He shook his head briefly. “No, thanks.”
Well, that was a bit rude. Our previous campus chief, Dan Anderson, had been a sweetheart, always ready to lend a hand or just a sympathetic ear. I wondered if I should have called Dan for help instead. It would have given him a nice break from gardening. Remaining standing myself, I launched into the details of the story. “Someone has been pilfering people’s lunches.” People’s personal food no less, I went on to explain, which seemed especially egregious for some reason. Stuff cooked at home and brought in plastic containers to be warmed up in the microwave. I added, “Obviously, it’s more of an annoyance than a real crime, but it’s upsetting to our researchers and graduate students. The best that can be said of the phantom is that he or she returns the empty containers to the fridge, so the only thing anyone has lost is the actual food they’ve prepared.”
“Petty theft is a crime.” He rubbed a hand across his square jaw. “The, er, phantom may not be returning the containers to be nice, like you assume, Ms. Olsen.”
“No?”
“What else is the phantom going to do with the containers? Stuff them in a backpack and take them home? Throw them in the office trash bin, where everyone would see them? I’d put them back in the fridge too.”
I gave myself a mental kick. Yeah, that made sense. Something occurred to me. “It probably isn’t one of the graduate students—they all have shared offices and tend to eat at their desks. If one of them was helping himself or herself freely to the others’ food, it would be noticed.”
Chief Kirkland took a chair and flipped open a notepad. As it would have felt silly to continue standing under the circumstances, I slid into my desk chair across from him.
“Are the graduate students two to an office?” he asked without looking up from his notepad.
“More like four to five. The rooms tend to be on the large side—or, rather, we tend to pack in the desks.”
“Yes, that wouldn’t allow for much privacy.”
I was happy that we had ruled out the grad students, who had enough problems to deal with without us knocking on their doors and inquiring about their lunch habits. “Unfortunately that means it has to be someone who doesn’t share an office,” I added as an afterthought.
“Yes, but why is that unfortunate?”
I thought about offering him a cookie from the jar that sat between us on my desk, but he’d already rejected a refreshment, so he’d probably find it an annoyance. I resisted taking a cookie for myself. “Because it means it has to be one of our professors—a senior, junior, or visiting professor. Or a postdoctoral researcher. Hmm…I’m not sure what would happen if it does turn out to be a tenured professor.”
“Tenure means they can’t be fired, right?”
“The bar for sending a tenured professor on their way is pretty high, and Dean Sunder wants to keep it that way. I don’t know that petty theft would be enough.”
“In that case, if your preferred solution is to merely discourage the person, can’t you just put up a sign saying please don’t take food belonging to others?”
“I did, last week.”
“And?”
“Whoever it was drew a smiley face on the sign with a mustache and goatee and added a note of their own. It said, ‘What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours.’”
It had been a very exasperating response. Almost as if the person was toying with us.
“Do you still have it? The sign?”
I pulled the paper out of my desk drawer and handed it to him. “Are you going to test it for fingerprints or something?”
“We don’t have that kind of ability.” Chief Kirkland studied the sign I had made, with its cheeky response, for a moment. “Well, we can go about this two ways. I can make the rounds and talk to everyone in the building, office by office and desk by—”
“I don’t know about that. I’d rather we didn’t disturb our researchers at work if there’s no need. I wouldn’t call them a sensitive lot exactly…Well, maybe I would.”
“Then we set up a camera and catch whoever it is that way.”
Our new security chief sounded like he would prefer the second method anyway, as it wouldn’t involve much conversation.
“Camera it is,” I said. “I’ll let Dean Sunder know, and also Dr. Oshiro—she’s the departmental chair in biology.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t mention it to anyone in the biology building for now.”
“Just Dean Sunder, then. When do you want to set the camera up? I can meet you in front of the biology building after tonight’s fundraiser. Or early tomorrow morning if you’d prefer, before most of the building’s students and staff arrive for the day.”
He had risen to his feet, clearly eager to be off. “Not necessary. I’ll get to it later today and let you know what I find.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said to his back. The door closed behind him. I had been about to suggest that he borrow one of the cameras from the TTE lab (researchers used them to collect footage of various historical sites, like Dealey Plaza in 1963 Dallas and fifteenth-century Machu Picchu, so there was a whole assortment of them). Well, I was too busy to spend much time on the matter anyway. I needed to make sure the caterer had everything in hand for tonight’s fundraiser, and after that there was a stack of conference reimbursement paperwork on my desk waiting to be filed.
Before I could attend to either matter, my phone beeped. It was Helen, texting back to say that she wasn’t quite ready for a public release of the Shakespeare news. She wanted a chance to go through the footage her team had taken to select the best bits. I texted back a second congratulations and instructions on what I would need for the press release once she was ready. The delay was probably all for the best, given how Mrs. Butterworth was likely to react to the news.
Helen’s message reminded me of the new bet Dr. Mooney and Dr. Rojas had going. While on hold on the phone with the caterer, I did a quick Internet search. The question—did Schrödinger own a cat?—had sparked my interest. I figured that Drs. Mooney and Rojas, having a time-travel machine at their disposal, might be making the issue more complicated than it needed to be. Surely someone had wondered about the cat in the seventy-six years since Schrödinger had come up with his Gedankenexperiment.
Twenty minutes later, long after I had wrapped up my call with the caterer, I was still searching for the answer. I had found out from Encyclopaedia Britannica and other online sites that Schrödinger had been Austrian, not German like I had assumed, that his full name was Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger, and that he had won the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics work I had no hope of understanding.
There was, however, no information to be found about whether he had owned an actual living, breathing cat.
Since that was the extent of my interest in the problem, I rolled up my sleeves, pushed my glasses farther up my nose, and proceeded to tackle the stack of paperwork.
2
The following day around half past noon I was on my way back to Hypatia House, having eaten my bag lunch by the lake, when I caught sight of Chief Kirkland. He was sitting at a shady, out-of-the-way bench near the biology building, his laptop open on the table in front of him. He was scowling at the screen. He looked up distractedly as I approached. “Ah, hello, Ms. Olsen.”
“Any news on our fridge phantom?”
“I’ve hit a small snag. Last night, as planned I mounted the wireless camera. It’s on the top shelf across from the fridge.”
I immediately knew what he meant. The biology department kept extra paper plates and napkins and such there.
“As an incentive I placed a plastic container with a quinoa salad in the fridge, near the front,” he went on.
“Quinoa salad? You should grab a meal at the Faculty Club. I think it’d be to your liking. So what happened?”
“There’s a problem. Because of the camera angle, it only shows the person opening the fridge, not what they take out of it. Here, look.”
&nbs
p; He slid over, and I took a seat next to him. Live footage streamed on the laptop. “We’re just in range of the camera’s wireless here on this bench,” he explained. The hallways in the science departments tended to be on the quiet side—graduate students usually congregated at their desks or in front of lab whiteboards—so the feed was less than lively. We watched together as a lone grad student ambled over to the fridge, pulled out something, and left. Like Chief Kirkland had said, it was impossible to tell what the student was carrying. Her back was to the camera the whole time.
“I’m used to dealing with outdoor public safety problems, not indoor ones,” Chief Kirkland said a touch defensively, as if feeling foolish about the poor placement of the camera. I remembered hearing that he had come to us from the state park system.
“What you have here is a Schrödinger-like problem,” I said.
He gave me an understandably puzzled look. “A what kind of problem?”
“Your quinoa salad may still be inside the fridge. Or not. You won’t know until you look.” I considered asking him if he had a pet but decided that would probably violate his edict of not mixing work and private life. “Never mind. Can’t you move the camera inside the fridge for a nice frontal view?”
“Cleverly disguised inside an empty juice carton? I might have to, but if I go in there now I’ll be seen, and that may tip off our thief.”
“I’m on it,” I said, jumping to my feet.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’ll just make a quick stop at my office to pick up a couple of blank forms.”
“What kind of forms?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Still not following.”
“That way, if anyone asks why I’m in the biology building, I’ll have an excuse. I can say I need Dr. Oshiro’s signature. Where do you want me to move the camera?”
“Uh, are you sure you don’t mind helping?”
“One of the items stolen was a cheese and cracker spread I put together for a departmental meeting.”
“In that case, how about on or under the table to the left of the fridge?” He pointed to the video feed. “That one with the coffeemaker on it.”
“All right, table it is.”
“Ms. Olsen, wait. Has Dean Sunder decided on a course of action when I catch the person?”
“He said best to wait to hear who it is before deciding what to do about it.”
“Well, let’s get a name, then.”
Some ten minutes later I made my way into the biology building, the forms in hand. The fridge was at the far end of the first-floor hallway. I waited out of sight until a postdoc I had met once or twice finished warming up his lunch in the microwave. I didn’t think it was the quinoa salad, but having never prepared quinoa, I had no idea if one needed to warm it up or not. After the postdoc’s office door had closed behind him, I double-checked that the hallway was indeed empty and then casually headed to the fridge area. I peeked inside the fridge and spotted what I thought was Chief Kirkland’s quinoa salad, still undisturbed.
The camera was on the very top of the supply shelf, wedged under some flat boxes destined for recycling. Placing the forms aside, I reached for it. The camera was, I discovered, quite heavy, at least by TTE lab standards. Since our time-traveling researchers needed to obtain footage without disturbing History, their cameras were often no larger than a button. But this one would do.
I squatted by the table holding the coffeemaker. There were extra coffee filters and paper cups stored underneath it. I wedged the camera between an unopened box of coffee filters and the fridge, then added some stacks of paper cups on top so they covered everything but the lens, feeling very secret-agent-ish while doing it. I made sure there were plenty of the paper cups next to the coffeemaker so that no one would need to reach underneath. If anyone took a closer look, they would spot the camera, but I hoped the culprit wouldn’t bother looking down when the fridge, with all the inviting food inside it, beckoned.
I heard voices nearing down the hallway, so I gave Chief Kirkland a discreet wave, picked up the forms, and turned to go.
Dr. Ann Oshiro, biology professor and departmental chair, was standing there balancing a stack of textbooks in her arms. “Julia, hello. Did you need anything?”
Whoever she had been talking to had gone off down one of the side corridors. I couldn’t very well use my cover story about wanting her signature—the forms in my hand were blank and she wouldn’t, quite rightly, want to sign them. Nor could I tell her that I had come over to move the camera, for it suddenly occurred to me why Chief Kirkland had not wanted me to mention the camera plan to anyone in the biology building. Dr. Oshiro belonged in the category of senior professors who had their own offices. She could be the fridge phantom herself. She’d been at St. Sunniva for years, and the phantom was a recent phenomenon, but you never knew. I said the first thing that came into my mind. “Uh, I was just taking a look around. The Student Advocate Office has some concerns about the number of students sharing the grad offices and labs.”
“Well, we can’t deny that there’s somewhat of an overcrowding problem. Let me know if they need me to take any action, though I don’t know what I can do short of staggering the grad students so half of them work daytime hours and half nighttime hours.”
I decided she wasn’t serious about that proposal and rescued one of the textbooks, which had been threatening to tumble off the stack she had just set down on the coffeemaker table. She reached for a cup.
I couldn’t very well hover by her side to see what she did after filling the coffee cup, so I did the only thing I could—I left, promising to let her know if the Student Advocate Office came up with any ideas. Now, of course, I would actually have to stop by the Advocate Office to see if they did have any suggestions for easing the grad student situation in the building.
“Well?” I demanded, nearing Chief Kirkland’s bench again.
“Well, what?”
“Did Dr. Oshiro take the quinoa?”
I leaned over his shoulder for a closer look at the video stream on his laptop just in time to see Dr. Oshiro leaving. She had managed to balance the textbooks in one arm, supported by her chin, and was carrying the coffee cup in the other.
That was a positive development. I hadn’t thought Dr. Oshiro was the thief, but it was nice to have it confirmed. I said as much, and Chief Kirkland pointed out that while Dr. Oshiro hadn’t taken anything from the fridge today, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it tomorrow, and it was my turn to feel foolish.
“On the other hand, there’s no reason to suspect her in particular,” Chief Kirkland continued. “How many full-time professors, visiting professors, and postdocs are in the building?”
“I’ll have to get back to you with an exact list. Biology has all of the first floor. Counting the genetics department upstairs and paleontology in the basement, probably about thirty or so. What happens now?”
“Now? I watch and wait. That part does not happen quickly.”
“Oh.”
“Not to mention that if the thief makes off with something other than my quinoa salad, we won’t know it until the victim reports their food missing.”
“Oh,” I said again.
“Solving crime is not a fast process,” he pointed out.
“I guess not.”
“In any case, I’ll let you know what I discover,” he said, as if dismissing me. Well, that was a bit rude, especially after I had gone out of my way to help him. He must have picked up on my reaction because he added, “I assume you have better things to do, Ms. Olsen, than sit here with me keeping an eye on things. Besides, this looks like it might take several days. I plan on having one of my officers take over. Then I can fast-forward through the footage at the end of the week.”
“All right, keep me—that is, the dean’s office—updated.”
“Will do.”
Later that afternoon I checked on Drs. Mooney and Rojas on my way back from helping set up for a Tuesd
ay afternoon chemistry department seminar. The two were still carrying out their debate, now in the TTE lab. For every argument one raised, the other, as befitting an academic, had a counterargument.
“I believe he did have a cat,” Dr. Mooney had just said. “Of all the imaginary animals you could put in an imaginary box in a thought experiment, a cat is not the first one that comes to mind. A fish in a small tank would be simpler, and it wouldn’t require the vial of poison, just a hammer to smash its tank. The fact that Schrödinger chose a cat indicates that he had a cat.”
Dr. Rojas disagreed. “A person fond of cats wouldn’t place a cat in danger—even in a theoretical sense. I would know. Lane and I have three in our house. We’ve had to put screens on all our windows and doors. One already spends too much time worrying about them.”
“Maybe he didn’t like his cat,” I said.
“Ah, hello, Julia. I didn’t hear you come in,” Dr. Mooney said. The two professors were on their feet by one of the lab’s printers, which was busy spitting out two copies of an article of some kind. “Yes, maybe he didn’t like his cat. Like I said, Schrödinger could have suggested a simpler setup, perhaps one not involving an animal at all. A bottle of wine, say, that the hammer could break. It might have even made more sense, as one could argue the cat itself counts as an observer of the events inside the box.”
Dr. Rojas considered this. “You could say the same about the Geiger counter—it takes measurements, so it represents an unconscious observer.”
“Schrödinger doesn’t seem to have considered either the Geiger counter or the cat as observers.”
“But that’s exactly what I mean—a cat owner would never not think of a cat as an observer. Cats like to keep an eye on what’s going on around them.”
“And yet he still chose that particular animal. And what more likely reason than that one was purring by his feet at the moment he thought of the experiment?”
I wasn’t sure I had ever seen Dr. Rojas this animated. He pounced on the point. “But that just proves my case. A cat is not a stationary object—it moves, meows, scratches, nuzzles. It would not sit quietly in a box for an hour. You’d need air holes in the box, which would invalidate the experiment. A cat owner would know this.”
The Feline Affair (An Incident Series Novelette) Page 2