Free The Quotient of Murder (Professor Sophie Knowles) by Ada Madison Page B

years, a generation in academic terms—“it became less and less newsworthy. The construction for the new carillon program is bringing it all back for some old-timers, I guess. Is that how you heard?”
    I gritted my teeth and renewed my decision not to ask Fran why she hadn’t thought of mentioning this during our fifteen years together, or even in the last months during the new construction.
    “It came up with Ted and Judy yesterday.”
    “Ah, Ted. He took it pretty hard.”
    I sprang to attention. “What do you mean? How was Ted affected?”
    “He was very close to Kirsten.”
    “The roommate connection,” I offered, remembering that Kirsten’s roommate had been one of Ted’s physics majors.
    “Right,” Fran said. “Ted and Kirsten’s father, Vincent Packard, were roommates in college. I think Ted was Kirsten’s godfather, in fact.”
    Whoa.
I paused to absorb the little detail Ted had neglected to mention. He’d said he hardly knew Kirsten, and certainly never mentioned a connection with her prominent father. Better not to distract Fran with that omission now, though. I had more to learn.
    “Do you remember hearing anything controversial about Kirsten’s death?”
    “That someone might have been up there with her. Pushed her, you mean?”
    That’s what I mean.
“Or that it was an accident?” I said, to soften my query. “Any talk that there was a cover-up of some kind?”
    “There’s always talk when something like that happens, especially when a prominent family’s involved. The most sensational stories likened Kirsten’s plight to Patty Hearst’s.”
    I had to think back. “The nineteen seventies kidnapping?” I asked.
    I was in kindergarten or first grade when the newspaper heiress’s abduction and eventual conviction for bank robbery made international headlines. I’d seen documentaries since, and I was at a loss to see the connection with Kirsten Packard, except that they both belonged to wealthy families in the public eye.
    “It was just a few blips in some tabloids,” Fran said. “Not enough to last too long. The story was that the privileged Kirsten had hooked up with some bad guys and, like Patty Hearst, got involved in a couple of bank robberies. Maybe she was forced into it, like Patty was by her captors, maybe not. Remember—well, you wouldn’t remember—when Hearst was kidnapped, she was a nineteen-year-old college student.”
    “Like Kirsten.”
    “Like Kirsten,” Fran echoed.
    I hadn’t seen any reference to the Hearst case, nor any suggestions of wrongdoing on Kirsten’s part in the links I’d explored. But then, I hadn’t gotten around to the tabloids. “Did anything ever come of those rumors?”
    “Nothing. They were very short-lived, as they would be with the Commonwealth’s attorney general stepping in. Packard was in the AG’s office at the time. Not that I think the rumors were true in the first place, but you never know, do you? By the way, why all the interest?”
    Blame it on the poor international connection that I didn’t answer, but instead asked another question.
    “I know it was a while ago, Fran, but do you happen to remember if Kirsten was a carillonist? Is that why she was up in the tower that morning?”
    “Hmm. I’m trying to recall. I never paid much attention to the music program back then, and Kirsten wasn’t a Franklin Hall major, so I can’t say.”
    “She majored in romance languages, I think,” I said, trying to trigger more memories.
    “That sounds right.” Fran paused. Too long for a simple breath or a sip of water. Uh-oh, she was putting it together. “Wait a minute, Sophie. You’re thinking there’s a connection between Kirsten Packard’s death and what happened to Jenn Marshall?”
    “Why would you think that?” My voice came out higher than usual.
    “Uh—because I know how your mind works?”
    “Never mind.” I didn’t need Fran to tell me how foolish—out of character, I liked to think—I was being. How