Free A Function of Murder by Ada Madison Page A

Graves’s weekend, in case it would help Virgil.
     I’d seen the mayor in the hallway at the Zeeman Academy around two in the afternoon
     on Friday, then he’d stopped in at the eighth graders’ farewell party at three thirty.
    On Saturday, there had been a small reception before commencement exercises, starting
     at one o’clock, for invited guests and department chairs, in the college president’s
     conference room. The mayor and his wife attended, along with members of the town council
     and school superintendent Patrick Collins. What I knew now was that before the reception,
     the mayor had called me. What I didn’t know was
why
. Why me, and what was wrong at Zeeman Academy?
    I couldn’t remember anything unusual about the president’s gathering. No outbursts,
     no smashed china that I was aware of. The volatile Chris Sizemore and her brother
     hadskipped the reception, and the rest of the faculty were well behaved, as were all
     of the council members.
    One thing I recalled was a brief, but typical, show of animosity between the mayor
     and Superintendent Collins, who seemed to have imbibed a little too much of President
     Aldridge’s punch. The two men were off in a corner, and no one except someone like
     me, who was bored by cocktail talk, would have noticed their confrontational tones
     and body language. After a minute or so, the two men reentered the main reception
     area, smiling like old friends. I’d always marveled at how politicians could do that—play
     golf together and pal around, or seem to, even in a cutthroat campaign or after a
     heated debate.
    I questioned whether, in the light of events today, I should tell Virgil about the
     incident. I wished I had a guidebook. Was it worse to withhold something with only
     a small chance of being important to the investigation, or to implicate a perfectly
     innocent public servant like the superintendent of our schools? What if the argument
     was over a baseball play or the merits of a local restaurant?
    At the end of the reception, the mayor had donned the rented robes we’d provided and
     joined the procession onto the stage with the faculty and staff. He gave his speech,
     then took his wife and left at three fifteen.
    The next thing I was sure of was that he’d stumbled toward Bruce and me, with the
     silver blade of a letter opener in his back, just after the enormous tower clock struck
     ten fifteen on Saturday night.
    Whatever he’d done in the seven hours in between had cost him his life. Or so it seemed.
    As gory as the end of the timeline was, putting things in order worked its magic and
     I was finally able to sleep, this year’s commencement day almost put to rest.

I woke up disoriented, as if I were lying in the middle of a puzzle that had me stumped.
     Not an anagram, or a crossword, or a brainteaser, any of which I’d have a chance of
     solving. This was more of a rebus that I couldn’t figure out, with cartoon drawings
     of sharp objects and grass and rolled-up diplomas interspersed with mathematical symbols.
    I pulled myself together with French press coffee and a banana.
    I’d expected to work while waiting for Virgil to call, but discovered I didn’t have
     my briefcase at home. The pre-man-in-the-fountain plan had been for Bruce and me to
     go to my office after our late-night ice cream stroll and collect my briefcase and
     robes. Instead, Bruce had gone off in an ambulance with the town’s highest-ranking
     official and I’d driven straight home alone in his car.
    I dreaded going back to the crime scene so soon, even on a sunny day like today. It
     would be a while before thelovely spray of water at the heart of the campus would have its charm restored in
     my mind. But there was a limit to the number of hours I could survive without my briefcase.
     I’d reconsider later in the day.
    I pulled out my clipboard, which always had an unfinished puzzle on it, one that I
     was either creating or solving. This one was due to