Murder is an Art (15 page)

Sally thought about what Jack had told her, and she thought about her conversation with Ellen. Both of them would be considered suspects in Val's murder if the police had been doing a proper investigation.

She took another peek, trying to see if A. B. D. Johnson's name was anywhere on the list.

Desmond saw what she was looking at, picked up the paper, and put it in a drawer.

“That's not important anymore, either,” he said.

Sally didn't bother to comment. It was time for her to go to class.

Before she left Desmond's office, he said, “The college will be closing this afternoon at one for Val's funeral. There should be a notice in everyone's mailbox. You should probably tell your students.”

“I'll do that,” Sally said.

She left the chief's office and went down the hallway to her favorite classroom, the one that no one else liked because it was located near an air vent and was quite noisy. It was also considered too big by most of the other instructors.

Sally didn't mind the noise or the size. She liked the room because it wasn't on the main part of the hallway, so she wasn't likely to be disturbed by other instructors or their students.

Sally's own students were unusually attentive, especially when they learned that the college would be closing early and that they could skip their afternoon classes.

Besides being attentive, most of the students had actually read the assignment. There was a lively discussion about the use of what the O. J. Simpson trial had taught the world to call the “
n
word” in Sherwood Anderson's “I'm a Fool.” One student thought the story should be excluded from all textbooks and possibly banned from publication anywhere, forever. None of Sally's arguments about freedom of speech, literary values, or characterization in the story could change his mind.

Aside from that, however, the class was uneventful, something that couldn't be said for the rest of the day. It would become known around the HCC campus as the day A. B. D. Johnson finally went ballistic.

24

It happened in the faculty mailroom just as Sally was walking by the half-open door. There were usually only a few people in there between classes: those who'd come to check their mail, those who were buying a Dr. Pepper from the faculty association's soft-drink machine, and those who were passing through on their way to use the restrooms in the faculty lounge.

And of course there were always a few of the part-time instructors, like Coy Webster, who was the one A. B. D. Johnson attacked.

Sally heard the commotion when she was a couple of yards from the door. By the time she reached it and went inside, Coy was lying on the floor, a dented mailbasket beside him and campus-mail envelopes scattered all around.

A. B. D. was standing over Coy, breathing heavily. He picked up the mailbasket and was about to give Coy another good whack when Troy Beauchamp, who was standing beside A. B. D., grabbed the basket, jerked it out of A. B. D.'s hands, and set it on the counter behind them.

“Are you crazy?” Troy asked.

A. B. D. glared at him. “Don't look at me! It's not my fault that everyone's out to get me. Fieldstone's going to fire me if he gets half an excuse, and now that cretin”—he pointed to a quivering Coy Webster—“is telling everyone I was in the art gallery before Val was killed!”

Coy Webster didn't appear to have been injured, but Sally nevertheless felt sorry for him. He was short and thin and wore clothes that looked as if he found them in thrift stores and couldn't be too picky about the fit. His scrawny legs stuck out the ends of his pants, and his socks drooped down around his ankles, covering the tops of his scuffed brown shoes. His faded shirt hung on him like a muumuu.

Sally put her books down on the table that sat in the middle of the mailroom and bent to help Coy get up. Troy restrained A. B. D.

“So, what were you saying about the art gallery?” Sally asked.

“N-nothing,” Coy replied, rising gingerly and moving so that the table was between him and A. B. D. “I wasn't saying a thing.”

“Yes, he was,” Troy said. “He was telling me that A. B. D. was hanging around the Art and Music Building late yesterday.”

“So what if I was?” A. B. D. said. “I have every right to be there if I want to!”

“Coy says there was a lot of yelling going on in Val's office,” Troy said.

He tightened his grip on A. B. D., who was looking longingly at the mailbasket.

“I-I'm not sure about what I heard,” Coy said. “I could be mistaken.”

“And what was
he
doing there, anyway?” A. B. D. asked. “Doesn't anyone want to know that? I'll bet he was skulking around Val's office, just waiting for his chance to off him. Ask him that! Go ahead and ask him!”

Off him?
Sally thought. A. B. D. had probably been watching too many old TV shows. Or maybe he hadn't watched any TV since the sixties. That seemed more likely.

“Why would Coy want to off—kill Val?” Sally asked.

“Because Coy was sleeping in that building illegally, that's why,” A. B. D. said.

“What?” Sally said, though she wasn't surprised, considering what Douglas Young had told her the day before.

“It's true,” Troy said. “I've known for a week.”

Sally looked at Coy, who looked away, but not before he nodded.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Sally asked Troy.

“I didn't think it was that important. There are some things that a division chair shouldn't be bothered about.”

“Coy?” Sally said. “Since I'm already being bothered, why don't you tell me what was going on?”

Coy still didn't look in her direction, preferring to stare at the nearly colorless toes of his shoes.

“I've separated from my wife,” he said. “I didn't have enough money to stay in a motel, so I thought I might find a place somewhere around here. There's no one in those art labs at night, so I stayed there. I didn't bother anyone or touch any of the art equipment. I've been showering in the gym in the mornings.”

“But what about your other teaching jobs?” Sally asked.

“This is a sort of central location,” Coy said. “I've been able to get to them more easily than when I was at home, actually.”

“Who cares about how he gets to his jobs?” A. B. D. asked. “What does that have to do with anything? He killed Val, and now he's trying to blame me.”

“You were there in his office,” Coy said. “You were yelling.”

A. B. D. twisted out of Troy's grasp and grabbed the mail-basket. He raised it over his head, prepared to strike.

“All right, I was there. I was trying to get Val to admit that he didn't need that new chair! And he didn't!”

Troy made a grab for the basket, but A. B. D. danced away. Troy banged his knee against the table and hopped around holding it. Just then, Eric Desmond came through the door. It didn't take him long to size things up.

“Drop the basket, Johnson,” he said.

A. B. D. obeyed immediately. The basket clonked on the floor at his feet.

“I had three instructors and five students beating down my door about a fight in here,” Desmond said. “What the hell's going on?”

Sally explained as quickly as she could. A. B. D. scowled at her the whole time, while Coy stared at his shoes.

“I think we'd better go down to my office,” Desmond said.

Troy stopped hopping around and limped over to join them.

“Not you, Beauchamp,” Desmond said. “Don't you have a class to teach?”

“As a matter of fact,” Troy said, “I don't.”

“Well, go translate some Chaucer then,” Desmond said. “The rest of you, come with me.”

Sally was the last one out of the mailroom. She looked back over her shoulder at Troy, who was clearly crushed at being excluded from the juiciest session of the year. Nothing pained him more than to think that there was something going on that he didn't know about.

“Tell me what happens,” he called after Sally, who smiled, shrugged, and let the door swing shut behind her.

25

“I don't think there's any law against sleeping in the campus buildings,” Desmond said after both A. B. D. and Webster had told their stories and he had asked them a number of questions. “As long as it doesn't happen again, we'll overlook it. And as for what just went on in the mailroom, I think we can just forget it ever happened, unless Mr. Webster wants to file some kind of complaint, which I'm sure he doesn't. Right, Mr. Webster?”

Coy nodded vigorously. “Right.”

“And I'm sure Mr. Johnson regrets what happened and will make sure nothing like it ever happens again. Right, Mr. Johnson?”

A. B. D. wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as Coy had been. In fact, he looked downright recalcitrant, and it didn't appear that he was going to answer.

Desmond said again, “Right, Mr. Johnson?” in a tone implying that recalcitrance would not be tolerated.

A. B. D. took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and finally answered, “Right.”

“Good.” Desmond said, with a smile that didn't show even a hint of teeth. “Now, why don't we all get back to our jobs and quit frightening the students? They might get the idea that it's not safe to go to school here, and we wouldn't want that. After all, they pay our salaries.”

Coy and A. B. D. stood up. Sally, who couldn't believe what was happening, didn't move.

“You two go on and get out of here,” Desmond said to Coy and A. B. D. “I want to talk to Dr. Good.”

Coy hung back until A. B. D. had cleared the doorway; then he followed him reluctantly.

When they were gone, Sally said to Desmond, “Would you mind telling me what's going on here?”

“Problem solving,” Desmond replied with another of his thin smiles. “Those two had a problem, and I solved it. They might not be the best of friends, but you can be sure there won't be any more fighting.”

Sally had seen the word
flabbergasted
in print numerous times, but she'd never truly understood what it meant until that moment.

“Fighting? You're worried about fighting? What about murder? Those two were admittedly in the art gallery late yesterday afternoon. A. B. D. was yelling at Val, and there was an angry scene. Don't you think you should investigate a little more thoroughly?”

Desmond leaned back in his chair. He didn't appear to have a worry in the world. It was as if Val's murder had never happened, or, if it had, it was now solved and there was no need to discuss it further.

“You heard what Webster said. There was a commotion, sure, but after that, Johnson left the building. There was no scuffle, no noise of any other kind. Johnson didn't kill Hurley.”

“Did Coy check to see?” Sally asked. Then she answered herself. “He says he didn't. So how do you know what happened in that office?”

“I don't know,” Desmond said, unconcerned. “But I can draw an inference. No noise, no scuffle, equals no dead man.”

“A. B. D. could have come back later, when Coy wasn't there,” Sally said. “For that matter, what about Coy? He could have killed Val to keep Val from telling anyone that Coy was sleeping in the building.”

“We don't even know that Hurley knew what Coy was doing. And if he did, it would be crazy to kill someone to keep it a secret. Webster's a little weird, I'll give you that, and his clothes are terrible, but he's not crazy. And, as I've said before, this isn't my investigation. It's Weems's job now.”

Desmond smiled his thin smile as if to say there was no use in continuing the conversation.

But Sally wasn't going to give up that easily. She had a lot more to say.

“What if Coy knows more than he's telling? What if someone else was in that building and Coy knows it?”

Desmond sighed. “He just sat right here and told us his story. You heard him. He says that he had an evening class on another campus last night. He left around four-thirty so he could get a hamburger on the way.”

“Someone went into that building and took the painting of the goat,” Sally said. “Have you forgotten about that?”

“I told you earlier today not to worry about the painting. We don't know that anyone took it, but even if someone did, there's no connection with Val's death.”

Sally didn't try to conceal her amazement. “You can't be sure of that. The murder might be Weems's job, but the painting's yours.”

Desmond leaned forward, no longer relaxed. He wasn't smiling now.

“Are you trying to tell me that I don't know how to do my job?” he asked.

“No,” Sally said. “I'm sure you're very good at your job. But I don't understand how you can just ignore what Coy's told you about A. B. D. And I don't see how you can say that the painting doesn't have anything to do with Val's murder. It seems to me that it most certainly does, and I think you should report it to Detective Weems. If it's his job, he should have this new information.”

“You don't have to worry about that,” Desmond said.

Sally thought that you didn't have to be an English teacher to hear the ambiguity in that statement.

“Especially the part about the painting,” she said.

“Why?” Desmond asked.

“Well,” Sally said, and then she paused, because she really didn't have an answer.

Desmond relaxed again. “You see what I mean? If the painting's gone, and I'm not saying that it is, anyone could have taken it. A faculty member who admired it, a student who thought it would look good in his apartment, anybody.”

Sally thought about it. Desmond had a point, but there were some possibilities he hadn't mentioned.

What about an administrator who didn't want the painting to cause any more trouble?

What about a certain car dealer who suddenly changed his mind and decided the jury picked to decide the artwork's fate would not be fair? What if he then thought he'd show the painting to his own handpicked jury?