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“You’re supposed to teach a class tonight?”

  “Yes—English 90. It’s the remedial writing class.”

  Detective Mason looked concerned. “I really think you ought to go home and rest tonight. You’ve had quite a shock.”

  “Oh, I can’t! I’d have to cancel class, and evening classes only meet once a week—it’s very bad if I cancel one. Do you have more questions? I probably should be getting ready for class pretty soon.”

  “Right. Well, that’s all the questions I have for now. You’ll have to sign a statement once it’s typed up. I may have more questions for you later. It depends on if we can find any of his family, and if there is anything we discover at the bookstore. Are you all right to wait here for a little while we type this up?”

  “Yes—as long as it doesn’t take too long.”

  “We’ll do our best. By the way—” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “If you remember anything else, call me right away, please. Even if it’s in the middle of the night. The first day or two after a murder are crucial in solving a case—timing is very important.”

  “Ok.”

  He looked at me again. “Are you sure you’re all right to go? I know you were driven here in a squad car—I’ll arrange to have one take you to where you need to go.”

  “Thanks, yes, I need to get to campus. I’ll be fine.”

  He got up to leave, paused at the door, and looked back. I thought he was going to say something else, but he changed his mind and left without another word.

  It turned out that I was ok, but just barely. I made it to class and taught for an hour, but I kept losing concentration and started to stumble over my words. I ended up letting them go home early.

  Kim was parked out in front of my apartment building when I got home. I had texted her in the short time I had between the police station and class starting, telling her briefly what had happened and asking her to pray I’d make it through class. Praying wasn’t enough for her: she had to come and bring some of my favorite cookies, too.

  “I know you probably don’t feel like eating,” she said, “but whenever you do feel like it, they’ll be here for you.”

  The tears that I had kept under control for the evening came bursting out again, and I got the hug I had needed for hours. She let me cry for a while and then came in my apartment with me, ordered me to go and sit on the couch, and made me a cup of tea.

  “Now then,” she said, handing it to me, “you sit there and drink it and tell me everything or nothing—whatever you feel like. And then you will go to bed and sleep. Ed says I should stay here with you.”

  “But Ben and Mia! You know they won’t do well without you.”

  “They’ll be fine. They love you, too, and want you to be ok.”

  “I am ok.” I noticed my hand shaking. “Well, almost ok.” I started telling her all about it—repeating everything I had told the detective. When I finished, I was exhausted.

  “Go to bed,” said Kim. “Don’t set your alarm—you don’t have a class in the morning, do you? No, I didn’t think so. Just go. I’m here if you need me.”

  I went.

  I slept better than I had thought I would. I did have one nightmare, but I was able to go back to sleep for the rest of the night. Kim was gone by the time I got out of bed at 10 a.m., but she had left a note ordering me to text her when I got up and tell her how I was. I did so, and then after a mug of hot chocolate, sat down to grade the papers I was supposed to have graded two days ago.

  I always start to grade papers with a mixture of emotions. The first one is dread: I know with certitude that I will spend a good amount of time wincing at the mistakes I expressly cautioned against. I battle the suspicion that some of those students will never learn to recognize an incomplete sentence or a non-existent word. And I always start to doubt my teaching ability—surely a better instructor could get better results? I once had a student who wrote me a thank you note at the end of the semester for all I had done to teach him. It would have been heart-warming except that the note read, “Thank you for educationing me.”

  On the other hand, there is always the hope that some of them will have picked up what I have been trying to communicate: that their thoughts will be more ordered than the last time they put them on paper, more concise, better reasoned, and more carefully researched. And lastly there is the expectation that there will be some amusing mistakes that I can add to my collection. A simple pleasure, but one of the joys of teaching. One, I may say, that I doubt math professors have: I don’t think they go to bed chuckling over errors their students made in calculating imaginary numbers. What do they talk about at faculty parties?

  I graded papers until almost noon. I was slower than usual: my mind kept wandering back to the crime yesterday. I kept hearing that bang over and over. It had been so loud. Why hadn’t anyone outside heard it and come running in to see what was wrong? Why hadn’t the noise at least alerted people outside to a problem and why hadn’t they seen the murderer fleeing from the scene? Perhaps they had; I had no way of knowing. Why hadn’t the man used a silencer? There were so many questions, and they were all conspiring to distract me from marking run-on sentences and widowed quotes.

  I found that I hadn’t left myself enough time to eat before leaving for the college. I changed into some clothes suitable for teaching, grabbed an apple, and headed out to teach American Lit. Morris Creek, the tiny town I live in, is twenty minutes from the college in Wilkester. It’s a beautiful drive through farming country. On the other side of Morris Creek is the forest, and while I don’t often have time to spend among the trees, I love it when I can. It reminds me of family camping trips when I was little.

  The topic that day was one of my favorites; Nathaniel Hawthorne is always fun to teach. Most of the students had slogged through the Scarlet Letter in high school and come out the other side with very little besides the firm conviction that the Puritans were hypocritical bad guys. The first half of my lecture consisted of explaining the difference between English and American Puritanism and the changes in Puritanism over time. I followed that up with an explanation of the prevailing attitudes of the times among people of all creeds and finished up with some insights into Hawthorne’s perspective. He was, after all, not a Puritan himself. By the end of class, most of the students were fully engaged and we had a good discussion about “The Minister’s Black Veil.” I even heard a couple of them sigh when I told them time was up. That is the ultimate accolade.

  After class, Callie came up and asked if she could speak to me. Callie is one of the brightest students in the class—one of those that you always have in the back of your mind as you are preparing lectures and assignments.

  “I was thinking about the paper that’s due in a few weeks. You know how we’re supposed to write about one work that had influence on others that came after it? I was thinking of writing my paper on Hugh Henry Brackenridge’s novel Modern Chivalry, and how it influenced the American novels of social criticism.”

  “That’s a great topic!” I said. “You know that we have a first edition of Modern Chivalry in the library here, right?”

  “Yes, and that’s what I wanted to speak to you about. Do you know how I can get in to see it? I tried to ask at the library, but they said a professor had to arrange it.”

  “That’s right. I just need to let the library know and go in with you. Would you be able to come in early before class on Friday? If you meet me at the library at twelve we’ll have time to see the book before class starts.”

  “That would be great!” she said, just as my cell phone rang.

  “No problem,” I said, and waited until she headed out the door before I answered it. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Miss Peters? This is Detective Mason. I was wondering if you could come back to the police station. We have a few more questions for you—some things we think you might be able to help us with.”

  “Sure,” I said.
“I’ve just finished class—I can be there in a few minutes.”

  “Perfect. See you soon.”

  I reported to the front desk of the police station, and one of the officers took me back to a room like the one I had made my statement in before. Detective Mason was there, sitting at a side table, working at an ancient computer. I looked twice at the computer. “That looks like Frank’s computer!” I said.

  “It is,” said the detective. He stood up and shook my hand. He looked exhausted. “You look much better today,” he said. “That is—” he flushed a little. “You look more rested.”

  “I am, thank you. You look—” I was going to say “terrible” but stopped myself just in time. “You look tired.”

  He smiled fully at that. “I am. Very tired. It’s all right—I’ve just been on duty for a long time. Anyway, about the computer. It’s part of the evidence from the crime scene. We took it from the bookstore to see if it might help us find out who would want to kill Frank.”

  “You hacked into his computer?” I asked.

  “We would have if we’d needed to, but as it turned out he didn’t even have it password protected.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like Frank.”

  “He seems to have used his email just for business purposes. We haven’t found a personal email account. Someone may have stolen his home computer because we can’t find one. And we can’t find a cell phone.”

  “He didn’t have one,” I said. “Either one. He didn’t like technology. He only used that computer for work because it’s nearly impossible to run any kind of business without it.”

  The detective groaned.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “My job just became a lot more difficult. It’s harder to find information about people who are more or less off the grid. If we have a cell phone to look at, we can see who they called and who called them immediately, without getting records from the phone company. We can see where they went, what kind of alerts were set up on their phones, who they took pictures of, what kinds of apps they had—all kinds of stuff.”

  “I see. I don’t think there will be anything like that with Frank.”

  “No. Well, we need to look at the emails that we do have to see if there is anything there that might be a possible motive for murder. Most of them seem to be business enquiries about buying or selling books. We found a few that weren’t, and we actually printed one out that we want to ask you about, but we thought it might be a good idea if you scrolled through the last few weeks’ worth of emails, just to see if there was anything that jumped out at you.”

  I was given a seat at the computer, and I dutifully looked at every email for the past two months. It didn’t take too long. Frank’s inbox was completely given over to the business—unlike my email that fills up with those cheery weekly notifications from companies that I once bought something from or social media platforms who want to alert me every time a contact of mine does anything. I recognized most of the names as buyers who regularly ordered books from the store or suppliers that send us books. Even the ones that didn’t look familiar turned out to be routine communications.

  “I don’t see anything unusual at all,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Could you also look at the ‘sent’ folder?”

  “All right.” I opened it and started reading emails. “This is unusual,” I said, pointing to one. “I didn’t know Frank was in communication with this man.”

  Detective Mason looked over my shoulder. “Yes, we wondered if that was unusual. It’s the one that we printed out for you.”

  The email was to G. Weatherill and read,

  Dear Dr. Weatherill,

  I have come by some evidence that a document that you authenticated is, in fact, a forgery. I have not yet told anyone of this, as I am not certain who should be told. The evidence I have shows that it was very cleverly done, and I’m sure no blame can attach to you in thinking it was above board. I would appreciate if you would communicate with me and tell me if the police ought to be the first ones to know, or the owner, or if you yourself would like to look into it and perhaps re-assess the document. All is safe for now, and I will await further instructions before I take any more steps.

  Sincerely,

  Frank Delaney

  “He didn’t tell you anything about this?”

  “Not about finding evidence. He did ask me about forgeries last week…” I looked at the date of the email. “Yes, it was the day he sent the email. He asked me how you would recognize a forgery. I asked if he had bought a book he thought was a forgery and he said no, but he didn’t say anything more than that. I suppose it would make sense for him to contact Professor Weatherill if he thought there might be a problem.”

  “Do you know Dr. Weatherill?”

  “Not well. He was a professor of mine when I was a college student, but he’s well known all over the country—one of the top experts for authenticating manuscripts that turn up. I know he works with Sotheby’s and other auction houses. He’s done work for the Smithsonian, too. I’m not surprised he hasn’t responded to the email.”

  “Which college does he teach at?”

  “I don’t know anymore. He was teaching at UCSC when I was there, but he left before I graduated and I haven’t kept track of where he went.”

  “UCSC—that’s in California, right?”

  “Yes, University of California, Santa Clarita. But as I said, he could be anywhere now. I’m sure he’d be easy to find—he’s quite famous.”

  “Thank you, that’s very helpful. Are there any other sent emails that are unusual?”

  I continued scanning. “Not really. Most of them are replies to emails sent by other people. There are a few that originated with Frank, but they are all to people he normally did business with. If he had wanted to communicate with someone about a private or sensitive matter, he would have written a paper letter and sent it through the post office.”

  “Why do you think he didn’t do that with Dr. Weatherill?”

  “He probably couldn’t find a physical address for him. Frank wasn’t the best researcher.”

  “Thank you. I have a few more questions for you—we can sit down over here at the other end of the table, away from the computer. Now, we found this handwritten note at the crime scene. It was in the trash can. We wondered if you knew anything about it, or maybe recognized the handwriting.”

  He handed me a note that had been crumpled and then smoothed out. It read,

  “Mr. Delaney,

  We know the deed you have for your building is a forgery. If you sell the building to us, this never has to come to light. Call me at your earliest convenience.”

  K

  “Wow,” I said. “Is that the forgery Frank was talking about?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Detective Mason.

  “And wouldn’t that be illegal? I mean, if you buy something that doesn’t really belong to the other person, isn’t that compounding a felony?”

  “Not exactly, especially if it was an ancestor of the person who sold it that committed the fraud. The statute of limitations would have run out decades ago. However, you could still be sued by the people who truly owned the property and have to give it back. Do you recognize the handwriting?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Do you know anything about the ownership of the building? Did Frank ever say anything to you about the ownership of the building?”

  I tried to think back to the conversations I’d had with Frank. “He wasn’t one to chat about his personal life, even if you asked him questions. I remember once I asked him if he had started the bookstore, because it seemed such an unlikely thing for him to do. He wasn’t much of a reader and didn’t even know that much about literature or old books. He said that his grandfather had bought the building and used it as some kind of store. A hardware store, maybe? I know he said his father had it as a hardware store, but I don’t know if it started off that way. It was Frank who turned it into a books
tore, but I’ve never found out why.”

  “I know you said the college wanted to buy the bookstore, but had you heard of anyone else wanting to buy it?”

  “No, never, but it is in a good location, and it’s possible there was someone else who wanted it. Frank certainly didn’t tell me everything.”

  There was silence for a minute as he wrote down what I’d said. “I’d also like to ask you about your student, Matt Wilkes. Do you know him well?”

  “No, not really. This is the first class of mine that he’s taken. He seems to be a good student—hard-working and conscientious.”

  “Did he ever say anything or write anything that you know of which would make you think he was prone to violence?”

  “No, not that I can think of.”

  “All right, I have one other thing to ask you about. If you could wait here for a minute, please.” He left the room and was back in less than a minute, carrying a book. He put it in front of me. “Do recognize this?”

  “Yes, that’s the diary of Matthew Wilkes.”

  “The one your student said he wanted to buy from Mr. Delaney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. I think there are no further questions at this time. You have been extremely helpful.”

  I sighed. “I don’t feel like I have been helpful. I don’t seem to know much of anything you’ve asked about.”

  He looked at me again and smiled. He really had a charming smile. I wondered if he used charm on suspects to get them to talk.

  “Don’t worry about it, Miss Peters. You couldn’t possibly have known the answers to most of my questions, and the ones you did know saved us a lot of time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Would you mind if I asked you a question? I’ve been wondering about something.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “I was wondering about how loud the gunshot was. Why didn’t he use a silencer? And why didn’t anyone outside hear the shot?”

  The detective leaned back in his chair. “He probably did use a silencer, or suppressor as they’re also called. I know in movies it makes the gun actually silent, but in real life even guns with silencers are pretty loud.”