Murder is an Art (23 page)

Jack rattled the door, a little more loudly than was necessary.

There was no answering sound from inside the shop, other than a faint echo of the rattling noise.

“Nobody home,” Jack said aloud to no one in particular.

He supposed that he could force the door again, go inside, and have a look around. He might even have done it if he'd had a flashlight. But he didn't have a flashlight, and he didn't know where the light switch was.

So he started back to the car.

He'd gone about ten feet when the dog barked.

38

It wasn't a loud bark, just a low, soft woofing sound, but it was definitely made by a dog—a dog that hadn't been in the building the day before and that had no business being in there now.

Oh, sure, there was a minute possibility that the police could have left a guard dog there to look out for things. Jack wondered just how minute the possibility was. He decided that it was about as minute as his chance of picking the winning numbers in Lotto Texas.

It was considerably more likely, about ninety-nine-point-nine percent more, that the dog was the one Estelle had told them about, the mean one that belonged to Ralph Thompson.

And if the dog was there, it was quite possible that Thompson was there, too, lurking in the darkness.

Now why doesn't this make me happy?
Jack thought. This was his big chance to impress Sally Good, and he ought to have been elated with the opportunity.

He was standing right beside the sliding door. All he had to do was pull it aside and go into the store. He'd done it before, and this time, if he got lucky, he might find Ralph Thompson, capture him, and end up a hero.

Or he might be killed by a vicious dog, if Thompson didn't beat him to a pulp first.

Jack decided that he didn't want to take a chance on either of those possibilities. Being a hero was more trouble than it was worth. It was time to use the cell phone.

And that's exactly what he would have done if the door hadn't slid smoothly open, if Ralph Thompson hadn't been standing there, and if the dog hadn't jumped Jack.

Sally tried to claim later that, technically speaking, the dog hadn't jumped him at all, at least not at first. There had been a lot of barking, snapping, gnashing, and maybe even a little nipping, but no jumping.

In the heat of the moment, it didn't matter. The dog, which looked to Jack like a cross between a Siberian husky and a polar bear, was in furious motion all around Jack's legs, his bark echoing off the metal sides of the building, his teeth chomping at Jack's ankles.

So it wasn't surprising that Jack fell down.

When he did, the dog stopped barking and sat on Jack's chest, his pink tongue lapping at Jack's face. Jack put up an arm to fend off the tongue, but it didn't do much good. He was getting a soaking.

Estelle was yelling something that Jack couldn't make out, and Ralph Thompson used the confusion to make a break for it.

Jack rolled to his left, out from under the dog, and stood up. He was almost trampled by Sally, who was running in his direction with both hands extended in front of her.

He couldn't see what she was holding, but he heard her plainly when she yelled, “Freeze, sucker!”

Jack crouched down and put his hands over his ears, expecting to hear the sound of gunshots. The dog, apparently not expecting anything at all, walked over and started licking Jack's face again. The only sound Jack could hear was Estelle, not gunshots.

Jack shoved the dog aside and looked up. Sally stood beside him in a classic shooter's stance, and about fifteen yards away Ralph Thompson stood frozen in place. He looked as if he wanted to take another step but was afraid of what might happen if he did.

Jack stood up. “Did you call 911?”

“Yes,” Sally said. “And Estelle has probably aroused the entire neighborhood with her screaming. We should have plenty of help here soon.”

The dog licked Jack's hand.

“This is the friendliest dog I've ever seen,” Jack said, moving his hand. “I think he barked because he wanted to play, not because he wanted to warn anybody that we were here or because he wanted to attack us.”

“I don't know about that,” Sally said.

All her attention was concentrated on Thompson. Jack wasn't even sure she'd actually heard what he said.

“Should I go down there and try to do anything?” he asked.

“Don't get close to him. He might try to get the better of you and use you as a hostage. We don't want that.”

“No,” Jack said. “We don't want that.”

“Why don't you put the dog inside? That way, he won't bother the police. Then go see if Coy and Estelle are okay.”

Jack did as he was told. After all, Sally was his division chair. Besides, she had a gun.

Putting the dog inside the building was no problem. The dog was only too glad to follow Jack, but it looked sad when he slipped back out and slid the door shut.

When Jack got to the street, Estelle had stopped yelling. She was talking to Coy, who was still sitting on the back floor of the car.

“I can tell you, they won't be here in less than fifteen minutes,” Estelle said. “I called them once about a prowler, and it took them fifteen minutes to get to my house.”

“They'll be here,” Coy said. “They'll drop everything. Thompson's a killer, after all.”

“I hope they get here soon,” Jack said. “I don't know how long Sally can hold that gun on Thompson before he makes a break.”

“Gun?” Coy said. “What gun?”

“The one Sally got out of the trunk,” Jack said.

“I don't know you very well, Jack,” Estelle said, “so I hope you won't mind my saying that you must be losing it.”

“Yeah,” Coy agreed. “We don't know anything about any gun.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“I mean that Sally doesn't have a gun,” Coy said. “She didn't take anything out of the trunk.”

“Then what's she holding?”

“Oh,” Coy said. “That's her cell phone.”

Jack felt the bottom of his stomach drop down to his knees. He turned toward Sally, though he didn't really have any clear idea of how to help her. He had taken only one step when he heard sirens.

“Two minutes,” Coy said. “Tops.”

Estelle snorted. “Well, I guess they think more of you youngsters than they do of a helpless old woman with a prowler running loose in her backyard.”

“Did they catch him?” Coy asked.

“No, they did not. He got clean away. By the time they got there, he was probably in Kentucky.”

The police car squealed to a stop near Sally's Acura, and one beefy officer got out. Before he had time to ask what the situation was, his backup arrived. Both officers looked questioningly at Jack and Estelle.

“That's Ralph Thompson back there in the dark,” Jack said. “Dr. Good's holding him for you.”

The officers nodded, drew their sidearms, and began walking toward Sally.

“We're the police,” one of them said. “We have everything under control. You can put down the gun, Dr. Good.”

Sally bent over and put down the cell phone, and one of the officers stopped to pick it up while the other walked past her toward Thompson.

Jack wished he could have seen the expression of the officer who'd picked up the phone, but the man was facing in the wrong direction.

Sally came back to the car.

“Ever get the drop on anyone with a cell phone before?” Jack asked.

Sally smiled. “You didn't think I'd use my pistol, did you? Someone might get hurt that way.”

“What would you have done if Thompson had just kept on running?”

“Ordered a pizza, maybe. Anyway, he didn't run. For all he knew, I really did have a gun. He was more afraid of us than we were of him.”

Jack looked into the car where Coy was now sitting in the backseat.

“Some of us were afraid of him,” Jack said.

“Not me,” Coy said. “I was just being prudent.”

Jack might have questioned that, but just about then, Detective Weems drove up.

“It's going to be a long night,” Jack said.

Sally just nodded.

39

It wasn't such a long night after all. Weems was eager to get his prisoner to the station, so he didn't bother to question anyone else too closely. And he obviously wanted to get rid of Estelle, who kept asking him why the response time had been so poor when she had called about her prowler.

Sally dropped Jack and Coy off at Jack's car and then drove home, where Lola hissed at her until Sally fed her a kitty treat. After scarfing down the snack, Lola consented to let Sally rub her head, but not for long. After a few seconds, she went off and hid as usual.

Sally didn't mind. She took a long hot shower and thought about all that had happened. After she had gone to bed, she lay awake, going over the events of the last few days in her head.

It seemed obvious now that Ralph Thompson was guilty. In a way, she was glad, because that meant that Jorge was innocent. She really hadn't wanted to think of him as a killer.

Of course, if the rumors were true, he
was
a killer, but that was different. Or so Sally told herself. And even if it wasn't different, Jorge was completely rehabilitated. That was clear to her.

She knew that she should have been happy with the way things had worked out. Jorge, and for that matter the entire college staff, was innocent of Val's death, and Sally had even helped catch the fugitive that the police had been looking for.

She'd also made a new friend in Jack Neville, and she wondered just what the friendship might lead to. Jack was a little strange, but he was also very nice, and he was good to have around in a tight spot. Maybe he wasn't as macho as Jorge, but he wasn't as fainthearted as Coy, either.

She turned over in the bed, and Lola hissed beneath her. Sally hissed back, and went to sleep.

*   *   *

During the next few days, things fell back into their customary routine. Sally graded papers, taught her classes, and did all the things that division chairs had to do: she worked with schedules, advised students, filled out surveys, attended committee meetings, answered phone calls, fiddled with the budget, and signed purchase orders.

The worst problems Sally had to deal with were the usual complaints from students about teachers who, the students were convinced, were grading too harshly, singling them out for criticism, or penalizing them unfairly just because they'd missed class once. Well, okay, maybe twice. Well, okay, for the last three weeks, but they were willing to make up the work they'd missed. Well, most of it. Well, some of it, but only if there was still a chance of making an A in the course.

Sally always listened patiently and tried to explain things clearly and compassionately. However, there were times she wanted to say something like, “Who's paying for you to come to college? Don't you realize you're throwing away their money?”

Sally also had a little talk with Fieldstone about the removal of the painting. He didn't want to talk about it, though he admitted that it had been the wrong thing to do.

“But after it was done,” he said, “it was too late to change plans. Besides, if I made a mistake, it was in a good cause. I didn't want Roy Don Talon trying to close us down for being Satanists. And I didn't want him to think he could censor our art.”

So you censored it yourself,
Sally thought, but she didn't say it. What she did say was, “You should have told me about the painting. I was sure the painting had something to do with Val.”

Fieldstone didn't tell Sally that she should have minded her own business, but it was clear that he thought she was the one at fault. She knew that he could never be convinced otherwise, so she didn't pursue it.

The committee that Fieldstone selected looked at the painting, declared it harmless, and reported to Fieldstone, who gave a copy of the report to Roy Don Talon.

Talon came to the campus, had another look at the painting, and left shaking his head, or so Sally heard from Dean Naylor. She expressed her dismay at Naylor's dishonesty, but he claimed the whole thing was Fieldstone's idea.

“Besides,” he said, “Val went along with the whole thing.”

Sally didn't want to believe that part, but Naylor was convincing. It explained why there had been no ruckus when Jorge had taken the painting, and why Jorge had even signed the guest book when he went into the gallery.

She spoke to Jorge, who told her essentially the same story. She was disappointed in everyone, from Fieldstone to Jorge, but most of all, she was disappointed in Val. Apparently, he'd had no principles at all, even when it came to art.

Jack Neville came by to talk to her at least once a day, usually to let her know how his article on Bobby Vee was coming along or to complain that Coy Webster still hadn't found his own apartment.

Sally was sure that Jack was going to ask her out soon. She just wished she knew what she was going to say when he did. She put off making that decision until the time came.

All in all, everything on the HCC campus was so normal that it was easy to forget that there had been a murder in the Art Department only a few days earlier.

And then one day, Troy Beauchamp dropped by.

“Did you hear about the confession?” he asked.

Sally said, “Close the door, Troy, and have a seat. And then tell me all about it.”

Troy was only too glad to tell. He didn't say how he'd heard, but then he never did. Like any good reporter, he never revealed his sources. Sally suspected, however, that he'd been talking to someone like Chief Desmond, or maybe Tom Clancey.

Troy settled into the uncomfortable chair by Sally's desk and said, “Ralph Thompson has admitted killing his wife.”

Sally wasn't surprised. She didn't know what evidence Weems had, but she assumed it was substantial. Otherwise, Thompson would have gotten out of jail on bond.