by Bill Crider
After about a second’s consideration, however, Sally knew she shouldn’t be surprised at Troy’s appearance in her office. There wasn’t much doubt that he was there to find out what he could about what had been happening. But Ellen was another matter.
“I was at the Seahorse Club, getting an early start on the weekend,” Troy said. “I was just leaving when I saw the police cars heading out here to the campus. I thought I’d come by and find out what was happening, and someone told me that you were involved. Naturally I had to find out how you were doing, so I just waited for you in case you came back by your office.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Sally said, knowing full well that Troy was much more interested in getting the lowdown on what had happened than he was in how Sally was doing. “And you, Ellen?”
Ellen Baldree was perpetually unhappy with Sally for reasons that Sally had never quite been able to determine. She thought that probably Ellen would have disliked anyone in the chair’s position, maybe because she wanted the job herself (though in Sally’s opinion she was temperamentally unsuited for it) or maybe because she just didn’t like to think that anyone was in charge of her. In her less agreeable moments, of which there were many, Ellen liked to remind Sally that she had outlasted three previous department chairs, the clear implication being that long after Sally was canned, Ellen would still be there at HCC, harassing the new chair and reminding her (or him) about the four that had come and gone while Ellen had persevered.
“It’s a private matter,” Ellen said, with a look at Troy, a look clearly designed to make Troy aware of how well she knew Troy would blab anything he heard to the first person he saw. “I’ve been waiting for quite a while, hoping you’d come back by, but I’d prefer to discuss it with you after Mr. Beauchamp is through.”
“That’s fine,” Sally said. “You can wait in the hall. And close the door, please.”
Ellen was clearly put out by having to wait, but she closed the door without slamming it.
“They didn’t arrest Jack again, did they?” Troy asked when Ellen was safely out of sight.
“No,” Sally said, and she told him as much as she thought he ought to know about what had happened.
“Good grief,” Troy said when she was finished. “That must have been awful! And the police have no idea who’s going around killing people?”
“None at all, if you don’t count Jack.”
“Surely they don’t think he killed Ray Thomas, too.”
“I don’t believe they do, but it’s hard to tell with Detective Weems.”
“This is going to be hard on Mae,” Troy said.
“Why on earth?”
“She and Ray were having a little fling. I thought everybody knew that.”
“Not everybody,” Sally said, wondering if Weems knew. And wondering if Troy, not to mention Weems, knew about Mae and Bostic.
“It’s been going on for a while,” Troy said. “I have no idea what she saw in him. He’s as different from her as daylight is from dark.”
Sally was about to say “opposites attract,” but she stopped herself just in time. One use of that cliche a day was more than enough.
“Maybe she was getting free auto repair,” she said.
“Maybe. But I still don’t get it. He was in that shop all day, and when he left, he was so covered with oil and grease that he looked as if he’d been working on a drilling rig all day.”
“I’m sure she made him clean up,” Sally said.
Troy stood up. Sally could tell he was eager to get out and start spreading the news.
“We’ll probably never know,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re all right, and I hope you won’t let this upset you too much.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Sally said. “I’m fine.”
That wasn’t strictly true. She didn’t feel fine at all, mainly because there was something about the man in the welding mask that she’d told neither Jack nor Weems. But she couldn’t let herself fret about that. She had Ellen Baldree to worry about first.
She thought about getting a Hershey bar from the bottom drawer of her desk, but she didn’t want Ellen to see her eating it. Ellen would probably think it was a sign of weakness, and it might very well be. So Sally wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.
Ellen came into the office as soon as Troy slipped out the door. She’d obviously been lurking close by, perhaps in an attempt to overhear whatever was being said. She sat down by Sally’s desk, crossed her legs, and said, “I want to know what you’re going to do about Jack Neville.”
Sally looked at Ellen. Her most striking feature was her hair, which was extremely black, as black as any hair that Sally had ever seen—which was surprising, given Ellen’s age. She had to be at least fifty-five, and Sally refused to believe that anyone’s hair could stay that black at that age, at least not without the help of chemicals.
But maybe she was being uncharitable, Sally thought. After all, her own hair was a constant trial to her. It reminded her of Shakespeare’s sonnet, the one that went, “If hairs be wires, black wires grow upon her head.” Not that the wires on her head were entirely black.
“Well?” Ellen said.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Sally said.
“Of course you don’t. You don’t know that Neville’s your pet. You don’t know that you have a date with him this weekend. You don’t know, but everyone else at HCC does.”
“And your point is?”
Ellen uncrossed her legs, sat up straight, and crossed her arms.
“My point is that you’re the department chair. You aren’t supposed to show favoritism. I’ll be keeping an eye on the schedule for next semester, and if Neville gets an extra sophomore class or if he doesn’t have to teach at eight o’clock, I’ll complain to the dean.”
“I make the schedule as fair as possible to everyone,” Sally said.
“I’ll bet. That’s why Jason Kent’s classes always fill up before anyone else’s. We all know he’s got the best schedule. Or he did. Now you’ll probably fix things for your boyfriend.”
Sally thought longingly of the Hershey bar lying quietly in the drawer not two feet from her. She thought of almonds and chocolate.
She also thought that Jason Kent’s classes filled up because he was an excellent teacher who had remarkable rapport with his students. In her six years at HCC Sally had never had a complaint about any of his classes, unless you counted the woman who was convinced she should have made an A on the paper she’d cribbed from an article she’d located on the Internet. She’d explained to Sally that Mr. Kent simply didn’t like her; otherwise he would have given her an A. After all, if the paper was good enough to be posted on the Internet, it was certainly good enough for an A at HCC. The fact that it was plagiarized in its entirety shouldn’t enter into the discussion.
Sally didn’t mention any of that to Ellen. She simply pointed out that Kent didn’t always have a favorable schedule. Some of his classes were scheduled in the afternoons, and they always filled.
“No wonder they’re filled,” Ellen said. “There are hardly any other classes offered then.”
“So what does that tell us?” Sally asked, expecting Ellen to say that nobody else would teach at those times because no one would sign up for their classes.
But Ellen fooled her. She said, “It tells us that he doesn’t like competition. If there were any other classes, his wouldn’t fill up.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Sally said. “And by the way, Jack Neville is not my boyfriend.”
“That’s what I’d say, too, if I were going out with an accused killer. You’d better not let him back in the classroom. There are plenty of people who would take exception to being on the same faculty with him.”
Sally counted silently to ten. Then she counted to ten again for good measure.
“For your information,” she said when she was through with the counting, “the dean has already asked to teach Jack’s classes for
a while.”
“I’m glad someone around here has a little sense,” Ellen said.
“For your further information, I didn’t agree with the dean’s decision. I happen to believe that Jack is innocent. And even if he weren’t, we should presume his innocence until he’s been found guilty in court.”
“They don’t take innocent people in for questioning,” Ellen said.
“I’m sure the people who wrote the constitution would disagree.”
“They’d be wrong, then,” Ellen said.
Sally had to admire Ellen for one reason if for no other. When she had an opinion, she stuck to it in the face of any and all opposition. Facts and reason meant nothing to her. She ignored them as blithely as if they didn’t exist.
“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Sally asked.
“Yes. And remember: I’ll be having a very close look at the schedule when it comes out.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Sally told her. “Sometimes mistakes creep in, no matter how hard I work on it, so I’ll tell Dean Naylor that you’ll be double-checking everything.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“And I know he’ll appreciate your help,” Sally said. “You know how he hates having errors in the schedule.” Sally stood up. “I have to be leaving now.”
Ellen stood as well, a look of surprise and shock replacing the determined glare she’d worn ever since sitting down.
“I didn’t say I’d check the schedule for Dean Naylor! I didn’t say anything about finding errors.”
“He’s always asking for more faculty input,” Sally said. “He’ll be thrilled to know that you’ll be giving it to him.”
“But I don’t want to read the entire schedule!”
Sally put one gentle hand on Ellen’s elbow and picked up her purse with the other. She guided Ellen toward the door and out into the hall.
“I’m sure Dean Naylor will be in touch,” she said, pulling the door of the office closed behind her.
“But I don’t want him to be in touch,” Ellen said.
“Then you’d better tell him that you can’t work on the schedule after all,” Sally said, walking past her. “But he’ll be disappointed if you don’t. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“I don’t know anything about checking the schedule,” Ellen wailed behind her.
“That’s all right,” Sally said. “I’m sure you’ll learn soon enough. Dean Naylor is a very good teacher. He’s the one who taught me about making schedules. Of course you might want to give him some ideas for improvement.”
Sally decided to leave it at that and walked away. She turned the corner into the main hallway and headed for the door. She could hear Ellen saying something, but it was muffled by the walls, and Sally didn’t want to hear it anyway.
17
On her way out of the building, Sally stopped by the mail room. She wasn’t really interested in picking up her mail. It was just that she was in the habit of checking it every day when she left. When she went in, Jorge Rodriguez was standing by his mailbox, removing one of the familiar brown envelopes used for campus mail.
“You’re here awfully late,” he said, looking Sally’s way.
There was nothing in Sally’s mailbox, and she was sorry she’d stopped by. There were two people she really didn’t want to see at that moment. One of them was Fieldstone. The other was Jorge.
“I guess you know why,” she said.
She didn’t know exactly why she said it. She certainly hadn’t intended to. Even if she’d wanted to discuss the topic with Jorge, she wouldn’t ordinarily have put it that way. There was just something about him that flustered her.
Jorge didn’t seem bothered. He stuck the envelope back in the box and said, “Why don’t we go sit down in the lounge and have a talk.”
Sally didn’t want to go anywhere with Jorge, but it would have been rude to refuse. Sally usually tried not to be rude to anyone, something she blamed on her mother, who had spent a large part of Sally’s childhood giving Sally detailed instructions about how a “lady” behaved. The only trouble with the instructions was that the world these days didn’t have much use for the kind of women her mother had considered “ladies.”
“All right,” she said, telling herself that there was really nothing to worry about, even if Jorge was a killer. There might not be anyone around, but Jorge wouldn’t try anything right there in the faculty lounge since anyone could walk in at any time, even on a Friday afternoon. “What did you want to talk about?”
Jorge didn’t say anything. He just led the way into the adjoining room, which was furnished a little like a dentist’s waiting room except that the magazines were older and more esoteric.
“Let’s sit down,” Jorge said.
Sally sat on the couch while Jorge sat in one of the forbidding chairs. Sally wasn’t exactly uncomfortable at being alone with him, but she found herself thinking about the fact that Jorge had, after all, served time in prison for murder and that he might very well have been the person in the welding mask. She looked at his shoes. Black. And his pants. Black. He could have been the one, all right.
And then she found herself thinking about how attractive he was, prison record or no. She wished she hadn’t stopped in the mail room.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jorge said.
Sally sincerely hoped not. She smiled weakly and said, “And are you going to tell me what it is?”
“You’re thinking that I’m a killer,” Jorge said.
Sally tried not to look shocked, but she didn’t quite succeed.
“And you’re wondering about Ralph Bostic,” Jorge said. “About whether I killed him or not. Probably everybody’s wondering. Sure, I didn’t like the guy. In fact, I thought he was a scumbag. He was ripping off the school, and at the same time he was posing as Mr. Fiscal Responsibility. I really can’t stand people like that. I might be a lot of things, but I’m not a hypocrite.”
Sally didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything at all.
“You’ve heard the stories about why I was in prison, I guess,” Jorge said.
Sally just nodded. One of the more popular renditions of Jorge’s story had it that Jorge had come home from work early one day, caught his wife in bed with another man, and killed her lover with his bare hands. Sally didn’t think much of that version. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Jorge could do it. Just one look at his hands was all it had taken to convince her that it was all too possible. What she couldn’t believe was that anyone married to Jorge would have to find another lover.
Another story was that Jorge had taken a baseball bat and beaten to death the man who had raped his sister. All things considered, that was the version that Sally preferred. It still wasn’t pretty, but to her mind it portrayed Jorge as being at least as sinned against as much as sinning. Or something close to that.
Sally couldn’t think of a way to put any of that into words, or at any rate, words that were appropriate to the situation, so she just said, “I’ve heard things, yes.”
“I’ll bet.” Jorge grimaced. “Well, the truth of it doesn’t matter much anymore. I did the crime, and I did the time, as we like to say in the joint. But the point is, I don’t want to go back.”
“And you’re telling me this because … ?”
“Because I know you and Jack Neville have been talking to Weems. You know how I felt about Bostic, and I wouldn’t want you to give Weems the wrong impression.”
“What about Ray Thomas?” Sally asked. “How did you get along with him?”
“Ray? What’s he got to do with this?”
He looked genuinely puzzled to Sally, but the people who taught in the prison units had a saying about the ability of inmates to fool people: Why do you think they call them cons? So maybe he wasn’t as puzzled as he seemed.
“It’s just something I need to know,” Sally said.
“All right, why not? Maybe you haven’t heard the story, since it h
appened before you came here, but Ray and I had some trouble a few years ago. You couldn’t say that we were friends.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He was teaching the automotive classes at the prison, and I found out that he was carrying in contraband.”
Sally immediately thought of dope smuggled in boot heels, or stamps (as good as money in prison) concealed in hollowed-out paperback books, cigarettes (banned on all prison units) hidden in defective auto parts.
“What was he smuggling?” she asked.
“Candy bars.”
Sally couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly.
“Candy bars?” she said.
“That’s right. He was taking them inside in his boots. He said he was eating them himself, on his breaks, but no one believed him. The wardens didn’t trust him anymore, probably with good reason, so he lost his job in the prison.”
“That doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. He’s teaching on campus now, so it’s not like he was out of work, and the atmosphere is bound to be more pleasant.”
“That’s true, and it’s also true that he has a good job, but he’s not making as much money as he did in the prison. He was on a twelve-month contract there, but here he gets to work only nine months of the year. He doesn’t have classes in the summer to make anything extra.”
“And he blamed you for his losing the job?”
“That’s right, and I don’t mind taking credit for it. He broke the rules, and he got what he deserved. In fact, if I’d had my way, he wouldn’t be teaching here at all.”
“That all happened a long time ago,” Sally said. “Does he still dislike you?”
“He’s not the kind to forget.”
“So have you seen him lately?”
“Not for a while. We don’t socialize much. Why are you so interested in him?”
“Because somebody killed him this afternoon,” Sally said.