“And confessed to murdering Keith Appleton?”
Virgil nodded. “And confessed to murder.”
“Why would he do that? He’s smart enough to know that some scribbles on a few pieces of paper would be inconclusive, worth even less than a polygraph would be.”
Suddenly my great faith in handwriting analysis was down the tubes, along with belief in psychics and palm readings. Ariana would not be pleased.
“You’d be surprised at how many people do confess eventually. Sometimes they can hold out just so long and then guilt takes over.”
“Maybe it’s a false confession. Didn’t something like one hundred people confess to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby?” I was reaching.
Virgil gave me a patient smile. “Yeah, it was more like two hundred, as a matter of fact. Because they wanted to be famous. That happens a lot with high-profile crimes.” He aimed an index finger pistol at me. “Your friend Dr. Bartholomew is not going to be famous for this, trust me.”
“There must be some reason-”
“What’s up, Sophie? I thought you wanted this case solved, like yesterday. It turns out you helped a lot. You found the samples. We went over them. I thought we were on the same page.”
“I didn’t want it to be Hal. You weren’t mean to him, were you?”
Virgil laughed. “We weren’t mean to him.”
“Is he here? Can I talk to him?”
Virgil shook his head, sadly I thought. “His wife is in there, and then, he’s… off in the van.”
Gil. Timmy. It came to me again how profoundly they would be affected by this turn of events.
When Gil appeared in the desk area moments later, I rushed over to her.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurted.
Gil looked a wreck and seemed to want to avoid a hug of condolence. Not that she ever looked really made up, but this evening there was no sign of grooming or that she cared. “I have to go,” she said.
“Can I help with Timmy? I could take him for a while.”
“My sister is coming to pick him up.” Gil seemed to stare past me, her voice on automatic. It occurred to me she might blame me for her husband’s plight.
In a way, so did I.
I drove home slowly, not having the energy to push hard on the accelerator pedal. I’d noticed another voicemail from Rachel, but I had no interest in talking to her. She’s not the enemy, I reminded myself. It’s not her fault that Hal was on his way to jail. I still needed some time before I could show her the excitement she was due at not having to endure any more trauma.
I arrived home to rooms that were empty except for a note from Bruce.
“Out gardening. Dinner at eight?” it read.
“Gardening” was our code word for when Bruce brought me flowers. I wondered if he’d heard about Hal. If so, I hoped only through his friend Virgil and not because the news had already been broadcast to the twenty-four hundred Henley students and faculty and the entire population of the town. A better theory was that Bruce saw my empty vases and decided to fill them, as he often did. If he didn’t know of Hal’s arrest, we wouldn’t have to talk about it and it might go away.
In any case, I didn’t deserve flowers. I should have minded my own business, as the dean warned.
I’d wandered into my office and hit the key to wake up my computer, a built-in response when I first got home in the evening. The last active screen came up-the newspaper archives from my research on the dean. My finger seemed to move on its own to the delete key, ready to put an end to all aspects of my preoccupation with the murder investigation and the sea change it had brought into our lives.
Hal’s confession had given me no closure. Along with that unsettled feeling, Ariana’s voice in my head nagged me, urging me to follow through on our role-playing game. Should I confront the dean? Did any of it matter now?
I decided I had to finish the job.
My computer clock read five fifty-five. There might still be time to catch the dean in her office. I picked up the phone and dialed. Courtney answered and I quickly identified myself.
“Good, you’re still there,” I added.
“You think so?” Courtney asked.
“Well, not good for you.”
“Or my social life.”
“I can understand that, but I need to talk to her.” Naming Courtney’s boss didn’t seem necessary. “It’s urgent.”
“Quelle twist. It might even be worth hanging around.”
“I can guarantee it.”
“Now I’m really curious.”
“Go on to your social life and I promise to tell you tomorrow.”
“She’s about to leave, but I’ll put you through. You’ll definitely have to tell me tomorrow, though, okay?”
“Promise.”
The dean took her time getting to the phone. Being on hold was better than sitting outside her office, in any case, and I made use of the time by sorting through my mail and email and checked my calendar to see what was coming up the rest of the summer. I clicked on August and saw that because of my laxity the last few days, an important birthday had almost gotten by me. Bruce’s niece, Melanie, would be turning ten years old in a couple of weeks, on August fourth, the birthday of John Venn. We needed to make plans for a significant present and a visit to Boston to celebrate double digits with her.
Bruce had laughed when I’d told him what a great start in life his niece had, born on the same day as the author of definitive texts on logic and the creator of the widely used Venn diagrams. As it turned out, Melanie was outstanding in math. I doubted my stream of math-related presents and my online tutoring of her had more to do with it than her birthday.
Lame music continued to pour in over the line. Where was the dean? Had she guessed what urgent agenda I had with her? Maybe she’d fled to Canada. I was eager to get the meeting over with and return to normal life.
Even my busiest class days during the regular semester were less hectic than today had been. I’d started out with an early breakfast with Lucy, made two trips to the police station, role-played at A Hill of Beads, and now one more errand before I’d let myself enjoy dinner with Bruce.
“What’s this about, Dr. Knowles?” The dean’s voice interrupted the so-called music. I didn’t know which sounded worse.
My mind went blank, trying to make the transition from the mushroom sauce I’d be having soon, to the dean’s shady past. I hadn’t thought through how to get the dean to agree to a meeting where I could use the script Ariana and I had practiced.
“I need to see you,” I stammered.
“What in the world is so urgent?”
“It’s about what’s in a box from Keith Appleton’s office,” I said.
The long pause told me I’d hit on something. I thought I’d been put on hold again, this time without music. Finally I heard the dean’s voice, almost pleading.
“I can explain,” she said.
I was beginning to like the concept of bluffing.
I pulled into the southwest gate, now fairly used to the deserted look of the campus compared to last week. As I climbed the front steps of the admin building, I wondered if I even needed to rehearse my lines, as modeled by Ariana. It seemed entirely possible that the dean would pour out an unsolicited confession. An easy mark. Who would have thought?
A bigger issue was whether the dean knew of Hal’s arrest. I was sure she or Courtney would have mentioned it if the word had gotten to them.
I asked myself one more time why I was doing this, since the murder case was solved. There was no question that whatever Keith had been holding over the dean, it had not led her to murder him.
Was I trying to get even with Dean Underwood for all the small annoyances she was bent on dealing me? I sincerely hoped not.
On a positive note, I could show the dean what a good researcher I was, ferreting out her past, and therefore deserving of that promotion to full professor. The absurd reasoning made me smile.