Murder is an Art

by Bill Crider

  15

  Val’s murder was the talk of the faculty lounge the next morning, along with the fact that the faculty lottery pool had once again failed to win the big jackpot. The twenty-two people in the pool had each pitched in five dollars, allowing them to buy a hundred and ten tickets. Out of that number, they’d had three matches of three numbers each, for a grand total of nine dollars in winnings.

  Sally was reminded of the old joke about how to make a small fortune: begin with a large one. At the same time, she knew she’d kick in her five bucks for the next pool, not because she thought they might win but because she knew she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if everyone else won and retired without her.

  But the pool results were of only minor interest today. What everyone wanted to talk about was Val Hurley, and of course it was Troy Beauchamp who had all the scoop. Whether Troy’s stories had any basis in reality was entirely beside the point. He was able to relate them with such gusto and authority that he convinced everyone that they were the absolute gospel.

  His first theory was that Vera Vaughn was the killer.

  “Vera wouldn’t kill anybody with a statue,” Jeff Hayes said. “She has other methods.”

  Hayes was young, not quite thirty, and ambitious. He sucked up to the administrators at every opportunity, even having gone so far as to compliment Fieldstone on his suspenders on one occasion. Hayes didn’t mind letting everyone know that he had his eye on Naylor’s job and that his application would be on top of the stack when the dean retired.

  “What methods would those be?” Gary Borden asked.

  Borden was wearing a wide green tie with mushrooms on it. Sally thought they were probably supposed to be some kind of sixties symbol. Psychedelic mushrooms, maybe.

  “You mean you don’t know?” Hayes asked.

  “I’m a married man,” Borden said. “So I wouldn’t have any idea.”

  Hayes grinned. “Married or not, that never made much difference to Vera.”

  “Come on, guys,” Jack Neville said. “We wouldn’t be talking this way if Vera were here.”

  “Sure we would,” Hayes said. “But we’re getting off the subject. Why would Vera have killed Val, Troy?”

  Beauchamp was ready with the answer. “Because he dropped her for someone else.” He paused. “A student.”

  “Maybe Vera killed him because he was guilty of sexual harassment,” Wylie Reese said.

  Reese was the chair of Math and Sciences. He was known to his faculty as “Mr. Meetings” because he loved to have his department meet to discuss everything that came up, no matter how trivial. He had even been known to call meetings on Friday afternoons, thus ending any chance he might have had of being voted most popular chair on campus.

  “That’s a good point, knowing Vera,” Beauchamp said. “But a person with a better right to that motive would be Ms. Thompson’s husband. He might have tried to talk to Val and lost his temper and killed him with the first thing that came to hand.”

  Sally wondered if the police had been able to find the Thompsons. So she asked Troy.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But they’re the most likely suspects. Tammi may have killed Val herself because of what he did. Or maybe she was romantically involved with him and didn’t want her husband to find out. The only way out was to accuse Val of harassment and then kill him to make sure he couldn’t defend himself against the accusation.”

  “Are you saying she led him on?” Gary Borden asked, trying to lead Troy on.

  “Absolutely not,” Beauchamp said, smiling to show that he’d recognized the trap. “I’d never suggest such a thing.”

  “That’s good,” Borden said. “Because if you did, and if Vera heard about it, she might kill you.”

  No one laughed.

  “What about A. B. D. Johnson?” Samuel Winston asked, staring owlishly around. “He was really upset about Val’s chair. He even came by my office to complain.”

  “He complained to a lot of people,” Troy said. “Even me. But do you think he’d kill someone over a chair?”

  “Why not?” Winston said. “A. B. D.’s always wound a little tight. Maybe he lost his temper, grabbed that statue, and smashed in Val’s head with it.”

  Everyone thought about that for a minute. People knew that Johnson was high-strung, and more than one person had remarked that he was likely to snap one day.

  Sally didn’t think so, however. “What about the missing painting?” she asked.

  “Painting?” Troy Beauchamp said. “What painting?”

  Sally told them about the painting of the goat.

  “Oh, the one Roy Don Talon complained about,” Beauchamp said.

  Once again, Sally was amazed at Troy’s knowledge of everything that went on at the college. She would have bet that no one in the meeting with Talon would have discussed it, but obviously someone had.

  “That’s the painting, all right,” she said. “It’s missing. Someone must have taken it from the gallery.”

  Troy had to tell the others the story of the painting. When he was finished, he said, “So that gives us another potential killer: Roy Don Talon. He got into an argument with Val about the picture and killed him. Then he took the picture down so none of HCC’s innocent students would be corrupted by the image of the beast.”

  “We were going to have a jury look at the picture and decide whether it was a Satanic symbol,” Sally said. “Mr. Talon knew that.”

  Beauchamp wasn’t dissuaded. “He probably figured out that the jury was just a trick to keep the picture up and decided to get rid of it himself. But really, none of our speculations is needed. Chief Desmond will have come up with the killer’s name by now.”

  “And how will he have done that?” Samuel Winston asked.

  “Clever police work,” Troy told him. “If the police have an approximate time of death, all Desmond has to do is check the guest register. The person who was in the gallery nearest that time will be the killer.”

  “Right,” Jeff Hayes said. “The killer signed his name and put down the time of his visit just to make it easy for the campus flatfeet.” He glanced up at the electric clock on the wall. “I wish I had time to continue this fascinating discussion, but I don’t. I happen to have an eight o’clock class.”

  So did nearly everyone else in the lounge, and they all began to file out, leaving only Sally and Jack Neville behind.

  “What do you think the police have really found out?” Jack asked her.

  “Nothing, probably. I know they were interested in questioning the Thompsons, but that’s all.”

  “You don’t think they’re looking at jealousy as a motive, do you?”

  There was a thin line of sweat on Jack’s upper lip, and Sally wondered why he looked so guilty all of a sudden.

  “Why do you ask?” she said. “Are you worried?”

  Jack chuckled weakly. “No, no, of course not. I was just wondering about what the police might think. I dated Vera for a while, you know.”

  “If they suspect everyone who dated Vera, they’ll have a long list,” Sally said. “I think you’re in the clear.”

  “I hope so,” Jack said. “Well, I have an eight o’clock, too. I don’t want to be too late.”

  As he headed for the door, Sally watched him go. And she wondered again why he looked so guilty.

  16

  As she was walking back to her office, Sally met Jorge Rodriguez. He was wearing a black suit with gray pinstripes that did nothing to minimize his bulk. He looked able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

  “I hear that we won’t have to worry about that painting any more,” he said. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sally said. “But we have a lot more to worry about now.”

  Jorge nodded slightly. “True, but not for long. Everyone knows that Desmond will crack the case today.”

  “You have a lot more faith in him than I do,” Sally said.

  Jorge smiled. “I’ve had m
ore experience with the police than you have, as well. I know how those guys work.”

  Sally blushed and hoped she hadn’t embarrassed him. She hadn’t meant to imply anything.

  “Can you come in my office and talk for a minute?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Jorge said.

  Sally was glad he didn’t ask why, though the reason was simple enough. It wasn’t that she wanted to get him alone, and she hoped he didn’t think that. It was just that she didn’t like talking in the hallway. There were poorly insulated classrooms along both sides, and their conversation might be disturbing the students even if they couldn’t quite make out the words.

  When they were inside her office, Sally closed the door and moved a stack of papers from the chair by her desk.

  “Have a seat,” she told Jorge, going to her own chair. Then she asked, “How close can the medical examiner come to determining a time of death?”

  “You think I’m an expert?” Jorge asked.

  Sally blushed again. “I didn’t mean to suggest anything. I just thought you might know.”

  Jorge smiled, showing those amazingly white teeth. “I’m not offended. Anyway, the M.E. can come pretty close to a time of death, but it’s still going to be just an estimate. And it’ll be a while before we get any information at all. Every county around here sends bodies to Houston for autopsy, and sometimes it’s weeks before the results are sent back. Why do you ask?”

  “I was just wondering when Val might have been killed. If it was yesterday morning, that means students might have been in the building when he died.”

  Jorge knew immediately that she wasn’t worried about the students having overheard anything.

  “And you think they might have seen someone coming out of his office,” he said.

  “That’s right. And it could be that they saw someone take the painting. I wonder if Chief Desmond is going to question any of them.”

  “He’s going to leave everything to the locals,” Jorge said. “Unless of course they ask for his help. That’s the best thing to do, believe me. Desmond’s not a bad cop, but he doesn’t want to get mixed up in a murder. He’s too smart for that.” Jorge gave Sally a sharp look. “I hope you aren’t thinking about doing any amateur investigating.”

  “Oh, no,” Sally said. “Not me. I don’t know the first thing about it. I’m not going to get involved.”

  But as she said she wasn’t, she realized that she was considering it. She didn’t think Weems was going about things the right way at all. He wasn’t interested in the missing painting. He didn’t even ask for Val’s class roll so he could talk to the students. All he could think about was the Thompsons.

  She said as much to Jorge, who frowned. “The cops always go for a quick arrest. It makes them look bad if they don’t come up with someone fairly quickly, or at least they think it does. So if there’s a handy suspect with a good motive and no alibi, they’ll make an arrest. You can’t really blame them.”

  Sally wondered if he was speaking from experience. She imagined Jorge as the Wronged Innocent, the man sent to prison to suffer for the crimes of another because the police had rushed to justice. She thought of him in his prison whites, his muscles bulging as he broke rocks in the hot sun with a sledgehammer, all the while enduring a punishment intended for someone else.

  She blinked the vision away and said, “You mean the police would arrest someone they knew was innocent?”

  “No. They wouldn’t do that. Not if they were certain. But they want to close the case, and if there’s a likely looking suspect, then he’d better watch out. And look at it this way: about nine-tenths of the time, they get the right person.”

  Sally didn’t like the whole idea of it. “What about the other one-tenth? What about those people?”

  “They’re the ones who’d better get themselves really good lawyers.”

  It was on the tip of Sally’s tongue to ask Jorge what kind of lawyer he’d had, but she thought better of it. She imagined a public defender, barely out of his teens, who’d passed the bar exam a month before the trial, who was still heavily into Clearasil use and shaving only every third day or so, and whose client was doomed to spend time in prison for a crime he never committed.

  “If I were you,” Jorge said, “I’d forget about the whole thing. Just teach your classes and let the police do their job. That’s what we pay them for.”

  “That’s probably a very good idea,” Sally said.

  She might have said more, but the phone rang just then, and Jorge excused himself.

  Watching his broad shoulders pass through her doorway, Sally picked up the phone.

  “This is Dr. Good,” she said. “How may I help you?”

  “Dr. Good?”

  People always said that, though Sally invariably answered the phone by giving her name. She could never quite understand why no one ever believed her when she told them who she was. Or maybe they just weren’t listening.

  “Yes,” she said. “This is Dr. Good.”

  “Oh. Well, this is Amy Willis. In the business office?”

  Sally had dealt with Amy Willis before. She was responsible for the payroll, and she kept up with all the departmental budget accounts. Possibly because of her fiscal responsibilities, or possibly because it was simply her nature, Amy had more tics than anyone Sally had ever met.

  She never seemed to sit still. She tapped her fingers and patted her feet. When she talked, her hands were in constant motion. Even her hair seemed at times to be twitching around on her head.

  “I need to talk to you about a confidential matter,” Amy said. “Can you come over to the Business Office?”

  Sally looked at her watch. She really needed to grade some of those papers.

  “Can it wait until this afternoon?”

  “Not really,” Amy said. “It’s about Mr. Hurley.”

  “I’ll be right over,” Sally told her.

  17

  Sally left her office, turned the corner, and nearly collided with A. B. D. Johnson. He wasn’t in any of his usual stages of dudgeon, which was surprising in itself. Even more surprisingly, he looked distraught.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said, his jowls quivering.

  “I’m on my way to a meeting,” Sally told him, which, while it wasn’t exactly the truth, was close enough and might discourage him.

  “This is important,” A. B. D. said, as if to imply that college meetings weren’t, a fact that Sally couldn’t really argue with. “I’ll only take a minute.”

  There was an undertone of desperation in his voice, and Sally gave in.

  “I can give you a minute, but that’s it.”

  She turned back to her office, and A. B. D. followed like a despondent basset hound. As soon as they were inside, A. B. D. closed the door behind him.

  “I didn’t kill Val Hurley,” he said, looking uncannily like Richard Nixon proclaiming that he wasn’t a crook. If he’d been on trial, the jury would have voted him guilty on all counts, no matter what the counts might have been.

  “No one said you killed anyone,” Sally assured him, but A. B. D. merely turned a dangerous shade of red, and his eyes widened alarmingly.

  “What’s the matter?” Sally asked. “Could I get you a drink of water?”

  “Don’t treat me like a student!” A. B. D. said. “I’ve used that ‘drink of water’ bit, myself. You’re just trying to calm me down and brush me off!”

  “No, I’m not,” Sally said, all the while thinking, Yes, I am.

  “Well, it won’t work,” A. B. D. said. “You can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m probably going to be arrested soon, and it’s all Fieldstone’s fault.”

  “Fieldstone?”

  “Can’t you see that this is the perfect opportunity for him to get rid of me? I know he’s had his eye on me for years, just waiting for me to slip up. He thinks I’m a troublemaker, and now he’s going to turn me in!”

  “But you haven’t done anything,” Sally said.


  A. B. D. suddenly turned shrewd. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I’m sure you wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Sally wasn’t sure at all, but it seemed like the right thing to say. “Besides, what had Val ever done to you?”

  “He got that new chair, that’s what he did. You know that. Why are you denying it?”

  “I’m not denying it. I didn’t even think of it,” Sally lied.

  “Of course you thought of it.” A. B. D. looked around furtively, as if expecting to discover half the faculty hiding behind the bookshelves and under the desk as they listened in on him. “Everyone’s talking about it, and they don’t even know about the memo yet.”

  “Memo? What memo?”

  “The memo I wrote to Fieldstone.” A. B. D. reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded paper. “Fortunately, I keep copies of everything. That’s a lesson I learned a long time ago.”

  He thrust the memo toward Sally and waved it in her face. She took it from him as much out of self-defense as out of any desire to see what it said.

  “Go ahead,” A. B. D. said. “Read it.”

  Sally unfolded the paper and looked at it. It was a standard Hughes Community College memorandum form, and it was directed to Harold Fieldstone.

  Sally had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that wasn’t due to hypoglycemia. All the same, she wished she had a Hershey bar.

  “You didn’t say anything … incriminating, did you?”

  “Just read it,” A. B. D. said.

  Sally read it. The body of the memo began with a series of complaints about the school’s lack of fiscal responsibility over the past few years, shifted to a snide remark about the lack of faculty pay raises, and then brought up the matter of Val Hurley’s chair.

  The most unfortunate sentence of all was this: “People who have no more compunction than to spend exorbitant amounts of precious college funds on a piece of expensive furniture should be dealt with forthrightly and terminated immediately.”

  “Oh, my,” Sally said.

  A. B. D. nodded sadly. “You can see the problem. Obviously I didn’t mean terminated in the sense of killed. I would never suggest something like that. But this is Fieldstone’s big chance to get rid of the loyal opposition. He’ll have me arrested today. I’m sure of it.”