A Function of Murder (29 page)

Elysse had picked up an iced coffee on the way to the table and set it down now, nearly
tipping it over in the process. Maybe she was nervous, too. Or it could have been
simply that her loose backpack gave her an unstable center of mass.

“I got your message,” she said. She cocked her head from side to side. “Duh. Of course
I did. That’s why I’m here”—she pointed in the direction of Franklin Hall—“and not
there.” Her expression turned serious. “And I got your other message, too.”

“What other message?”

I wished I’d looked over our email communication again so I’d be ready for whichever
email or text she was talking about.

But apparently she was referring to something altogether different.

She reached into her pocket for a piece of paper, folded into one quarter its size.
“This one,” she said.

My first shock was that Elysse’s tight shorts could have held such a thickness. My
second shock came when she unfolded the sheet and showed me a note, neatly typed on
the paper.

I stared at the paper. “What does this mean?” It took a beat for me to realize why
she was showing me the note. And much longer than it should have to realize that
S. K.
were my own initials. “You think I sent this?”

“It was slipped under my door. It was there when I woke up yesterday.” She pointed
to the letters at the bottom of the note and frowned. “S. K. That’s you, right?”

I shook my head, slowly, trying to make sense of the message and the presence of my
initials. “I don’t even know where you live right now, Elysse.”

“I’m crashing with my cousin until my apartment in Boston is ready.” She sat back.
“That’s right. How would you know that?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Kira didn’t tell you?” She frowned. “Wait. I don’t think Kira knows yet. Then who
sent it?”

“I don’t know. It must be some other S. K,” I offered.

“But I’m not fighting with anyone else.”

“Are we fighting, Elysse?” I took out my phone and opened my photo gallery to the
pictures I’d taken of the incident that became the subject of a Henley PD police report.
“Now that I think of it, I guess we are.”

I placed the phone to face her, showing her first the photo of the shattered glass
of my patio door, then scrolling to the brick and the note, then back. I doubted she
could have faked the horrified look on her face.

Elysse pulled the phone closer to her and scrolled back and forth herself, stopping
at the glaring “Support Elysse.”

“Is this your house, Dr. Knowles?” The question was pitched high, with the word
house
at the highest pitch of all, from a very upset young woman.

“Elysse—”

“I know I started this with Facebook and all, but I never, never would do that.” Elysse
pointed to the phone and the offending photos, then pushed the phone away and crossed
her arms over her chest. “I never meant for things to get this far. I’m on Facebook,
you know, like all students, and we vent. It’s just to vent. Do you think my friends
are doing this? I mean my”—she made quotation marks in the air—“‘Friends’ on Facebook?”

“I don’t know what to think, except that we should settle this issue once and for
all before we leave here. I’m sorry—”

“I’m sorry—” Elysse said at the same time, and broke into tears. “Never mind the grade,
Dr. Knowles. Really, all this over a stupid grade? I can’t believe I was so…so…”

Young
, I wanted to say, but decided to keep things going in the direction of progress.

Elysse had a lot more to say about Facebook and how she hated flame wars and couldn’t
believe she’d started one. While she talked on and on, because she had to, I had the
strangest flashback to the watercolor print in my den. One of the images was of a
circle of cobblestones in front of the Old State House in Boston. The tiny monument
commemorated the Boston Massacre of 1770, in which a minor dispute between a young
American man and a British sentry turned into a riot. The crowd, some of whom had
no idea what started the fray, grew angry. British soldiers fired into the crowd,
killing five colonists. At least, that’s the way our American history teachers told
the story.

Historical accuracy aside, I thought there was a lesson in the narrative. If not settled
early, a small dispute grows bigger and hurts a lot of people.

I took Elysse’s hand and held it a moment. “I was thinking we’d meet each other halfway.
What if I give you half the points for that problem? I believe you honestly misunderstood
the instructions and had no intention of getting away with anything by using the calculator.
Giving you
half credit makes sense, and I can live with that in terms of fairness to the other
students who worked the problem as I intended. This way, you’ll still have your A
for the class.”

At which point, Elysse’s sobs became loud enough to attract the attention of some,
but not all, of the people around us, clicking away on their computers, notebooks,
pads, touches, and phones.

As for the Friends, whoever they were, who had planted the note under Elysse’s door
and thrown a brick at mine, I knew if I found them, I’d show no mercy.

I had some time before meeting Kira at the Mortarboard, the campus’s poor cousin to
the Coffee Filter. I wished I’d thought to change my meeting with Kira also, if only
for the sake of good coffee, but it was probably too late. I decided to walk back
to my office and spend the interim on end-of-year odds and ends. The first order of
business would be to make the adjustment to Elysse’s grade.

Though I was happy to be closing that chapter of the school year, I couldn’t help
wishing there was a way to address the faceless alleged friends who’d escalated things.

I called Bruce from my office, reported on my morning visit from the HPD, and gave
him happy news for once.

“Elysse and I are good again,” I told him, and relayed the details of our meeting.

“Then who threw the brick and who put the note under her door?”

“I have no idea. Maybe one of my Facebook friends has a silver SUV.”

We both laughed at that idea. My presence on social networking sites was only through
the Henley College page and those of various professional groups I belonged to. I
kept putting off establishing my own page since I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t looking
for a job; I had all the flesh-and-blood friends I needed; I had nothing to sell.
For now, I was fine without pokes from capital-F friends.

“I’m going to look into it,” Bruce said, his chuckling over.

“What can you do, other than write a message to every one of Elysse’s friends individually
and ask for their alibis?”

“I can start by talking to Virge.”

“Bruce, Friends are all over the world. They’re in Omaha and Singapore and Brazil.
Not even the Henley PD can track them all down.”

“One of them came to Henley, Massachusetts. He didn’t toss a brick from Shanghai.”

“Good point. But I still don’t see how you can find him. Or her. My neighbors didn’t
get a license plate or see who was driving the vehicle. There’s not enough to go on.”

“That’s Virge’s job. He’ll help me figure something out. Meanwhile, just be cool.”

I promised I’d try.

I was ready to drop the brick episode and let Bruce and Virgil do their thing, except
that every now and then I looked out my campus office window at passing traffic, checking
for a silver SUV. The Lawrences were new to my neighborhood. I wondered how they’d
feel if I showed up on their doorstep and queried them further about the vehicle they’d
seen speeding away from my house.

I sat at my desk, from which I sorted and tossed paper after paper—homework sets from
classes gone by, articles that were years out of date, memos with college policy
changes that had been superseded ten times over by now. I made a note to alert Woody
to the extra poundage for the trash this week. The promised paperless office never
quite made it to Henley, at least not to the first floor of Benjamin Franklin Hall.

All the while I was sorting, I’d checked each piece for one that might have been left
by the deceased Mayor Graves. Nothing. How many more times was I going to try? How
many more
nothing
s would it take before I’d drop the fantasy that the mayor had left a clue to his
murder in my own little office?

I thought about the undefined evidence Virgil had mentioned. Sight unseen, I tried
to convince myself that the police had already found whatever important, or incriminating,
communication there was between Richardson and the mayor. I would love to have concluded
that whatever the mayor was trying to tell me—in person, on the phone, in my office—had
now been cleared up. I figured it would be at least an hour before I questioned it
again.

On the way to the Mortarboard to meet Kira, I walked past the tennis courts, where
Monty Sizemore was hitting neon green balls against the backboard. Maybe it was because
I was aware of his current mental state, but he seemed to be slamming the ball with
more force than necessary. I felt sorry for him, knowing he was missing his partner.
Then not sorry when I recalled his repeated calls and nagging.

He stopped when he saw me and indicated that I should meet him at the gate to the
courts. He trotted over to the entrance to the courts, a white towel around his neck
and a bottle of water in his hand.

“Hey, Sophie. I hoped you’d come by today. I figured you’d be going to the service
and you’d maybe stop at your office. I was watching for you, but I didn’t see you
go into the building.”

The idea of Monty’s stakeout gave me an irrational, uneasy feeling. “I went in through
the side door,” I explained, curious that he didn’t simply call me back after last
night’s hang-up. I looked at my watch. “I need to meet someone in about five minutes
in the Mortarboard.”

“Let’s walk and talk,” he said, and put his hand under my elbow, as if I couldn’t
guide myself along the path. I slipped my arm away as soon as I could without letting
on that I didn’t like the feel of his hand on me. Over the years, very few people
had made it to my “do not like” list. Monty and Chris were headed for it, nearly doubling
its length. At some point, I’d have to stop and figure out why. I hoped I didn’t simply
envy their youth and closeness.

“Sophie, I’m so sorry I was all wound up last night. I certainly didn’t mean to be
so…whatever. I hope I didn’t offend you.”

What thirty-year-old these days used that term? Offend? Maybe business schools kept
to old-time terminology. “No offense,” I said.

“It’s just, I’m so frustrated.”

“I’m sure you are. I take it Chris is still at the station?”
In custody
seemed too harsh for the guy, though I remembered how harsh he and his sister had
been with me when I’d become Facebook’s witch du jour. I was bigger than that, I told
myself. Especially after the amicable settlement with Elysse, I really didn’t want
to spoil my day with vengeful thoughts or deeds.

“She’s still down there. My lawyer says she could be out by noon. That is, if they
don’t charge her.” Monty took a long swallow of water. “I know you’re tight with that
cop in the HPD. There must be something you can do?”