Bond With Death (13 page)

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Authors: Bill Crider

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Bond With Death
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S
ally never missed a class unless there were compelling reasons why she should. In her entire teaching career, she had missed exactly one day of school because of illness, though she had missed more than that in order to attend conventions or teachers' meetings that were held out of town. In those cases she had always found someone to take her classes for her and either teach the assignment or give a test.
But on the day after the
Journal
editorial, she seriously considered giving her American literature class a walk. She just didn't feel up to going into the room and facing Wayne Compton and the rest of the students. She might have stayed in her office with her door closed if Vera hadn't come by and given her a pep talk.
“You can't hide in here and eat Hershey bars forever,” Vera said. “Although I have to admit it's an attractive idea.”
“How did you know about the Hershey bars?” Sally asked.
She'd thought the candy was a secret from everyone except Eva. After all, keeping candy, and for that matter any other kind of food, in the office had been expressly forbidden by order of Dean Naylor, who claimed that it attracted roaches and ants. Sally didn't believe it, so she ignored the order.
“Everybody knows about your Hershey bar habit. Your office is practically right across from Wynona's, and you never close your door.”
Sees all, knows all, Sally thought.
“I should have known. Have you forgiven Jack for calling the police last night?”
“I'm going to let him suffer for a little while longer. We didn't need the cops. We had that bunch of wimps on the run.”
Sally had to admit that Vera was right about that, but she felt she had to defend Jack.
“He was just trying to help.”
“If he wanted to help, he could have come out in the yard and done some of the fighting.”
“Not that we needed him,” Sally said, and Vera laughed.
“No, and he did the sensible thing. I'll forgive him later today.”
She went off to get ready for her own class, and Sally sat at her desk and tried to concentrate on what she was going to say about Poe's “Berenice.” She liked to approach it as a story of vampirism, having recently read an article on the topic by two professors named Blythe and Sweet. It had appeared in
Poe Studies
, and Sally had found it convincing. But it wasn't easy to think about fictional vampires when there was a real murder to be considered.
From what she had been able to coax out of Weems after he'd told her that Curtin had been poisoned, Sally gathered that Curtin had been drinking more than a little the evening of his death. He might not have been falling-down drunk, but he was close to that point. He was so drunk, in fact, that he never noticed when someone slipped a glass filled with poison into his hand.
Except that it wasn't really poison. It was what Weems had called a “cationic detergent.”
“Like fabric softener,” he'd said.
“You mean that stuff is poison?” Jack had asked. “I use it in my laundry.”
“Yeah, but you aren't drinking it. And you'd need quite a bit of it, or a more concentrated solution, to kill yourself. It can wreck your esophagus and cause vomiting, which is what happened to Curtin. That's where the blood came from, not from any curse. Someone wanted us to think it had to do with witchcraft. Maybe trying to throw us off the track.”
That last remark had made Sally feel a little better, and she asked about the time of death. Weems had given her a puzzled look, as if wondering why she wanted to know, but Sally didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him that several people from the college had been at a meeting with Curtin the evening he'd died, even if Fieldstone had asked her to do it. Now wasn't the time. So she told him she was just curious.
“We haven't established the time yet. But we will. You can count on that.”
“How do you know he didn't kill himself?”
“It's a possibility. But there was no note, and it didn't look like an accident.”
Sally had a few more questions, but Weems had left without giving out any more information.
Now Sally was trying to figure out what it all meant. She couldn't imagine Desmond or even Roy Talon slipping somebody a glass of fabric softener. They were more direct types. Roy Don would want a shoot-out on Main Street, and Desmond would probably prefer the same.
Seepy Benton was another story. He wasn't the macho type, and poison might just be his weapon of choice, that is, if he ever chose to kill somebody. Sally thought it might be a good idea to talk to him, so she picked up her phone and called his office. Molly Evans answered, and when Sally asked about an appointment, Molly told her to come on by whenever she felt like it.
“Dr. Benton will be in the office all morning. He's working on some kind of statistical analysis of the faculty salaries in the Gulf Coast-area colleges. It's not a lot of fun, and Dr. Benton would be glad for a break.”
Sally said she'd come by after class. She hung up and got her books together, hoping she could get through a discussion of “Berenice” without having to answer any questions about editorials in the local newspaper.
As it turned out, she could. She should have known that hardly any of her students read the paper. If they got any news at all, they
got it from television. And if their parents read the paper, they didn't discuss it with their offspring.
Sally gave a pop quiz on the story, handled Wayne's questions as best she could, and then launched into a discussion of “Berenice.” Several of the students seemed fascinated with the idea that it might be about vampirism, and one of them even asked if vampirism figured into “The Fall of the House of Usher.”
“That Madeline is pretty creepy,” the student said.
“That's an excellent observation,” Sally told him, amazed that someone was reading ahead, “and that's what we'll be talking about on Friday. Please read the story very carefully if you haven't already, and keep in mind what we've discussed today.”
Several people stayed after class for a few minutes to talk about one thing or another—vampires, research papers, their grades—so Sally was a little later in getting to Seepy Benton's office than she'd planned. It didn't matter, however, as Molly waved her on in as soon as she arrived.
“He hasn't even taken a coffee break,” Molly said. “He's dedicated to his job.”
Sally went into the office, only slightly daunted by the coonskin cap and whip that hung on the coatrack.
“About that whip,” Molly called. “I want you to know that my relationship with Dr. Benton is strictly professional.”
“I never doubted it for a second,” Sally said.
“The guitar is the most dangerous weapon in there,” Molly said. “Don't let him get his hands on it.”
Seepy Benton looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and smiled.
“She complains a lot, but she loves my music. I wrote a new song last night. It's called ‘Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican.' Want to hear it?”
“No,” Molly said from the outer office. “We don't. Not again. Spare me.”
“What a kidder,” Seepy said. “Just let me get my guitar, and I'll sing it for you.”
“I don't really have time,” Sally said.
She didn't want to be ungracious, but she wasn't in the mood for a song.
Seepy gazed at her sadly.
“It's too bad that none of the English teachers appreciate poetry,” he said. “Jack Neville felt the same way about listening to my songs.”
“It's not that I don't want to hear the song. It's just that I have other things on my mind. I need to talk to you about your meeting with Harold Curtin. The one that Roy Don Talon and Eric Desmond went to with you.”
Seepy leaned back in his chair. “Oh. That one.”
“Yes,” Sally said. “I think you forgot to mention it to Jack when he came by yesterday.”
Seepy leaned forward. “Molly, why don't you take a break. Go to the cafeteria and have some of that good frozen yogurt.”
“I know when I'm not wanted,” Molly said. “But I'll be back in half an hour. You can sing after I leave if you want to. I don't mind.”
She left, and when the outer door closed, Seepy said, “I thought that meeting was a secret.”
“Not from me,” Sally said. “Dr. Fieldstone told me about it. I think you and he should get Desmond to tell Weems that you were there at Curtin's apartment that night, especially now that we know Curtin has been murdered.”
Seepy's eyes widened. “I wasn't aware that we knew that.”
“It was supposed to be in the Houston paper today, but I don't know if it was.”
Sally hadn't taken the time to read the paper that morning. She'd had to call her mother, having forgotten to call her back after the episode with the Mothers Against Witchcraft. The call had taken a full twenty minutes, with Sally escaping only by claiming that it was time for her to leave for the college.
“I didn't see anything about it,” Seepy said. “But I wasn't looking. It could have slipped by me.”
“I expect that Dr. Fieldstone would have called you if it had been in there. He might not know yet, himself. Maybe we should go tell him.”
Seepy didn't like that idea, but Sally made him see the wisdom of it. He called Eva Dillon and told her that he needed to see Fieldstone.
“Something important has come up,” he said.
He listened for a second, then hung up.
“She said that Dr. Fieldstone would see me as soon as I could get there.” He stood up and went over to the coatrack. “I might need my bullwhip for this meeting.”
Sally didn't think so. She thought he'd need an asbestos suit instead of the black-and-gold Hawaiian shirt he was wearing.
“Leave the whip. You can wear the cap if you want to.”
“I could, at that. It makes me feel like a rugged frontiersman.”
Sally couldn't believe he was actually considering it.
“On second thought,” she said, “forget it. Let's go.”
They left the office, but Seepy gave a wistful look over his shoulder at the cap and whip as they went out the door.
 
Fieldstone had heard the news about Curtin from Eric Desmond, who was waiting in Fieldstone's office when they got there.
“This is serious,” Fieldstone said. “We could have a little public relations problem with this.”
Sally thought that it was a lot more than a little public relations problem. Harold Curtin had been murdered, after all, and he might have been killed by one of the four people in the room. Or by a board member, Roy Don Talon. There was nothing “little” about the problems that could come from that.
“We didn't kill Harold Curtin, if that's what you're worried about,” Seepy told Fieldstone. “Roy Don, Chief Desmond, and I can each serve as an alibi for the others. We were all together, and I can swear that none of us killed him.”
“He was poisoned,” Desmond said. “I talked to Weems this morning.”
“And you didn't tell him you'd been there?” Sally said.
She knew it was a mistake to imply criticism of the chief, but she couldn't help herself. It just slipped out.
“I didn't tell him,” Desmond admitted. “I thought it would look bad to tell him at this late date. We should have told him sooner.”
“I didn't want him to tell,” Fieldstone said, in a rare instance of taking the blame. “I thought it would reflect poorly on the school if word about the meeting got out. Now I know I was wrong and that keeping quiet is only going to cause more problems. We have to deal with this right now, before it gets any worse.” He stopped to look at Sally. “I asked Dr. Good to tell Weems about the meeting, but apparently she hasn't gotten around to it yet.”
“I had other things to worry about,” Sally said.
“Yes, I suppose that's true. That editorial in the
Journal
was terrible. I've talked to Christopher Matthys about it, and he's going to try to get the paper to print a retraction and an apology. He's threatening them with a lawsuit, but we don't really have grounds for one. The best thing I can say about the editorial is that when people find out Curtin was murdered, they'll forget about the witches who teach here.”
“No witches teach here,” Sally said.
“What about that book? The one on Wicca?”
“Anybody can own a book. The only people who object are the Mothers Against Witchcraft, and there aren't that many of them.”

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