The Probability of Murder

by Ada Madison

  Smaller than Henley College, Wheaton had gone from a women’s college to coed in the eighties, twenty years before we ever considered it. As far as I knew they were thriving. I parked on a busy street that dead-ended at the campus and walked to a coffee shop. I couldn’t help a longing glance at the campus, similar in architecture to Henley, except that Wheaton had cleaner lines—light brick buildings with colonial white trim instead of the darker brick, Gothic look of Henley.

  As much as I wanted to stay and absorb the atmosphere of a school without a fresh murder to solve, I ordered my food to go. Turkey and Swiss on wheat, a bag of chips, a chocolate chip cookie, and a latte. The basic requirements for a nutritious meal.

  While I was waiting for the sandwich, I broke open the chips and bought a newspaper. I took a quick look for anything about Charlotte Crocker or any of her akas. Nothing. It was too soon for even a word, which suited me fine.

  Driving while eating wasn’t illegal yet in the Commonwealth, so I managed both for the next twenty minutes and finally saw the “Welcome to Henley” sign. A strange feeling came over me as I wondered what had happened in the town since I’d left. How many more crimes had been committed? Had Virgil and his colleagues on the force been working on Charlotte’s case all this time, or had there been a more important one? A mass murder, perhaps, or a serial killer on the loose? Or did they simply take Saturdays off?

  I had no idea if Virgil would be interested in what I’d learned about Garrett. My plan to strike a deal with him by serving up Charlotte’s killer had gone awry after the fourth Shop at Ease stop failed to produce anything earthshaking, but I might have more than he did. Once I closed the loop with Marty, maybe I’d have more, a bigger bargaining chip.

  I wished I could drive to the police station and compare notes over a cup of coffee, as if cops and citizens alike were all legitimate investigators. I knew the criminal justice system didn’t work that way, but why not?

  I turned onto my street and was struck by the sight of a small group of people and the lights of three police cars. I immediately thought of Mr. Gold, the pleasant, ninety-something-year-old man who lived two houses from mine, alone except for a part-time caregiver. I hoped he hadn’t had a medical emergency or worse. I slowed down, not sure how far I could get on the street. I saw no ambulance, a good sign.

  Not as good as I thought, it turned out.

  I drove far enough to see that my front door was wide open.

  Old Mr. Gold stood on the sidewalk, upright and healthy as ever. I spotted Ariana among a group of my neighbors, all seeming in good health also. And, walking away from the group were four people who looked like Henley College students.

  Was that Chelsea Derbin? It was almost too dark for me to be sure. Did I see Daryl Farmer? A third student looked familiar, also, but I couldn’t place him. The fourth was equally unidentifiable, until he passed directly in front of a small lamppost on my neighbor’s lawn. From a quick glance when he looked back over his shoulder, I was almost sure he was the unkempt young man I’d seen at the police station.

  There were three or four others, running ahead. There was no hope of identifying them.

  Why were these people on my street?

  I was glad to see Ariana, but I knew she hadn’t planned this welcoming committee.

  My stomach clutched, the taste of salt and mustard returning to my mouth in a sickening way as I realized the significance of my open front door.

  The hulking figure of Virgil Mitchell strode into the middle of my street and waved at me to back up and park across from my house.

  Something definitely had happened in Henley while I was gone. And at my address.

  The first few words from Virgil’s mouth didn’t compute. A break-in, he said, about an hour ago, and I might want to take a minute before entering the premises.

  Mr. Gold, my alarm company, and Ariana all seemed to have had a part in the drama at my little cottage while I’d been out playing detective. Within moments, they surrounded me.

  Virgil let them tell their stories.

  “I thought you and your boyfriend were away for the weekend,” Mr. Gold said, clutching his thin sweater around his stooped body. “I was keeping an eye out and I saw this kid sneaking around. He went in the side door of your house, so I called your alarm company.”

  Mr. Gold seemed pleased with himself until a uniformed man spoke up. He was wearing a windbreaker with “STA” stitched across his chest. My alarm company representative and casual friend, Randy. “Next time, you should call the police directly,” Randy told Mr. Gold.

  Mr. Gold would not be reprimanded. He pointed to the wooden sign at the edge of my lawn. “Then why do you put your telephone number in big print there on the sign?”

  Randy moved closer to Mr. Gold. “Listen, mister…”

  Before an unequal fight could break out, Ariana gave up the tight hug she had on me and chimed in. “The alarm company tried to get you but couldn’t reach you, Sophie.”

  “My battery’s dead,” I said, as if that were important.

  “Then we tried Bruce,” Randy said.

  “But, of course, he’s incommunicado, so next they called me,” Ariana said. She hugged me again and patted my back. “I’m so glad you weren’t home, Sophie. Can you imagine?”

  I still didn’t know the extent of the break-in and exactly what it was I should or should not imagine.

  “So, finally, the alarm company called the police,” Mr. Gold said.

  “The alarm didn’t trip till long after this guy called,” Randy said to me, ignoring Mr. Gold.

  “That alarm was ten minutes too late. The kid was already in there,” Mr. Gold said. “You should fix your equipment. That’s why I don’t even bother with an alarm.”

  “We’ll talk later, about your password and other matters,” Randy said to me.

  I knew my password was too simple, and I was sure the “other matters” had to do with my neighbors and my call list.

  I’d been following the movements of the cops out of the corner of my eye. Virgil had gone off to talk to the officers who’d exited my front door most recently and then waved two of the three police cars away, thus giving the gathered crowd no reason to hang around. The remaining two officers escorted Mr. Gold to his home.

  Mr. Gold turned and waved at me before the officers ushered him inside. I waved back and mouthed a thank you.

  Virgil came back to where Ariana was holding on to me and explained, as if to a trauma patient, why I couldn’t go into my home yet. His “men,” he said, needed one more pass before they were finished, another walk-through to look for likely places to lift fingerprints or footprints and to check again for blood.

  “Blood?” I asked, swallowing hard.

  Virgil shrugged. No big deal. “Sometimes intruders injure themselves getting in or out, because they’re in unfamiliar territory.”

  “We can only hope,” said Ariana, my pacifist friend.

  I gave her my first smile since reentering Henley.

  * * *

  With all the hoopla outside, I was ready for the worst inside. At first I was remarkably calm about the degree of upset that met me as I entered my home, Virgil by my side, Ariana trailing behind.

  In the kitchen, the bottom cupboards around my center island were open, but only partially emptied of my oversize pots and bowls. Furniture in the den had been moved, but the computer and workstation in my office looked undisturbed. A pile of class folders was in place, weighted down by my calculus textbook.

  “Let me know if you notice anything missing,” Virgil repeated in each room. “Or something out of place.”

  I shook my head each time. “Nothing that I can tell.”

  “At times like this, it comes in handy that you keep such a neat place, so you can tell if something’s been moved,” Virgil said at one point along the route. “Most places I see, you’d never know. Including mine.”

  An awkwardly placed compliment, but I was grateful to Virgil for his solicitu
de.

  It was funny what people settled for at times of stress—I was grateful that my tables hadn’t been overturned, my drawers hadn’t been flipped upside down, and my sofa cushions hadn’t been slashed to bits, as I’d seen in movies.

  The areas most in upheaval were the closets in my den, my office, and two bedrooms. All the closet doors had been left open and the contents laid on beds or chairs. In each case, the back wall of the closet was now exposed, as if the burglar were looking for a safe. Boxes on the top shelves were taken down and placed on the floor, uncovered but not tipped over. My lovely lavender dust ruffle had been folded up onto the bed the way I positioned it when I vacuumed.

  The burglar might have been a friend, looking for a certain item, not wanting to disturb things in a drastic way.

  I didn’t keep cash in my house, and my jewelry had more sentimental value than monetary worth. I’d read that in cases like that, the burglar would be angry and take out his frustration by vandalizing the property. Not this burglar. Lucky me.

  Virgil, Ariana, and I stood in the middle of my bedroom. “He was looking for something specific,” I said. It was much too slow in coming. “The bag of money.”

  “Hey, pretty good. We might have to give you a badge after all,” Virgil said. He covered his comment with a slight cough. “Sorry, Sophie, I don’t mean to be flip. I know this must be very upsetting.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s okay,” I said by way of forgiveness.

  “The good news is, nine will get you ten they’re not coming back,” Virgil announced.

  “How do you know that?” Ariana asked, eyes narrowed.

  “They were careful undoing things. My guess is they had every intention of putting things back the way they found them, but Mr. Gold’s call interrupted that plan.”

  Something about Virgil’s version of the timeline didn’t fit, but Ariana’s comment interrupted my thought.

  “Maybe they didn’t finish looking,” Ariana said. “They don’t know the money’s not here anymore.”

  “They’ve covered everything. They got to every room. Now, they might go after…” He looked at me.

  “Sophie? They’re coming after Sophie?”

  Ariana spoke on my behalf, which was good, because I became more and more disoriented and unable to process the words I was hearing and the reality in front of me. As the minutes ticked by and Virgil’s voice came out of the fog, I finally grasped the picture—my clothes out of place, spots on the carpets, furniture pushed toward the middle of the rooms. My home had been invaded. Fingerprints seemed to glow from the surface of my dresser and bedside tables, and enormous footprints appeared spread across my hardwood floors.

  My initial reaction of “This isn’t so bad” was replaced by fear and repulsion that someone might have sat on my chair or my bed. And I wasn’t quite buying Virgil’s cool reasoning about why they weren’t coming back.

  “You keep saying they, Virgil. Didn’t Mr. Gold say he saw only one kid?” my spokeswoman asked.

  “I’m keeping an open mind.”

  “I don’t understand the time sequence,” I said, my logical mind kicking in again. “Mr. Gold didn’t call the police when he saw the kid. And Randy didn’t call you until about ten minutes later, according to Mr. Gold, when the alarm tripped. So what interrupted them? The police or the alarm? We know Mr. Gold didn’t come running over here himself.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Sophie, but Mr. Gold—the only one of your neighbors who claims to have seen anything, by the way—is not the most reliable witness.”

  “He’s very sharp for his age,” I said. “He cooks for himself most of the time and he still drives short runs.”

  Virgil wasn’t going to argue with my defense of my neighbor, though his eyebrows went up at the mention of a nonagenarian behind the wheel of a car for any length of time.

  “Or, it could be that he saw just one of the kids, and the others were ahead of him,” Virgil said. “And, remember, a lot of time was lost because Mr. Gold called the alarm company instead of the police. Then, since STA didn’t get a trip, they didn’t treat it as an emergency.”

  “And STA called Sophie, then Bruce, then me,” Ariana said, still processing the timeline. “Losing even more time.”

  “I think Randy was wrong not to take Mr. Gold seriously,” I said, still speaking up for my neighbor. “And the question remains, why didn’t the alarm go off at the same time that Mr. Gold saw the kid enter my house?”

  “That’s my point,” Virgil said. “Which is why we have to weigh everything Mr. Gold said. Unless you’ve given out your password?”

  I shook my head. “Just to Bruce and Ariana.”

  “Bottom line. We don’t know how many intruders. Could be one kid, or…” Virgil said.

  “Or a whole gang could be coming back,” Ariana said, causing me to utter a “No,” that came out as an embarrassing whimper.

  “They know the response will be much faster next time, Sophie,” Virgil said. “You don’t need to be afraid here.” He spread his arms around the bedroom, and waved his hand toward the hallway and the other rooms.

  “So, they’ll be following me when I leave? Grab me on the street? That’s comforting.”

  “My guess? They’ve already been following you.”

  “Oh no,” Ariana squealed in a voice higher in pitch than she’d ever reached in my presence.

  Virgil didn’t need two women on the edge. He looked at Ariana. “Can you give us a minute? I’m going to talk to Sophie in the kitchen.”

  “I guess. Sure.”

  Ariana let go of me, but not without a final squeeze. “I’ll be in the den,” she said.

  For some reason, I was as reluctant as she was to part ways.

  “Are you okay to talk for a few more minutes?” Virgil asked from a step or two in front of me. Walking abreast was out of the question, since he took up nearly the entire width of the narrow hallway. “I’d like to hang around a little while anyway.”

  As far as I was concerned, Virgil never had to leave.

  Virgil and I stepped into my country-blue kitchen, which now looked like the intruders had come back while we were at the other end of my house, upsetting things even more.

  A new trick of my mind.

  Virgil held a chair for me, indicating that I sit at the table opposite him. Three police interviews in one day. A new record. I sat on the very edge of the seat and kept my hands on my lap, as if I’d been taken unwillingly to a restaurant with too many code violations that had been condemned by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

  “Is there any reason for anyone to think you keep a lot of cash in your house?” Virgil asked.

  I shook my head. “I never keep cash around.” Except for Charlotte’s, I amended mentally. “There are ATMs on every corner. There are even a couple on campus. And if these guys were following me, wouldn’t it have been clear that I took Charlotte’s duffel bag down to the station?”

  “It doesn’t mean you turned in all of it.”

  I started. “What?”

  Virgil had no qualms about leaning his arms on my kitchen table, which, in my mind, was disgustingly sticky, worse than a Bailey’s Landing Shop at Ease.

  “I’m a crook,” he said. “I’m somehow involved with the money in that bag, and I know you now have possession of what I think belongs to me. I follow you for a while. I watch you take it to the cops.”

  I was with him so far, though the part about a crook watching me wasn’t sitting well with my turkey and Swiss.

  “That’s my point,” I said. “You, the crooks, saw me take the money to the cops. Why wouldn’t you hijack my car then, for example?”

  “Were you alone when you drove to the station?”

  “No, Ariana stayed with me overnight, and we drove off together in the morning. But I don’t see how Ariana was a threatening presence.”

  “Doesn’t have to be a bodyguard with you. Any other person in the scene double
s the risk.” He paused. “They’re asking themselves, did she really turn in every dollar?”

  “They thought I kept some of the money?”

  Virgil shrugged. “It’s what they would do in your circumstances. For all they know, you appropriated a chunk for yourself.”

  I blew out a breath. “Unbelievable.”

  “Did you?”

  This time, I forgot about the contaminated table in front of me. I pushed myself up. “You’re not serious.”

  “I have to ask, Sophie. Maybe Charlotte owed you some money and you figured, why not—”

  “You really do think like a criminal,” I said. “No, I did not keep one single dollar of that money. And if there had been coins in that bag, I wouldn’t have kept one penny.”

  I almost asked Virgil if he’d grabbed a fistful of cash for himself when he took possession of the bag, but I caught myself. I knew him to have the highest standards of integrity. Apparently, the feeling was not mutual.

  But he was the guy who was my best hope of safety and living for another day.

  “Thank you for that no so I can put it down like that,” he said. “It will look a lot better on my report than, ‘Since Dr. Knowles is my good buddy’s girlfriend, I didn’t follow protocol.’”

  I sat down. “Okay, I get it. I’m sorry. I’m a little frustrated. I’d feel a whole lot safer if you’d just tell me what you know. What you already knew before Charlotte was murdered.”

  “Let’s go back to the money. Other than the possibility you may have held some back—in their minds, not mine—can you think of another reason they came looking for money? Did you tell anyone, or talk about it where someone could have overheard or misunderstood where it was?”

  I thought of the people who’d contacted me in the last twenty-four hours: Daryl, Chelsea, and other students, all of them good and hard-working. Fran, my colleague and friend. Paula, annoying, but solicitous. It was an awful feeling, imagining the worst of people I trusted. I was angry anew at Charlotte, whom I held responsible for all that had gone wrong this weekend.

  I had to consider Virgil’s question. Had the word gotten out to my students and colleagues that I was in possession of a large bag of money? I couldn’t imagine how. There was still the matter of what Daryl and the other students were doing at my own home crime scene when I arrived, but I hesitated to mention them to Virgil. I didn’t want the police on their backs if they were genuinely trying to be helpful. Maybe they’d stayed around long enough for the officers on the scene to get their names, and the issue would be officially resolved without my input.