by Bill Crider
“Jack Neville?” Coy said. “Is he the one I ran over?”
“I’m sure he won’t hold it against you,” Sally said, though she wasn’t sure at all.
“It was an accident,” Coy said. “I didn’t intend to hurt him. He frightened me.”
“I’m sure you didn’t intend to hurt anyone. What were you afraid of?”
“I was afraid you’d tell Chief Desmond that I was sleeping in the classroom tonight. He told me not to let it happen again, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t even have a class on another campus tonight.”
“I won’t say anything to Desmond,” Sally assured him. “Let’s go see about Jack.”
Coy got out of the car with considerable reluctance and stood beside it. His skin looked like greenish pastry in the parking-lot light.
“Don’t worry about Jack,” Sally said. “He won’t hurt you.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You didn’t run over him.”
“He’ll be fine,” Sally said, and as if to confirm her statement, Jack appeared at the foot of the stairs.
“See?” Sally said.
Jack shuffled toward them, listing slightly to his right. He had his right arm wrapped around his stomach.
“He doesn’t look fine to me,” Coy said, looking as if he might make a dive for the Dart’s interior.
Jack didn’t look fine to Sally, either. She said, “Maybe we could just talk right here.”
“What about?” Coy asked.
Sally didn’t have a chance to answer because Jack had reached them.
“Is this who stepped on me?” he asked.
“It was an accident,” Coy said. “I was in a hurry, and I didn’t see you.”
“You stepped on me.”
“I apologize. I really didn’t intend to. I guess I panicked.”
“What I’d like to know is why you panicked,” Sally said. “After all, you know both of us. We don’t pose much of a threat.”
Coy tugged at his too-large shirt. “I told you. I was afraid you’d tell Desmond about me.”
“That’s not good enough,” Sally said. “You were too scared for that to be it. You heard us talking, didn’t you?”
Coy turned toward his Dart again, as if wishing he were inside it and driving along a freeway in upstate New York.
“You know something about that painting,” Sally said. “And it’s time you told someone about it.”
“Someone like us,” Jack said. He was still holding his stomach, still listing a little, and his breathing was slightly ragged.
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” Coy said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Sally said. “We won’t repeat anything you tell us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Sally said. “Jack?”
Jack didn’t look nearly as certain as Sally sounded, but he said, “Oh, all right.”
The patrol car that they had seen earlier came around the corner again, moving slowly along.
“Why don’t we go back inside?” Sally said.
“Good idea.” Jack turned and started toward the art gallery.
Coy didn’t say anything, but he followed Jack. Sally trailed along behind. She smiled and waved cheerily at the patrol car.
Nothing wrong here, Officer. Just three happy instructors out for a pleasant evening stroll.
And Sally had to admit that it was a lovely evening. There was a soft breeze, the air was mild, and the humidity wasn’t as high as usual, which meant that your skin didn’t scum over with greasy moisture within ten seconds of leaving an air-conditioned building.
Unfortunately, the situation Sally found herself in wasn’t as pleasant as the weather. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to hear the answers that Coy would give her. But like most teachers, she had an intense curiosity, and she was certainly going to ask the questions.
They entered the art gallery and went directly to the classroom. Jack flipped on the lights, and Sally went to the front row of desks.
“We can sit here,” she said.
Coy went over and sat beside her. Jack pulled the chair from the teacher’s desk over in front of them.
“Now,” Sally said to Coy, “I want to know exactly what you saw and heard on the day Val Hurley was killed.”
34
Coy looked around the room. Sally followed his gaze and saw the green duffel bag in the corner. She supposed that it contained all Coy’s worldly belongings.
“Coy?” she said.
Coy turned to look at her. “I didn’t see Val get killed or anything like that. I was in here all the time, right up until I left the campus. I never went in Val’s office. I don’t even know if he was killed while I was here.”
“Could it have happened then?” Jack asked.
“I guess so. I can’t hear very well in here with the door closed.”
“You heard us,” Sally pointed out.
“But you were in the gallery. Val would have been in his office. If he was there. And I’m not saying he was.”
“A. B. D. wasn’t in the gallery. He was in Val’s office, and you heard him, all right.”
Coy shook his head. “I wish I’d never mentioned that. Troy Beauchamp has a way of worming things out of you.”
“But you did mention it,” Sally said.
“I know. That was different, too. A. B. D. and Val were yelling so loudly that I couldn’t help hearing.”
“But yelling is all you heard?”
“That’s right. You heard what I told Chief Desmond. As far as I know, there was no fighting, no scuffling, nothing. After the shouting was over, A. B. D. must have left quietly.”
“You didn’t check to see if Val was okay?” Jack asked.
“No. There wasn’t any fighting, just yelling.”
“As far as you know,” Jack said.
“That’s right. As far as I know.”
“Was that before or after Jorge came in?”
“That was before.”
“So it’s possible that Val didn’t come out to stop Jorge because he was already dead.”
“I guess so,” Coy said. “But it’s also possible that he had his door closed and didn’t see Jorge. He was pretty quiet, except for when he opened the door.”
“Let’s start over,” Sally said. “Coy, when exactly were you here, in this room, on the day Val was killed?”
Coy ducked his head. “From around three o’clock until six.”
“That’s not what you told Desmond,” Sally said.
“Oh. Well, I could be wrong. I’m not really sure when I left.”
Coy looked at the ceiling and closed his eyes as if trying to visualize what he’d done that afternoon.
“Oh, wait, now I remember. I left early to get a hamburger, so I wasn’t here much past four. Anyone could have come in after I left.”
Jack thought that Coy would make a terrible witness when the case came to trial. If it ever did.
“You saw Jorge Rodriguez come in here, didn’t you?” he asked.
Coy looked as if he might cry. “Yes,” he said. “I saw him. But I don’t want him to know that.”
“Why not?” Sally asked.
“Because.”
It was almost as if they were talking to a small child, Jack thought. He had to resist the temptation to say, “Because why?”
Sally said, “If you didn’t see him kill Val, and if you didn’t hear Jorge kill Val, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“I’ve heard stories about Jorge,” Coy said.
Jack wondered if the stories Coy had heard were the same ones that Jack had heard. He was about to ask, but something else occurred to him.
“Wait a minute,” Jack said. “You keep telling us that you didn’t see anything, but you saw Jorge take the painting. How did that happen?”
Coy opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it. He looked a little like a curious fish looking out through the glass of an aquarium.
Finally, he said, “Sometimes I hear the outside door open, and I glance out to see who’s come in. I don’t open the classroom door, though. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m in here.”
Jack looked over his shoulder. The classroom door had a small rectangular pane of glass set in the right-hand side.
Sally didn’t look at the door. She said, “How long was Jorge in the gallery?”
Coy had to think about that. When he came up with the answer, he smiled a relieved smile.
“Not long at all. Not long enough for Val and him to have any kind of discussion. He must have taken the painting down and left right away.”
“You didn’t actually see him take it off the wall, then?”
“No, but I saw him when he went out. He was carrying a painting.”
“Did anyone else come in during the afternoon?” Jack asked.
Coy nodded. “I’m sure there were others. I don’t remember.”
“What about Ms. Baldree?” Sally asked.
“Oh,” Coy said. “She’s the one with the really black hair, isn’t she?”
“That’s Ellen,” Sally said. “Did you see her?”
Coy’s answer was hesitant. “I think so.”
“You either saw her or you didn’t see her,” Jack said. “Which is it?”
Coy hung his head. “All right. I saw her.”
“And how long was she here?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t start that again,” Jack said.
“I mean it. I don’t know. I was looking over a few essays that I’d graded, and I didn’t see her leave.”
“So she could have been here when you left,” Jack said.
“That’s right. Or she might have been gone. I wasn’t listening for the door. I might not have heard her leave.”
“We’ll let that go for a minute,” Sally said. “Who else came in?”
“No one.” This time Coy sounded positive. But he wasn’t. “Well, what I mean is that I didn’t hear anyone or see anyone. That doesn’t mean no one came in. But if anyone did, I didn’t hear it. Or see it.”
Once again, Jack thought about the kind of witness Coy would make. Jack would have hated to be one of the lawyers trying the case, especially whichever one Coy was testifying for.
“Anyway,” Coy went on, “there’s something else about Ms. Baldree. She came in before Mr. Rodriguez did.”
Now that was interesting, Jack thought. “How long before?” he asked.
“Ten or fifteen minutes, I guess. I wasn’t keeping track, you know. I didn’t expect anyone to be killed.”
“And you don’t know when she left,” Sally said.
“That’s right.”
Sally looked at Jack. He knew what she must have been thinking. Jorge didn’t meet any opposition when he took the painting, so most likely Val hadn’t known about it being taken. Was he closeted in his office with Ellen, or was he already dead?
Whichever was the case, they weren’t going to find out from Coy. He either didn’t know or wasn’t going to tell them. Jack questioned him for another minute or two but got absolutely no other information from him.
“Isn’t there anyone you can spend the nights with?” Sally asked Coy, changing the subject. “You know you can’t continue to stay in this classroom.”
“I don’t see why not. I’m not hurting anyone.”
“It’s not safe here,” Jack said. “What if the killer comes back?”
Coy blinked. “He wouldn’t do that, would he? Why would he do that?”
“Killers always return to the scene of the crime,” Jack said.
Sally raised her eyebrows at him.
“I was only kidding,” Jack said, just as he heard the outside door open.
35
Sally never took her pistol out of the car except to carry it to the firing range. She’d never even thought about taking it anywhere else.
But for just a second, as the outside door of the art gallery hissed shut on its automatic closer, she wished that she’d brought the pistol with her and that she had it in her hand at that very instant.
There was nothing she could do about it now. The pistol was down in the parking lot, locked in the trunk of her Acura, where it was doing her no good at all.
She looked around the classroom. There was no place to hide except under the teacher’s desk in front of the room, and Coy Webster had scrabbled across the floor like a spider and beaten her there. For a man with baggy pants, he could really move when he wanted to.
Jack had moved quickly as well. He was standing beside the classroom door, holding the straight chair that had been behind the teacher’s desk.
As Sally watched, the door began to open, and Jack raised the chair over his head.
“Don’t, Jack!” Sally yelled, as Tom Clancey poked his head through the door.
Jack had already begun to swing the chair downward, but Clancey, warned by Sally’s cry, ducked back outside as it descended.
The chair passed through the space that he had vacated, and its back legs bounced off the floor.
Clancey, looking apprehensive, stood just outside the room and drew his revolver.
“All right!” he said. “What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing, Sergeant Clancey,” Sally said. “Mr. Neville and I were in here discussing something related to the art department, and you frightened us. We thought you were a prowler.”
Clancey continued to stand outside the door, and he didn’t holster his pistol.
“You’re the prowlers, not me,” he said. “Someone called the dispatcher and reported that there were lights on in the gallery. Chief Desmond left specific instructions to check out anything suspicious in this building. He says there’s been someone living in here.”
“Well, it’s not me,” Jack said from beside the door, being careful not to step into the line of fire. “Dr. Good and I were just having a look around, checking to be sure that there was no one in this room. She’s the division chair responsible for this department, you know.”
“That’s right,” Sally said. “I thought it might be a good idea to make sure that Mr. Webster hadn’t disobeyed Chief Desmond’s order.”
Clancey didn’t appear to be convinced. “Well? Did he disobey the order?”
Jack stepped out from behind the door, leaving the chair behind, and walked over to Sally. He waved a hand to indicate the empty room around them.
“You don’t see him anywhere, do you?” he said.
Clancey stepped inside the room and looked around. If he noticed the duffel bag, he didn’t seem to pay it any special attention. Maybe he thought it was just some piece of equipment related to the art classes. He put away his sidearm and relaxed slightly.
“No,” he said. “I don’t see him anywhere. But you two ought not to be here, either.”
“I’m sorry if we caused you any trouble,” Sally said.
“It’s no trouble. You’ll show up on the surveillance tapes, though.”
Sally had forgotten about the newly installed camera. She wondered if Coy had known about it. Oh, well. He knew now.
“It would probably be a good idea if you two got out of here now,” Clancey said. “I’ll check around just to make sure there’s no one else in the building.”
“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” Sally said. “We have a few things to discuss first.”
Clancey looked as if he wanted to ask what those things were, but he didn’t.
“Okay, but be sure you turn off the lights when you leave. We don’t want anyone else calling about prowlers.”
“We’ll take care of everything,” Sally assured him.
“All right, then.”
Clancey turned and left the room, but he didn’t close the door. Sally was sure he’d left it open deliberately, so he could spy on them.
“I wonder what he really thinks we were doing in here,” she said.
Jack was embarrassed. “I, uh, I—”<
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“Is he gone?” Coy Webster asked from under the desk.
“Stay there,” Sally said.
Coy didn’t come out, and he didn’t ask any questions. He just stayed where he was.
“What about that camera?” Sally asked Jack.
“What about it?”
“How are we going to get Coy out of here without being taped?”
“I didn’t know we were going to try.”
“Well, we are. He can’t stay here. He’s sure to be caught, and there’s no telling what Desmond might do. He might try to get him fired.”
“Oh, no,” Coy moaned. “He can’t do that. I’d starve to death. I can’t afford an apartment as it is. I’m already going to have to sleep in my car.”
Sally thought that was an exaggeration. After all, Coy did have jobs on several other campuses. But he did need a place to stay.
“He can’t sleep in his car,” she said to Jack. “And it wouldn’t look right if I let him stay at my place. What can we do?”
Jack sighed. “I know where you’re going with this. You’re not fooling anybody.”
Sally looked as innocent as she could. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do. But it’s okay. I feel the same way, I guess. So Coy can stay with me, but only for tonight. Tomorrow, we’re going to find him a place of his own. There’s bound to be some low-rent apartment in town, maybe above a garage or something like that.”
“You’re sweet,” Sally said.
“You really are,” Coy said from under the desk.
Jack didn’t have a chance to respond to either of them because Sergeant Clancey stuck his head in the door and said, “All clear. I’ll be leaving now.”
“We’ll be gone in a minute,” Sally said. “And we won’t forget the lights.”
“Thanks,” Clancey said.
When Sally was sure that Clancey was out of the building, she told Coy Webster that he could come out.
He emerged from beneath the desk and apologized for deserting them and hiding.
“It was just a reflex. After what Chief Desmond said to me, I really didn’t want him to catch me in here.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sally said. “We’ve got to get you out of here before someone else comes barging in.”