…A Dangerous Thing (23 page)

"Counting on me?
 
Have you arrested them?"

"Not yet.
 
Not enough evidence for that.
 
But we're looking."

"You won't find anything."

"You might be surprised.
 
But like I said, they're probably counting on you to keep them in the clear.
 
You're not doing so hot, though, are you?"

"We'll see," Burns said.

"Yeah, I guess we will.
 
And now let's have a little talk about
lookism
."

"Let me get something to drink first," Burns said, hoping to postpone the discussion a little longer.
 
"You're sure you don't want a Pepsi?"

Napier gave in.
 
"OK, bring me one.
 
But it's not going to get you off the hook."

Burns hadn't thought that it would.

W
hen Napier finally left it was after eleven o'clock.
 
As it turned out to his credit, he didn't really blame Burns for Elaine's accusations.
 
And besides, as Napier himself admitted, "She's probably right.
 
I wouldn't have been attracted to her if she weren't a dynamite looker.
 
Anyway, she didn't really mean it when she told me not to come around anymore.
 
I could tell her heart wasn't in it."

"What's bothering you, then?" Burns wanted to know.

"What's bothering me is that she thinks you like her because she's smart, not because she looks great."

"She's right," Burns said.

He tried not to feel smug, and didn't mention that what he
really
liked about Elaine was that she was smart and looked great at the same time.
 
He wondered, however, why Elaine was suddenly giving him so much credit, while at the same time revising her opinion of Napier.
 
Maybe it was because he had discussed the case with her and sought her opinion.
 
Napier was likely to discuss things, true, but not nearly as likely as Burns to ask for advice.

"Baloney," Napier said.
 
"I know you better than you think I do, Burns.
 
You might read poetry and all that, but you've got eyes.
 
You know what Elaine looks like, and that's for sure."

Burns didn't say anything.

"That's all right," Napier told him.
 
"She'll catch on to you sooner or later.
 
And then I'll move in again.
 
Or maybe she'll just want to talk cop talk with somebody.
 
She really likes that stuff, you know."

Burns knew.
 
And he suspected that Napier was right about Napier's moving in again.
 
But he was going to enjoy his advantage while he could.

"There's just one more thing," Napier said as he was leaving.
 
"I know you've found out more than you're telling me, and that's all right.
 
But you might think about what's happened to you in the past when you got in over your head.
 
I might not be there to save you this time."

"I'll keep that in mind," Burns said.

A
fter Napier was gone, Burns found that he wasn't ready for bed, but he couldn't get back to his reading.
 
There was something bothering him, and he went back over every conversation he'd had recently, letting them play back in his mind word for word, or as nearly as he could come.
 
He was pretty sure that he was nowhere near word for word.
 
Maybe he should buy himself a little notebook like Napier's and write things down.

Recalling the conversations was good mental exercise, but it didn't provide Burns with any new clues.
 
He told himself that maybe things would become clear while he slept.
 
He would wake up on Saturday with a head full of clues and the name of the killer on the tip of his tongue.

Or then again, maybe he wouldn't.

H
e didn't.
 
He woke up thinking how much he hated to give up his Saturday morning for something like a funeral.
 
Then he told himself that he was even more selfish than he'd thought and rolled out of bed, trying not to resent the fact that he'd have to wear a suit and tie.

The funeral was at ten o'clock, which meant that he wouldn't have to wear the suit all day, just most of the morning.
 
There was that to be thankful for.
 
But before he changed, he intended to look up Kristi Albert.
 
If she lived in the women's dorm, she would be easy to find.

He got up, dressed, and read the paper while eating a bowl of Frosted Mini
Wheats
.
 
He wasn't reading the Pecan City paper, which didn't publish on Saturdays.
 
It was
The Dallas
Morning News
.
 
Burns subscribed because he liked the comic strips, which he considered more relevant to real live than most of what the paper published.
 
He wouldn't have been surprised if Eric Holt agreed with him on that.

After finishing his breakfast and the comics, Burns read some more from
You'll Die Next!
, and then it was time to leave for the funeral.

He drove to the church in his Plymouth and didn't have any trouble finding a place to park.
 
There wasn't going to be a huge crowd.

Henderson's casket was down in front of the altar, and it was closed, for which Burns was grateful.
 
He didn't want to have to say any last good-byes.
 
He looked over the pews to see who was there.
 
Walt and Dawn
Melling
were sitting near the back.
 
The
Tomlins
and the Foxes were sitting together, and Burns was on his way to join them until he saw Elaine Tanner.
 
She moved over, and he slid in beside her.

He was going to whisper "Good morning," but he wasn't sure that would be appropriate.
 
They were at a funeral, after all.
 
So he just smiled, sadly.

Elaine nodded, and then her eyes went past him to someone else.
 
Burns looked to the side and there was Boss Napier standing in the aisle.

Elaine didn't say anything, but she slid over some more, making room.
 
Burns didn't see anything for it but to do the same.
 
Napier sat beside him.

Burns thought of asking him what he was doing there, but it wasn't necessary.
 
Napier told him.

"You never know what'll happen at a funeral," Napier whispered.
 
"Sometimes you can learn a lot from people's reactions."

Burns nodded as if he had known it all along.
 
Napier didn't have anything else to say.

The crowd trickled in slowly, most of them from the college.
 
Dean Partridge came in, along with Eric Holt, though they didn't sit together.
 
All the members of
Burns's
department were there as well.
 
Henderson didn't seem to have made too many friends outside the school, though there were ten or twelve people that Burns didn't recognize.
 
He wondered if any of them had a motive to kill Henderson.
 
By the time the service was to begin, there were more people there than Burns had really expected.

The pipe organ played softly in the background, mostly slow, lugubrious hymns that Burns hoped no one would play at his own funeral.
 
Some of the songs had either too many sharps or too many flats for the organist to handle, and when she hit the wrong key several people would wince slightly.

After what seemed like a very long time, Samantha Henderson and her family entered.
 
Her mother was beside her.
 
There was a man that looked a little like Tom, undoubtedly his father, along with several cousins, and some older people who must have been aunts and uncles.

Samantha's eyes were glittery and damp as she looked at the casket, but when she looked out at the crowd and saw the Foxes and
Tomlins
, the eyes changed and took on an almost feral light.
 
Burns hoped that she didn't do anything unseemly.

She didn't.
 
She was seated by her mother, and the minister began talking, saying the soothing things that ministers are supposed to say but that somehow didn't seem very comforting to Burns.
 
He hoped the family found them more reassuring than he did.

The congregation sang a hymn, "How Great Thou Art," and the minister launched into his praise of Tom Henderson, most of which Burns thought was pretty inflated, considering what he knew of Henderson's character.
 
Then there was a brief sermon, though not brief enough for Burns.

After the sermon and another song, this one sung by one of HGC's music instructors, the funeral was over, and the casket was being rolled down the aisle, with the family walking along behind.
 
Burns allowed himself to relax.
 
It hadn't been as bad as it might have been.

Samantha Henderson was weeping openly now, leaning on her mother.
 
Fortunately the organ served to drown out the sounds of her sobbing.

When Samantha reached the row where the
Tomlins
and Foxes were sitting, she suddenly stopped and straightened up.
 
Her mother looked surprised and put a hand on Samantha's elbow as if to urge her along.

Burns didn't like the looks of this.
 
He was afraid that Samantha might yet make a scene.
 
Burns didn't like scenes.

Samantha's mother was whispering something to her daughter, bur Samantha wasn't listening.
 
Her sobbing had stopped.

"What's the matter?" Elaine asked in a low voice.
 
Whispers were beginning to break out all over the church.

Burns didn't answer her.
 
He was about to say something to Boss Napier, but he saw that the police chief was watching with a great deal of interest and had no intention of intervening.

Then Samantha Henderson yelled something that sounded to Burns suspiciously like "man-stealing bitches!" and made a dive toward
Joynell
Tomlin.

T
hings happened fast after that.
 
Joynell
and Samantha went down into the space between the pews and disappeared from
Burns's
sight, though he, like everyone else in the building, was standing on tiptoe trying to see what was going on.

There were several screeches and what sounded to Burns like a couple of dull thuds, but he couldn't tell what was happening.
 
There were so many people crowded around the pew by then that there was no hope of seeing anything.

The minister was trying to fight his way through the crowd,
 
but he wasn't having much success.
 
No one wanted to give up his (or, Burns reminded himself, her) place for fear of missing something.
 
Finally the minister resorted to trying to get everyone's attention by shouting.

"This is a church!
 
This is a house of God!" he said.
 
But that didn't do any good either.
 
No one was paying him the least attention.

Meanwhile, the organist apparently oblivious to what was going on, kept playing the same slow, mournful hymns.
 
She was, however, playing them louder.
 
Burns knew that, because he could hear them clearly over the talking and shouting that would ordinarily have drowned them out.

Napier just stood there, watching like everyone else.

The organist hit a sour note on "Softly and Tenderly" just as
Joynell
Tomlin, or maybe it was Samantha Henderson, screamed.
 
There was another thud from the direction of the pew.

Burns, who was embarrassed by the whole thing, poked Napier in the back.
 
"Why don't you do something?"

"I told you," Napier said, seeming quite cheerful.
 
"You never can tell what you might learn at a funeral."

The organist reached the chorus, and the words were punctuated in
Burns's
mind by the shrieks of
Joynell
and her adversary.

"Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling—"

"
Eeeeeeeeeeee
!"

"Calling, O sinner—"

"
Aaarrrrrrrrrggggghhh
!"

"Come home!"

Burns was about to give another try at poking Napier into action, but then he saw
Joynell
Tomlin rise up, her beehive of hair a disordered mess.
 
He suspected that at least one of the screams had been when Samantha yanked a handful of it.
 
Joynell's
lipstick was smeared across her cheek.
 
Or maybe it was Samantha's lipstick.