The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles)

by Madison, Ada

  While I tossed the possibilities around in my mind, the unsuspecting Barker talked on about his newfound love of all things carillon.

  “Oh yeah, there’s this other neat thing, too—on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster every year, carillonists all around the world play the same melodies. Like a memorial. Quite a thing.”

  “It sounds as though you’ve enjoyed this project,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. You gotta get up to the belfry sometime.”

  It was hard to refuse the opportunity, especially one that would take me close to cops on a mission, but a glance at my watch told me I had to leave for class. If Fran were around, I’d have been tempted to get her to sit in for me, since I wasn’t the presenter anyway. But my teacher conscience won out over my tower curiosity. “I have a class in about ten minutes; otherwise I’d love to.”

  “Rain check?” he said, handing me his card.

  “Sure.”

  Barker pointed an index-finger gun at me. “Okay, I’m going to hold you to it.”

  “Okay yourself,” I said, and proceeded to bundle up again, now adding “flirting” to possible motives for Barker’s interest in aspects of the tower that had nothing to do with construction.

  Barker headed out through the nasty stairway. He called over his shoulder, “You know, maybe there’s something to this going-to-college thing.”

  “We can always use more math majors,” I responded.

  Left alone, I had a choice of where to exit the tower. I could follow Barker, back down the spooky way I’d ascended, and end up closer to Ben Franklin Hall, with a straight shot to my classroom. Or I could exit through the decent stairway that Virgil had pointed out, the one that led to the front entrance of Admin. Less scary, but giving me a much longer walk on this below-freezing morning.

  It didn’t take too long to decide on the bright and airy route, ice notwithstanding. I rushed down the tower steps and came out on Henley Boulevard, then hurried down the outside steps and along the street, heavy with commuter traffic, to the vehicle entrance to the campus. Shivering all the way.

  I thought it only right that I stop long enough to give our campus gatekeeper, Morty Dodd, a brief report on the intriguing police presence on our campus this morning. Morty seemed happy that I remembered my promise, which reminded me how easy it was to please some people.

  “Sorry I have to rush,” I said, doing my usual foot-stomping dance to keep circulation going. “But I have a class in a couple of minutes.”

  “Hold on, Professor Knowles,” he said.

  Morty picked up his cell phone and hit a contact number. “Jake, get over here, okay? We got a lady that needs a ride.”

  Before I could figure out what Morty was up to, I heard a rumbling sound. A motorcycle? A snowmobile? A yellow construction vehicle come to life? I turned to see what we all called the security golf cart. A low-riding four-wheeler, white with blue and gold racing stripes and the college seal, and a canvas canopy over the otherwise open frame. Better than full-body exposure.

  I climbed in, and Jake whisked me away to the parking lot and deposited me next to my car, where I picked up my briefcase. He tipped his hat and drove off while I stood a moment and waved at him and Morty, who’d stepped out of his box to watch our journey.

  I walked the few steps to the entrance to Franklin Hall, counting the blessings of my job.

  • • •

  Heat!

  Franklin Hall was mercifully toasty this morning. A real maintenance person must have visited our building over the weekend, not the fake hunky guy who’d fooled Judy Donohue in spite of her credentials as chair of the Biology Department. I dropped multiple layers of clothing and headed for the classroom, sans gloves, sans scarf, sans shivers.

  Only two minutes late, I presided over a lackluster calculus class for the next fifty minutes, reviewing volume of revolution exercises and laying the groundwork for the next homework assignments. I promised that tomorrow’s topic of problem-solving strategies would be both fascinating and useful to their lives as a whole.

  “Like how to get a date?” one male student asked.

  “You wish,” said the female seated closest to him.

  I passed on commenting, following one of my rules: Whenever possible, let the students do the work for you.

  At the back of my mind the whole time was the real-life problem of the three women who dominated my life of late—Jenn Marshall, Kirsten Packard, and Wendy Carlson. How could the trio have consumed so much of my attention lately, when I’d known nothing about two of them until last week, and the third had given me no cause for concern for a year and a half?

  I couldn’t wait to visit Jenn in the hospital this afternoon. At the request of an HPD homicide detective, no less. I wished Virgil had issued me a temporary badge, in case Mr. and Mrs. Marshall or the large nurse who attended Jenn tried to interfere. I supposed I could make myself a fake document, perhaps call it a “certificate of civilian authority.” Perhaps not. I’d have to make do with my erect posture and confident manner. Lots of luck, I said to myself.

  My free hour was nearly as uninspiring as my calculus class. Both Judy Donohue and Ted Morrell were missing. There’d been one good outcome from the lack of heat last week—it had forced us all to the lounge and to close contact around the pots of boiling water on the hot plate. Now with our offices at normal temperatures, for the most part our routine would go back to chatting while we filled our mugs, then returning to desks in our private quarters. Which is what I did now.

  It was just as well that Judy, a TMI kind of person, didn’t show, since I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear about her date with Virgil.

  My email inbox was crammed with spam again, but I knew help was on the way via Andrew this afternoon. I wrote quick replies to the legitimate messages.

  To Bruce:

  So glad to hear you’re off tonight. Better still, that you’re going to cook for me! xoxoxoxox (smiley face emoticon).

  To Ariana:

  So sorry to hear about your latest date (sad face emoticon). Will have your favorite gingerbread and vanilla ice cream to welcome you home (smiley face emoticon).

  To Fran:

  So glad to hear about your newest student and her love of puzzles. Will send a package off soon (smiley face emoticon).

  To several students:

  So glad you’re enjoying the history of math seminar (smiley face emoticon), or So sorry you’re finding calculus harder than you expected (sad face emoticon).

  Before heading out for the seminar room, now fit for human occupation, I needed a couple of relaxing minutes with a puzzle. I pulled out the metal pieces that had recently fallen out of my purse, clanking to the floor of the BPL at Wendy Carlson’s feet. I sorted through the rings and curvy loops that made up three pocket puzzles and put them in piles on my desk. One puzzle was especially challenging, the size and shape of a napkin ring if I could ever complete it.

  Tap, tap. “Ready for class, Dr. Knowles?”

  Andrew Davies at my door. Saved from another fruitless (but relaxing) attempt to complete the puzzle.

  “Are you still up for checking out my email problem?” I asked as we walked down the hall.

  “Can’t wait,” he said.

  “Neither can I.”

  “I know I’ll crack it.”

  I liked his spirit.

  • • •

  Brent Riggs was front and center for the presentation today. The subjects: the Bernoulli family—the brothers Jacob and Johann, and Johann’s son, Daniel. A politically correct choice on the part of an astute freshman who knew he was being subtly recruited by both Ted and me for our respective departments. Jacob and Johann were known for important contributions to math; Daniel was a noted physicist. Brent was leaving all his options open.

  Brent and the Swiss Bernoulli family were the reasons I wasn’t surprised to see Ted in attendance today, already seated in the circle of chairs. I took a seat next to him and found myself once again, as with the
security footage viewing, sitting between Professor Ted and Student Andrew.

  “What a family,” Brent began, explaining that there were several other Bernoulli offspring who were also noted mathematicians and scientists.

  Brent began with the intriguing enmity between the brothers. He talked about the professional jealousy and personality differences that marked their relationship. At least one didn’t murder the other, I mused, unable to brush off nagging thoughts of the Warnocky cousins, Harold and Gabriel.

  “I did a lot of reading and I think it was Johann’s fault,” Brent said. “He didn’t get along with his own son, Daniel, either.”

  And thus a more than three-hundred-year-old mystery was solved by a Henley freshman. I looked over and caught Ted’s eye. I felt we were both asking, which lucky department will claim him? A humorous moment in the little competition in Franklin Hall.

  The dynamic between the Mathematics Department and the Physics Department wasn’t exactly adversarial, but there was always a little tug of war for students who showed interest in both. Math and physics were closely related, often interchangeable in subject matter. The two disciplines attracted students with similar habits and styles of thinking, distinctly different from the mental requirements of biology and chemistry.

  Everyone in Franklin Hall, including the seminar students, was aware of the friendly competition.

  When Brent walked us through the (Daniel) Bernoulli principle and its applications to thermodynamics, Ted clapped loudly. When our young seminar leader talked about the (Johann) Bernoulli rule to evaluate limits or the (Jacob) Bernoulli sequence of rational numbers, I clapped as hard as I could.

  The students clapped and laughed with us equally.

  Brent, probably having the best time of all, asked for a short break to set up a demonstration.

  Most of us remained in the room since the classrooms were slightly warmer than the hallways. I also felt that some of the students were afraid the heat might go off at any moment and chose to soak up the Btu’s while they were available. Who could blame them?

  I hadn’t noticed the entrance of Lauren Hughes, the sociology major who’d have majored in math if she had a different head. She came up now and knelt in front of the three of us—Ted, me, Andrew.

  “This is so cool,” she said. She looked at me and offered a defense of her presence. “I came to hear Brent. We’re sort of together. He said it would be okay?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “We’re glad to have you.”

  Lauren thanked me and glanced at Andrew, but still addressing me, said, “Andrew says he’s going to help you with an email problem?”

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  “Oh?” Ted asked.

  I’d hoped Andrew would have kept my request confidential, though I hadn’t explicitly asked him to. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Students talked. (Didn’t we all?) And Andrew was a dramatic sort who’d want to make the most of his professor’s special request for his talents.

  I looked at Ted, who was giving me a questioning look. I hadn’t wanted to hurt his feelings. He’d always been the go-to guy for Franklin Hall computer problems but, first, he’d been grumpy lately, and second, I wasn’t sure this kind of job, which required an understanding of hacking, was within his skill set.

  I mumbled something to Lauren about how nice Andrew had been to offer his assistance, hoping Ted would interpret the comment to mean it wasn’t my idea. Then I mumbled something to Ted about how busy he’d seemed lately.

  What a wimp I was when it came to situations like this. How was I going to handle the challenge of talking to Jenn this afternoon?

  Brent called us to attention for demonstrations of Bernoulli’s principle of air flow. First up: He deftly opened the sides of an envelope by blowing over an open edge. We clapped. Next, he held the short end of an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of paper to his lips, blew across the surface, and—ta da (he would have said if his mouth weren’t otherwise engaged)—the whole sheet rose and floated on the air. We clapped again as the sheet of paper flapped in the breeze until Brent ran out of breath.

  “Fluid mechanics,” Ted said, the way an ordinary person might say, “Good show.”

  Brent used his laptop to show a video with other marvels of physical motion like the boomerang and the curve ball.

  I waited for the math.

  I listened with mild interest to Brent’s discussion of applications of the Bernoulli principle to the wings of airplanes and perked up when he showed a small ball could be held in place in the interior of an upside-down funnel.

  Our knowledgeable presenter, who seemed to sense my “Where’s the math?” question, admitted to all that he couldn’t quite handle the equations that would describe the demonstrations he’d shown.

  “All the more reason to major in math,” Andrew said. More points for Andrew, erasing the bad marks I’d given him earlier for spreading the news of my email problem.

  When the seminar ended and we got up to leave, I couldn’t resist a little teasing. “Will we see you here tomorrow, too, Ted?” I asked. “The subject is Pierre de Fermat.”

  He laughed. At least he wasn’t irreparably ticked off at me for choosing another fixer for my computer. “I don’t think so. Fermat’s too pure a mathematician for me. But I’ll be back later in the week when Monica talks about Caroline Herschel.” He turned to Monica, who was gathering her belongings. “As long as you promise not to whine about how she did all the work and her brother got credit for it,” he said.

  “I won’t have to, Dr. Morrell. Caroline did her own calculations of the positions of heavenly bodies. And she discovered eight comets all by herself.”

  Ted tipped an imaginary hat to Monica. So did I.

  • • •

  By the time I finished settling a few matters for individual students—Can I have an extension on Wednesday’s homework? How many references do I need for the Intersession paper? Did you read my seminar proposal yet?—Andrew was waiting outside my office. He sat on the floor cross-legged, his back against the locked door, his laptop open, supported by his knees.

  I thought he might be studying a hacking manual, but as I got closer I heard carillon bells. Andrew was listening to a carillon and choir concert from France.

  “I didn’t want to play it too loud,” he said. “But isn’t it awesome?”

  “Awesome,” I said.

  Clicking away, Andrew found an audio file of “God Save the Queen” played by a carillonist at the Peace Tower in Ottawa.

  “Sometimes I think I should have majored in music,” he said, smiling.

  “Bite your tongue,” I said, smiling back.

  I leaned against the wall, but upright, grown-up style, and watched Andrew’s laptop screen as he tuned in on different videos. A young woman in a dark blue hoodie played movie themes at a carillon on a Midwest campus; an old man in suspenders played rousing hymns at a church in Belgium. Before I knew it, students from my seminar and other classes in the building had gathered around and Andrew raised the volume.

  It might have been fewer than ten minutes, but as we made brief virtual visits to carillons in England, Poland, France, and universities across the United States, we were united in the special way that comes from sharing music.

  I resolved to find a way to have more carillon music in my life.

  • • •

  In my office, I showed Andrew my little email problem. In the last hour, while I’d been at the seminar and then at the impromptu concert, about fifty ads had popped into my inbox.

  Andrew scratched his head. “I don’t know, Dr. Knowles, this looks tough.”

  My shoulders sagged. Until I caught the gleam in Andrew’s eyes and knew he’d already aced the job in his mind.

  Andrew grinned. “Kidding. It’ll be done this afternoon, but”—he put his hand on his stomach—“do you mind if I run over to the Mortarboard first and grab a sandwich?”

  I hadn’t noticed the time. Growing boys and all. Plus hungry p
rofessors. “Great idea,” I said. I dug in my purse and came up with money for a gourmet campus lunch for two. “Would you mind picking up a turkey and Swiss for me?”

  “No problem.”

  Andrew had to be talked into taking the money, but I told him it was worth a lot more than lunch from the Mortarboard for me to be able to stay warm inside for another little while.

  Andrew went off to take care of room service, and I decided to find more carillon music while he was gone. I clicked away on his laptop, going into his browser history.

  Instead of clicking on the music files, I was drawn to a link to the installation of the world’s largest bourdon, in the bell tower of the Riverside Church in New York City. I remembered seeing a photo of that particular bell in the Music Department hallway. This website showed the bell, weighing more than twenty tons, being hoisted onto a boat for its trip from a foundry in England in the early part of the twentieth century. With its more than ten-foot diameter, the bell towered, in a manner of speaking, over the men tugging on the ropes.

  A clip of the foundry showed the steps involved in casting the bell. A frame appeared that showed the bell tipped on its side by a system of chains and pulleys, to give the foundry workers access to the inside surface. I remembered Pete Barker’s attempt to sell me on a tour of our tower.

  “You could hide a person in that big one,” he’d said.

  Or a load of money, I thought.

  It was a duh moment. I knew the police had searched places in the carillon tower where the robbers of twenty-five years ago might have hidden their spoils. Behind bricks, under floorboards, in the niches of dark stairways. But the real question was, where would a student, one who happened upon the money in the present day, hide it?

  In a place that no construction worker would need to go, and no visitor would appear until the tower officially reopened—by which time, little by little, the money would have been “withdrawn,” as from a bank, and spent, or otherwise appropriated.