by Bill Crider
Sally’s first inclination was to ask, “So what am I supposed to do?”
Her second inclination was to say, “Think of all the free time you’ll have to work on your dissertation while you’re in prison.”
But either of those things would have been just as foolish as what A. B. D. had written in his memo to Fieldstone, so she didn’t say them.
She said, “I’m sure you won’t be arrested. I’ll talk to Dr. Fieldstone and explain things to him. He’s probably been very busy today, and he might not even have had time to read your memo.”
“You can’t be sure of that! I’ve taught in the prisons! What if I’m thrown in with some of the people who failed my classes? I wouldn’t last a day! Someone would slip a shiv in me before they got the cell door locked!”
A. B. D. was getting worked up, and Sally was getting worried. With his shuddering jowls and his red face, he looked as if he might be capable of just about anything, even murder. Sally began to wonder if maybe he were in need of professional help.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said firmly. “You’re in no danger of going to prison. Even if Dr. Fieldstone were to call the police, they wouldn’t arrest you on evidence as flimsy as an ambiguous memo. They’re too careful for that. After all, they have community relations to think about, and false arrests don’t do much to foster a sense of trust. You take everything much too seriously.”
A. B. D. was jolted upright. “Too seriously! You don’t think being accused of murder is serious?”
“No one’s accused you of anything. I think you should take a day or so off from your classes. You could have a talk with Gary Borden. He might know someone who could help you feel better about things.”
A. B. D. sank back into his chair and put his hand over his eyes.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” he said. Then he leaned forward. “I know you do. Why don’t you just come right out and say it?”
“Because it isn’t true. You’re just … overwrought. Just try to think it through. You didn’t really say anything to make anyone suspicious. You’re making too much out of this. There’s nothing for you to be worried about.”
“Oh yes, there is. You don’t know Fieldstone. He’s out to get me.”
“I’m supposed to be meeting with him right now,” Sally lied, hoping that A. B. D. would remember that he’d promised to keep her only a minute. “I’ll tell him that the memo means nothing. That he can just disregard it.”
A. B. D. looked hopeful. “Do you think he’ll listen to you?”
“I’m sure of it,” Sally said, although she knew that Fieldstone never listened to anyone unless he agreed with them.
“Maybe I should go over to his office with you,” A. B. D. said. “I could explain about the memo and tell him what I really meant by terminated.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Sally said.
She knew that it wouldn’t have been a good idea even if she really did have a meeting with Fieldstone. In fact, it would have been an even worse idea in that case. As it was, she didn’t want A. B. D. to find out that she was lying. That wouldn’t have done at all.
“Well, all right.” A. B. D. was deflated. “I suppose I’ll have to trust you.”
He didn’t look to Sally as if he’d ever trusted anyone, which was probably part of his problem. Except in this case, he was absolutely right not to trust her, since she probably wouldn’t see Fieldstone that day at all.
“You don’t have a thing to worry about,” she assured him. “I’ll take care of it.”
She stood up. A. B. D. didn’t move.
“I have to go now,” she said.
“All right.” A. B. D. stood up and opened the office door. “Let me know what he says, will you?”
“Of course,” Sally said, stepping past him and into the hall.
But I’ll have to see him first, she thought.
18
Amy Willis seemed even more nervous than usual. She tapped her short red nails on the top of her desk. She crossed her legs. She uncrossed her legs. She stuck a pencil into her hair, and then took it out and drummed an obscure, jerky beat on the desk.
“I really don’t know how to begin,” she said as she continued to drum.
“Just tell me why you called,” Sally suggested.
They were sitting in Amy’s office, which was smaller than Sally’s and even less private. While its door didn’t open onto a hallway as Sally’s did, it did open into a large outer office that was ringed by other offices, all with open doorways. Sally imagined that listening ears were everywhere.
Maybe I’ve been hanging around A. B. D. Johnson too much, she thought.
“Why don’t we close the door?” Sally said.
“That’s a good idea,” Amy said, getting up.
When the door was closed, she sat back down and started cracking her knuckles.
“You were going to tell me something about Val,” Sally said.
Amy sighed. “I don’t know where to begin.”
Sally was losing her patience. First A. B. D. Johnson and now Amy. It was too much.
“You called me,” she pointed out. “If you don’t want to tell me anything, I’ll just go.”
Amy stopped cracking her knuckles and picked up the pencil again. She tapped out a few tentative clicks, then stopped.
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s just that nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Sally saw her opening. “Like what?”
“Like someone stealing money from the school. I didn’t even think it was possible. We have a very efficient system here, with lots of checks and balances. It shouldn’t have slipped by.”
“What slipped by?”
The tapping increased in intensity. Sally resisted a powerful urge to reach across and grab the pencil out of Amy’s hand, and then snap it in two and toss it in the trash can.
As if she sensed Sally’s thoughts, Amy put the pencil down and crossed her legs. Her right foot began to jiggle rapidly, but at least it was soundless.
“Mr. Hurley tricked us, is what he did,” Amy said.
Sally noted the use of the plural. Consciously or unconsciously, Amy was already beginning to spread the blame around.
“He tricked you?” Sally said.
“That’s right. He tricked us. Otherwise, we’d never have let it happen. Surely Dr. Fieldstone will understand. Won’t he?”
It was clear from Amy’s tone that she didn’t really think Fieldstone would understand at all. Sally wondered if everyone on campus except her believed that Fieldstone had received his graduate degree from the Inquisition with Torquemada as his dissertation director.
“Dr. Fieldstone is a very understanding man,” Sally said. “I’m sure he won’t blame you.”
“I hope so. It’s not so very much money, after all, when you think about it. Not when you compare it to the college’s yearly budget, anyway.”
“How much money is it?”
“Five thousand dollars,” Amy said.
“Good grief,” Sally said.
Amy stiffened and her foot stopped jiggling. “Well, he tricked us. It wasn’t our fault.”
“Tell me about it,” Sally said, hoping that maybe this time Amy would actually get to the point.
“Well, you know how all purchase orders have to be signed by the person requesting the order, the budget manager for the department, the division chair, and the dean?”
Sally said that she was quite familiar with the way purchase orders were handled.
“Sure. You probably sign them all the time. All the division chairs do. Do you ever look at them? I mean, really look at them?”
Sally tried not to take offense. She knew that there were no doubt people who routinely signed purchase orders without more than a passing glance to see who was asking for money.
“Of course I look at them,” she said. “I never sign anything without reading it.”
“Did you ever sign
one for five thousand dollars?”
“No,” Sally said. “I certainly did not.”
Amy slumped in her chair. She picked up the pencil, but she was so deflated that she didn’t drum out even a tentative beat.
“I was afraid you were going to say that. I’ll bet Dean Naylor and Dr. Fieldstone didn’t sign it either.”
“Sign what?” Sally asked.
Amy opened her top desk drawer and brought out a piece of paper that Sally recognized at once as a purchase order requisition.
“This,” Amy said, handing the form to Sally.
Sally saw that it was indeed a request for five thousand dollars. It had been signed not only by Val Hurley but by Naylor, Fieldstone, and herself.
Except that she hadn’t signed it. Someone else had forged her name. The signature looked vaguely like her own, but it wouldn’t have fooled an expert, or even someone who’d taken the time to examine it carefully.
“I didn’t sign this,” she said.
Amy nodded, her face twisted in misery.
“That’s not Dean Naylor’s signature, either,” Sally went on after a few seconds of examination. “And it’s not Dr. Fieldstone’s.”
“You’re right,” Amy said. “I can see that now.”
Sally was thinking that Amy was the one who hadn’t looked at the P.O. as carefully as she should have.
“So you’re saying that you’ve already sent the check to pay for the materials that Val requisitioned?”
“That’s right,” Amy said. “That’s what we always do when we get a purchase order.”
Sally looked at the form. Val had requested a number of art supplies, including canvas, paints, easels, and chemicals. There was really nothing unusual about the order except the amount.
“I thought he was just ordering everything for the whole year,” Amy said. “He could have been, couldn’t he?”
Sally supposed it was possible. Then she looked to see the name of the supplier: Thompson’s Crafts.
Uh-oh, Sally thought.
“The owner of Thompson’s Crafts wouldn’t be Tammi Thompson, would it?”
“No,” Amy said. “It would be her husband, though. His name’s Ralph. I think Tammi might work there, too.”
Sally looked at the P.O. “Would a craft shop have all these items in stock?”
“I don’t know. We usually buy from an art supply place over in Friendswood.”
“Were any of these things ever delivered?”
“Not as far as I know,” Amy said. “But the check was issued. I called you because you’re Mr. Hurley’s division chair. What do you think we should do now?”
Amy’s use of “we” was beginning to annoy Sally, especially now that she was being included in it. She gave the form back to Amy.
“I’d suggest that you bring this to Mr. Danton’s attention,” Sally said.
Danton was the head of the Business Office. He’d spent several years in the military, and he liked to think that he ran an efficient, mistake-proof operation. He wasn’t going to be happy when he found out what had happened. But that was Amy’s problem.
Sally’s problem was the Thompsons. And what she was going to tell the police.
19
Sally decided not to tell the police anything, at least not for the time being. That was Danton’s responsibility, or Fieldstone’s. Danton would almost certainly go to the president before taking any action himself, and Fieldstone could decide whether to inform the police.
Sally told herself this was the best course. She’d always been told to follow the chain of command. And, after all, she didn’t know that any crime had been committed or that there was any connection between the purchase order and Val’s death.
She had to admit, however, that the P.O. was highly suspicious.
For instance, why would Val have been buying supplies from Ralph Thompson? Thompson had no doubt furnished the college with small items from time to time, but he certainly wasn’t one of the usual sources of art supplies.
And why would Val have ordered such a large number of supplies? He could have been buying for the whole year, as Amy had suggested, but if that was true, wouldn’t he have been more likely to buy from a wholesaler in order to save the school some money?
Sally didn’t know the answers to her own questions, but she thought there was an easy way to find out: she could ask the Thompsons.
That is, she could ask them if she could reach them. They weren’t answering their telephone, and they weren’t returning calls, so what could she do?
She could go visit them at their business, that’s what.
She left the Business Office and went outside, where the class change had sent students walking in all directions. Some of them were hurrying, some were strolling along as if they had at least a week before their next class, and others were sitting on benches having a quick smoke.
Several students called out greetings to her. She smiled and waved, but, being in a hurry, she didn’t stop to talk. She was nearing the parking lot when she was stopped by Douglas Young, the head librarian, who came out of the Learning Center as she passed by.
As far as Sally could tell, Douglas was more devoted to his job than anyone she’d ever known. Maybe too devoted. He spent a lot of his time patrolling the library with a screwdriver that he used to pry dried gum from underneath the chairs. While he was patrolling, he would caution everyone to keep quiet. He refused to allow anyone to speak above a whisper, even when there was no one nearby to be disturbed. In fact, he pestered students so much that hardly any of them would go into the library unless forced to do so.
His major crusade, however, was not against gum or noise. It was against anyone with an overdue book. He’d once seriously recommended to the Library Committee that anyone with an overdue book get a little visit from the campus police. The committee had wisely decided not to pursue the suggestion.
Sally herself, though she hadn’t been visited by the cops, had once gotten a call from Douglas shortly after eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. He had asked if she knew that she had a book that was three days overdue.
Sally didn’t know what she’d told him, since she’d been half asleep. Apparently, it hadn’t been pleasant, and she was afraid that she might have suggested what Douglas could do with the book, assuming he ever got it back. He hadn’t spoken to her for weeks afterward.
Sally kept hoping he would retire, but that was highly unlikely since he was only about forty. She wondered what he wanted with her. She didn’t think she’d checked out any books lately.
“Terrible thing about Val Hurley,” he said.
“Yes,” Sally said, wondering if he’d stopped her just to commiserate about the loss of a colleague. It didn’t seem likely. Douglas wasn’t known for his sympathetic feelings for others.
“You’re Val’s division chair, aren’t you?”
“I was,” Sally said, correcting the verb tense. “I’m not anymore.”
Douglas nodded. “Of course … of course. But you were his supervisor while he was working here.”
Sally couldn’t deny it, though she had begun to develop an uneasy feeling about Douglas’s intentions. Lately, whenever anyone brought up the fact that she had been Val’s division chair, the conversation almost immediately took a turn for the worse.
“There’s something I think you should know,” Douglas said. “It concerns another of your faculty members, too.”
Sally waited until a group of students had walked past, then said, “Who?”
“Coy Webster.”
“Oh,” Sally said, wondering what Coy Webster had to do with anything. “He’s not exactly my faculty member.”
Coy worked for a lot of people. He was a part-time English instructor at Hughes, and he had been teaching two or three courses a semester for Sally ever since she had come there. In fact, he had taught for her predecessor for years before that. He also taught for several of the other community colleges in the area.
Sally didn’t
envy the man. He carried a different briefcase for each of the schools where he taught, and he was constantly on the road from one school to the next. He probably knew which campus he was on only by looking at the briefcase in his hand.
“What about Coy?” she asked.
“Did you know he’s been hanging around the Art and Music Building lately?”
Sally hadn’t known, but she was sure that Douglas would know. The Learning Center was located right next door to the Art and Music Building, and it would have been easy for Douglas to see who went in and out, if he was interested.
And he would have been interested. He wasn’t quite as nosy as Troy Beauchamp—hardly anyone was—but when Douglas wasn’t harassing students, he was standing by one of the Learning Center windows, keeping up with the comings and goings of others on the campus.
“Coy’s been in there a lot,” Douglas went on. “In fact, I think he’s been spending the night in there.”
Sally wasn’t sure that she’d heard correctly. “What?”
“Spending the night. He’s here a lot later than most of the regular faculty.”
There was a certain amount of resentment among a certain group of the nonteaching employees, some of whom envied the faculty’s ability to set their own hours and usually get away from the campus by four o’clock.
“Why would he spend the night there?” Sally asked.
“I certainly don’t know. But he’s here early in the morning, too.”
“There’s no place to sleep in the building,” Sally pointed out. “Besides, Coy teaches on a lot of other campuses. He doesn’t stay on this one.”
“All I know is what I’ve seen,” Douglas said. “I just thought that you should know.”
“Thank you,” Sally said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“He might have been in there the night Val died,” Douglas said.
“I don’t think so,” Sally said. “But I’ll look into it.”
“You don’t seem too worried.”
“I’m not. I’m sure that Coy hasn’t been sleeping in the Art and Music Building.”