The Square Root of Murder (10 page)

Today was different, the first time I was here without him. It felt strange to walk by the room he shared with another pilot, knowing he was now most likely napping in his own townhouse bed. I peeked in—once I knew his roommate was outside kicking the tires on the helicopter—and checked out the row of photos on Bruce’s side of the dresser. I knew what to expect—small framed shots of the two of us on favorite outings, and a grade school picture of Melanie, his only niece, whom he adored. I felt a pang of missing him and couldn’t wait until he was off for seven days, starting Monday morning.

With classes cancelled, that meant we were both off for a stretch and might be able to get out of town for a few days. The scorcher days were perfect for a trip to a sweet Hyannis beach.

It was a nice thought, until I recalled the reason summer school had been interrupted. My gaze fell on Rachel, walking slump-shouldered between Gil and me, her pink flipflops slapping pitifully on the floor. Something told me not to get psyched for anything other than helping her until further notice. The Cape would have to wait.

We tiptoed past a bedroom with a closed door.

“Don’t worry about making noise,” Gil said. “You’d never be in this job if you needed a lot of privacy or the comforts of home. But it’s the perfect career for a family person.”

Rachel registered surprise. “I would have thought just the opposite.”

I knew better. The dynamic worked especially well when both parties had flexible schedules, as was true for Hal and Gil and for Bruce and me. Neither Bruce nor I was a Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five kind of person, and neither were the Bartholomews, I suspected. It was the perfect combination: an EMS job offered long stretches of days off, and most college teachers, like Hal, had at least one day off a week during the regular semester, ostensibly to do research. Timmy Bartholomew, a kindergartener, was guaranteed to have one parent or the other free to drop him off or pick him up.

“Flight nurses work two twenty-four hour days in a week,” Gil told Rachel.

“Like, forty-eight hours straight?”

“Not necessarily. I came on at four o’clock yesterday, and I’ll be here until four this afternoon. But of course, we’re not usually up and working all those hours. And then”—Gil spread her fingers, palms up—“I’ll have four whole days off. Then back for twenty-four, and so on.”

Rachel seemed to be considering this trade-off. At this point in her grad school life, even one day off without homework or lab work to think about would appeal to her.

Gil helped us settle in her room, pulling in an extra chair and carrying two glasses of iced tea on a tray. Were all flight nurses this agile?

I was pleased to see a copy of the puzzle I’d handed out at the party lying on top of a stack of puzzle books from my competition. I couldn’t help sneaking a look to see how far along Gil had gotten. I ran my finger down the page. Not bad. Maybe Gil would be the one to validate this new entry of mine.

Gil caught me reviewing her work. “Don’t you dare tell me how it ends,” she said.

I zipped my lip. “Not a chance.”

“Gotta go. Mi casa . . .” she said, closing the door behind her.

Gil didn’t have to share this room, but the eight-by-ten space could have belonged to anyone in the crew. In fact, Bruce’s room had more homey touches, with movie posters on one side (his) and NASCAR images on the other (his roommate’s). Gil, on the other hand, had gone with the MAstar-issue dull blue bedspread, kept the walls free of decoration, and had just one photo, of herself with Hal and Timmy on Hal’s graduation day.

I wondered if Gil had been ribbed by her colleagues about changing to a more feminine look, and so had changed back. As one of the few women in the graduate mathematics program, I’d had my own minor problems; I imagined Gil would have had even bigger ones. I remembered her mentioning how she chose her nickname.

“Most Gillians use ‘Jill’ or ‘Lil,’” she’d said. “I use ‘Gil’ so when you’re reading it, you might think it’s a boy’s name, a nickname for ‘Gilbert’.” She’d emphasized the hard G in Gil and laughed. “It gives me a little head start in getting an assignment. Then I show up and, voila, I’m a girl. But I do a good job, so it’s not usually a problem from then on.”

I understood perfectly.

Once Gil had left us, it was zero hour for Rachel and me.

Rachel sat on the edge of the bed, allowing me the luxury of the folding chair Gil had dragged in. An open window onto the airfield made the room seem less cramped and stuffy. I looked longingly at a twin engine, wishing I were airborne, or anywhere but here.

It was clear that Rachel wasn’t going to start without some prodding. I could tell by the tears that started to well up in her eyes.

This was not my forte. Give me a student scared to death to take a math test or demonstrate how she evaluated a definite integral and I’ll boost her confidence and have her ready well within her timeframe. I’d also had my share of successes in getting a girl back on her feet after being dumped by a cruel boy from another school. But a murder suspect looking to me for help—that was beyond the scope of my experience. I hoped I could get up to speed in a hurry.

I plunged in.

“Rachel, tell me what happened when you brought the plate of food to Dr. Appleton yesterday.” Was it just yesterday?

Now her tears came in torrents, her sobs beating a quiet, steady rhythm. At least Gil’s room was equipped with tissues. I handed her the box.

“You have to talk to me, Rachel.”

I heard a thunderous clattering in response.

The Bat Phone.

We covered our ears. I thought the pummeling sound would never stop.

Besides the assault from the Bat Phone, there was so much stomping and loud activity in the hallway that I was afraid to open the door.

I heard a man shout, “Four-vehicle crash on Route Three Southbound near the Sagamore.”

Then, Gil’s voice: “Code yellow, everyone.”

I’d never been here when a call came. My heart raced as if I, too, had to suit up and rush out. I took a breath and told myself no one’s life depended on me.

“Did she say code yellow?” Rachel asked. “I would have expected code red or code blue.” She shuddered.

I was quick to share my insider knowledge with Rachel. “Code yellow reminds the crew to go at a sensible pace. Too fast and they might slip up; too slow and they’ll blow their mission. Yellow means just right.”

Seconds later, Gil crashed into her room. “ ‘Scuse me,” she said.

She zipped her flight suit to the top of her very fit body, hooked a radio onto her belt, and grabbed her helmet from one corner and a backpack from another, in seamless, swift motions. Army Reserve training, I guessed, reinforced by all her jobs since. Rachel and I both went stiff, not moving a muscle, lest we interrupt the choreography. Gil dashed from the room as quickly as she’d entered, leaving the flimsy brown door to swing in its frame.

The clamor had shifted to the airfield where MAstar’s helicopter was parked. Rachel and I turned to look out the window. A pilot—the PIC, pilot in command, as the in-group knew—was already in his seat. The tall, lanky guy next to the pilot in the front was one of two flight nurses that made up the group of three who responded to every call. Gil ran to the back of the aircraft and climbed in and they were up in a flash, maybe five minutes total from the call to liftoff.

I thought of Bruce. This was a regular part of his job, if not every day, then at least a few times a week. It’s what he was here for. I hoped I’d be able to see him in action some time. As the helicopter became smaller and smaller in the air, I hoped most that wherever the MAstar crew was off to, they arrived in time to help.

I felt like saluting.

I turned to Rachel. “Well, that was exciting,” I said.

And we both laughed.

 

 

With everyone gone on their mission, Rachel and I moved to the trailer living room, which sported dark brown leather-like chairs and a sofa, a combination television set and DVD player, and a wood-like coffee table. Magazines and DVDs were stacked neatly in a rack. No sign of a used glass or plate; no socks or towels flung around. The only stray item was a single remote control that was lined up with the edge of the coffee table. I wondered if the room was always this neat or if someone had picked up for our benefit this morning.

Knowing Bruce and the spit-polish code of order that seemed to prevail for military types, I guessed that even though the MAstar trailer was a sort of male bastion, these were males who’d had a heavy dose of neatness training.

We had a lot more space in this room, plus the dubious benefit of a barely working air conditioner. Rachel sniffed and cleared her throat. Her upright posture and firm expression indicated that she’d gotten over her crying jag and was ready to talk. Maybe the urgency of the flight mission had gotten to her and put things in perspective. She might be in trouble, but she was not sprawled on a highway or trapped in her car.

I sat waiting, a welcoming expression on my face.

“I lied, Dr. Knowles.”

No, no, no. A chill overtook my body, and it didn’t come from the low-end A/C unit. Had I been that far off about my assistant? A woman I thought of as a friend? In an uncontrollable reflex, my eyes shot to the exit sign over the door. If not my rational self, some part of me seemed to think I was closeted in a trailer with a murderer.

Rachel didn’t look like a killer, sitting there with her arms wrapped around herself, her straggly hair and faded jean shorts, frayed at the bottom, giving her a waif-like look. When she held a wad of tissues to her face and blew her nose loudly, it was almost comforting. Killers don’t do that, I told myself uselessly.

I stared at a point over Rachel’s shoulder where there was a map of the MAstar bases, eleven of them in all, spread across the state. I wondered if they were all on missions now and if any of their empty trailers were serving as confessionals. As for speaking, the best I could do was mimic a radio talk show host.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“You’re going to hate me.”

“I won’t hate you, Rachel.” Unless . . . I bit my tongue.

“At the party, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

“I picked up a piece of the cake from the table and grabbed a can of soda to take to Dr. Appleton, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And I went upstairs, okay?” She paused to take care of her nose again. “When I said I knocked on Dr. Appleton’s door and he didn’t answer? That was the lie.”

“Okay.” I was getting into Rachel’s rhythm. “So Dr. Appleton did answer the door?”

“No.”

“You didn’t knock?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Bad question when the answer is ambiguous. I could see that I’d need to go into puzzle-solving mode to move this along. “The door was open.”

“Yes.”

Finally, getting somewhere. Possibly.

“You went in,” I guessed.

Rachel nodded slowly and sucked in her breath; her eyes went wide. “You could see his legs, on the floor behind his desk. I put the food on the chair near his computer table and I tiptoed over to look in case I could help him get up or something, but I was scared because I knew he’d yell at me if he was busy down there.”

“Busy on the floor?”

“Like, looking for something he dropped? Or going through the bottom drawer?”

I hadn’t thought of those possibilities. “But he wasn’t busy.”

“No.”

“What did you see, Rachel?”

She took a breath. “His shirt was torn open and you could see his undershirt. And his face was all red and his eyes”—Rachel closed her eyes as if her professor’s body was in front of her at this moment in immodest attire, a lascivious look on his face—“I couldn’t look. I didn’t touch him, but I knew he was dead. I picked up the food and ran out. Then I put the plate and soda outside the door, to make it look as if I’d never gone in.”

I let out a big sigh, feeling like I’d been at the scene myself and just got out in time before losing my lunch. I threw up my hands. “Why didn’t you call the police, Rachel? Or at least let someone know? Anyone.” I tried to keep my voice even.

“Everyone knows how bad things are going with my research, and you said yourself how I’ve been mouthing off lately. I was scared someone would think I did it.”

I didn’t feel it necessary to remind her that a very important someone did think she did it. And maybe wouldn’t have, if she’d simply reported what she walked in on. She might have been just another suspect, instead of sticking out like a prime number.

“You have to tell the police. You have valuable information that they can use in a murder investigation. Don’t you see how important this is?”

“It’s not like I actually saw anything.”

“You saw a dead body at a certain time and place yesterday. If nothing else, that helps establish a timeline.”

“I guess.”

“You guess?” I paused. The last thing Rachel needed was my anxiety-ridden response. I lowered my voice. “You have to promise me that you’ll go to the police station. In fact, you can come with me this afternoon. I have an interview there myself.”

I’d made it sound as though I’d initiated the meeting with Archie. Archie cop, me reporter.

Rachel pointed across the room to an old, round fan on a high stand. “It’s roasting in here. Can we turn that on?”

“If it works.” No promises from her about making a trip downtown, I noticed.

We shared the chore: moving the fan, finding a socket, adjusting the speed—all very legitimate distractions while Rachel stalled and stalled. I tried to think of another occasion when she’d put off a distasteful task. I couldn’t. Not even when she worked on the biology floor.

“What else can you remember? What did the office look like?”