Bruce led the dinner conversation. A good thing, since despite my declaration otherwise, I was too distracted to think about anything but the crime scene photos. I glanced at Virgil’s briefcase periodically, tempted to whisk it away to the den while the boys ate and talked.
First up from Bruce was asking about Virgil’s family. Virgil had lost his wife to cancer a few years ago; his son was in summer school at a Southern California college where he’d start freshman year in the fall. It occurred to me that pizza was not necessarily a treat for a bachelor and I should have cooked him a meal.
Bruce and I exclaimed how great Ronnie looked in his high school graduation picture, and again holding his basketball trophy, and again with his date for his senior prom. The photos were for my benefit since Bruce and Virgil met every other week for card games with other guys in their clique-though maybe family pictures never came up during those sessions.
“What’s new up in the air these days?” Virgil asked Bruce.
“Up In The Air. Good one,” Bruce said, an acknowledgment that Virgil knew the title of one his favorite recent movies.
“I’m not as out of it as you think,” Virgil said. He performed a neat trick with a long string of cheese that wouldn’t detach from the slice. Using his chin deftly, he didn’t miss a calorie.
“We’ve got competition,” Bruce said. I’d heard the story: a new air rescue business had set up shop across the road from MAstar. “It’s a for-profit company where one of the VPs is a Henley councilman.”
“Isn’t that what we call vested interest?” Virgil asked.
Bruce gave him a “what else is new” look. “What’s good is we signed a new contract, with Oceanview Hospital, to do all their transport.”
“Apparently the competition isn’t creating a problem for MAstar.”
“Not at all. We’re spinning it like it’s good for us. We can use it to make a case for some updated equipment and a facility upgrade.”
“You’re going to upgrade the double-wide?” Virgil asked.
We all laughed, maybe a little too hard on my part.
At long last, Virgil pushed his crumb-free plate away. “Let’s get to it, Sophie,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Are you sure you don’t want dessert first?”
Both men broke out in the kind of laughter that ends in coughing.
It was strange, and not in a good way, to see the coffee table in my den covered with crime scene photos. Virgil had spared me anything truly disturbing, but any reminder of Keith Appleton’s murder was unwelcome.
Keith was the only faculty member in Franklin Hall to add an area rug to his office. A queasy feeling came over me when I saw a close-up of the blue oriental design carpet strewn with office supplies and crumpled yellow sheets of paper. The paper clips, pens, and pencils scattered over the floor might as well have been bloody daggers.
I must have shivered, because Virgil had a worried look on his face. “Are you okay with this, Sophie?”
I asked for it, didn’t I? “I’m good,” I said.
Bruce stuck his head in. “I’ll be in your office, Sophie, hacking into your email, if you need me.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Virgil gave us a look. “I forgot how you guys go at it.”
The close-ups of the papers were incredibly clear. However else the Henley PD might be strapped for money in the forensics department, they had an excellent camera and photography crew.
Virgil spread out more than a dozen views of Keith’s office floor, encompassing the yellow sheets, each in a different wrinkled stage. On some sheets, only partial phrases showed.
“We’ve smoothed out the pages, of course,” Virgil said, laying out another set, where the writing was more visible, but still not completely. “I think you can fill in the blanks.”
I picked up each photograph in turn and took my time reading the red handwriting. I saw “(illegible due to creasing) is rubbish” on one, and “Your Awful Data… (illegible due to tear)” on another. Visible in full were “Use your brains” in the margin of one sheet and “Flaky reference” at the bottom of another.
“These comments don’t even sound like Keith,” I said. “He never says ‘rubbish’, or ‘flaky,’ and what scientist says ‘awful data,’ and capitalizes the words at that? I’ve heard him use ‘worthless,’ for example, but never ‘awful’. He’d refer to data as inadequate or spurious or skewed.”
“Of course he would.”
“And look how close together the letters are in each word. That indicates a person who lacks self-confidence, has low self-esteem, and is uncomfortable with himself. That was not Keith.” I cleared my throat. I seemed to have been channeling Ariana.
“Sounds like you’ve been taking a class on handwriting analysis.”
“Maybe.”
“When did you fit that in?”
“I’m a quick study.”
“That you are.”
“What if you could get, say, a dozen members of the faculty and administration to vouch for the fact that that is not Keith’s handwriting? Would that convince you that the markings on these pages are fake?”
Virgil shook his head. “Too subjective.”
“What is your plan for checking the handwriting?” I asked, as sweetly as I could.
“I need to run it by a few people, but most likely we’ll be going back in and asking for handwriting samples from students and faculty.”
“But the killer would obviously know why you were on this track and alter his handwriting in some way.”
“Experts say you can’t do that. There’s always a tell, something that gives you away, unless you’re a professional forger, I guess. Didn’t your teacher tell you that?”
“I left early.”
I knew that would get Virgil laughing and buy me some time. Enough for me to come up with an idea.
“Let me get you the samples.”
“And how would you do that?”
“I have years worth of notes or cards from just about everyone in Franklin Hall, and that’s your main suspect pool, isn’t it?”
Virgil didn’t say “yay” or “nay” to my supposition.
Instead he asked, “Doesn’t everyone email or text these days?”
“On the whole yes, for immediate communication. But a student will often slap a handwritten note on a stickie when she submits a paper or a problem set.”
“Something like, ‘Here’s my paper’?” Virgil asked.
“More like an apology for being late or telling me there’s a reference missing that she’ll bring me tomorrow.”
“The modern version of ‘My dog ate my homework,’” Virgil said, pleased with himself.
“Exactly.”
“Speaking of emails,” Virgil said. “The techs have been at work on Appleton’s computer.”
Uh-oh. I’d been waiting for this. Rachel’s nasty email, sent to Keith the day before he was murdered, had been on my mind. “Is that why Rachel was first in line again in Interview Two this afternoon?”
“Interview Two?”
“I think of it as the torture chamber.”
Virgil smiled. “Archie’s a good guy.”
No comment.
“I know Rachel sent one that was a little out of line, but-”
“But it turns out, so did quite a few others. Not a popular guy if you’ll forgive my saying so.”
I felt a wave of relief, followed quickly by one of guilt over my delight that Rachel wasn’t the only one bombarding Keith with harsh words.
“He wasn’t as bad as it looks,” I said. “The janitor loved him and it turns out he was some kind of benevolent uncle to his family in Chicago. We just never got to see that side of him.” Here I was again, defending Keith in death as I’d never defended him in life.
“Most people aren’t as bad as they seem,” Virgil said, and I knew at that moment we were both thinking of Archie.
Back to work. “On the handwriting samples? I have loads of holiday and birthday cards and thank you notes. I could pull together quite a set that we… you could compare with the comments on Rachel’s thesis pages. That way whoever did this has no warning that we’re on to him.”