…A Dangerous Thing (9 page)

"Besides, Burns," Napier went on, "I find myself stumbling over you entirely too much these days, even when I'm not investigating a crime.
 
Why do you think that is?"

Burns had something he could have said to that, too.
 
He could have said, "If you'd stop following Elaine Tanner around, then you wouldn't be tripping over me all the time."
 
But he didn't say it.
 
Napier wasn't in a good mood, and mentioning Elaine wasn't likely to make him any happier.

"I know you've helped me out a little now and then," Napier said, relenting a little.
 
"And I appreciate it."

He didn't sound as if he appreciated it to Burns, but Burns still said nothing.
 
He just sat in his desk and kept his mouth shut.

"But I think it might be best if you didn't get involved in this, if you're not already.
 
And you said you weren't involved, didn't you?"

Burns nodded.
 
"That's what I said."

"Good.
 
I just wanted to be sure that we understood one another.
 
I'm going to be on the campus quite a bit investigating this death, but I don't think you and I need to run into each other at all.
 
This Henderson wasn't in your department, and he doesn't have any connection with your department, right?"

"Right," Burns said.
 
"Except. . . ."

Napier had turned to sit back on the desk, but he whirled around.
 
"
Except
, Burns?
 
Except
what
?"
 
He looked like a man who might go deer hunting with a Bowie knife and a bullwhip.
 
He looked as if he might enjoy hunting
Burns
with a Bowie knife and a bullwhip.

"Nothing," Burns said.
 

He decided that this was not the time to mention either his own earlier suspicions of Eric Holt and Dean Partridge or Henderson's statement that he thought he recognized Holt.

Napier wasn't buying it.
 
"Don't give me that 'nothing' crap, Burns.
 
You had something to say.
 
Say it."

"All right," Burns said, trying to think of a way to tell the truth while at the same time not revealing anything.
 
"I was just about to say that in a small community like this, there are bound to be connections that aren't so obvious at first.
 
There might be things about Henderson that we don't know."

Napier wasn't fooled by
Burns's
evasiveness.
 
"What things?
 
You'd better not be holding out on me, Burns.
 
When I said I didn't want to be tripping over you, I didn't mean that I wanted you to hold anything back."

"I'm not holding anything back," Burns said, looking down at the top of the desk.
 
Someone had written "Miss Darling bites the big one" there in black ink.

Napier made a sound that might have been a groan.
 
"I just know you're going to get in my way, Burns.
 
I just know it."

"You're still mad because I went to that basketball game, aren't you?" Burns said.
 
"But that was two months ago.
 
And besides, Elaine invited me."

Napier's face grew dangerously red, but then he took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nostrils.
 
"I'm going to forget you said that, Burns, and we're going to start all over here.
 
I may as well face the facts.
 
If anything happens around this campus, you're going to be in on it, no matter whether I like it or not.
 
So tell me about this Henderson.
 
What kind of guy was he?
 
Who'd push him out that window?"

Burns didn't like Napier's sudden change of attitude, but he supposed that Pecan City's police force wasn't large enough for a good cop/bad cop routine.
 
That left Napier to play both parts.
 
Burns wondered just how much he should tell Napier.

"You really should ask Earl Fox about him," Burns said finally.
 
"I don't—"
  
He stopped himself.
 
Past tense. "I
didn't
know him very well."

"What about this new dean you've got, this Cartridge?" Napier said.
 
"How well has she gotten to know the faculty?"

"Partridge," Burns said.
 
"Dean Partridge.
 
She really hasn't been here long enough to get to know everyone.
 
I'm not sure how much help she'd be."

"I'll have to talk to her, though," Napier said.
 
He looked at his watch, a Timex, Burns was sure.
 
"In fact, I've got to meet her and Diller in about five minutes."

"Miller," Burns said.

"Yeah.
 
Miller.
 
I think he's really worried about this.
 
He thinks there might be some bad publicity.
 
Like I said, this used to be a nice, quiet little town.
 
Now it's more like the murder capital of Texas."

"We don't know that he was murdered," Burns reminded him.

"No, we don't.
 
And I hope it was all just an accident.
 
I bet your president hopes so, too.
 
I have to go talk to him now, but you let me know if you think of anything that could help me."

"You're sure you won't mind?
 
I don't want you to feel that I'm interfering."

"Sarcasm again," Napier said.
 
He walked down the aisle between the desks and out the door.
 
Then he poked his head back in.
 
"I'll see you around, Burns."

Burns nodded.
 
"I'm sure you will," he said, trying a smile.

Napier looked at him for a second and then his head disappeared.
 
He wasn't smiling.

I
t was almost impossible to hold classes the next day, and not just because the only thing anyone could talk about was the death of Tom Henderson.
 
The major distraction was the "grief counseling" that Dean Partridge had ordered for any students who felt devastated by Henderson's sudden demise.

Predictably enough, there were very few students who fell into such a group, Henderson not having been one of HGC's most popular professors.
 
However, so that the program would not look like a terrible administrative misjudgment, all the instructors had been told to mention the special counseling sessions in their classes and encourage the students to attend them.

Burns dutifully followed orders, though he was highly suspicious of the fact that Dawn
Melling
had been placed in charge of the counseling.
 
He didn't know how much good she could do.

He said as much to Fox and Tomlin as they sat in the boiler room, the only indoor "smoke free area" left on campus where anyone felt smoking could go on undetected.

The reason for that was that the HGC's boiler was older than anyone on campus, with the possible exception of Dirty Harry, the campus security officer, who spent a great deal of his time in the boiler room, asleep.

Of course it wasn't only that the boiler was old that kept people away.
 
It was also, like Dirty Harry, dangerous.

Dirty Harry was dangerous because he carried a big revolver and was likely to point it at anyone or anyone who looked even the least bit out of place to him.
 
It was a known fact that hardly anyone dared venture into a campus office on the weekend to catch up on paper grading or to map out assignments for the coming week.

Harry was likely to creep into the office behind them and throw down on them with the revolver, threatening to shoot if they didn't produce
i.d
. to prove they had a right on campus.
 
Since HGC didn't furnish
i.d
. cards to its faculty, there were several instructors who felt that they had gone through near-death experiences while looking down the barrel of Harry's .357 Magnum.

The boiler didn't carry a gun, but it was just as likely to explode as Harry's revolver, at least according to an engineering study that Dean Partridge had ordered.
 
It was old, and if the pressure built up too much, it was going to take out half the campus.
 
Or that was the story going around.

It was, Burns thought as he looked at it, certainly big enough.
 
It looked a little like a stubby, asbestos-wrapped rocket ship lying there in its concrete cradles, pipes and valves extending from it and running to all the buildings it served.
 
It was quiet for the time being, however.
 
Thanks to the mild spring weather, the boiler wouldn't be needed to heat the campus buildings until well into the next fall.

Just the same, no one came into the building that housed the boiler except for the occasional maintenance worker who was sneaking a smoke and who was therefore highly unlikely to rat on anyone else doing the same thing.

"What's Dawn going to tell the kids, anyway?" Tomlin wondered.
 
"'I share your pain'?"

"That's not what I'd like to share with Dawn," Earl Fox said with an attempt at a leer.
 
His clean-cut features didn't lend themselves very well to leering, however.

"That's a sexist remark, I think," Burns told him.
 
"I could report you to the dean for something like that."

"She might have heard that story already," Mal Tomlin said.
 
"Not about Earl, but if what I heard is true, old Henderson shared at thing or two with Dawn.
 
Right, Earl?"

Fox looked the other way and tapped the ash off his cigarette onto the concrete floor.
 
One advantage of being in the boiler room was that you didn't have to bother with an ashtray.

"Hey, Earl, is it true or not?" Tomlin asked.

To his surprise, Burns didn't know exactly what was going on.
 
He thought he was pretty well up on the campus gossip, but this was clearly something he'd missed.
 
And Fox clearly didn't want to talk about it.

"What's going on here?" Burns asked.
 
"What about Henderson and Dawn?"

"I'm not supposed to say anything about it," Fox told him.
 
"I don't know how Mal found out."

"You ought to close your office door when you've got an irate visitor," Tomlin said.
 
"If you want to keep secrets, that is.
 
I just happened to be passing by when Walt
Melling
stormed in the other day."

"I closed the door as soon as I got a chance," Fox said. "I didn't see you outside it."

"I must've been standing out of sight," Tomlin said, grinning.
 
"I didn't hear much after you closed the door, though."

Burns was curious.
 
"Just what did you hear?"

"I can't tell you," Tomlin said.
 
"Didn't you hear Earl?
 
It's a secret."

Burns looked over at Dirty Harry, who was tipped precariously back in his chair, his eyes closed, his mouth half open.

"There's no one here but us," Burns said.
 
"And I'm not going to tell anyone."

"You'd better not," Fox said.
 
"I haven't, not even Dean Partridge."

"I bet Walt told her, though," Tomlin said.
 
He looked at Burns.
 
"His face was red as a turkey's snout."

"Why?" Burns asked.
 
"Will one of you please tell me what's going on around here?"

"You might as well tell him, Earl," Tomlin said. "He'll find out sooner or later.
 
He's probably already helping the cops, just like he always does."

"I'm not helping the cops," Burns protested.
 
"Boss Napier told me to keep out of it.
 
I'm just curious."

"Sure you are," Tomlin said.

Burns could see it was useless to argue.
 
"All right, so I'm working with the cops.
 
Tell me what's going on, Earl, and I'll see to it that Napier doesn't take you down to the station to beat the truth out of you with his bullwhip."

"All right," Fox said.
 
"But you didn't hear it from me."
 
He tossed his cigarette to the floor and crushed it out.

There were a number of butts scattered around the area, and Mal Tomlin looked down at them.
 
"If Dean Partridge ever comes in here, our ass is grass."

Fox looked even more frightened than he had at the mention of Boss Napier's legendary whip.
 
"Can she tell they're our cigarettes?"