Murder is an Art (7 page)

“At a target. You never know what you'll do in a life-or-death situation until you face it.”

Sally and Clancey both knew she was simply repeating what she had heard in her firearms class. She had also heard that if you ever fired a pistol at an intruder, you should shoot to kill. Wounding wasn't an option. She hoped never to find herself in that situation.

“You sure you don't want the target for a souvenir?” Sergeant Clancey asked as she was leaving.

“No, thanks,” she said.

*   *   *

Back in her office, Sally called the number Fieldstone had given her for the Thompsons. She got an answering machine with a supposedly humorous tape that Sally didn't find at all funny. She wondered why people didn't just record their own announcements, and she thought about not leaving a message at all. In the end, however, she left both her office and home numbers and asked the Thompsons to call.

She spent the rest of the afternoon grading compositions, and she was proud of herself for finishing all those for her Friday class. She could return them the next day and spend the class period analyzing them with the students. She went to the workroom to make transparencies of several papers that she wanted to use for illustrative purposes.

The workroom was almost as deserted as the firing range. After all, it was nearly four o'clock. Few of the faculty stayed around much past three or three-thirty unless they had evening classes. Today, the only other person around was Merle Menton, the chair of the Division of Social Sciences, who was reading a newspaper in the lounge, which adjoined the workroom.

Though Merle was nearing retirement age, he still had a full head of very black hair, hair that was the object of much speculation by the rest of the Hughes faculty. Did he dye it or not?

Troy Beauchamp's answer was a definite yes. He swore that he had talked to someone who had seen Menton buying a package of Just for Men at the local Wal-Mart, but there were several who weren't convinced by his story.

Sally was one of them. Menton's hair just didn't look dyed, and what difference did it make if it was? What bothered her about Menton was his personality, which bordered on the terminally dull. He could talk endlessly in his bland, monotonous baritone about almost any subject that popped into his head, and he would continue for as long he could get anyone to listen. Or force them to listen. His favorite technique was to back the reluctant listener into a corner and stand so that there was no escape short of death.

When Sally saw him, she was careful to stand on the side of the transparency maker that was farthest from the corner, which was a good thing. When he heard the machine begin to operate, Menton stood up and began to sidle toward her.

“I'm waiting for my wife to come pick me up,” he said as he approached. “My car is in the shop.”

There was a faculty legend that Menton had once trapped a part-time instructor in the lounge and talked nonstop for six hours about the time the timing chain went out on his 1983 Buick. Sally didn't want something like that to happen, so she grabbed the last transparency as it fed from the machine and started toward the door.

“I have a student waiting in the office,” she lied brazenly and unashamedly. “Otherwise, I'd love to hear about your car. What seems to be the trouble?”

“It's the transmission,” Menton droned. “I had the fluid checked last week, but it seems to have all run out in the road as I drove to school yesterday. I hope the transmission's not burned up. I've heard—”

“I'm sure it's fine,” Sally said, not sure at all. She didn't know a thing about transmissions. “You can tell me about it sometime when I don't have a student waiting.”

She made her escape, feeling slightly guilty about the disappointment on Menton's face as she'd gone through the door. Thank goodness he hadn't gotten her into a corner. She might have missed her aerobics class.

On her way back to her office, she passed Jack Neville's door. It was closed, but there was a light showing underneath it. She wondered if he were still working or if he had left the light on by accident. She knocked on the door.

There was no answer. It didn't matter that the light was on. One of the cleaning crew would turn it off later. Then she thought she heard something that sounded like the squeak of an office chair. She knocked again.

Jack Neville opened the door.

“Oh,” he said. He seemed surprised to see her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said. “Working late?”

Jack looked over his shoulder at the computer, which was turned on. Nothing was visible on the screen except the main menu, however.

“Just doing a little work on an article,” he said.

“For that record magazine?”

“That's the one.”

“What's the article about?”

“Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley,” Jack said. “I guess you're a little young to have been a fan when you were growing up.”

“I'm more of a Creedence Clearwater Revival fan.”

“They were good, all right,” Jack said. “Uh, would you like to come in and sit down?”

Jack's office was much smaller than Sally's and not a lot neater, but he had a chair for visitors beside his desk.

“I wish I could,” Sally said. “But I have an aerobics class in just a few minutes. I have to go change and get ready.”

“Oh,” Jack said, his ears reddening.

Sally wondered why, but didn't mention it. “I hope you get the article done. I'd like to read it.”

“I'll give you a copy when it's finished.”

“See you tomorrow, then,” Sally said, and went on down the hall.

When she turned the corner to her own office, she wondered why she always seemed to feel awkward when she talked to Jack. He was certainly nice enough, and an excellent instructor. And he was good-looking in a sort of rumpled manner. Not as overtly macho as Jorge, but just as attractive in his own shy way.

But she shouldn't be thinking of either of them in this way, she told herself. She'd promised herself when she came to Hughes that there would be no involvements with men at the school. Involvement could lead to complications—just look at Val Hurley.

Of course, Val's involvement was with a student, and that
always
led to complications. She wondered what had come over Val that would lead him to do a painting of a student. She didn't really know him very well; their relationship, like all her relationships with school personnel, was strictly professional.

She'd heard, mainly from Troy Beauchamp, that Val was quite a romantic sort. He wasn't Sally's type, but he was apparently considered attractive by a number of the single women on the faculty. He should never have allowed himself to get into his current situation.

But he
had
allowed himself, and now it was her problem almost as much as his. She went back to her office to see if there was a message from the Thompsons on her machine.

10

Jack Neville sat in his squeaky chair and stared at his computer screen. He wished he hadn't been so ill at ease when Sally had come to his door, but it was too late to worry about that now. At least he'd exited the game before he'd answered the door.

The game, something called Minesweeper, had come packaged with his computer software, and his secret shame was that he was addicted to it.

It was infuriatingly simple, not to mention simpleminded, and it bothered Jack that he couldn't seem to stop playing it. He'd never thought of himself as having an addictive personality before.

After all, he'd quit smoking fifteen years previously without so much as a single day's withdrawal symptoms. Sure, he occasionally still dreamed about smoking, but he hadn't had a cigarette in all that time.

And when he'd started getting jittery every day about three o'clock and decided the cause might just be the dozen cups of coffee he'd drunk by that time of day, he'd cut back to a single cup a day, in the morning, without thinking twice. Well, he might have thought twice, but he'd done it without agonizing about it.

So why couldn't he quit playing the blasted game?

That was the main reason why he was working on his manuscript in longhand. He didn't dare turn on the computer for fear that he'd never get a single word written. He'd spend all his time trying to put the little flags in the right squares.

He'd turned on the computer at about one o'clock to start entering his article, but he hadn't entered a word. He'd played the stupid game for three hours instead. Now it was past time to go home, and he hadn't accomplished a thing all afternoon. Well, he'd do better tomorrow.

He turned off the computer and left his handwritten article on the desk. Maybe he could get Wynona Reed, the division's secretary, to type it for him. It was a legitimate request, he thought, even if it couldn't exactly be considered an academic publication.

He picked up a stack of American literature exams. He'd punish himself by grading them at home.

*   *   *

Sally changed for the aerobics class in her office. It was easier than going home, even though she lived so close. She could lock the door and have all the privacy she needed. She kept a gym bag under her desk, and the change didn't take long at all. After class, she could drive home for a shower.

The class was held in the choir room rather than the gym because the choir room was large enough for the class and there was a sound system already set up there. The choir director wasn't fond of having his room used for what he referred to as a “sweaty exercise ritual” every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, but Dean Naylor had brushed his protests aside.

The class was open to both men and women, but there were no men enrolled. Most of the women were there to get one hour's credit toward the school's two-hour physical education requirement. The men generally took bowling or weight training, but everyone had to take something. The administration at Hughes believed that sound minds and sound bodies went together.

So did Sally, sort of. At any rate, she believed it enough to put in an enthusiastic eighty minutes or so twice a week, working out to sterile instrumental versions of old rock songs. She liked to think that the occasional Hershey bars were just melting right out of her system with every step she took, and whether or not this was true, it made her feel good to think so. She seldom missed a class.

After changing, she pulled her office door shut and stepped into the hall, practically bumping into Jack Neville.

“Ah, I'm sorry,” he said. “I, ah, didn't see you coming out of your office. I guess I was thinking about these exams.”

He held up the sheaf of papers that he was carrying in his right hand.

Sally smiled. “That's all right. I didn't see you, either. I'm on my way to aerobics class.”

“I, ah, see that you are. Those are nice, ah, leotards.”

Jack was blushing, but Sally didn't mind. It was nice to know that she could still have that effect on a man. She found herself wondering how Jorge would react in the same situation. Not like Jack, she decided.

Jack walked down the hall beside her. “Don't stop in the lounge,” he warned. “I saw Dr. Menton go in there earlier.”

“I've already seen him,” Sally said. “He's got transmission problems.”

“How did you escape?”

“I lied.”

“Good idea.”

They walked in silence after that until they got outside. The sun was getting low, but there was never much of a sunset in Hughes. Or if there was, it couldn't be seen. The land was too flat, and there were too many houses in the way. But the sky was darkening, and the warmth of the day was beginning to give way to the comparative chill of the evening.

“I'm going over to the Art and Music Building,” Sally said.

“I know,” Jack said. “I mean, I know that's where the aerobics classes are held. Not that I've ever been by there. It's printed in the schedule.”

He was talking too fast, and Sally stopped to look at him. “Why, Jack,” she said. “You're getting red.”

“It's this evening air,” he said. “I've got to get on my way now. Lots of papers to grade.”

He brandished the stack of papers again and fled the scene. Sally smiled as he trotted away.

*   *   *

Jack tossed the exams onto the seat of his three-year-old Corolla, got in, and closed the door. He certainly had handled that well, he told himself. About as well as the average fourteen-year-old, probably, if the fourteen-year-old was particularly socially inept.

He decided that he needed a drink, so instead of going home, he drove to the Seahorse Club. There were no bars as such in Hughes. Some places sold beer, but hard liquor was available only in “private clubs.” There were several clubs, and all of them had extremely low membership fees. The one preferred by most of the Hughes faculty was the Seahorse, mainly because it was near the campus.

When Jack went inside, he blinked his eyes to let them adjust to the dim light. After a second or so, he thought he saw Jorge Rodriguez and Vera Vaughn in a semiprivate booth in the back, but while Jack was still blinking, Troy Beauchamp beckoned from a nearby table where he was sitting with Samuel Winston.

Winston had an owl-like stare and a bad attitude. Jack wasn't sure what caused the stare, but the attitude was the result of the fact that Winston was teaching at a backwater community college in Texas rather than at Harvard, which was where he'd thought he'd wind up after his distinguished academic career. Harvard hadn't been hiring, however, and neither had most of the other four-year institutions in the country. Or maybe Winston's record wasn't as sterling as he led people to believe. At any rate, he'd taken a job at Hughes and never left.

Jack wasn't especially fond of either Beauchamp or Winston, but he went over to the table.

“Hey, Jack,” Beauchamp said. “Have a seat.”