The Square Root of Murder Read Free Page A

Beads didn’t talk back or try to cramp my style.
    “Is it urgent?” I asked.
    “Isn’t it always?” Courtney asked.
    I sighed, slightly resigned. There was also my puzzle work to fall back on for income, I thought. Ever since I was a college student, I’d been submitting puzzles and brainteasers on a regular basis to games and variety magazines. But while it was fun coming up with number play and logic puzzles, the pay was hardly enough to pay the bills. I realized Courtney was still on the line. “So, she wants to see me today?” I asked.
    “Yesterday. I’m sorry, Dr. Knowles,” said Courtney, whose temperament did not match her flaming red hair.
    “I’ll have to change my clothes,” I said, glancing down at my flowered crop pants and bright green sandals.
    “It’s not about your clothes this time.” Courtney paused, as if considering whether to say more. She filled in with a nice offer. “Oh, I have your favorite lemon zinger tea in stock, Dr. Knowles. I’ll have a tall, cold glass waiting.”
    At least I related well with the younger generation. I thought also of my wonderful friends on the Henley faculty and of the richly diverse student body I got to work with every term.
    Maybe I wouldn’t turn in my Henley College ID card just yet.
    Maybe I could get Keith and the dean to turn in theirs.

CHAPTER 2
    As promised, Courtney had left a pitcher of iced tea on a small table in Dean Phyllis Underwood’s outer office. A note said, “Keep cool.” If the dean had seen it, I wondered if she knew how many meanings Courtney had in mind.
    I poured a glass of lemon zinger and took a seat on the wooden bench outside the main office. The handsome leather briefcase my mother gave me when I received my doctorate rested on my lap. I wrapped one arm around it and thought of Mom. It had been just the two of us since I was a toddler, when my father died. My fingers traced the outline of the metal lock; my mind wandered to Mom’s last days and to our last puzzle together.
    Never one to be left behind, Margaret (at her request, I’d used her given name since I was in high school, so she wouldn’t “feel so old”) had joined the sudoku craze. We had an ongoing match: each took on the challenge of creating a sudoku that would be declared “impossible” by the other. She completed one of my challenge sudokus two days before she died.
    “Too many backtracks this time, though,” she’d said, honest to the end.
    The finished puzzle hung on my office wall next to a photograph of the two of us on Cape Cod with the Sandy Neck Lighthouse as a backdrop.
    Lemon zinger tea had also been Margaret’s favorite. I raised my glass to her and took a sip.
    In spite of the urgency of the dean’s request and Courtney’s assurance, I’d made a quick trip home and changed to a more respectable outfit than the summery pants I’d taught in that morning. Nothing said professional more than close-toed shoes.
    The last time I’d been summoned here had been about my “classroom appearance.”
    “Your attire is much too casual, Dr. Knowles,” the dean had told me one snowy day, taking in my tasteful slacks, boots, and corduroy jacket in one sweeping, reproachful gaze. “You know we like to keep a dress code at Henley, no matter what the weather, and certainly no matter what the trends of the day may be.”
    I’d been tempted to ask why the academic dean didn’t have more to do than monitor faculty wardrobes. Wasn’t there curriculum to watch over? The northeastern colleges’ accreditation committee to worry about? And it wasn’t as if I’d been showing cleavage. Not that I had any to speak of.
    Like most of my faculty friends, I’d already caved on the clothing issue. The dean had met us halfway by allowing an exception for hot days during summer school and blizzard-like days in the winter.
    So today’s call was definitely not about fashion. What, then?
    I tapped the soles of my uncomfortable pumps on the cracked marble