One Dead Dean

by Crider, Bill

  After three weeks of this, Clem announced that she would no longer tolerate latecomers. The girl was late the next day anyway, and the day after that. The day after that, Clem locked the door when the bell rang. Ten or so minutes later there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at the classroom door.

  Clem ignored it.

  The rapping became louder.

  Clem continued to ignore it.

  The rapping stopped, and Clem figured she had won the battle.

  Unfortunately, the girl's father was a contributor to a small scholarship fund. He contributed about fifty dollars a year, which he decided made him one of the school's mainstays. He went directly to Rogers, who sent him to Elmore, who was shocked and appalled that any member of the HGC faculty could be so heartless and irresponsible as to attempt to deny an education—an education that was being bought and paid for—to any student, even one who was "occasionally" late. He had denounced Clem, by name, in the faculty meeting, becoming so exercised in the process that his bursting seemed imminent.

  If Bunni had seen Clem coming out of the administration building, Burns would have searched her office in a minute, though he was convinced that Clem was no more a killer than Miss Darling.

  All these thoughts occupied Burns's mind for much of Tuesday. He taught his early class, smoked with Fox, visited Mal Tomlin, read a few Faulkner articles, dawdled around waiting for his night class to begin, and generally tried to organize his thoughts about what was going on. He came to no conclusions, and he certainly came up with no new evidence and no new clues. In fact, he was beginning to feel like a total waste.

  He felt better after his night class, however. The students had responded to The Sound and the Fury. Several of them appeared to have actually read the book, and they appreciated the subtlety of Faulkner's intricate structure, the way the four parts of the book spoke to one another and to the reader. Some of them even planned to read the book again.

  All in all, Burns didn't feel too bad about things as he left Main that night.

  He started feeling a lot worse when he saw the fire in the Administration Building.

  As usual, Burns had parked the Plymouth on the street. That way he didn't have to walk to the parking lot, and he didn't have to worry about getting a ticket for parking in a student space or some other niggling violation that he wouldn't even be aware of committing. He was walking toward the car when he saw the fire. By then, it was already too late.

  The weather that day had been dry, and the wind had kicked up from the north once again. It was strong all day, and was still gusting up to twenty- or twenty-five miles an hour, just the kind of wind to really fan some flames if they were going well.

  The flames that Burns saw were going well. They were in the attic of the building, and there was no telling how long they had been burning. The Administration Building's attic was windowless, but it had large vent grills on either end. There was no way to see through the vents. Burns wouldn't have seen the flames had they not begun eating their way through the roof.

  Burns turned and ran back to Main. He had no key to any office except those on the third floor, so he charged up to the third floor, fumbled with his key, finally got it into the lock, rushed into his office, flipped open the telephone book, got the number of the Pecan City Fire Department, and punched it on the buttons of the beige phone.

  "Fire Department," a bored voice answered on the first ring. Pecan City's dispatcher wasn't one of the busiest people in town.

  "The HGC Administration Building is on fire," Burns said, as calmly as he could. He was still panting from his charge up the stairs.

  The dispatcher perked up. "Name?"

  "Dr. Carl Burns. Hurry!" Burns hung up the phone and ran back to the staircase. He had gone only as far as the second floor when he heard the fire siren begin its howling.

  The Pecan City Fire Department was not known for its efficiency. The standing joke among most members of the community was that they "usually managed to save the lot, but sometimes they lost the slab." Whether it was lack of practice, Pecan City not having many fires of much consequence, or whether it was simple inability, no one knew. Whatever the reason, Burns held out little hope for the Administration Building. He wished that Elmore were alive to see it—the numbering system was going to be all fouled up.

  By the time Burns got back outside, the building's roof was engulfed; fire was licking out the vent under the arch, and now Burns could see flames through the windows of the second floor.

  The fire station was only four blocks from the campus, and the trucks arrived almost as soon as Burns heard their wailing. There were three of them, and the drivers slammed them to a halt in front of the burning building. Men dropped off the sides and tops and began hauling hoses to the fireplugs. In a short time, water was rushing through the hoses and gushing through the air. The wind was so strong that it was hard to direct the streams.

  Within minutes, all the students living in the dorms had gathered, along with numbers of the curious, drawn by the flames like mindless insects. It was quickly clear to most of them that the building was doomed. There weren't enough fire hydrants, the fire was too far advanced, and the wind had whipped the flames too high. Everyone stood and watched the building burn. No one stood very close. The flames were too hot.

  After a while, Burns noticed that there was someone standing next to him. It was Napier. "Hear you called in the alarm," Napier said.

  "That's right," Burns said.

  "Interesting," Napier said.

  Burns didn't say anything. There was a loud "O-h-h-h-hh-h-h!" from the crowd as the roof fell in, carrying most of the second floor along with it to the bottom. There was an explosion of flame and sparks.

  "Better than the Fourth of July," Napier said. "Anybody in there, you think?"

  "Not at this time of night," Burns said. "Not unless someone was working really late. There aren't any classes in there."

  "Too late now, anyway," Napier said.

  Burns didn't have anything to say to that, either.

  The burning went on for a long time. President Rogers arrived on the scene, and everyone who worked in the building either showed up or was reached by telephone. It appeared that there would be no casualties, except, of course, for the building itself.

  Most of the spectators stayed to the bitter end, as Burns did. Even when the fire appeared to be out, the firemen continued to spray water into the ruins. They were afraid of sparks. With the wind so high, it was quite lucky that no other buildings had caught fire. The north wind, however, was blowing only toward the school's tennis courts and a vacant parking lot.

  By two o'clock in the morning, it was all over. Just about all that was left of the Administration Building were the blackened walls, and they would have to be knocked down the next day as a safety precaution as soon as the fire marshal had inspected the premises, or what was left of the premises.

  As the crowd began to thin out, Burns looked for Rogers. He saw him, standing on the fringes of the lawn, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of a London Fog overcoat. His round face was set in a deep frown, a far cry from its usual smile.

  "I hope we were over insured," Burns said, half seriously.

  Rogers looked at him. "We weren't," he said. "Under, if anything." They both stared gloomily at the walls. Burns imagined that his next year's raise had just gone up in smoke. Literally.

  Napier, who had been talking to various members of the crowd, drifted over. "Looks like Burns wasn't able to stop this one," he said.

  Burns was momentarily disconcerted that Napier had gotten his name right. "I tried," he said.

  "Do you think it might have been the same person?" Rogers said.

  "I don't know," Napier said. "Who had keys to this place, except for the people who worked there?"

  "No one," Rogers said. He thought for a minute. "Of course, the security staff had keys, and the maintenance crew. No one else."

  Burns stifled a laugh. The se
curity staff was Dirty Harry. The maintenance crew was Rose's cousin Nadine. Rogers was a perfect bureaucrat, even in times of stress.

  "I'll have to question all of them," Napier said. "Starting at eight o'clock."

  "I'll let them know," Rogers said. "We'll have to do it in the cafeteria. I'll have to locate new offices for everyone and . . ." He put a hand to his forehead. "And I don't know what we'll do about the files, the letters, the papers, the . . ." His voice trailed off and he shook his head wearily.

  Napier was not someone to go overboard in sympathy. "Well, just have everybody there at eight o'clock. Or most of them. A few stragglers won't matter. Just so we get to see all of them."

  "I'll see to it," Rogers said. Then he wandered off.

  "You know, Burns," Napier said, "it's interesting that you're always around when these things happen."

  "I'm sure you don't mean anything by that," Burns said. "And I've been meaning to ask you, what about the man who was watching Main? Why didn't he spot the fire?"

  Napier looked chagrined. "Because I pulled him off, that's why. After nothing happened on the weekend, I figured it was all over. I should've waited."

  "No way you could have known," Burns said. "You think these fires are tied in to the murder?"

  "Ask your friend Thomas," Napier said. "Maybe he could tell you." He turned and walked away. After a few more minutes of looking at the ruins, Burns left, too, hoping for a few hours' sleep before his first class.

  Chapter 16

  Most of the students in Burns's eight o'clock class were as sleepy as he was. Somehow, they all struggled through. As soon as the bell rang, Burns headed for the ground floor for a Pepsi. He had to go all the way down, because there were no soft drink machines on any of the other floors. Burns was never sure whether that was because the machines were too heavy to haul up the steep stairs, which had a ninety-degree turn in the middle 'of the climb, or whether the soft drink companies were afraid that the machines would fall through the floor if somehow they were lugged up the stairs.

  He put two quarters into the silver slot on the big blue and white machine and punched the button for a Pepsi. The machine clanked and rattled and eventually deposited a can in the rack. Burns had to turn the can sideways to get it out.

  As he peeled off the pull-tab opener, Mal Tomlin walked up. "Not much left of Hartley Gorman II, is there?"

  "Not much," Burns agreed. "Want to go up to the history lounge?"

  Tomlin nodded, and they went up to look for Fox, who was, as usual, sitting by the dilapidated card table thumping ashes into a soft drink can, this time a red and gold caffeine-free Diet Coke container.

  Burns and Tomlin pulled up chairs. Tomlin bummed a smoke from Fox, as did Burns. Bel-Airs again. Soon the room was filling with a smoky haze.

  "Who did it?" Fox asked no one in particular. "Rogers," he said, answering his own question. "Rogers did it. Insurance. That's the rumor."

  "I don't think there's anything to it," Burns said. "He told me last night that the building was underinsured if anything, so I doubt that he had anything to do with it. Besides, he was called at home and came to the fire."

  Tomlin leaned back on two legs of the chair and blew smoke. "Doesn't mean a thing. He could have started the fire, left, and then come back."

  "Right," Fox said.

  Burns realized that they weren't serious, really, but he kept up the discussion. "Let's look at it this way. Suppose that insurance doesn't have anything to do with it." He tapped his cigarette on the aluminum can. "I admit that I thought the same thing at first, but whoever I saw in the attic upstairs, it certainly wasn't Rogers. I heard his voice, remember, and it wasn't Rogers's voice. I'd recognize that anywhere."

  Tomlin brought his chair back to a four-legged position with a thump. "If it wasn't insurance, what was it?"

  "I haven't got that part figured out yet," Burns said.

  "Once you get past money," Fox said, "there's only two things left: love and hate."

  "Uh-oh," Burns said.

  Tomlin and Fox looked at him. "What do you mean, 'uh-oh'?" Fox asked.

  Burns dumped his butt into the can. "I mean that you're thinking like Napier. I think he's all set to blame this on Coach Thomas, judging from something he said last night. I bet he thinks Thomas did it for revenge."

  "Thomas hadn't even been thrown in jail by the time of the first fire," Tomlin said. "So where's the revenge?"

  Burns thought about it. "No one said that both fires had to be set by the same person."

  "You sort of implied that yourself," Fox said, "But so what? Let's keep this simple and assume that there's only one firebug loose on the campus at any given time. Thinking about two would be too much of a strain."

  "How about thinking that there's a murderer and a firebug loose at the same time?" Tomlin asked. "Are we thinking about one person, two, or three?"

  "This is too complicated," Burns said. No one disagreed with him.

  "I have a confession to make," Burns said after a minute or two had gone by in silence.

  "So confess," Fox said.

  "I made a list of people I thought might have had a reason for killing Elmore. Both of you were on it."

  "I'd have been disappointed if you'd left me off," Fox said. "Have another smoke." He tossed the nearly empty Bel-Air pack to Burns.

  Burns shook out a cigarette. "I have another confession to make," he said.

  "My God, you didn't give the list to Boss Napier, did you?" Tomlin asked.

  Burns lit up. "It's not that bad. It's just that . . . for a little while . . . I thought maybe Miss Darling had killed Elmore."

  "Good grief," Fox said. "All this mess is getting to you. Maybe you ought to take a day or two of personal leave."

  "It's not that bad," Burns said. "I got over the idea pretty quickly."

  "At least you're not completely crazy," Tomlin said. "You just need a little more smoke in your lungs and you'll be fine."

  Burns looked at the high ceiling of the history lounge. A thin white cloud hovered a foot or two below it. He laughed. "Anyone who walked in here and took a deep breath would be in danger of contracting emphysema," he said. He dumped his Bel-Air in the Coke can. "I've got to go teach a class."

  "Me, too," Tomlin said. They left Fox sitting in the smoke-filled room.

  Burns talked for an hour about Emerson, giving the class a list of the characteristics of American Transcendentalism to study for their next test, but his mind was on Miss Darling. As foolish as the idea of her killing Elmore seemed, the fact remained that Bunni had seen her go into the building shortly before assembly on the day Elmore was killed. And it was a fact that Miss Darling never left the third floor of Main before her teaching day was over. And Miss Darling could have picked up the pig snout in the ladies' room. And her purse had been awfully heavy . . . Burns decided that he would have a talk with Miss Darling.

  After class, he avoided the crowd of students and hurried to his office. Then he called Miss Darling and asked her to step in. "Right away, Dr. Burns," she said.

  She came into Burns's office wearing her blue suit with the huge bow at the neck, one of about four outfits that she alternated throughout the year. "Wasn't it just terrible, Dr. Burns?"

  "Yes," Burns said. "Terrible. Uh wasn't what terrible?"

  "The fire, of course. Oh, I'm afraid that it will take us years to get all straight again. Why, wherever will they find offices for everyone?"

  Burns felt off balance. This wasn't exactly the way he'd planned for the conversation to go. "I don't know," he said. "But I'm sure that Dr. Rogers will take care of everything."

  "Oh, I'm sure he will," Miss Darling said. "It just seems so . . . so . . ."

  "Yes," Burns said. "It does. But there's something I need to ask you, Miss Darling."

  Miss Darling's gaze cleared, as if she realized for the first time that it was Burns who had called her and not the other way around. "Certainly, Dr. Burns. Whatever you say."

  "I'd like
to ask you a question about the day Dean Elmore was killed."

  "Oh, my." Miss Darling, who had been standing in front of Burns's desk, plopped into one of the chairs and folded her hands in her lap.

  "You see," Burns said in a voice as kind as he could make it, "a student happened to mention to me that you were seen going into the Administration Building shortly before Dean Elmore died."

  "Oh, my," Miss Darling said again.

  "So I thought that perhaps you . . . uh, might have seen something suspicious, or someone suspicious if you were there."

  "Oh, my," Miss Darling repeated.

  Burns was beginning to wonder if she had slipped into permanent senility. Her vocabulary certainly seemed to have become suddenly limited. "Did you see anyone?" he asked.

  "Oh, my," Miss Darling said.

  Burns stood up and came around his desk to stand by her chair. "Are you all right, Miss Darling?"

  She looked up at him, then back down. "Yes," she said.

  It wasn't much, but it was an improvement. "Then can you answer the question? It's only for me, not for the police."

  She looked up again, fearfully this time. "Oh, I could never talk to the police! I I. . . I'm very afraid of the police." Her folded hands clasped one another in her lap.

  Burns walked back behind his desk and sat down. "Of course not," he said. "You wouldn't have to. It's just that I'm curious." He leaned back in his chair and tried to look relaxed.

  "I didn't see anyone," she said, very quietly.

  Burns tried not to lean forward, but he did anyway. "You were there, then? In the Administration Building?"

  "Yes." Miss Darling's voice was by now barely audible. Burns resisted the temptation of asking her to speak up.