An hour later, Lenny dropped me off at campus. He needed to grab a change of clothes before Shakespeare’s birthday party, and I needed to teach class. I weaved my way through students rushing out of one building and piling into another. Like the air, their chatter was crisp. The end of the semester was near, and the energy was almost palpable. Soon the campus would be a ghost town, a dream at the center of Copper Bluff. The students would disappear, and the days would grow humid and sleepy. I loved those days; they were perfect for reading.
I was thinking about my growing to-read pile when I noticed Mia bent down at the gate of Shakespeare’s Garden. She was placing a red rose on the heap of gifts and mementos outside the garden. I slowed my pace, watching her read some of the notes. A single tear fell from her face onto a slip of paper.
“Hi, Mia,” I said.
She started at the sound of my voice.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
She brushed away the tear. “You didn’t.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay.” She stood slowly. “They say it gets easier, but I don’t see how. I can’t believe I’ll never see him again.”
“Tanner was full of life,” I said. “Nothing will fill that void, but time will ease the pain.”
“Have you ever lost someone close to you?” she said.
“I lost a student two years ago,” I said. “It was hard to go into the classroom for a while. I kept seeing his face.”
A student whizzed by on a bike, and we stepped off the path.
“I wished I could have done something to prevent it.” I shook my head. “I still blame myself.”
“It’s good to hear you say that,” said Mia, brushing back a piece of her long blonde hair. “I mean, it’s not good, but I thought I was the only one. I blame myself, too.”
“Alice said Tanner was abusive.” I wondered how much I could or should say. I knew victims often blamed themselves instead of the abusers. I wanted Mia to know she wasn’t at fault, but I didn’t want to tell her I’d read her journal.
“I love Alice, I really do, but that’s her own history talking. She was abused by her father. That’s how she got the scar on her face.”
No wonder Alice recognized the red flags. She’d suffered abuse herself.
Mia cleared her throat and continued, “Tanner had become physical lately, that’s true, but he never hit me. He’d hit the wall or throw a book. He was under a lot of stress.”
“He never hurt you?” I clarified.
“He squeezed my arm once, left a bruise.”
That sounded like abuse to me.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, glancing at me. “But he was passionate—like lots of people in the theater. They have a hard time dealing with their emotions.”
I had friends in the arts, and none of them were abusive. That was simply an excuse for Tanner’s growing anger issues. But I didn’t want to argue with her. For the first time, it felt as if she was opening up. If she wouldn’t talk to a counselor, at least she would talk to me. I didn’t want to scare her away now by pushing. “At one o’clock, there’s a party for Shakespeare’s birthday at Harmony Music Museum. Are you coming?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?” I prodded. “There will be snacks.”
She smiled. “It’s not that I don’t want to go. I have to work. Professor Schwartz has me on the schedule until finals.”
“You’ve been working at the theater all semester?”
“Every afternoon, no exceptions,” she said, in a startling accurate imitation of Schwartz’s voice.
My heartbeat quickened at the revelation. She had access to the skull from Hamlet, Jacob’s Hamlet costume, and the black wig. She was in the theater every afternoon, which provided her access. But it also provided her with something else: an alibi. Mia couldn’t have been home the afternoon Tanner called her “psycho.” That meant the psycho he was talking about wasn’t Mia. It was someone else in the house, and I’d bet it was the woman in the wig. That’s why he grabbed her hair at the symposium; he was trying to tear off the wig and expose her. “Luckily for you, Schwartz will be at the celebration, so he won’t be working,” I said. “It’s the last chance to see Shakespeare’s First Folio. You won’t want to miss it.”
“If you’re sure it’ll be okay ….”
“Positive,” I said. “I’ll tell him I gave you permission, if you want.”
“I guess I’ll see you there, then.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” I continued briskly toward Stanton Hall so I wouldn’t be late for class. Distracted, I nearly ran into a student as I pulled open the door. I mumbled an apology, but I couldn’t keep my mind off the new information: Mia wasn’t the psycho, which meant she wasn’t the killer. So, who was?
As I began class, my mind was still whirring with possibilities, and none of them had to do with my composition course. Actually, one of them did relate, but not directly. Our final essay was the research paper, and today we were going over logical fallacies—faulty logic. We were completing a worksheet as a class, and a student was reading over relevance fallacies when a line tripped the thought.
“Wait,” I said. “Could you read that again, please?”
The student nodded and read the line slowly. “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” I repeated. I thought back to the banquet. Though I didn’t have evidence, one person was not absent. One person, and one person alone had a very good reason for being there. She also had a reason for killing Tanner and poisoning Andy.
The class responded to my enthusiasm with deadpan stares. I checked the clock. “Finish the worksheet at home and return it on Monday. Shakespeare’s birthday party starts in fifteen minutes. I hope to see you there.”
As they packed up early, their moods improved greatly. So did mine. I knew who the killer was, and I was about to prove it. I pulled out my phone and called Sophie, describing my plan as I hurried down the stairs. She promised to meet me at Harmony. I wanted to test my theory, and if there was anything I was good at, it was tests. This one would prove once and for all who killed Tanner, poisoned Andy, and tried to kill me.
Racing into the museum, I paused briefly at the folio. Shakespeare was at the center of the story. Tanner had been determined to expose him as a fake. Tanner also attempted to reveal the identity of the woman in the wig, but she deftly dodged him. She wouldn’t dodge me, for I knew how cunning she was, how crafty, and how dangerous. She’d managed to deceive me more than anyone, and I felt a trickle of what Tanner felt as he revealed the identity of Shakespeare. Betrayed and angry, I was determined to put her in jail.
A sign pointed the way to the location of Shakespeare’s birthday party, the large lecture hall on the first floor. Instead of auditorium seating, there were benches—rows and rows of them. Felix, Andy, Reed, and Giles were at a table near the podium. On the table was a huge cake topped with a bust of Shakespeare, and behind it, a white board with markers. Perfect.
I made my way toward the group, excusing myself as I zigzagged through the crowd just starting to form. “Andy, glad to see you’re feeling better. Hi, Felix. Giles, I need to talk to you.”
“Of course.” Giles turned to Felix, Andy, and Reed. “Excuse me.”
When we were a few steps away, I told him my plan. For it to work, I needed to make a slight room alteration and introduce our guests. Sophie would be here soon, so no one would be in danger.
“I don’t see what that would hurt,” said Giles. “I’ll have Reed cut the cake instead of introduce our guests.”
Never mind protocol, did he realize I’d found the killer? I asked him.
“Of course you did,” said Giles. “I have the utmost confidence in your abilities. I can’t tell you how much it means to me, personally.” Bowing slightly, he added, “Thank you.”
Leaving me humbled and proud, he returned to the table. While the crowd gathered, I put the suspect to the test. She didn’t disappoint. Then I joined the four men behind the table.