Music Department’s photo gallery. The bell resided at the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago, but all thirty-seven thousand pounds of it might as well have been stuck in the corridor outside my guest-room.
The pieces came together like the notes on carillon sheet music. With a little help from the HPD, I’d be able to follow the tune from Kirsten, Ponytail, Einstein, and money, all the way to Jenn and money and sorry and wrong.
Usually I was elated when I saw the pieces of a puzzle fall together. This time my pleasure was greatly reduced by the fact that my solution involved accusing my lovely, bright student of theft. For the first time that I could remember, I hoped my logic had led me down the wrong path.
As much as I hated to interrupt a date that might still be in progress, I couldn’t wait to call Virgil with my newest, definitive theory. I worked out as tight a sequence of events as I could for such a complex story, so my call wouldn’t take too long. Besides, first dates were usually short, I reasoned.