Murder is an Art

by Bill Crider

  “It’s not really sad at all,” Vera said. “Val’s bad habits just caught up with him.”

  “What bad habits?” asked Sally.

  Vera gave her a surprised glance. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “Of course she doesn’t know,” Ellen said. “She doesn’t know anything that goes on around the school. For all she knows about what’s happening, she might as well be teaching somewhere else. Like Kathmandu.”

  Sally didn’t take offense. She knew that Ellen didn’t like her and had no respect for her abilities as a division chair. Besides, it appeared that she was simply telling the truth.

  “Maybe I’d know more if people would let me in on their secrets,” she said.

  Vera smiled crookedly. “Isn’t this the picture of femininity? Here were are, exchanging secrets in the ladies’ room as if we were sorority sisters playing Truth or Dare.”

  “We haven’t exchanged any secrets yet,” Sally said. “But I think it’s time we started. Ellen can tell hers first.”

  Ellen rummaged through her purse and brought out a comb; then she ran it through her black hair. When she was finished, she put the comb back and closed the purse.

  “All right,” she said. “It was right under your nose all the time, but of course you never knew it. Neither did Fieldstone nor anyone else.”

  “You couldn’t expect men to notice anything,” Vera said. “Their powers of observation are quite limited, and even if they’d known, they would most likely have approved.” She gave Sally another glance. “A woman should be more perceptive, though.”

  “More perceptive of what?” Sally asked. She was getting a little tired of being condescended to, and her irritation showed in her voice.

  “At seeing what was going on. It should have been obvious to anyone.”

  “It wasn’t obvious to me,” Sally said.

  “How true,” Ellen said. “But then hardly anything is.”

  Sally remembered that when she was in high school, two of her classmates had gotten into a fight in the restroom. It had probably been about a boy, but Sally didn’t really remember. At the time, she’d thought it was the stupidest thing that had ever happened. She couldn’t understand why any girl would want to fight another girl, pull her hair, and try to gouge her eyes out. But now she was beginning to understand.

  “I suppose we should stop teasing you,” Vera said.

  Ellen glared at her. “I’m not teasing,” she said.

  Vera smiled. “Of course not. But Dr. Good is getting a bit irritated with our behavior, and I can’t say that I blame her much.”

  “Humpf,” Ellen said, and turned to inspect her face in the mirror.

  Sally noted with regrettable satisfaction that Ellen’s skin was blotchy and her lips were chapped.

  Vera wasn’t watching Ellen. Her attention was now all on Sally.

  Vera said, “The sad truth about Val is that he liked younger women.”

  Sally couldn’t help looking at Ellen, who didn’t qualify as young by anyone’s standards.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Vera said. “Ellen’s a little older than Val.”

  Sally resisted the temptation to say that she had been thinking that Ellen was lot older than Val.

  “You see,” Vera went on, “Val didn’t really care much about any of the women he dated. We were just a distraction. He actually preferred his students.”

  Sally tried not to let her mouth drop open. She didn’t quite succeed. So that’s what Ellen had been trying to tell her.

  “Oh, don’t be so surprised,” Vera said. “Men are swine. You should know that by now. Once a woman reaches a certain age, they don’t have any more interest in her.”

  Sally didn’t think that was true of all men. She certainly hoped it wasn’t, being of a certain age herself.

  “Are you telling me that Val was fooling around with students?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Vera said. “He got away with it because he was very, very careful.”

  “But you knew about it. Ellen knew about it. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  Vera looked thoughtful. “Good question. I thought about it, but I decided that Val’s personal relationships were his own business. As long as the students weren’t in his classes, what was the harm? He wasn’t promising them grades for sex or anything like that.”

  “But they were students,” Sally said.

  “True, but he wasn’t interested in the really young ones. He never went out with anyone who wasn’t at least twenty-one.”

  Sally shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t understand how he got away with it.”

  “It was easy,” Vera said. “He was never seen with students outside of class. If he took them anywhere, it was well away from the campus, off on the other side of Houston. And the relationships always were purely platonic.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Sally said, though she really wasn’t surprised.

  “Believe it,” Ellen said.

  Vera nodded. “It’s true. Val wasn’t interested in sex. I should know. I tried to pique his interest more than once. I can’t speak for Ellen.”

  Ellen apparently didn’t want to speak for Ellen either. She looked in the mirror with her lips drawn in a tight line. Her silence told Sally all she needed to know.

  “So he was dating students but not doing anything sexual with them?”

  “That’s right,” Vera said.

  “But Fieldstone is death on that sort of thing.” Sally regretted her choice of the word death, but it was too late to change it. “Dating students is strictly against the school’s code of conduct. Fieldstone would have fired Val in a heartbeat if he’d known, and the Board would have backed him all the way.”

  “That’s why Val kept it undercover,” Vera said. “And it’s also why he never did anything sexual, unless you count looking.”

  “Looking?”

  “He liked to paint them,” Vera said.

  “Tammi Thompson,” Sally said. “He was painting her.”

  “Yes. But I don’t think he touched her, not in any sexual way.”

  “He told you about that?”

  “Val and I were friends. We didn’t have any secrets between us.”

  Ellen remained silent. Sally wasn’t sure whether she knew about the incident with Tammi or not.

  “Do you think that the rest of Val’s story was true?” Sally asked.

  “The rest?”

  “That Tammi had asked him to do the painting for her husband.”

  “Of course not. She was letting him paint her because he asked her to. I told you that he liked to look.”

  “Then he lied to me,” Sally said, though she was hardly shocked.

  “And it wasn’t the first time,” Vera said, smiling wickedly. “Ain’t that just like a man?”

  * * *

  Jorge and Jack were waiting in the church parking lot. The casket had been loaded into the hearse, which had pulled away several minutes before. Those going to the cemetery had followed the hearse, and most of the cars and people were gone.

  Jack and Jorge were standing beside Jorge’s black Celica. Jorge was smoking a Marlboro. He had apologized to Jack for lighting up, explaining that he had gotten into the habit in prison and had never been able to break it.

  “I don’t mind,” Jack said. He didn’t want to pry into Jorge’s prison experiences. He was afraid of what he might find out. “I wonder if Ellen’s all right.”

  Jorge blew a thin line of smoke from each nostril, and then flicked ashes from the tip of the Marlboro.

  “I’m sure she’s fine. The funeral was just too much for her. Women get emotional sometimes.”

  “So do men,” Jack said.

  Jorge contemplated the end of his cigarette, then dropped it to the ground and stepped on it.

  “I know,” he said.

  Jack wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Considering the stories he’d heard about Jorge, he was pretty sure that Jorge knew a lot mor
e about losing control of his emotions than Jack did.

  He was saved from having to say anything more when he looked up and saw Sally coming out of the church. Ellen and Vera were right behind her. Vera had an arm around Ellen’s shoulders as if supporting her.

  Jorge started toward them. Vera met him and said a few words that Jack couldn’t hear, and all of them started toward Jorge’s car.

  “Ellen’s fine,” Jorge told Jack. “We won’t be going to the cemetery.”

  He unlocked the Celica, and Vera climbed into the backseat, revealing quite a bit of leg in the process. But not so much that Jack didn’t notice that she had to shove something aside in order to have room for herself.

  He felt Sally stiffen beside him. He turned to say something, but she grabbed his left arm and squeezed. Taking this as a sign to keep his mouth shut, he said nothing as Jorge helped Ellen into the front seat.

  “I’ll see you at the college tomorrow,” Jorge said. “Maybe things will be getting back to normal by then.”

  “Sure,” Jack said.

  Sally didn’t say anything. She stood there gripping Jack’s arm until Jorge had driven away.

  When the Celica reached the street, she asked, “What was that in the backseat?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jack said. “It might have been a painting of some kind.”

  Sally relaxed her grip. “I was afraid that’s what you were going to say.”

  30

  After they left the church, Sally met Jack at Bumblebee’s, a coffee shop not far from the college. It was really just an old house that had been remodeled, and at that time in the afternoon it was practically empty. Sally and Jack had their own private dining room, which had once been a bedroom.

  Sally ordered some kind of flavored coffee. Jack, who didn’t like coffee of any kind, no matter what the flavor, asked for a Diet Pepsi. He didn’t like Diet Pepsi, either, but he felt that he should buy something if he was going to sit in the coffee shop and take up space.

  When the drinks had been served, he said, “Now what’s this about a painting?”

  Sally told him the story, only some of which he’d heard before.

  “So I think the painting is significant,” she finished. “But I don’t know what to do about its being in Jorge’s car.”

  “Maybe I didn’t see a painting,” Jack said. “There was a blanket over it. Maybe it was something else.”

  “The blanket slipped when Vera moved it. It was a painting, all right. It was the painting.”

  “You’re sure?

  “I’m sure.”

  She wasn’t really sure, but she couldn’t imagine what other painting Jorge would have in the backseat of his car. It had to be the one of the goat.

  “So what’s Jorge doing with it?” Jack asked.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Jack took a sip of his Diet Pepsi and made a face. Maybe he should have gotten coffee after all.

  “Can’t you just ask him?”

  Sally laughed. Jack thought she had a nice laugh. He wondered what he could do to make her laugh again.

  So he said, “Maybe I could ask him.”

  Sally didn’t laugh. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. I’m sure that missing painting has something to do with Val’s murder. If we ask Jorge, he’ll know that we’re onto him. And that wouldn’t be good.”

  Jack thought about it. “I guess my idea about the murder’s not any good then, either.”

  “Oh,” Sally said. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’d forgotten that you had something to tell me. I just rushed into my own story without even asking.”

  “That’s okay. I was probably wrong in what I was thinking, anyway.”

  “Maybe not. Go ahead. Tell me.”

  Jack looked at his Diet Pepsi. All the ice had melted, and the drink was an unappetizing yellowish color. He didn’t think he’d have any more of it.

  “Well,” he said, “I had the idea that maybe Tammi killed Val. Say she went to his office and confronted him. Maybe he said something that set her off. Sometimes people get enraged and act out of the emotion of the moment. She could have grabbed the first thing that came to hand and hit him with it.”

  Sally nodded, remembering what Weems had said in Val’s office.

  “The police said that it might have been a crime of opportunity.”

  Jack was encouraged. If the police were thinking along the same lines, he might be onto something.

  “After that, she could have panicked. She probably would have gone back to the store and told her husband what she’d done. Then he panicked, or lost his temper, and it happened all over again. Except that this time, he was the one who grabbed something.”

  “It could have happened,” Sally said.

  Jack smiled. He was feeling better about his idea. Move over, Sherlock Holmes.

  “But it just doesn’t fit,” Sally said.

  Jack’s smile disappeared. “Why not? Because of the painting?”

  “That’s only part of it. The other part is what Ellen and Vera told me in the restroom.”

  She told Jack what she’d discovered about Val’s relationships.

  “Sounds like Tammi’s husband has the best motive, then,” Jack said.

  Sally nodded. “That’s what the police think, and they don’t even know the whole story.”

  “But you don’t agree.”

  “No. There are too many problems with that theory.”

  “The painting again.”

  “That’s right. I still don’t see how the painting fits in, but it disappeared at the same time Val was killed, so there has to be a connection. And then there’s Ellen.”

  “Ellen? What does she have to do with all this?”

  “She was involved with Val for a while. And I saw a list of the guests at the art show. She was in the gallery shortly before he was killed.”

  “So it could have been a … what did you call it?”

  “Crime of opportunity?”

  “That’s it. Except that it wasn’t Tammi Thompson who committed it. Ellen was in the art gallery, right near Val’s office. She and Val talked and she got angry about his relationship with Tammi, lost her temper, grabbed the statue, and whacked him.”

  “It’s possible,” Sally said. “But that doesn’t explain the missing painting. And there’s more. Jorge was in the gallery that afternoon, too.”

  “Sounds like the art gallery was more crowded than the Galleria on Saturday afternoon.”

  Sally didn’t laugh, but at least she smiled.

  “That’s right. And Coy Webster was around, too. He’s been living there.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Sally told Jack about Coy’s troubles.

  “I never know what’s going on around the school,” Jack said. “I need to get out of the office more often.”

  “You and me both,” Sally agreed.

  “Is Coy in the clear on this?”

  “He says he was out when Val was killed. Maybe he’s telling the truth. The police think so. I think he knows something, though.”

  “But he’s not talking.”

  “True.”

  “And Jorge has the painting.”

  “Yes. Which everyone tells me to forget about.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Jack asked.

  Sally turned her nearly empty coffee cup in her hands.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Jack tried to think of something, but nothing came. He supposed Sherlock Holmes didn’t have to worry about being shoved aside after all.

  “Do you remember a movie called Animal House?” Sally asked.

  The phrase that leapt to Jack’s mind was non sequitur, but he didn’t say that. He said, “Sure I remember it. It was the story of my freshman year in college.”

  Sally smiled. “Were you Otter?”

  “That would be me.”

  “Good. I was afraid you might have been Bluto. But he’s the one I was thinking of. I think
he’s the one we need to consider as a role model right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you remember the scene where someone says that the situation calls for some kind of action, something really stupid?”

  “Yeah. And Bluto says, ‘And we’re just the guys who can do it.’”

  “That’s the scene, all right.”

  “And you’re thinking?”

  “Of doing something really stupid.”

  “Well,” Jack said, “we’re just the guys who can do it.”

  31

  Sally wasn’t sure just when she’d decided to take Jack on as her partner in crime. Or anticrime. And she still wasn’t sure what their relationship was. At any rate, Jack seemed like a nice guy, and since he’d been in on finding Tammi’s body, maybe he deserved a chance to help her crack the case.

  Crack the case, she thought. I haven’t done a thing, and I’m already starting to think in clichés from bad novels.

  Her plan was simple. They would take the painting from Jorge’s car, bring it to Chief Desmond, and confront him with the fact that Jorge must have removed it from the art gallery.

  “And then what?” Jack asked.

  “Nothing. That’s all we do. After that, we’re out of it. Desmond can turn things over to Weems and the locals, and they’ll figure out just how Jorge is involved.”

  “I have an idea about that,” Jack said. “Jorge’s involvement, I mean. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Of course.”

  Jack looked around. There were people coming into the coffee shop now, and it wouldn’t be long before there were others seated in the room with them. The tables were too close together for confidential conversations, and besides, Jack wanted something stronger than a Diet Pepsi.

  “Could I tell you about it at dinner?”

  Sally had to think about that for a minute. She had never dated anyone from the school, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to start, no matter how nice Jack seemed.

  But it wouldn’t actually be a date, she reminded herself. They were discussing a plan. And after dinner, they would be putting the plan into action.

  So she said, “Only if you let me pay for myself.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Jack said.

  * * *

  They wound up at the Old Mexico, a restaurant that had been in Hughes for as long as most people could remember. It had been opened by Emilio Parra shortly after the Second World War, and he had managed it for over forty years. When Emilio stepped down, his son Roberto took over.