My purse started a muffled “Mexican Hat Dance,” and I grabbed my cell with more enthusiasm than I liked to display. Black was slated to give me a call tonight, and I knew it was him before I heard the familiar, deep voice.
“Miss me, Morgan?”
My heart did a little quickstep jig, which I instantly berated as silly sentiment. “You mean you've been gone?”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Just kidding. Sure, I do. Nobody's around to build additions on my house and fetch me gourmet grub.”
Harve laughed, and then made wriggling spider motions with his fingers and pointed to his computer out in the attached sunroom. Always the gentleman, Harve was giving me some privacy.
Black said, “Everything okay with you?”
“Yeah. I'm at Harve's house. We're having dinner, then we're putting up his Christmas tree.”
“Wish I was there to help.”
“Yeah, that'd be nice.” For the first time, I really, and I mean
really
, missed him, but I couldn't say that without feeling ultravulnerable and thus, stupid, so I said, “I hear music in the background. Where are you?”
“I'm having dinner at the Crazy Horse Saloon.”
“Really? Must be a late one. Isn't that the place you told me had all the nude dancers?”
Black gave a low laugh. “They're not completely nude. The guy who owns this place is an old friend. I treated one of his dancers once, so it's sort of a tradition to have dinner with him my first night in town.”
“Uh-huh. Sounds like you're having a good time.” And it sounded like I didn't like it, which made me sound like a real sap.
“Well, I've been at the clinic until now. The patient's begun to have flashbacks that make everybody a little nervous.”
“What kind of flashbacks?”
“Scenes of bloody murder, actually.”
“No joke?”
“No joke. The trick is determining if they're dreams or the real thing.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It is. What about you? The director called me today about Classon's death. He called everyone on the advisory board.”
“Yeah, I know. He kept us waiting while you talked. I hope you didn't happen to mention that I discussed the case with you.”
“You know better than that. He said Classon hanged himself.”
“Not exactly. Get this. We found Classon hanging from a tree limb bound up in a sleeping bag full of poisonous spiders.”
There was a momentary silence at the other end. I listened to the snappy music in the background and wondered what the dancers had on, probably not much more than a few colored spotlights. Maybe that's what I should do for a living instead of attending autopsies and cutting half-dead bodies down from limbs.
“You're not joking, are you?”
“Nope. It's pretty brutal.”
“Any leads?”
“Everybody I've met so far hated the man's guts, so we have our work cut out for us.”
“The director told me they're going to include a special memorial service for Simon at their fund-raising gala on New Year's Eve. He'd called to see if I would be attending.”
“Okay.”
“I miss you.”
I looked to see if Harve could hear me. He was hunched over his computer. I lowered my voice, just in case. “I miss you, too.” Actually I hadn't had much time to miss him yet but I figured that would kick in once I got in the big, king-size bed he got for me and started worrying about spiders hiding out under the black satin sheets.
“That's good to hear.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I'm aiming for the 23rd but I can't pinpoint it.” He paused. “Have any plans for Christmas Eve?”
“I'll probably be working.”
“Just so you're home before midnight. I want us to spend Christmas Day together.”
“That sounds good.” Actually, it did sound good to me. The background music was getting raunchier, with lots of male laughter and applause, and I tried not to envision who was doing what up on that stage.
“Had brunch on the Eiffel Tower yet?”
“Wouldn't be any fun without you to wow.”
“Well, figure out if your patient's Jack the Ripper, then jet back home. We could use your thoughts on this one. Somebody really, and I mean
really
, hated Classon's guts to subject him to torture like this.”
“Are there other victims?”
“Not yet. This looks very personal to me. I mean, Black, the perp made sure Classon suffered in a big way. The vic was in that bag with the spiders at least two days, probably longer, considering the size and degree of the wounds.”
“My God. That's vicious. I've never heard anything like it before.”
“Yes, sir. It's bizarre, all right.”
“Any gut instincts?”
“Not yet. I think it's probably somebody from that weird school of yours. By the way, I think the director is a real jerk. Am I wrong?”
“I don't know him that well. Our relationship's strictly professional. I don't attend the meetings but I've been to their major fund-raiser a couple of times. He's eccentric, I guess, or he wouldn't be running that kind of school. I understand they do some good work with the kids out there.”
“Do you know they teach paganism to their little charges? With discussions on devil worshipping, and other evil doings?”
“What?”
“That's right. Bud and I thought it sounded a bit off center, too.”
“First I've heard of that. I guess you're checking that roster.”
“Oh yeah, tomorrow, first thing.”
“Hold on.” Black muffled the phone and I heard him talking to somebody in rapid French. Flawless, too, I might add. The only thing I understood was
merci
.
“They're serving dinner now. Guess I need to go.” He hesitated. “Keep my side of the bed warm.”
“Sure. Same back to you, Black.”
He laughed, and then he hesitated again, longer this time. I listened to the snappy music until he finally came out with it. “Listen, Claire, if you have one of those bad dreams, remember how we do it, just take deep breaths and keep the light on.”
I hadn't had the nightmare in a while but maybe that was because Black was usually in bed with me, and we both had loaded guns under our pillows. He had moved into therapist mode, however, so I played along. “Quit worrying about me. I slept alone most of my life. It's not going to kill me.”
“That's right, but it's killing me.”
I had to smile. He had definitely said the right thing. “You'll live until we meet again. Watch those naked dancers and think of me.”
“I don't have to watch anybody to think of you, and they're not completely naked. Look, I'll call you tomorrow and see what you find out about the devil worshippers. Maybe there's a chapter in my new book about this. Remember, duck and weave and check your bed for spiders.”
We said our good-byes, but his last remark lingered. I wasn't particularly looking forward to slipping between those soft satin sheets by my lonesome, but I'd definitely heed his advice about unwanted eight-legged bed partners. Okay, so I was definitely spooked. But who could blame me?
ELEVEN
By eight thirty the next morning Bud and I were back at the academy ready to wrap up our interviews. The snow had dwindled down to mere spitting during the night, an evening I spent enjoying the new toys Black had given me, but alone, and thankfully without a single brown recluse in sight. They were all probably frozen for the winter, if spiders freeze, which made me wonder where the hell the perp had gotten so many lively, venomous spiders to kill with. I do hope Harve comes up with some good background stuff on the life and times of arachnids.
We avoided White Building and its resident Jesus impersonator and made our way down to Red Building, which I suppose would be the appropriate place to study Lucifer and other hellish subjects. The sun was out, the sky a brilliant blue that tempered the windchill some but still brought out the blush in my cheeks. In Bud's, too. Lots of kids were out building snowmen and pelting snowballs at each other, like regular teens with regular intelligence instead of mad geniuses.
Inside Red Building a skinny black-haired girl wearing faded jeans and a red Santa Claus sweatshirt was sitting in the stairwell sketching the distant forested hills. She looked about thirteen. Bud asked her where we could find Stuart Rowland, Devil Instructor. She laughed and pointed down the hall. “He's at the far end. The office with the crossed pitchforks and flames coming out the door.”
So now the kids were comedic geniuses. We walked down the tomato-red hall, looking for fire. Instead, we found Rowland sitting behind a black desk in an office that looked a lot like Classon's except it was a cheerful shade of scarlet. He was a small man, probably late thirties, dressed in a gray cardigan sweater with an open-necked green shirt and blue jeans. He had on snow boots and wore round tortoiseshell glasses that made him look scholarly. He had shaggy dark hair and looked like the kind of teacher female students would flirt with.
“Stuart Rowland?”
He glanced up from the Dell laptop computer he was typing on. He immediately looked wary, slapped down the lid of his laptop, and jumped to his feet. “You're from the sheriff's office, aren't you?”
He probably guessed that by the big yellow letters spelling out
SHERIFF
on the back of our parkas and the badges hanging around our necks. “That's right. I'm Detective Morgan and this is Detective Davis.”
“Oh yes, I've heard all about you. Both of you.”
I guess he didn't want Bud to feel left out. “Is that right?”
“Oh, yes. You wouldn't believe the rumors flying around campus. I guess you've deduced I killed Simon because of this class I teach, right? Well, you're barking up the wrong tree, I can tell you that.”
Bud looked at me. “Well, Morgan, I guess that answers all of our questions. Guess we can shut down the case and blow this place.”
Bud and his razor wit. “We're not accusing you of anything, Mr. Rowland. We're just interviewing Mr. Classon's colleagues here at the academy.”
“I understand that, of course. I just want you to know right off the cuff that I'm not involved in any way, form, or fashion in what happened to
that man
.”
That man.
With a definite disgusted ring. “Might we sit down, sir? Have a little chat?”
Rowland looked around, nervous as the proverbial feline, maybe more so, then he put one finger to his lips and gave us some interesting hand signals. Clearly, he thought his office was bugged. Uh-oh. Shades of paranoia, maybe with a little schizophrenia thrown in. Bud and I watched Rowland quickly bundle his small frame into a tan James Bond belted overcoat and a sissy pink-and-orange-paisley fringed scarf. Academia cool. He motioned us to follow, and we did, outside the nearest exit to a small patio with round wrought-iron tables covered by a good foot of snow. Nobody else in sight. Wonder why?
“Is there a reason you wanted us to interview you out here, Mr. Rowland?”
“Because, detective, my office is bugged by the director. He'll deny it, of course, but hidden cameras are everywhere. Hidden microphones, too. This place is not what it appears on the surface.”
Boy, tell me about it. “Why do you say that, Mr. Rowland?”
“Because I've worked here long enough to know that if you don't play the director's game, and, yes, Classon's, too, you get canned. They rule this place like two kings and they squash people that stand up to them like ants under their thumbs.”
“How long have you worked here?”
Rowland gave a snort. “Too long. I've got my résumé out everywhere. I want to leave. Anybody with an ounce of integrity has already gotten out of here.”
“I see. What can you tell us about Simon Classon?”
To our surprise he began to hum the Wicked Witch song from
The Wizard of Oz.
Rowland said, “Know what that is? Classon's theme song. Everybody hums it under their breath when they see him coming. Perfect, isn't it, for a bastard like him? Prissy little shit.”
He shook a cigarette out of a pack of Camels and kept glancing around. Paranoia Man.
Bud said, “So you didn't much care for the victim?”
“I'm telling you that Simon Classon was the worst human being who ever set foot on this earth. He demeaned everybody he ever met, that's all he did, all day long, demean other people, tear them down, and you know why? So he could build himself up. Talk about insecure, that man was threatened by anybody nice or good-looking or happy, yeah, especially happy. He couldn't stand anybody to be happy. If he couldn't be happy, nobody better be. Forget the smiles, the good mornings, forget anything but kissing his ass.”
So there you go.
A big fan of Butch Cassidy, Bud said, “Quit sugarcoating it, Rowland. Tell us like it is.”
“Sorry, but I get so pissed off just thinking about Classon. Yeah, I'll say it, sure I will. I'm glad that bastard is dead. I wish I could have hung him up in that tree and watched him strangle in that noose. It would've made my day, hell, it would've made my year, my life, for God's sake.”
Bud glanced at me, then said, “Okay sir, let's try to take it down a notch. I mean, all this is making you sound guilty.”
“I know that, detective.” Sarcasm. “I'm just being honest. I was honest with Simon. He knew I hated his guts. That's why he saddled me with that asinine paganism class.”
“He suggested the class?”
“Suggested?” Rowland laughed, as contemptuous a sound as I've ever heard. “He didn't suggest shit. He ran this place. Johnstone's nothing but a figurehead here, a pawn, not smart enough to know he's Classon's puppet. Simon used Johnstone's vanity and played him like a freakin' fiddle.”
Well, now, a man who likes his similes can't be all bad. “You believe that Mr. Classon ran this school?”
“Oh, yeah. Ask around, but everybody here's so damned scared, they probably think he'll come back from the dead and get them fired.”
Bud said, “Mr. Rowland, man, you gotta chill before you have a stroke or somethin'.”
“What do you mean? This's the happiest I've been in the six years I've worked at this hellhole.”
“Okay. Really, we've got to calm down now. There's no need to get your back up so hard.” The words were hardly out when I cringed, expecting Bud to explain the derivation. I was not disappointed. Maybe he was only trying to get Rowland's mind off Classon and onto something else.
He said, “Rowland, you know where they got that saying about getting your back up?”
“What?”
“It goes way back to the Dark Ages and refers to the way cats arch up their backs and strut around on their toes.”
Rowland scowled, blew out smoke. “So?”
“Just thought it was interesting.”
Rowland looked at me, obviously confused. I shrugged. “Bud's got this book I gave him on phrase origins. It annoys me, too.”
Rowland did not look remotely impressed, but he'd stopped spewing hatred, too. We remained silent as he pulled out a red Bic lighter, to match his office, I guess. He lit up and puffed like a crazed adder for several seconds.
“All right, all right. Sorry I went off on you guys. I just have all this anger built up inside, rage, really, at what goes on around here. The only redeeming element in this school are the students, and hell, they'd be better off somewhere else, anywhere else. This place sucks all the positive energy out of people, makes them bitter and angry and frustrated.”
“We're beginning to notice that,” I said.
“Good.” More puffing, interrupted at one point by a fit of congested hacking. Smoking sucks. People ought to wise up.
I stepped out of the shade hugging the wall and into the blinding sun where the temperature wasn't ten below zero. “It's good you've calmed down, sir, because we need to ask some questions. Don't freak out, please, but where were you on the night of December 16?”
“That was Wednesday night, right? I usually have dinner alone at home. Sometimes my neighbors see me getting my newspaper at the curb, though. Sometimes they don't. I'm not a social man. I can't help that. I've never been.”
Bud looked at me, and I said, “And that's what happened on Wednesday? No one saw you or spoke to you?”
“Wait, that was the night I slid my Mustang into the ditch.” He acted relieved. I could understand why. “I stayed here at my office on the futon. It's rare for me to work late. I sure as hell don't owe any loyalty to this hellhole.” He drew in on the Camel and the tip glowed red. “You know what that bastard Classon called me once over the phone, detective? A brat. Can you believe that? A grown man! I have a master's degree, for God's sake. I'm retired military and served my country honorably, and that asshole called me a brat. But hell, that's his MO, he calls people terrible things, and everybody has to put up with it because he controls that idiot, Johnstone, in his stupid white suit and sandals.”
I could see now why Rowland wanted to talk to us outside. The insults he was spitting out were pretty provocative.
“He really call you a brat, no kiddin'?” Bud said. “I wouldn't've liked that kinda crap, either.”
“Yeah, and that's mild to what he usually called me.”
Bud's brow was all furrowed and sympathetic and seemed to soothe Rowland's ruffled feathers. “Tell you what, detectives, I'm sorry if I'm coming off like a jerk, but you know how it is, sometimes the truth's got to come out. People around the lake need to know what goes on out here. Man, the morons that run the place need to be exposed for what they are, and then fired.”
Right, and maybe Rowland was just the one to do it, starting with Simon Classon. I said, “Yes, sir. I understand how you must feel. Tell me, did you kill Simon Classon, Mr. Rowland?”
Rowland gazed at me, apparently shocked. He blinked once and came out with a long, put-upon sigh. “Oh yeah, I'm glad you asked that. Yep, you got me cold. I did it. Couldn't stand him being around me any more so I hung him out in the woods, then slid my car in the ditch so I'd be a prime suspect.”
“Is that a confession, sir?”
He stared hard at Bud then shook his head. “Are you kidding me? No, of course, I didn't kill Classon. I was being sarcastic, ever heard of that?”
Oh yeah, we've heard of it. And to think I thought
we
were good at it. “I wouldn't be quite so cavalier with your police statements, Mr. Rowland. Somebody, like us, maybe, might believe you and take you in for murder one.”
He sobered instantly. My threat was empty at this point, but Rowland didn't know that. “Now, if I were you, Rowland, I'd find somebody to verify your whereabouts for the last few nights. Especially the night of December 16. Okay?”
He frowned, stared across the quadrangle at Building White for a moment. “Okay. I just remembered that on the night I stayed here on campus, a custodian stuck his head in and asked me what I was doing.”
“And this custodian's name?”
“Willie Vines. Yeah, you better check him out, too. He's a weird duck, if I ever saw one. And that girl he hung with, too. Wilma. She took my class and was into all kind of weird shit, showed me this devil holding a pitchfork tattoo on her ankle. I liked her, though, but Classon didn't. He didn't like any custodians. In fact, rumor had it he accused Willie Vines of dealing dope to the students. Just FYI, you know.”
Bud perked up. “You got any firsthand proof of that, Mr. Rowland?”
“I don't use, if that's what you're asking.”
“That's what I'm askin', all right.”
“I'm not into that shit, but lots of people around here are. Have to be, to keep showing up for work.”
“Want to name a few of them for us?”
“No.”
We waited a few seconds for him to change his mind. He didn't.
I said, “All right. I guess that's it for now, Mr. Rowland. But a word of advice. Get a grip on your temper. It doesn't look good for you to lose control like you did today. It could even make us consider that you might lose control if you get angry enough, you know, and hurt somebody, even kill them.”
“I didn't kill Classon or anybody else. But I hated Simon, and I mean
loathed
him. You would've, too, if you'd known him when he was alive.”
“Thank you for your time, sir.” Bud paused at the door. “And you know, don't you, that there are people you can hire to debug your office? Might think about it.”
“This place is so full of psychos, we're trippin' over them,” Bud said as we took leave of our newest and bestest suspect.