Teacher's Threat

by Diane Vallere

  “Was that jammed into my exhaust pipe?” I asked.

  “Yep. The bang you heard was your tailpipe exploding.” He bent down and picked the blockage up.

  “Don’t touch that,” I said. “It’s evidence.”

  He held out his hand. “It’s a wad of cheap brown paper towels,” he said. “If this is a clue, then every restaurant, gas station, and bar in a ten-mile radius is a suspect.” He carried the ball of paper to the trash can and tossed it inside. “This looks like a prank. Word got out about the professor’s car, and somebody saw your car sitting here and thought it would be funny to try it. Sick mind, but this is a college campus. It’s not the worst prank I’ve seen.”

  “A prank?” I asked. “A man was murdered in this very parking structure, and the same technique was used. If you won’t call the police, then I will.” I pulled my phone out of my handbag and opened my favorites. Tex would want to know about this.

  Except I couldn’t call him. Especially if he was still on his date inside Kanin’s. This required a 911 call and patrol officers, and if it were a prank, I’d be on record as being the one who created the scare.

  I could still tell Tex. When I got home. I could call him and let him know about Faye’s behavior and the story the CP relayed about the parking structure.

  “Ma’am, your car appears to be running okay now. If you drive with your windows down, you’ll be fine.”

  That was it. The professor’s tailpipe had been tampered with, but the car had been broken into too. I remembered the chill I’d felt when I got inside. I left the CP and went to the passenger-side door. It was bent on the frame, just like Professor Gallagher’s had been.

  If this was a prank, then the suspect knew details of the original crime.

  22

  I made the call. It wasn’t long before two police cars arrived on the scene. The campus policeman waited with me, though he seemed none too happy about it. What had started as a courtesy turned into a police matter. I’d even had to show him my student ID to prove my car was allowed to be where it was.

  Ling and Sue climbed out of the first car. “Ms. Night, are you okay?” Ling asked. She held her phone out between us, and I saw a red microphone icon on the screen. Recording our conversation now made her life easier. I knew she needed my consent to be recorded, but right now anonymity was the least of my concerns.

  “Yes. No one was hurt.” I walked her through what happened while Sue spoke to the CP. I relayed his assessment that this was a college prank and how, until I saw the damage to my car, I’d started to think he was right.

  Ling turned away from my car and switched off her phone. “Have you spoken to the captain about this?” she asked in a low voice.

  “Not yet.”

  “Here’s the deal. Your call came in over the scanner. He might have heard it. Based on the vandalism, we need to have it taken to the impound lot so we can check it out.” She looked up at the Canfield Building in front of us. “Have you been on campus all this time?”

  “I was on a date,” I said. There seemed no point denying it now. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’d like to hear it some time. Where is he?”

  “Probably still at Kanin’s. When I left, he was about to blindfold the band and tango till dawn.”

  “Do you think he knows you left?”

  He might not have, but Tex was another story. “I’ll go see.”

  Ling turned to Sue and the CP. “Ms. Night needs a ride to Kanin’s nightclub. I think it’s best she doesn’t arrive in a police car.”

  The CP sighed. “Hop on, lady,” he said. “My chariot awaits.”

  Two things were obvious when I re-entered Kanin’s. The real party happened after midnight, and the students had taken over the establishment. Tables had been cleared from the room to make way for an expanded dance floor, and the swarm of dancing bodies was sweaty enough to have been there awhile. Tex sat along the back wall with his arm extended around the back of Virginia’s chair. She was typing on her phone. Hugo was asleep in the chair next to her. His head rested on her shoulder, and she seemed unbothered by it.

  As soon as Tex saw me, he pulled his arm away from Virginia’s chair and sat up straight. It was the least Rex thing he could have done, and if anyone were watching, the jig would have been up. Lucky for Tex (and Rex), the only person who seemed interested in his actions was me.

  I made my way past the throng of dancers, getting jostled on the way, and sat next to Tex. “Hello,” I said. “I don’t suppose my date noticed I’ve been gone for a few hours?”

  “My date kept your date too busy to notice much more than her cleavage. Sorry it didn’t work out for you two. Seemed like a nice guy.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t think he was the one. I guess I’m back to being a free agent.” Even though the interior was damp with humidity and sweat, the chill from having been outside still lingered. I should have gotten my coat from coat check when I reentered, but returning in my coat would have raised questions I didn’t want to answer, at least not yet.

  “Don’t be too hard on your date,” Tex said. “I bribed the bartender to get him drunk.”

  I kept my bartender negotiation to myself and turned to look at Tex. “Excuse me?”

  He flashed me a grin, the gleaming-white-teeth, sparkling-blue-eyes, mischievous grin that made my heart skip a beat. “Gotta protect my investments.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Did you learn that in business school, Rex?”

  “Nah, I figured it out on my own.” He stood up and shrugged off his sport coat then extended it to me. “You look cold.”

  “Is that wise? Most men loan their jackets to women they came with.”

  “Virginia went off the clock at midnight.”

  I took Tex’s jacket and draped it over my shoulders. “She’s not a cop, is she?” I leaned forward and looked at her.

  “She works at Jumbo’s. The girls miss having me around. I needed a date, and she jumped at the opportunity.”

  My eyes widened. Jumbo’s was a topless bar across the street from the Casa Linda Shopping Center. I’d been inside exactly once. The bar had remained in business while many of the other shops and restaurants in the area had turned over, and for a moment, I recognized Jumbo’s probably had a sound business model. I considered setting up a meeting with the owner to pick her brain about debt-to-income ratio and customer loyalty programs, but I wasn’t sure I was that evolved.

  I glanced at Virginia and then back at Tex. “By ‘the girls’ I assume you’re talking about other dancers and not Virginia’s anatomy. Correct?”

  He chuckled. He leaned close to me and whispered, “Virginia’s not my type.” The sensation of his hot breath on my cold ear sent a different kind of shiver down my spine.

  I turned to him. Our faces were close. “Oh? What’s your type, Rex?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. My tastes run a little narrow these days. I’m a sucker for businesswomen who look like Doris Day.”

  I sat back. “Isn’t that a coincidence. I have a business—a decorating business—and would you believe it was inspired by Doris Day?”

  “What are the odds. I don’t reckon you’d be interested in getting a cup of coffee with me sometime, would you?” he asked.

  My heart swelled. If Rex asked me out, then we could be us in public. One less stressor.

  “You jump, I jump, Jack,” I said.

  Tex’s phone buzzed. “Excuse me a moment,” he said. He stood up and left me with Virginia and the dean.

  Flirting with Tex in public was fun, but when he found out what had happened in the parking structure, I wondered whether he’d appreciate my commitment to keeping his cover or if he’d be upset that I’d kept him out of the loop.

  I shifted to the chair next to Virginia. “You’re a trooper,” I said. “Did you manage to have some fun while you were on the clock?”

  “Are you kidding? I got business cards from four different fraternities and a couple of professors too
. With the jobs I can book, I might be able to go freelance by the end of the year.”

  Seems like everybody had been bit by the entrepreneurial bug.

  “You want some champagne?” she asked. She bent down, and a pack of male students stared, hopeful she’d have a wardrobe malfunction. She raised a bottle of Dom Perignon and held it out to me. “I lost track of my flute, so you’ll have to drink it straight from the bottle.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “Suit yourself.” She took a swig and then propped the bottle on her thigh with her hand around the neck. “Mmmmmm, that’s good.” She closed her eyes and licked her lips and then smiled.

  I was an MBA student who couldn’t get the bank to give me a loan against my house, and Virginia, a topless dancer from Jumbo’s, was on a date with my current leading man, buying herself bottles of Dom Perignon, and swimming in business opportunities. The world felt tilted. Add in the vandalism to my car, and the night was a bust. And when Tex returned from his phone call, which I strongly suspected was from one of the two Sues, I wouldn’t be better off—I’d be worse.

  Something had to give.

  I reached out and grabbed the bottle. Virginia relinquished it and grinned. I took a swig and let the cool bubbles run down my throat. It was good. It was the best pink champagne I’d ever had. It was far better than flat club soda.

  I handed her the bottle. “Virginia, do you mind waiting here with the dean? I’m going to go close out at the bar.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You could get couple of flutes if you want, but I don’t think there’s much left.” She raised the bottle.

  I went back to the bar, this time avoiding much of the dancing crowd by staying close to the wall. I had a secondary agenda, which was finding Tex and telling him what had happened. The bar was mostly empty, with the bartender at the far end, propped on his elbows, talking to the brunette I’d seen stumble out of the restroom when Faye was inside. I rested against a stool and raised my hand to get his attention.

  “I’d like to close out my tab,” I said.

  “Sure. Name?”

  “Night.”

  He retrieved the box of credit cards from the side of the register and flipped through tabs until he reached the Ns. “Madison?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He pulled it out, unclipped an unfinished receipt, and scanned the barcode at the bottom. The register made a sound. The bartender glanced at the screen, tried to scan the receipt again, and then turned back to me. “This one’s no good.”

  “What do you mean, it’s no good?”

  The bartender stepped to the side so I could see the computer screen. Across the front was one word: Rejected.

  23

  “Do you have another way to pay?” the bartender asked.

  “That’s the card I brought with me tonight. Try it again.”

  “I tried it twice.”

  “Try. It. Again.”

  He dutifully turned, scanned the receipt, and swiped my card. The computer made that nasty sound again. This time, under the word “Rejected,” it said “Confiscate Card.”

  Could nothing be easy tonight?

  I held out my hand. “I’ll come back tomorrow and pay the tab. You can either trust me or send me to the kitchen to wash dishes. I don’t care which. But I have to call the company to straighten this out, and the easiest way is for me to call the number on the back.”

  “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t give you back that card.”

  “That card is my card, and yes, you can.”

  “House rules.”

  The longer I argued with the tattooed twenty-something, the angrier I got. Door after door had been slammed in my face, and I was tired of it. I turned away from him and scanned the interior of the club for Tex. Instead of seeing him, I saw Eric coming toward us.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked. He shifted his attention from me to the bartender and back to me, and I wasn’t sure which one of he was talking to or how different our answers might be.

  “Everything is not okay. This man won’t give me my credit card. I don’t know what the problem with it is, but I will straighten it out tomorrow.”

  The color drained from Eric’s face. He looked at the bartender. “Her card came up as rejected?”

  The bartender nodded. “I tried to tell her the house rules, but she won’t listen.”

  “Madison, did you apply for any loans recently?” Eric asked.

  The personal nature of the question surprised me. “Yes. How did you know?”

  He seemed relieved. “When the banks run your profile to see if your debt-to-income ratio is in line, they put a temporary hold on any open balances on your cards. It’ll drop off in a couple of days, but the computer probably thinks you’re overextended.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” I said. I turned to the bartender. “Have you?”

  He shrugged. “He’s the business major.”

  “May I have my card, please?” I held out my hand.

  “I told her the policy,” the bartender told Eric.

  “Eric, you are smart enough to know you’re better off if I come back tomorrow and pay than if you anger me and I never come back. Once I straighten this out, I’ll have a choice: blame the bank, or blame the restaurant. This happened at your event, and I’ve seen two women so drunk they could barely walk and one man asleep alongside the dance floor. I don’t recall seeing anyone checking IDs at the door, and the sheer number of people inside seems far beyond the recommended occupancy limit by the entrance. Would you like me to talk to the restaurant board? I’m sure they would be interested in what I have to say.”

  “Give her the card,” Eric instructed the bartender.

  The bartender shook his head. “You got balls, lady.”

  One more thing I didn’t need.

  I took the card and slipped it into my wallet then went to the coat check. Tex rested against the counter with my coat in his hands. “Is there anything I need to know?” he asked.

  “That’s a loaded question.”

  “Only if you were involved in a police matter earlier tonight.”

  “And if I was, would I have any reason to tell a classmate who owns a hat store?”

  I snatched my coat from his hands. Gone was the playful attitude I’d had earlier. In its place was that same old feeling of looking out for myself. Tex was like everybody else in here: he wanted something. But his wants and my wants didn’t overlap, and I was tired of hitting red lights in my journey.

  “Good night, Rex,” I said. “I’m going inside to tell my date it’s time to leave.”

  “Your date is in no shape to drive.”

  “I’ll put him in a cab.”

  “I’m going with you. Wait here.” He left me by the coat check. If I didn’t feel a moral obligation to the dean, I would have hopped into the waiting cab and left. But the twenty-dollar bill in my handbag wasn’t enough to cover the drive, and my credit card was as worthless as a stick of gum.

  Tex and Virginia returned with the dean between them, his arms draped over their shoulders. I had to hand it to Virginia. She was a trooper.

  We got outside, and they tucked Hugo into a cab. Tex gave Virginia his keys. “Take the Jeep. I’ll get it tomorrow.” He kissed her on the cheek and, after she walked away, he turned to me. “Do you want the middle?”

  “I want my own cab.”

  “Slim pickings,” he said. He was right. It was this cab or wait indefinitely.

  I walked around to the far side of the cab and slid in next to Hugo. Tex got in on his side with the dean sandwiched between us.

  The cab ride was in silence. Since neither Tex nor I knew where the dean of the business school lived, we flipped a coin to see who would lift his wallet. Tex lost, which turned out to be a loss for me, too, when I was left with the task of holding the dean while Tex extracted the wallet out of the dean’s back pocket. He woke and tried to kiss me, and I turned my head to escape. His breath reeked of alcohol, a
nd his kiss landed somewhere by my ear.

  I propped Hugo upright while Tex pulled out his driver’s license. Too bad I’d been so solicitous when it came to the check; Hugo was packing more credit than every bank I’d visited combined.

  “We’re in luck. He’s in a house right off campus.” He gave the address to the cab driver and tucked the wallet into Hugo’s suit pocket.

  “Shouldn’t you put it back where you found it?” I asked.

  “Do you want another kiss? For an unconscious man, he sure snapped into action when he thought you were coming on to him.”

  “Leave it in his jacket.” I cracked the window. The night air pushed my hair away from my face. I closed my eyes and tried to relax. It had been a day of disjointed craziness, but everything had blurred together into one giant mess. The knotty pine wall restoration, the injured cat, the vet, the disastrous date, the sick student, the vandalized car, and the credit card situation. None of it had to do with the murder investigation, but somehow it all felt intertwined. So many things were out of my control. Seeing an inebriated faculty member home safely was the cherry on top of the sundae that was my Friday night.

  Tex convinced the driver to help him get the dean inside his house, leaving me in charge of unlocking the doors and clearing the way. I waited in the living room while Tex located the bedroom and then asked the cabbie to help get Hugo in there. I followed them in and took off Dean’s shoes, but that was the extent of the undressing. He could wake up in his clothes.

  When I left the bedroom, I found Tex and the cabbie in the living room. “Can we leave?” I asked. “I’d rather not be here when he wakes up. It will certainly raise questions none of us want to answer.” I glanced at the cabbie. “Maybe you do, but I sure don’t.”