Teacher's Threat

by Diane Vallere

  I clicked through the swatches on their website and chose “Planet,” a rust, blue, and cream shade that fit the astronaut portion of the design concept, at least in name. I measured the window and placed my order, complete with blue pom-pom trim. Already I could see a low-back sofa along the far wall, something tweed with wooden cone legs. I’d have to be thoughtful when it came to hanging art; anything too kitschy would turn the design from classic to parody in a snap.

  I was all out of Lean Cuisines, so I microwaved one of Tex’s Hungry Man Smokin’ Backyard Barbeque meals. (Rocky got one too.) Texans all over the place were rolling their eyes.

  I called the credit card company and canceled my card to be on the safe side and then took Rocky out for his last walk of the day. I’d like to say I had a productive evening at home, but the reality was less interesting: I changed into a pale pink peignoir set and crawled into bed. It was far more comfortable than sleeping on the floor of the property next door, and I’m not ashamed to say I was asleep by nine.

  Tex was waiting for me in the kitchen the next morning. His Shih-Chi puppy, Wojo, was curled up on Rocky’s dog bed, and Rocky sat outside of it with his furry head propped on the side. The two had become fast friends and enjoyed playdates while Tex and I enjoyed playdates of a different nature. I hadn’t expected Tex to come over, and I wore little more than my pink peignoir set. His pupils dilated when he saw me. He set his coffee cup down and pulled me toward him.

  “You look great,” he said.

  “You look like shit.”

  He nuzzled my neck. “I always look like shit. Gives me street cred.”

  I laughed and put my hands on his chest. “Do you still need street cred if you’re the captain?”

  “We’re all doing double duty. Until we get an approved budget, I’m as valuable on the street as my team.”

  It was a subtle shift, Tex referring to his unit as a team and not as his men. I’d watched these changes happen, little by little, over the years I’d known him.

  “I didn’t expect to see you until graduation,” I said. “What with me dropping out and all.”

  “About that. You sure that’s what you want to do?”

  “I don’t know what I want to do. I just know I want to do something. This”—I waved my hands around in circles—“all feels temporary.”

  “Your house feels temporary?”

  “No, the house is the one thing that doesn’t feel temporary.”

  “Do we feel temporary?”

  “No, we feel, well, we feel less temporary than we used to.”

  “What about Mad for Mod?”

  “That.” I pointed at him. “That’s what feels temporary. The empty showroom. The lack of clients. I feel like I should be doing something about that, not sitting around talking about it.”

  Tex went to the stove. Spread out across the countertop was a pink and white CorningWare mixing bowl, my vintage pink hand blender, a carton of eggs, butter, sugar, and a loaf of bread. “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll make you French toast.”

  “You’re making me breakfast?”

  “I took out your trash. I can’t risk people finding out my girlfriend eats Hungry Man Barbecue.”

  “Rocky ate one too.”

  “That doesn’t make it better.”

  I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and filled it with hot coffee then hovered by Tex’s elbow. He turned. “Sit. Relax. Drink your coffee. There’s creamer on the table.”

  “I drink it black like you.”

  “Yes, but I make it stronger than you like.” He nodded at the table. “Sit. Relax. Drink your coffee,” he repeated.

  I wasn’t used to having Tex make me breakfast. Truthfully, I wasn’t used to anyone making me breakfast, me included. It was a welcome treat.

  “I don’t want to ruin the mood, but I have some information that relates to your case.”

  “Sit. Relax. Drink you—”

  “Is that why you’re making me breakfast?” I asked. “Distraction?”

  He held the pan over a Franciscan Swingtime dinnerplate, one of an incomplete collection I’d acquired from the estate of a local golf champion. The pattern was introduced in 1959, the same year Pillow Talk released, which might have been the reason it was my favorite. The plates were white with gentle lines and airy pink and green geometric shapes that suggested movement and direction. Two pieces of French toast slipped out of the pan on top of the pattern on the plate. Tex reached into a bag of sugar and then held his hand over the top and let the granules trickle down onto the bread. He tossed a dish towel over his shoulder and set the plate in front of me. “Eat.”

  “Oooh, a new word. Was there a vocabulary lesson in Cavemen 101?”

  He grinned and then sat catacorner to me.

  “Did you get any of my messages yesterday? I left one with Imogene.”

  “It’s not relevant,” he said.

  “How can you dismiss it so quickly? You don’t think it’s curious a professor got a student pregnant? Especially now, after the professor was murdered?”

  Tex waited a few seconds after I finished, and the word “murdered” hung in the air. I was tempted to say something else to end on a more pleasant note, but he spoke. “I can tell you things that relate to you finding the body, and I can caution you away from things that would put you in danger. But I can’t talk to you about the case.”

  We’d been here before.

  The one-sided nature of our conversations regarding Tex’s cases was frustrating, and while I understood it, I didn’t like it.

  He seemed to understand my vexation. “When we were classmates,” he said, “I could ask questions around you that may have, with the knowledge you already had, led you to draw certain conclusions. And when we ended up at the same nightclub and our professor needed help getting home, you may have picked up information not available to the public. It was unavoidable.”

  “Yes, I can see how all of that might have happened.”

  I sliced into my French toast and raised a bite to my mouth. He’d added a touch of Himalayan sea salt and some local honey, both ingredients I wouldn’t have expected, and the resulting flavors were magnified. The texture of the salt on the surface of my tongue contrasted with the smooth honey and chewy bread. I took another bite.

  I swallowed and pointed at my plate. “Yum.” I added, “can we not talk for a moment? I want to sit, relax, drink coffee, and eat.”

  “By all means, continue.” He pulled his coffee mug toward him and took a long swig and then leaned back. He looked up at the ceiling and then turned his head and looked through the living room toward the sitting room. “You need me to do anything around here? Replace lightbulbs or change your AC filters?”

  “That’s it.” I set my knife and fork down. “What do you want?”

  “Me? I’m just offering to help you out.”

  “You made me breakfast. You put cream on the table. You let Rocky out so I could sleep late. And you’re offering to do small tasks around the house. I know you too well to think otherwise. What do you want, Captain Allen?”

  He reached forward and snatched a piece of toast off my plate. “Captain Allen doesn’t need a favor from you.”

  “What do you want, Tex?”

  “Tex doesn’t want a favor from you either.” He bit into a piece of toast and washed it down with a slug of coffee. “Rexford Allen needs a favor from you.”

  This was worse than The Three Faces of Eve!

  “The other night in class, when Ling came to talk to you, Hugo put me on the hot seat. He told me to share my business plan with the class.”

  “Where did you get a business plan?”

  He reached over to the counter and picked up a shiny red folder. He set it in front of me and tapped the cover. “Here,” he said.

  “That’s my business prospectus. That was what I took to the banks.”

  “I know. I passed it off as mine to protect my cover.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t fail you
on the spot.”

  “He was impressed. More than impressed, I’d say. He pulled me aside after class and said there was nothing an MBA was going to give me that I didn’t already know.”

  “Do you think he suspects something? Was he trying to get you to drop the class?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “The other way is that this”—he tapped my folder again—“is a solid business plan, and he knows it. I took out everything that related back to you. The dean of business for Van Doren College was so impressed he suggested the class go off-campus to check out my store tomorrow night. I told him I haven’t officially opened, so the place was still being set up, but he insisted.”

  “I see,” I said, because the special breakfast, the use of my favorite plates, the playdate for Rocky, and the whole picture became increasingly clear. “You need me to design you a hat store.”

  30

  Tex grinned, and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head. “I contacted Bill’s Western Warehouse and arranged to borrow from their backstock to get inventory. I’m not sure what it’ll take to make it work, but I was hoping you could handle details.”

  “You’re such a thoughtful guy,” I said.

  “If you need help, call Virginia.”

  “The stripper?”

  “Night, I can’t have you calling in your cavalry on this one. The less people who know the truth, the better. Virginia helped me out once, and she knows how to keep her mouth shut.”

  I rolled my eyes in a classic Doris Day expression. “Any other suggestions?” I asked. “Maybe the girl you took to your high school prom is available.”

  “Call Imogene,” he added. “She’s a civilian volunteer, but she knows the case.”

  “You’re not worried this will turn up in her book?”

  “If it does, I’ll make sure you look good.” He turned on the boyish charm. “I’ll make the calls. Might be better coming from me. Normally I wouldn’t take a cover story this far, but with what we know about the dean, I want to keep him in my sights.”

  I agreed to cut classes and help Tex for a price to be named later. He agreed to take the dogs for the day, so after breakfast, I went upstairs and got ready. I returned half an hour later, freshly scrubbed and dressed in powder blue knit stirrup pants and a boxy short-sleeved pullover in coordinating panels of blue and brown. It was remarkable how many women owned colorful stirrup pants in the sixties; I could wear a pair a day for a year and not repeat once.

  “Don’t forget about that pink number you were wearing earlier. I’d like it to stay in rotation.”

  I pointed at the stove. “Don’t forget that making-me-breakfast routine either.”

  He pretended to take a punch to the chest. “Tough negotiator.”

  “I’m in business school,” I said, “I might just be the teacher’s pet.”

  We kissed, and I left. Now that we’d worked past the tension that came with the case, there was a level of freedom in our relationship that existed behind the walls of our respective living spaces. Questions, rumors, and gossip didn’t exist. We no longer actively tried to hide that we were involved, but the situation at the college had made it so anyway. At least we were in practice.

  I parked behind my storefront and let myself in through the back door. There was a short hallway that led to my former office on the right and a small powder room on the left. Past both was the main showroom. The street-facing view was floor-to-ceiling windows, which allowed me to maintain rotating displays to attract clients. Behind them I’d grouped seating, and in the back, on a raised platform my former handyman Hudson James had installed for me, I kept an assortment of tables, chairs, and lamps. Everything I showcased was available through a design job, and on occasion, someone fell in love with a piece and I worked around it. A constant source of inspiration were the light fixtures inspired by Sputnik.

  But today wasn’t about space-age lighting or Danish Modern furniture or Tiki bars. It was about western wear. It was ironic; to get back on the horse of Mad for Mod, I was going to be dealing in cowboy hats.

  I put the soundtrack for Calamity Jane on my portable CD player and started cleaning the place. Even empty showrooms collected dust, and in the months of inactivity, it settled in all the wrong places. I vacuumed, dusted, washed the windows, and even used a razor to scrape off my now-faded logo. I designed and ordered a new window decal from a local sign shop and paid extra for same-day pickup.

  A truck from Bill’s Western Warehouse parked out front. The driver was a burly man in a white straw cowboy hat and plaid shirt over a white T-shirt. I unlocked the door and greeted him through the truck widow.

  “There’s a lot out back for unloading,” I said.

  He waved me off. “Not necessary. I got a couple of cartons, and this’ll be easier than navigating around the corner.”

  I stood back and looked at the length of the truck. “A couple of cartons? I thought we were borrowing enough inventory to fill the store.” I pointed over my shoulder. Can’t you call the owner?

  “I am the owner. I’m Bill, of Bill’s Western Warehouse. I’ve got a convention coming through this week. I packed up the clearance and a couple of slow movers, but that’s the best I can do.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  “Couple dozen.”

  I turned around and looked inside the store. I could fit a couple dozen hats in the front window alone. “Did you talk to Captain Allen?”

  “He told me to talk to you, so I’m talking to you.” He pointed at the door. “You want me to drop them off inside?”

  “Sure.” I turned around and wedged a stopper under the front door. This plan was going to go bust before it even got full-blown.

  Bill opened the back of his truck and pulled out a dolly then stacked two D-containers on top and wheeled them in.

  “Nice space,” he said. “The police must have called in a favor from a vacant storefront too. Good location.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, not commenting on the police favor aspect of his commentary.

  He tapped the top of the carton. “You plan to fill this place?”

  “I was hoping to.”

  “Time to get creative.”

  While we spoke, a convertible BMW pulled up behind his truck. Virginia got out. She wore a tight, low-cut red sweater and cuffed jean shorts with ankle socks and white leather sneakers. Her blond hair was pulled into ponytails, and her lipstick matched her shirt. She came into the store and greeted me. Bill took one look at her, and his eyes went wide. “Virginia? What are you doin’ here?”

  “I’m helpin’ out Captain Allen just like you,” she said with a wink.

  He smiled at her and then turned back to me. “And how do you two know each other?”

  “We’re—” I started.

  “—colleagues,” Virginia finished.

  Bill looked back and forth between us, and his smile widened. “Well, I’ll be.” He opened a carton and pulled out a white felt hat and placed it on Virginia’s head. “You ladies wait right here. I might be able to help you out with a few more hats.”

  I directed Virginia to park her car in the back while Bill scrounged up three additional cartons of inventory. It still wasn’t enough, but it was something.

  Imogene arrived while Virginia was trying to flirt another case of hats out of Bill. (It was possible the flirtation was in my imagination; for all I knew, they were talking sports.)

  Imogene was an attractive strawberry blonde in her mid-forties. She had bright blue eyes and a spattering of freckles across her nose, and I imagined this was what Trixie Belden might look like if she were an adult. Imogene was dressed in a checkered shirt, slim capri pants, and ballet flats. She wore a black nylon messenger bag across her torso. “Before we get started, can I go over something with you?” she asked.

  “Me? Sure.”

  She pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag and prepared to take notes. “When you called yesterday, you said the victim got a gi
rl pregnant, right?” She flipped a page forward. “‘Suspect—pregnant—victim—father.’ Right?”

  “Suspect? Victim? Does this have to do with Captain Allen’s case?”

  “Of course not. I mean, I don’t know enough to talk about except what I see on the news and what I pick up around the coffee maker, but I can’t talk to anybody about it.”

  “Then what’s this about?” I asked. I pointed at her notebook.

  “Plot twist. I make notes, but I don’t use names. It sounds like it means something, right? If there was a jealous husband or the suspect was underage, maybe somebody would want to kill him, but Captain Allen said the facts didn’t line up. I figure it’s fair game for a book.”

  “How is that possible?” I said, more to myself than to her. “He got a student pregnant. How is that not relevant?”

  “He didn’t say it wasn’t relevant. He said the facts didn’t line up, and he’s right. They don’t.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Simple. The professor couldn’t get anybody pregnant. According to the autopsy, he had a vasectomy.”

  31

  “Are you sure?” I asked Imogene. This new information flew in the face of Faye’s facts.

  “Sure, I’m sure,” she said. She ran her fingers though her wavy blond bob. “I checked the file myself.”

  This distracted me from the initial question. “Does Captain Allen know you checked the file?”

  She shrugged. “I have a certain amount of autonomy at the front desk.”

  I let that one go and circled back to the important piece of information: if Gallagher hadn’t gotten Faye pregnant, then who had?