…A Dangerous Thing (30 page)

"It's just me," Burns yelled.
 
"Carl Burns."

Dirty Harry's eyes came to rest on Burns and he stopped fumbling for the sidearm.

"What do you want around here on a Sunday?" he asked.
 
He laughed wheezily.
 
"You come to smoke a cigarette?"
 

"I just wanted to talk," Burns said, entering the boiler room.
 
"About the night Tom Henderson died."

Dirty Harry settled back into his chair.
 
"Terrible thing.
 
I've known Tom Henderson ever since he first came on this campus, nearly twenty years ago."

Burns agreed that Henderson's death was a terrible thing.

"Where were you that night?" Burns asked.

"Wasn't night, exactly.
 
Just
gettin
' on toward dark, is what it was."

"Right.
 
But where were you?"

"Makin' my rounds," Dirty Harry said.
 
"Same thing ever' day.
 
'Round about
closin
' time, I check all the
buildin's
, make sure what's supposed to be locked is locked and what's supposed to be open is open."

Burns had thought that was the case.
 
He saw Dirty Harry nearly every Tuesday evening as the watchman went through Main on his rounds, shaking the door handles and peering into the locked offices.

"So you were in Main that night?"

"Wasn't night," Dirty Harry said.
 
"It was
evenin
'."

"Evening.
 
Right.
 
Were you there?"

"Sure enough was.
 
Always am, 'round that time."

Now came the part that Burns was guessing at. "And were you the one that some student sent to get Henderson's wife?"

"That's right.
 
Sure hated to be the one to tell her.
 
Known her long's I've known him."

"
Did
you tell her?"

Dirty Harry gave Burns a look.
 
"Now what's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, she teaches in the business building.
 
Did you have any trouble finding her?"

Dirty Harry was getting suspicious.
 
"How'd you know that?"

"I didn't know it for sure.
 
I just thought that might be what happened."

"I don't see what difference it makes."

"No difference," Burns said.
 
"I just wondered if she was in her office."

"Well, no.
 
She wasn't there.
 
But she came in right after I got there.
 
Why?"

"It was just something I was wondering about," Burns said.
 
"Was she carrying anything?"

"Just her book bag that I remember.
 
She was real broke up when I told her about her husband."

"I'm not surprised.
 
Well, that's all I wanted to know.
 
Thanks for talking to me."

Burns turned to leave.

Dirty Harry called him.
 
"Dr. Burns?"

Burns turned back.
 
"What?"

"She's gonna catch y'all.
 
You know that, don't you?"

"Who do you mean?"

"That new dean.
 
She's gonna find out y'all are
smokin
' in here and there's gonna be hell to pay."

Burns thought it over.
 
"You're not going to tell her are you?"

Dirty Harry laughed.
 
The laugh had a phlegmy sound.
 
"Not me, son.
 
If you was to break in one of the
buildin's
, or park illegally, I'd squeal. But not about
smokin
'."

"Then maybe she won't find out," Burns said.

"You wish," Dirty Harry said.

E
laine thought it was time to call Napier, but Burns didn't agree.

"We don't have any proof," he said.
 
"We've got to get the evidence."

"What evidence?"

Burns pulled the shift lever and put the Plymouth in drive.
 
"You'll see," he said.

I
t was a little past mid-afternoon when they arrived at Samantha Henderson's house in the Heights.
 
Burns rang the doorbell.

This time it took even longer for Samantha to answer the ring than it had the first time they'd visited her.
 
And she looked, if anything, worse than she had then.
 
She had fixed her hair for the funeral, but it hadn't been touched since.
 
And she didn't look as if she'd slept.

Burns thought he knew why.

Just as before, Samantha stood inside the house looking out at them, not inviting them to enter.

This time it was Elaine who said, "Can we come in?"

"Why not?"
 
Samantha stepped back, opening the door wide enough for them to come inside.

Burns looked at the living room.
 
It wasn't much dirtier than it had been, but the odor of decay seemed a little stronger.
 
The overstuffed chair was still tipped to one side.

Samantha stood listlessly in the middle of the room and looked at them, but she had nothing to say.

Burns didn't know exactly where to begin, either.
 
He looked at Elaine.

"Why don't you sit down, Samantha," Elaine said.

Samantha shook her head.
 
Her hair fell around her face.
 
"Don't want to."

"We have to talk to you," Burns said.
 
"It's about Tom."

"What about him?
 
He's dead."

"We know that."
 
Burns decided to try the shock treatment.
 
It had gotten an admission out of
Melling
.
 
"And we know that you killed him."

He didn't know what kind of reaction he expected.
 
Maybe he thought Samantha would break down and cry.
 
Or maybe he thought she would confess.

He certainly didn't think she would attack him.

But she did.
 
She flew across the room, her fingers shaped into talons, her wild hair flying.

"Liar!
 
Liar!" she yelled, and then she smashed into Burns, throwing him to the floor and scratching at his face with both hands, yelling "Liar!" all the while.

Burns tried to throw her off, but she was stronger than he was.
 
He tried to grab her wrists, but she was too fast for him. All he could do was fend her off from his eyes, though she succeeded in inflicting several scratches on his face.

He heard Elaine saying, "Stop it!
 
Stop it!" and he was pretty sure that she was trying to drag Samantha off him, but it wasn't working.

He was giving himself up for a goner when Elaine pulled Samantha's head back and cracked her on the chin with a credible right cross.

Samantha was stunned, but she wasn't out.
 
She jumped off Burns, twisted around, and launched herself at Elaine, wrestling her to the floor and grabbing her hair.
 
She pounded Elaine's head into the rug three times before Burns could get to her.

He grabbed her arms and pulled her away from Elaine.
 
She writhed in his hands like a snake, twisting her head back to spit at him.

Burns didn't know what to do with her.
 
He was like the man who didn't know what to do with the tiger now that he had caught it.

She kicked backward and hit his shin.
 
He let go of her arms.

She dropped on top of Elaine, grabbed her hair again, and started banging her head on the rug.

Every time her head hit the floor, Elaine said something that sounded like "
Uhh
."

Burns didn't want to hit Samantha.
 
It didn't seem politically correct.
 
But he couldn't think of anything else to do.
 
He grabbed a cushion off the couch and slammed it into the side of her head as hard as he could.

She slid off Elaine and whirled on him like a catamount.
 
He whacked her in the face with the cushion.
 
He hit her again and again, until she collapsed to the rug, crying.

It was probably a sad picture, but right at the moment, Burns had no sympathy for her.
 
He put the cushion back on the couch and helped Elaine to her feet.

"I tried to stop her," Elaine said.
 
"But I couldn't."

"It's not your fault," Burns said.
 
"I shouldn't have provoked her."

"Your face is bleeding," Elaine told him.
 
She opened her purse and took out a tissue.
 
"Hold still."

Burns tried to be brave while she blotted his face.
 
Samantha huddled on the floor, crying.

"We should look for some alcohol to put on these scratches," Elaine said.

"Later," Burns said.

He walked over to the recliner and tipped it up.
 
There was a canvas book bag under it.
 
Burns pulled the bag out and let the chair back down to the floor.
 
The bag was turned inside out, and it was quite heavy.

That was because it was holding a notebook, a keyboarding text, and a bust of Sigmund Freud.
 
The inside of the bag was stained dark with blood, and the odor of decay was a lot stronger.

"She put the bust in the bag, then swung it and hit him," Burns said.

"But R. M. didn't notice any marks like that," Elaine said.

"She hit him in the back of the head.
 
Then the back of his head hit the sidewalk."

"Oh."

Burns walked over to Samantha, who was sitting up now.

"Isn't that about right, Samantha?" he said.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
 
"Yes.
 
I'd gone by to speak to him about his behavior with Dawn
Melling
.
 
He blamed me because Walt
Melling
had hit him.
 
He yelled at me, and then he turned his back on me and told me to get out of his office.
 
I wanted to hurt him, so I put that awful bust in my bag and hit him with it."
 
She started crying again.
 
"I didn't know he'd go out the window."

Maybe she was telling the truth, Burns thought.

Maybe not.

"S
o it was all Elaine's idea." Boss Napier said.
 
"She gets the credit."

"That's right," Burns told him.

They were sitting in Samantha Henderson's living room, but Samantha wasn't there.
 
She was on her way to the city jail.

"Tell me how I solved it," Elaine said.

Burns was glad to.
 
"You reminded me of misquotations and
Hamlet
.
 
And there was something you said about sexual harassment."

"I understand the misquotations part.
 
But not the
Hamlet
."

"'The lady doth protest too much.'"

"I get it," Napier said.
 
"She was the one who was jealous.
 
All those women, they didn't come on to her husband at all.
 
She was, what do you call it?
 
In denial?"

"Close enough," Burns said, though he wasn't a psychology major.
 
"She was jealous, and she knew what he was doing, but she couldn't admit to anyone that her husband was a philanderer.
 
She tried to pretend that it was someone else's fault.
 
If anyone asked her about what was going on, she blamed the women."

"That's a real English teacher word," Napier said.
 
"Philanderer."

"I mean he played around."

"I know what you mean.
 
I was just talking about the word."

"Right.
 
But it's probably the wrong word.
 
I don't think he really played around.
 
I think he just talked.
 
And touched."

"That's the sexual harassment part," Elaine said. " What did I say about harassment that gave Samantha away?"

"That was the most important thing," Burns said.
 
"Not that I agree with it."