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EMMA WENT OVER TO THE Snack Shack to get her soda cup refilled. Pat watched her go and turned to me.
“So Molly, I realize your relationship woes are the most important thing here, but there’s also the minor matter of a confessed homicidal maniac running loose. I don’t think you realize what a close call you had. An enclosed canoe shed, on a deserted beach, no witnesses? We’re lucky you were alive when I showed up.”
“I probably would’ve done the same thing as Molly.” Emma reseated herself at the splintery picnic table. “We know Sherry. I wouldn’t have run away from her. I would have wanted to hear what she had to say”
“I was hoping what happened to Kathy was natural causes or some sort of accident,” I said. “Maybe she mixed up her insulin needles with those diet drug needles. But thinking Sherry did that to her on purpose is so disturbing.”
“No,” Emma corrected me. “Kathy wouldn’t have mixed up any needles by accident, because she didn’t use insulin needles. She had a pump.”
“What? I’ve never heard of that. Is it like a pacemaker?”
“Nah. It looks like a music player almost. You clip it on your waistband and the little tube goes right into your stomach. I remember Kathy always had to double check it before we went out. She wasn’t technically supposed to go in the water with it, but she did.”
“So Sherry must’ve taken Kathy’s HCG needles and left the insulin ones in their place,” Pat said. “So that Kathy would unknowingly administer a fatal dose of insulin to herself, and throw the needles away. Those prefilled needles are disposable, right?”
Emma nodded.
“That’s so coldblooded. And it wasn’t about who got a seat in the canoe at all. It was a plain old love triangle.”
“I know,” Pat sighed. “What a bore.”
“Wait, what love triangle?” Emma demanded.
“Glenn got involved with Kathy,” I explained, “so Sherry got rid of Kathy.”
“But how did Sherry know Glenn was fooling around with Kathy?”
“Glenn had photographs of Kathy, and Sherry found them,” Pat said. “Weren’t you paying attention?”
“What photographs? I couldn’t find any photographs of Kathy. Remember, Molly? I mean, where would Glenn—oh. Never mind. I guess we’re not talking about her high school yearbook pictures.”
“It is a lot to process,” I said.
“But why would Sherry care so much if Glenn messed around with Kathy?” Pat asked. “She got together with Davison as soon as Glenn was out of town. If polyamory was okay for Sherry, it should’ve been okay for Glenn too. Fair’s fair.”
“Yeah, it seemed strange to me too. But I’m not Sherry. I don’t know what her reasoning was. And it’s not polyamory, Pat.”
“Here come the word police.”
“That’s right, Pat. Lights flashing and sirens blaring. Polyamory is a consensual arrangement, not a synonym for cheating. What Sherry was doing was more like overlapping serial monogamy.”
“You’re not gonna complain about mixing Greek and Latin roots?”
“No. That etymological horse is already out of the barn. Automobile, television, and neurotransmitter are here to stay, so we can’t really complain about polyamory, can we?”
Emma rattled the ice in her cup to get our attention.
“Hey word nerds, let’s stay on topic. We were talking about Sherry. Here’s my take. Sure, Sherry wasn’t being rational. But that’s normal human behavior. Who’s rational all the time? Come on, Molly, haven’t you ever done anything you’ve regretted later? Like majoring in English?”
“Something I’ve regretted? Oh, let’s see. You mean like walking into the wrong hotel room—”
“No, I didn’t mean—”
“Imperiling my honor,” I continued, “and permanently scarring my visual cortex, all because I listened to someone’s lame brained—”
“We’re talking about murder here, Molly,” Emma interrupted. “Stay focused. You’re letting yourself get distracted.”
“What are you two talking about?” Pat asked.
“Nothing,” we replied in unison.
“We should probably get back to campus,” I said. “I think the coast is clear now.”
We cleared off the table and started walking back toward the halau.
“So it wasn’t about the race after all,” Emma said. “Or even that other woman.”
“Other woman?” Pat’s voice had an urgent edge. “What other woman?”
“Remember, Molly? The look-alike? The software found her when we were looking for Kathy?”
“Who? Oh, the brown haired woman! What was her name?”
“I can’t remember her first name,” Emma said. “I think her last name was Galvez.”
Pat stopped walking.
“What are you two talking about?”
“I completely forgot about it until now. Molly and I were trying out that facial recognition software right after I finished the race.”
“We found Kathy Banks’ supposed doppelganger on the mainland,” I added.
“Molly means there’s someone who looks like Kathy—”
“I know what a doppelganger is,” Pat interrupted. “Who is she?”
“Just someone on the mainland who didn’t even look like Kathy,” I explained. “The software picked her up as a match.”
“But it turned out to be someone else,” Emma added.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Pat demanded.
Emma and I looked at each other.
“Because it wasn’t actually Kathy,” I said. “We were looking for a picture of Kathy for her online memorial, but she wasn’t in any of the team photos. The only one we could find was a candid Sherry had.”
Emma and I resumed walking, and Pat quickly caught up.
“Sorry for getting all snippy,” he said, “It’s just that I haven’t been able to find a single thing on Kathy Banks. She never got close to the other people in the Student Retention Office, so they can’t tell me anything. And everyone else has been stonewalling me. I wonder if maybe this other woman is related to her. Or is her.”
“No,” I said, “It wasn’t Kathy Banks. I did think it was kind of an odd coincidence they had the same initials, though.”
“The same initials?” Pat was losing patience again. “I thought you said this other woman’s last name was Galvez!”
The name hovered at the edge of my mind—something-something, four syllables—and slowly came into focus.
“Beckenbauer. Karolyn Beckenbauer! That was her name.”
“What?” Pat fairly shrieked. “Emma, how do you get Galvez from Beckenbauer?”
Emma shrugged. Pat pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and started tapping frantically on the keys.
“How do you spell Beckenbauer? Is it Karolyn with a K? Is this her? Wait a minute.”
“Oh yeah,” Emma said. “That’s the other thing. Karolyn Beckenbauer is dead.”