A Knife in the Back

by Bill Crider

  “I’m sure you’ll be back in the classroom within a couple of days,” Naylor said. “After all, the Hughes police force is quite competent. They’ll have the real killer in jail before you know it.”

  “You have a lot more faith in the police around here than I do, too. Remember the last time they had a murder to investigate?”

  Neither Naylor nor Fieldstone liked being reminded of the last time. Some of the things that had come out during the investigation of Val Hurley’s death hadn’t been exactly flattering to the school. And of course the Hughes police hadn’t really cracked the case. Sally Good had done that pretty much on her own.

  “This won’t be like the last time,” Fieldstone said. “This time the college won’t be involved at all.”

  Jack couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard. He said, “The college is already involved. I’m part of the college, and I’ve been taken to the police station and questioned. Now you’re about to jerk me out of my classroom. How can you say the college isn’t involved?”

  “Jerk isn’t exactly the right word,” Naylor said. “We’re just asking you to take a couple of days off—with pay, remember—and wait for the police to do their job.”

  “Who’s going to take my place in class if I go along with this?”

  “That would be me,” Naylor said. “I minored in English, as you may know.”

  Jack knew, all right. He also knew that Naylor hadn’t been inside a classroom in fifteen years except maybe to check and see if anyone had stolen a pencil sharpener.

  “Besides,” Naylor said, “this is Friday. I’m sure the police will have everything wrapped up before we get back here on Monday morning. You probably won’t have to miss any classes at all.”

  Jack wished he shared some of Naylor’s touching faith in the abilities of local law enforcement.

  “It’s not as if you really have any choice in this,” Fieldstone said. “The decision has already been made. I don’t want any calls from students or their parents after they see the newspaper tomorrow.”

  “I suppose I could take this up with the faculty senate,” Jack said.

  “You could do that,” Fieldstone agreed. “But I don’t think you’ll find that it’s a good idea.”

  “You don’t think the group will support me?”

  “I’m sure you’d have a great deal of support. I just don’t think it’s in the best interests of the school.”

  “What about my best interests?”

  “We’re thinking of you in all this, Jack,” Naylor said. “If you went into that classroom, no matter how much your students may like you and trust you, there would be at least a couple of them who’d be suspicious of you and think you didn’t belong there.”

  “Just the ones who are failing,” Jack said.

  “You know that’s not true,” Naylor said. “You know how people are.”

  Jack knew all right. Naylor might as well have been talking about himself and Fieldstone. Jack wanted to protest, but he was getting tired of all the talk about the school’s best interests, not to mention his own. Naylor and Fieldstone were going to force him out of his classroom, and that was that. By the time the faculty senate met, which couldn’t possibly happen much earlier than Monday afternoon, the damage would already be done.

  “All right,” he sighed. “I’ll do it your way.”

  “I knew we could count on you,” Naylor said.

  If that was supposed to make Jack feel better, it didn’t work at all.

  9

  Sally was correcting papers when Jack came into her office, though her mind wasn’t really on the job. Fortunately that didn’t matter much with multiple-choice tests. She shoved the papers aside, getting them mixed up with another set. Oh, well. She could sort them out later.

  “You don’t look happy,” she said as Jack plopped himself down in the chair beside her desk.

  “I’m not.” He proceeded to tell her what had happened in Fieldstone’s office.

  “I’m not surprised,” Sally said when he was done.

  “Me neither. Just a little disappointed.”

  “You have to try to see it from their perspective.”

  Jack stiffened and straightened in the chair. Then he relaxed and smiled.

  “For a second there I thought you were serious,” he said. “I thought you’d be more upset than this.”

  “I’m upset. Don’t think I’m not. How dare they tell me what to do about one of my own faculty members without consulting me!”

  “Have they actually told you yet?”

  “No, but I’m sure they’ll get around to it. Why don’t we go have some lunch so they can’t get me on the phone?”

  “Good idea,” Jack said. “We can eat in the cafeteria. That’ll get me in the mood for prison food.”

  “Now who’s not being serious?”

  “Gallows humor,” Jack said. “I’m getting pretty good at it.”

  “Not as good as you think,” Sally told him.

  The cafeteria’s Friday specials offered a choice between fish sticks, cole slaw, and french fries, or a chopped barbecue beef sandwich with potato salad on the side.

  “Talk about the horns of a dilemma,” Jack said as he looked at the menu board.

  Sally wasn’t impressed by the choices either, but she went for the sandwich. That way she didn’t have to deal with nearly as much grease. Or so she thought until she got the sandwich, which was mostly fat and gristle.

  Jack got a sandwich, too, and joined Sally at a Formica-topped table. He sat down and looked around the cafeteria. It was very quiet. There were only two other people in sight, both of them part-time instructors. Jack opened up his sandwich and looked inside.

  “And they wonder why so few people eat here,” he said.

  “It could be worse,” Sally said.

  “It could?”

  “We could get ptomaine from the potato salad.”

  Jack looked at the salad, which was a bright yellow with green chunks that might have been pickles.

  “Prison food might not be so bad after all,” he said.

  “No more prison jokes,” Sally ordered. “You’re not going to prison, and that’s that.”

  “Dean Naylor feels the same way. He’s sure that Weems is going to have this murder solved by Monday. I’ll bet he hopes so, but I have my doubts. I’m going to drop a couple of reams of notes for my classes on his desk before I go home this afternoon.”

  “That’ll teach him.”

  “OK, so it’s petty. I admit it. But I’m feeling petty about now.”

  Sally took a bite of her sandwich. It wasn’t quite as bad as it looked. But it wasn’t good. She chewed it thoroughly.

  “You’ll get over it,” she said when she could talk again.

  “Maybe,” Jack mumbled, his mouth half-full of sandwich. “Maybe not. Weems has me down as the killer. He’s not going to look very hard for anyone else.”

  “Then I guess we’ll have to,” Sally said.

  “I don’t think Weems would appreciate our help.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “Not as much as going to prison.”

  “So what do you say?”

  “I guess Weems could use our able assistance. That still doesn’t mean he’s going to like it.”

  “I can deal with that.”

  “Then so can I.”

  “Fine,” Sally said. “Let’s get started.”

  “Aren’t you going to finish your sandwich?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Me neither,” Jack said.

  The college was very quiet. A former dean had once said that you could shoot a shotgun down the hallway of any building on the Hughes campus on any given Friday afternoon and not hit a soul. Sally could vouch for the truth of that, though she often stayed in her office to get all her papers graded before she left for the weekend. English teachers, even if they were teaching only three classes, which was her load, always had a lot of grading to do. She often
wondered how those who taught the regular load of five classes could keep up. And because the school allowed faculty members to teach an extra class, the ones who really needed the money taught six classes. Sally’s mind reeled when she thought of all the papers that someone teaching six classes would have to read and mark, but somehow everyone managed to do it, and to do a good job.

  “Where do we start?” Jack asked when they were seated in Sally’s office.

  “What was it Alice said?” Sally asked.

  “Alice? Who’s Alice?”

  “Alice in Wonderland.”

  “Oh. What’s she got to do with this?”

  “You asked where we should start, which is what my students always want to know about their essays. I usually give them Alice’s advice.”

  “I’m with you now,” Jack said. “It’s something about ‘you begin at the beginning and keep on going until you come to the end; then you stop.’”

  “Close enough,” Sally said. “A lot better than my students. Most of them have never heard of Alice in Wonderland.”

  “I know what you mean. Most of mine haven’t even heard about Harry Potter, but that’s what makes our jobs so interesting. Anyway, where’s the beginning of our problem? Or maybe I should say my problem.”

  Sally thought about that. She said, “Why don’t we start with the knife-making class? Whatever possessed you to make a knife? And I want a straight answer this time.”

  “It all started with a book,” Jack said. “I’m an English teacher, after all, and I read a lot, unlike most of our students. In fact, you could say I became an English teacher because I liked to read so much.”

  “It happens to a lot of us,” Sally said, “but we spend so much time grading papers and teaching classes and preparing to teach classes that we hardly ever have time to read.”

  “Not me. I always make time to read, no matter what.”

  “Good. I do, too. What was the name of the book?”

  “The Iron Mistress. It’s by Paul Wellman. He also wrote The Comancheros.”

  “Wasn’t that a John Wayne movie?”

  “Right. A long time ago. You’ve probably seen it on TV.” Jack grew animated. “There’s a great scene where Wayne, Stuart Whitman, and Wayne’s son, Patrick, are hunkered down behind an overturned wagon or something, and they’re all firing at the bad guys, who come charging at the wagon and jump over it on their horses, and—”

  “And Whitman, Wayne, and young Patrick whirl around and drop all three of them,” Sally finished.

  “That’s right! Great scene, just great.”

  “But it’s not from The Iron Mistress.”

  “Nope. That was a movie, too, though, even longer ago than The Comancheros. It starred Alan Ladd.”

  “I vaguely remember him.”

  “He was short,” Jack said. “But then what Hollywood star isn’t?”

  “John Wayne?”

  “Right. Anyway, The Iron Mistress is about Jim Bowie.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Sally said. “You read about Jim Bowie, the testosterone started flowing, and you decided you had to make your own Bowie knife.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly right. But I guess it’s close enough. The college was offering the course in the continuing ed department, and I thought ‘Why not?’ How was I to know that the knife would end up in Ralph Bostic’s back?”

  Sally didn’t like to think about that part of it, and she was sure Jack didn’t, either. It was hard to believe that a knife Jack had made with his own hands had been used to murder someone, but that was what had happened.

  “Tell me about the knife,” she said.

  “It wasn’t easy to make, that’s for sure. The class lasted twelve weeks, and we started out by getting our materials. We were given the choice of using old chainsaw blades or leaf springs from junked cars, because springs and chainsaw blades are both made out of good-quality steel. I used a leaf spring. I had to draw the knife on the spring, grind it to shape, temper it—did you know that when you heat metal hot enough, it’s not magnetic? That’s how you know when you’ve gotten it hot enough. Anyway—”

  “Never mind,” Sally said, a little surprised at Jack’s enthusiasm. “I think I have the general idea. Now all we have to do is figure out how the knife got from your office into Bostic’s back. Where did you keep the knife?”

  “I was sort of proud of it. It looked a lot better than I thought it would. I made the handle out of—”

  “Never mind about the handle. You’re like a freshman writer who can’t stick to the outline.”

  Jack looked chastened, and Sally was sorry she’d said anything. It was nice to see someone get enthusiastic about something he’d created.

  “I didn’t mean to criticize,” she said.

  “Well, you’re right. I’m getting way off the subject. I kept the knife right out on the desk where I could see it, and where other people could see it, too. I guess I was hoping someone would ask me about it.” Jack smiled sheepishly. “As you can tell, I like talking about it. That’s probably why I put my initials on the blade, too. I wish I hadn’t done that.”

  “When did the knife disappear?” Sally asked.

  “It was about three weeks ago,” Jack said. “I came back from class one day, and it wasn’t there. Anyone could have stopped by my office and slipped it under a shirt or in a purse and been out of there. It wouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds.”

  “You said you put it on the desk so other people would ask you about it. Didn’t you think that might be dangerous? What if an irate student had grabbed it and sliced you up with it?”

  “I don’t usually have any irate students,” Jack said.

  That was true, Sally reflected. She might have complaints about some of her other faculty members, but no one ever had a problem with Jack. His student evaluations were always highly favorable, and students flocked to his classes. That wasn’t true of other faculty members she could name, some of whom were jealous of the fact that Jack never had to worry about filling his classes.

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “But it was still dangerous. Did anyone ever mention the knife?”

  “There weren’t many who did,” Jack said. “I was a little disappointed.”

  Sally smiled. “As I’d say to my freshmen, be more specific.”

  “Right. Let’s see. You never asked about it, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m not very interested in knives.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wish I hadn’t been. Jorge Rodriguez was, though. He stopped by one day, and we must’ve talked for half an hour. He knew a little about knife-making.”

  Sally couldn’t help but be curious. “He did?”

  “It’s something that interests a lot of inmates,” Jack said. “They make them out of just about everything: spoons, pieces of wire, plastic combs, you name it.”

  “Oh,” Sally said.

  “Jorge and Bostic didn’t like each other much, did they,” Jack said.

  “No,” Sally said. “They didn’t get along at all.”

  10

  Of course nobody really liked Bostic,” Jack said.”So there’s no need to start thinking that Jorge might’ve killed him.”

  Sally knew that, but she couldn’t help it. There was a definite flaw in her character when it came to Jorge. On the one hand, she was attracted to him; on the other hand, she was sure she shouldn’t be, and she was automatically suspicious of him when bad things happened.

  “There’s Roy Don Talon, for one,” Sally said, trying to get her mind off Jorge. She went on to tell Jack what she’d learned from Wynona. “I wonder who we could ask about that.”

  “How about Talon?”

  Sally wasn’t sure she wanted to be so direct. Talon was on the college board of trustees, after all, and Fieldstone frowned on faculty members talking about school matters with members of the board. She said as much to Jack.

  “You’re right about that,” he agreed. “Fieldstone made it pretty
clear to me in his office that he didn’t want the college to be involved in this in any way. If we talk to Talon, he’ll probably just throw us out of his office, and then he’ll be on the phone to Fieldstone tattling on us before the door swings shut.”

  Sally thought about that, and something else occurred to her, something she should have thought of before.

  “That contract Bostic had to repair the college vehicles,” she said. “Surely the board should have known about it. Those things aren’t secrets. A. B. D. shouldn’t have had to tell them about it.”

  “You’re right again,” Jack said. “Of course, stuff like that can be buried in documents and double-talk if you handle it right. So it’s barely possible that none of the board knew.”

  Sally didn’t really believe that. Someone knew. Someone had worked it out and gotten it approved. The business manager surely must have known. He had to approve all the contracts. Sally didn’t like the direction her thoughts were taking her, but she had to voice them.

  “Fieldstone knew,” she said. “He knows everything. And Hal Kaul knew.”

  Kaul was the business manager. He was a short man with thinning, straw-colored hair, and he always had a pencil stuck behind one ear. No one had ever seen him use the pencil. He did all his writing with a ballpoint pen that he kept in his shirt pocket. Nevertheless, the pencil was always there.

  “There might be ways to get things done without Kaul or Fieldstone knowing,” Jack said.

  “There might be, but someone had to get it done.”

  “That’s an angle to look at, then. It’s all pretty ironic, isn’t it?”

  “In what way?”

  “Bostic won his board seat by telling everybody that he stood for fiscal responsibility. He said he was going to see to it that the college was run like a business. And now we know he was guilty of profiteering at the college’s expense.”

  “And you’re surprised?”

  “Not really. Besides, he made good on his promise, at least partially. He was running the vehicle repairs like a business. His business, that is.”