by Crider, Bill
He had heard stories that the original steeple that had first topped Main was located in the attic, but he had never thought much about them. Apparently, they were true.
He began working his way, along the steeple, which tapered slowly downward. His feet on the rafters were moving through dust and piles of something he was sure was pigeon shit, but it was dry and he tried to ignore it. He also tried not to think about how much of it was piled in the spaces between the rafters.
As he got to the end of the steeple, virtually kneeling to keep his hand on it, he saw a tiny beam of light, probably from a penlight, coming from the area above his office. The area was an alcove, however, and the wall shielded whoever was in there.
Burns straightened up, ready to step to the next rafter, when he heard a loud yell, followed by a curse. Burns was so startled that he almost fell but he managed to retain his balance by wildly waving his arms. He heard a rampant scuttling, and squeals, and then a crash as something heavy, like a gas can, flew through the air, hit a rafter, and bounced off.
"Goddam rats! Brrrrrrrgh!" someone yelled.
Burns started forward cautiously.
Then he saw another light. The person had struck a lighter!
"Burn, you sonofabitch," the someone said in a calmer voice. "Burn."
Chapter 10
Carl Burns was not a man who often thought of himself as having a heroic nature; in fact, he had probably never thought of himself as having a heroic nature. But he couldn't just stand by and do nothing when faced with the imminent possibility of the destruction of a building he loved. Besides, he didn't see any way either he or whoever was holding the lighter could get out of the attic alive. Main was, if anything, a genuine firetrap.
So he screamed, "Stop!" as loud as he could and tried to run forward across the rafters.
Whether from surprise or intent, Burns didn't know, whoever was in the attic dropped the lighter. It flickered between the rafters for a moment, and then the fire caught.
Burns fell on it, and a great many things happened at once. Only later did he manage to sort them out in his mind.
Before he was aware of any heat or burning, the flooring of the attic gave way with a crash. Somehow he managed to get both, hands on a rafter and hang on. Dust, dirt, pigeon shit, flooring, and who knew what else crashed down to hit the acoustical tiles that had been installed during the remodeling of the building years before. There was a hollow thudding as the debris hit the tiles, but the tiles remained in place.
Because the fire had barely begun before Burns fell on it, it had been extinguished, though when he glanced down he thought he saw a spark or two. Nothing to worry about. He hung, swaying, on the rafter, his nose full of the smell of dust and gasoline. His shirt front was filthy against his chest, and his hands were beginning to hurt where the wood of the rafter bit into them.
Someone was crashing around in the attic, heading away from Burns's position. It wasn't long before he heard the drumming of feet on the stairs, and then all the sounds died away. In a surprisingly short time, it had grown very quiet. Burns didn't know exactly what to do with himself, but he knew that he couldn't hang on much longer. He also knew that he was no athlete, and he doubted that he could hoist himself back into the attic. He made an attempt to chin himself up. No luck. He tried to swing his legs, thinking that he might be able to hook a foot over the rafter and then haul the rest of his body after it. That didn't work either.
There was, of course, the other alternative, which in a few minutes would be a necessity instead of a choice. He looked down at the tiles beneath his feet. The tiles had stopped the trash that fell, but they wouldn't stop him.
He didn't think about it for very long. He took a deep breath and let go.
He tried to hold his legs and body straight, but he was hardly conscious of falling before his feet struck the tile. There was little or no resistance as it split under his weight. Then he tried to relax, bending at the knees. Still, when he hit the third floor, he hit it hard.
His legs took the shock and then he was rolling. He didn't roll far, because he had struck the floor in the narrow hall right in front of his office. Dirt, boards, pigeon shit, and pieces of acoustical tile showered down on him.
Burns lay there for a few minutes on the worn carpet, trying to take stock and see if anything was broken, bleeding, or beyond repair. He decided that there wasn't, but when he finally stood up and tried to put his weight on his ankle, he experienced a sharp pain.
He brushed his hand through his hair, trying not to look at what fell out, slapped at his pants, and opened his office.
He hobbled around behind his desk, sat in his chair, and called the police.
Boss Napier was not pleased. His western shirt was wrinkled, and his hair stood up here and there in little spikes. Burns suspected that he had been fast asleep. They sat in Burns's office and listened to the noises from above as Napier's men searched the attic.
"So you just decided to come down and look for that snout on the spur of the moment," Napier was saying. "Just like that. At night. All alone."
Burns was wishing he had one of Fox's cigarettes. "That's right," he said. "To tell the truth, I didn't really think I'd run across a crazed arsonist."
"We have only your word that there was anyone else in this building," Napier said, kneading his left fist with his right hand. Burns wondered again if the stories he'd heard about Napier might have a basis in fact.
"You found that lighter," Burns reminded him. The lighter had been in the pile of debris in the hall. "Maybe it'll have prints on it. And you could check the doorknobs. Of course, I touched those, too."
"Of course," Napier said, kneading away.
"But the lighter . . ."
"We'll check it, don't worry. But even if there are prints on it, they may not do us any good."
"Why not?" Burns asked.
"Because for the prints to do any good, they've got to match up with something. If the prints aren't on file, they won't do us any good. How many people who work here've been fingerprinted, would you say? Not counting those that've been in the army?"
Burns thought about it. "Probably not any."
"Probably," Napier said. "So then what do we do?" Burns thought about it, then admitted that he didn't know.
"Me neither," Napier said. "We'll have to come up with a suspect, and a pretty good one at that. We can't just go around forcing everybody to submit to fingerprinting."
Burns didn't say anything, but he wasn't sure that the mass fingerprinting wouldn't succeed. If Elmore had thought of it, he probably would have done. it himself, and gotten away with it. After all, Elmore was the one who came up with the idea of the "Statement of Firm Belief," and he'd gotten away with that one.
The "Statement" crisis was one that Burns had found unbelievable despite all his prior experience at Hartley Gorman College. It had all started when a perky blonde coed had gone home and told her daddy, who just happened to be the minister of a fairly influential church, that she thought some of the HGC faculty members were closet commies who didn't believe that every single word of the Holy Bible was literally true. The King James Version, that is, the one with the words of Jesus in red. One of the dastardly liberals, unidentified by the daughter, had dared to imply that perhaps the dreaded theory of evolution was more than just a theory. And, she said, it was rumored around the campus that someone (again, no name) might possibly have once voted for George McGovern in a long-ago presidential race.
It was all too much for the girl's sainted father, who descended on HGC clad in the full armor of God and waving his King James translation over his head like a battle flag. He demanded nothing less than a full house-cleaning, a purging of those anti-Christian, anti-American elements that had infiltrated the HGC faculty, said purging to take place immediately, if not sooner.
Elmore, who knew a good thing when he saw it, agreed wholeheartedly. He had called a faculty meeting, at which Abner Swan had prayed endlessly, the father had f
ulminated interminably, and Elmore (with Rogers standing smiling by) had emerged as the voice of reason. Or so he wanted it to appear. He had a modest proposal.
His proposal was that each faculty member would sign a Statement of Firm Belief, of which he just happened to have a hundred or so copies handy, in which said faculty member swore his belief in the literal truth of the Holy Bible, his hatred for the evils of secular humanism, and his devout belief in, as Bums remembered it, any number of other things, including baptism by total immersion.
Burns, and quite a few others, had been completely taken aback. Burns sat stunned, thinking about the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade in Catch-22, and its purpose of making everyone agree with the leaders and scaring the hell out of those who didn't.
It had been Earl Fox, of all people, who spoke out, Fox, who wouldn't ever smoke a cigarette in front of another teacher, much less an administrator. Burns was amazed.
"The way I see this thing," Fox said, standing in the pew and resting his hands on the back of the pew in front of him, "the way I see it, we'd practically have to be Baptists to sign this statement."
The coed's father had risen to his full height. "And what, may I ask, is wrong with that?" he roared, in the rolling tones of a prophet of old.
"Probably nothing, sir," Fox said. "Except that some members of this faculty are members of other churches."
You could have knocked the father over with a pew cushion. The look of shock on his face was one that Burns would long remember. It was as if the man had been told that the faculty was composed of atheists and sodomites.
Elmore had stepped forward, put his hand on the man's arm, and led him to a seat, where he sat with head bowed, praying, no doubt, to be delivered from this pit of heathenism.
Elmore returned to the pulpit. "Dr. Fox," he said, "I see no reason why any thinking person, any right-thinking person, cannot sign the document I have proposed. It contains nothing to contradict the doctrine of any established church. I believe that any person who wishes to remain in the employ of Hartley Gorman College will sign the document, and sign it now. Otherwise, he will leave this room freed of any obligation to this school."
"But our contracts," Fox said.
"Nothing but paper," Elmore said. "Nothing but paper." Fox sat down, and pens began scrawling on paper.
Nothing but paper, Burns told himself, rationalizing like mad, and certainly less valid than my contract.
Everyone in the room, whether by the same rationalizing process that Burns used or through genuine conviction, signed the paper. Including Fox. But Elmore had disliked Fox from that time forward. Many people thought that Fox's days at HGC were numbered.
Burns didn't say anything to Napier about the "Statement of Firm Belief," but he knew that any faculty that would fall in line for something like that certainly wouldn't balk at a little thing like fingerprints.
Napier's men came down out of the attic and were standing outside Burns's office door. One of them was holding a gasoline can gingerly by the spout. "This is all we could find up there that looked like it might help us out," he said. His shoes and pants were dusty and matted with spider webs. "There's a lot of messing around been goin' on up there, but there's no way to tell who did it." He gave Burns a hard look.
"All right," Napier said. He gestured at the can. "Take it down to the station and have it printed. We'll see what we can come up with."
The two men turned and walked down the hall. Napier stood up. "I'm still not sure what your part in all this is, Buns, but I'm going to try to believe that you've been telling me the truth so far. I just wish things wouldn't happen with you around all the time."
"That's Burns. And I really don't like the things that happen to me any more than you do."
Napier turned to leave, then turned back. "Just one thing. What's the connection? Did the same person who killed Elmore do this? And if he did, what's the motive? You're a college professor. Come up an answer for that one."
"To tell the truth," Burns said, "I haven't even thought about it."
"Think about it, then," Napier said, and went out down the hall.
Actually, Burns had been thinking about it. He just hadn't wanted to share his thoughts with Napier because they weren't fully coherent yet. He had tried to think why anyone would want to burn Main, and he could think of only one reason. Money. He had no idea what the building was insured for, but he thought he might try to find out. Just who would try to collect, he didn't know. It was a scheme that would have suited Elmore's character perfectly, but Elmore was dead. Rogers? Could this be just another money-making scheme, one planned by Rogers and Elmore, along the lines of the degree mill? Burns could imagine the English, history, and education departments split up and housed in various temporary quarters around the campus while Elmore and Rogers decided how to spend thousands of dollars in insurance money.
It was then that Burns realized that Napier had made another mistake, and so had Burns. It had been so late that Burns had decided not to disturb Rogers with a call, and Napier had agreed that it would be better to call him early the next morning. After all, no real damage was done.
But what if Rogers had been the man in the attic?
Burns didn't like to think about it. Still, it was possible. Burns got out of his chair and limped to the door. He decided to worry about it in the morning.
By the time he arrived at school for his eight o'clock class in composition, Burns had thought things through. Whoever it was that had tried to burn the building, it wasn't Rogers. The man in the attic had been angry and thoughtless. Stupid, in fact. He should have realized that he was as likely to go up in smoke himself as to burn the building. Rogers would have found a better way. Certainly he wouldn't have been splashing gasoline around. He would have been calm and deliberate, not emotional like the man in the attic.
So who was it? And why had he done it? And was there any connection with Elmore's death? Despite his earlier resolve, Burns felt himself being drawn into things. He hadn't ordered his deerstalker yet, but it wouldn't be long.
Burns climbed the stairs to the third floor. Rose, who came to work at seven o'clock, had already cleaned up the mess from the hall in front of his office. President Rogers had also been on the premises. There was a note taped to the office door requesting that Burns report to Rogers's office as soon as he got out of class. He pulled the note off the door and went in. His ankle still hurt, and he knew he would have to teach his class sitting down, something that he preferred not to do.
He still had ten minutes until the bell, so he scratched out a list of "Ten Characteristics of a Good Essay." It would give him something to talk about in class, and it would take his mind off all the extracurricular events that were bothering him. After class, he would go to see Rogers.
Rogers's office was right across the hall from Elmore's, and Burns noticed that there was even a door into the president's inner office, which would have looked directly into Elmore's had the door been opened. The door, however, was permanently locked, and Burns had to enter a large room that housed Rogers's secretary and her own huge desk, a couch, a coffee table, two chairs, and several potted plants. The couch and chairs were covered in a gold material that more or less matched the carpet. The plants looked as if they would have preferred to be outside, and the magazines on top of the coffee table were so old that Burns was sure one of them was an issue of Collier's.
Rogers's secretary stood up behind her desk when Burns entered. She had grown old on the job, and Rogers was the third president for whom she had worked at HGC. Her mostly gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and she wore glasses that swept up at each end of the plastic frames. Burns hadn't seen anyone wearing glasses like that since the 1950s.
"Good morning, Dr. Burns," she said, in a surprisingly firm voice. "Dr. Rogers will see you right now. Just go on in."
She motioned toward the door of the inner office, and Burns thought of the two titles she had just used. His own had been earned by five years of
graduate work at the state university, with another year of work on the dissertation. Rogers had gotten his at a graduation ceremony at which he hadn't really graduated. The degree had been conferred on him for his many services to education and to his church. It was a common practice. Burns had even heard of trade-offs, sort of "you give our guy a degree and we'll give your guy one" deals that made two men instant owners of the title of "Doctor." After a few years, most people had forgotten where the title came from, and the title itself was all that really mattered.
The situation didn't really bother Burns. He understood that in the academic world, illusion and reality worked just about like they did anywhere else. Rogers had been a longtime minister, with a leaning toward administrative skills. A powerful friend of his had been on the school's board. When the presidency of the school came up for grabs, Rogers grabbed. And he held on.
Burns went through the door. Rogers was seated behind a desk so big that it could have been used for table tennis. Burns was sure that it must have been brought into the office in sections and assembled there. On the wall of the office opposite the immense desk were bookshelves, most of them filled with books like The Life and Teachings of Jesus and How to Win Friends and Influence People. In the middle of the wall behind the desk was the locked door, and hanging on either side of it were numerous photographs of Rogers shaking hands with, or standing by, famous people. Here was Rogers with Billy Graham. There he was with former Governor Briscoe. And there he was with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The wall on Burns's left had similar photographs, all framed in gold. The wall on the right was mostly windows, tastefully draped.
Rogers sat in a large, overstuffed red leather chair. There was a similar chair in front of the desk, though it was not on a swivel base as Rogers's was.