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I STARED AT THE PHOTO of Glenn.
“Wow. When Sherry starts a job, she finishes it. You almost have to admire that kind of follow-through.”
“Do you really think Sherry did this?”
“Come on, Emma, what do you think? Do you think she’s going to let Glenn off the hook after what she did to Kathy?”
Emma shook her head. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Sherry was competitive, but I never thought she was vicious.”
Pat interrupted, “Am I the only one who sees a double standard here? Let Glenn off the hook? Anyone remember what Sherry was up to the minute Glenn was out of town?”
“No one’s excusing her,” I said.
“Kathy Banks,” Pat said, “that’s one. A crime of passion, maybe. But Kathy and Glenn? Now we’re talking about a serial killer.”
“It’s a shame,” I mused. “Glenn didn’t deserve that.”
Emma was examining the article. “Glenn Anderssen. You know, I never knew his last name. Look. It says foul play isn’t suspected.”
“She’s clever,” Pat said. “I wonder how she did it.”
“I know Sherry and Glenn used to go out running together,” Emma said. “Maybe he had a running accident. What if it actually was natural causes?”
She looked at Pat, and then at me.
“Or, maybe not.”
“Well, class sure isn’t as interesting without Sherry,” I said. “Double murderer or not, it was nice to have someone contributing to the discussion. With her gone, her study group sits around the table like a bunch of stuffed animals at a five-year-old’s pretend tea party.”
“That’s one good thing about teaching biology, ah? No one has to sit in a circle and talk about their feelings. All they have to do is shut up and learn.”
“We’re writing business plans,” I said. “Hardly the same thing as sitting around and talking about your feelings.”
“Aren’t you two taking this seriously at all?” Pat said.
“Of course I’m taking it seriously,” I said, “but we can’t do anything about it, can we?”
“I still don’t believe Sherry is guilty,” Emma said.
“Well, she pretty much told me she took care of Kathy,” I said.
“Did she literally come out and say, ‘I killed Kathy Banks’?”
“More or less.”
“Two people have been murdered,” Pat said, “and I know who killed them but I can’t prove it. And as far as the police are concerned, there weren’t any murders at all. Only two unrelated accidents.”
“Maybe they were two unrelated accidents. Maybe Sherry was just messing with Molly when she said whatever she said. Or maybe Molly misinterpreted. You know how she overreacts to everything.”
“That is not true. If anything, I’m not paranoid enough.”
“Emma,” Pat said, “do you think it’s a coincidence that Kathy keels over, Sherry admits she killed Kathy because Kathy was messing around with Glenn, Glenn drops dead, and Sherry disappears?”
“Sure. Could be.”
“The problem is, I can’t go and accuse Sherry of murder in print.” He brightened. “Oh, I know! Maybe I can write this up as—”
“Don’t you dare write some kind of ‘Cursed Paddling Club’ thing, Pat. My club is already down to five. I don’t want you scaring everyone else away.”
“Oh. Alright. Fine.”
Pat brooded for a moment. “Aah, maybe I shouldn’t bother. I’m always saying I never give up on a story, but I’m about to give up on this one. It’s been like banging my head against a brick wall trying to get any information at all. The people up at the hospital are still acting like they’ve never even heard of Kathy Banks.”
“Maybe they’re telling the truth,” I suggested. “Is that possible? The people you’ve talked to were working different shifts or something?”
“No, I don’t think it’s possible, Molly. This is a small town with only one hospital, there’s no other ER within a hundred miles, and thirty-year-old women don’t drop dead in canoes every day. You’d think there would be at least one person who would be willing to talk to me.”
“I think Kathy was a lot older than thirty,” Emma interjected.
“They’re not allowed to share any patient information with you,” I said.
“I know. But any halfway-competent reporter should still be able to get the information.”
“You are a good reporter, Pat. The hospital employees are simply doing their job.”
“I guess there are only going to be four people in the whole wide world who know the real story. The three of us, and Sherry. Not exactly a journalist’s fondest dream. Hey, Molly, what time is your class?”
“Oh, shoot, I have to go. You guys can stay here if you want.”
“We will,” Pat said.
“Oh, Pat, I’m going to use your idea today.”
“What crazy thing is Pat making you do?” Emma asked.
“No, it’s not crazy.” I gathered my handouts and books. “It’s a great idea. We have a chapter on persuasion and charisma, and the examples in the text aren’t that helpful. I mean, most of it is about an airline most of these kids have never even heard of. So I’m going to try to bring the chapter to life by showing them this movie Pat told me about.”
“It’s called The Goebbels Experiment,” Pat said. “Kenneth Branagh narrates from Joseph Goebbels’ journals. In the film, you see Goebbels develop the prototype for our current political discourse.”
“I think my students will love it. It shows the dark side of charisma. I think it’ll be a nice corrective to all the smiley-face hero worship in the textbook.”
“Do business textbooks contain anything but smiley-face hero worship?” Pat asked.
“The textbooks, yes. They actually have research and some historical perspective. They’re not the same thing as those business books you see at the airport.”
I checked around my office to see if I was forgetting anything, and chugged the rest of my coffee.
“Mach schnell!” Pat called after me as I rushed out the door.
I reached the classroom with two minutes to spare before the start of class. I could have set everything up and started the discussion on time, except for one thing. The whiteboard was covered with Rodge Cowper’s space-hogging scrawl. In sprawling script that filled the whiteboard, Rodge had written,
“If you can't you must, and if you must you can.”
And under that,
“If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.”
And finally,
“Every problem is a gift - without problems we would not grow.”
I was not in the mood to clean up Rodge’s mess today. I was still reeling from my encounter with Sherry, and upset about poor Glenn. Pat had dismissed Glenn as “cute as a button, and nearly as intelligent.” Glenn couldn’t help it, though. Not everyone can be on the right-hand side of the distribution. Glenn’s only fault was his trusting infatuation with Sherry. Why couldn’t Sherry let him go and move on? Killing Kathy and then Glenn was like murdering someone and doing away with their pet guinea pig. It was gratuitous. Sherry certainly had other options in the romance department. Why couldn’t she walk away?
It was time for class to start, and I was barely a third of the way through with erasing the board. This was unacceptable.
Every problem is a gift.
Well. Maybe what I needed to do was leave Rodge a nice thank-you note for his gift. I knew he had a class in here right after mine. Maybe this time I could “forget” to erase the whiteboard. Then Rodge would have to waste the first few minutes of his class erasing, and he’d realize what he’d been making other people put up with.
Reckless with tragedy and too much caffeine, I made a fateful decision. I would leave class today without erasing the board. See how Rodge likes it. As I scrubbed off Rodge’s purple scribbles I realized I was humming Khachaturian’s Masquerade Waltz.