Bond With Death (22 page)

Authors: Bill Crider

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Bond With Death

8.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

H
arriet Denson had been teaching chemistry at Hughes Community College for as long as anyone there could remember. She was, by at least one year, the ranking member of the faculty, having begun teaching at Hughes in the days when it was Hughes Junior College. She had, in fact, stepped into the Hughes chemistry lab right after her college graduation, thirty-six years earlier.

These days Harriet seemed to carry the smell of the lab with her wherever she went, and Sally could easily understand why, as the entire science building at HCC was pervaded by the odor that seemed peculiar to science buildings everywhere. Sally couldn't identify the smell, but she thought there was a touch of formaldehyde in it, along with whatever else was there.

The smell was strong in Harriet's office, which was almost as cluttered as Sally's. Sally wrinkled her nose.

“You'll get used to it,” Harriet said. “God knows, I have. I hardly notice it anymore.”

Sally hadn't mentioned the smell, but she supposed others had.

“I like your scarf,” Harriet said, courteously failing to mention the bump on Sally's forehead. “Very stylish.”

“Thanks,” Sally said.

She'd never seen Harriet without some kind of drab lab smock over her clothes. She even wore the smock to faculty meetings and
to any function that occurred during the day, from art gallery openings to retirement parties.

“Now, what was it you wanted to ask me about?” Harriet said.

“Cationic detergents,” Sally told her, repeating what she'd said on the telephone.

“Oh, yes. Well, as you know, a cation is an ion with a positive charge.”

Sally said she hadn't known that. She hadn't made As in her chemistry classes, but she neglected to mention that.

“You don't need to know about cations, I suppose,” Harriet said. “After all, I don't know who wrote
Beowulf.
”

Sally thought of telling her that nobody knew that, but she refrained. It would only draw things out.

“At any rate,” Harriet said, “the cations neutralize the anions in synthetic detergents.”

Sally looked blank.

“They remove the static electricity.”

“Oh,” Sally said. “So that's why fabric softeners are usually cationic detergents. I wonder if Lieutenant Weems knows that.”

“I'm afraid I don't know Lieutenant Weems.”

“Count yourself lucky. Let's forget about him. I was wondering if cationic detergents were used in other things besides fabric softeners.”

“Why, of course. Many of them are derivatives of ammonia, so they have germicidal properties. That makes them perfect for use in hospitals.”

That wasn't what Sally had wanted to hear.

“And that's all?”

“Of course not. They have any number of uses. Another one would be in dishwashers.”

“Commercial dishwashers?”

“Yes. For the germicidal properties, of course. The commercial varieties might be stronger than anything you'd put in your home dishwasher.”

“Of course,” Sally said, nodding. “That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks, Harriet.”

“You're welcome,” Harriet said.

As Sally left the building, she wondered how long it had been since someone had said “you're welcome” to her. It seemed to Sally that the words had almost become extinct, having been replaced by
no problem
or
sure thing
or something equally inane.

She looked at her watch. It was nearly three o'clock. Time for Seepy Benton to drop by the office and serenade her. But she wasn't going to have time to listen. She hoped Jack was still on the campus.

She went by Jack's office before going to her own. He wasn't there. She supposed that he and Vera had more “making up” to do. She went on to her own office, where she found Seepy Benton standing outside the locked door with a guitar case in hand. This one was made of hard plastic that, Seepy said, he wished he'd been carrying when he dropped by her house, as it might have provided more protection against knife attacks.

“I wasn't expecting a knife attack, though,” he added.

“Neither was I,” Sally said, as she unlocked her office door.

Seepy followed her inside. He looked around for a place to set his guitar case. Other than the floor, there wasn't one. All available surfaces were covered with books and papers.

“I like your office,” Seepy said.

Today he was wearing another aloha shirt, this one covered with brownish-orange pineapples on a purple background.

“Where do you get those shirts?” Sally said.

Seepy put the guitar case on the floor, stood back up, and spread his arms.

“Nifty, huh?”

“Very”

Sally really didn't care about the shirt. She couldn't decide whether to call Lieutenant Weems or not. She was sure that by now he'd gotten a complete lab report on the detergent that had been used, right down to the brand name. Maybe he'd even traced it to its source, in which case she didn't need to be worrying about it. But she couldn't help herself.

Seepy knelt down and unlatched the guitar case. The instrument
inside had some sort of sunburst on the front of it. He took it out of the case and told Sally that it was an old Gibson.

“Pretty valuable, too,” he added.

He lifted the guitar from the case as he stood up. Then he clipped a small black object on the end of the guitar neck.

“What's that?” Sally said.

“Electronic tuner.” Seepy plucked a string and looked at the tuner. “I'm not so good at tuning by ear.” He twisted a knob on the neck and plucked the string again. “Sounds fine. Now for the next one.”

“As much as I'd like to hear you sing,” Sally said, “something's come up. I have to leave the office now.”

Seepy looked as if he'd been hit in the head by a sledgehammer.

“What? You can't leave. I was just getting tuned up.”

“It's important. I have to go to the Tea Room.”

“Tea is that important?”

“It's not about the tea. It has to do with Harold Curtin's murder.”

“He was murdered at a tearoom?”

Sally tried not to let her exasperation creep into her voice.

“I'm not talking about
a
tearoom,” she told him. “I'm talking about
the
Tea Room.”

“Oh,” Seepy said. “I had a meeting there with some of the area institutional research directors. If there's anything we directors like, it's good food. But I thought the portions were a little skimpy.”

“That's what you get at a tearoom,” Sally said. “Skimpy portions. I really do have to go now.”

Seepy put his guitar in the case, clicked the latches into place, and stood up.

“Want some company?”

Sally didn't really want or need any company, but she supposed it wouldn't hurt anything for Seepy to tag along.

“You can leave your guitar here,” she said. “I always lock my office door.”

“I don't have to worry about that,” Seepy said. “Molly always locks the door when she leaves, unless I'm there. Sometimes she even locks it then.”

“We can go in my car,” Sally said, practically shoving Seepy out the door. “The Tea Room closes at two-thirty, and it opens in the evening only if there's a poetry reading.”

“Then it's too late,” Seepy said. “It's already nearly three-thirty.”

“I'm hoping that the owner and a few of the workers stay there to clean the place up. Come on.”

Sally led the slow-moving Seepy out of the building to where her Acura was parked.

“I like your car,” Seepy said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“Thanks,” Sally said.

She wondered if she might have made a mistake in letting Seepy tag along, but he'd wanted to come, and she couldn't think of any way to get rid of him.

“So this is about the murder?” Seepy said as Sally drove out of the parking lot.

“Yes. It's just something I want to check before I call the police.”

“Shouldn't you let the police do the checking?”

Sally knew that the correct answer to that question was
yes,
but she didn't want to call Weems because she didn't want to seem foolish. She could check first and call Weems if she was right. If she was wrong, then she didn't have to call him at all.

“What if no one's there?” Seepy said.

“If that's the case, I'll just have to check out my theory later,” Sally told him.

Seepy leaned back against the leather seat.

“That's fine with me,” he said.

The Tea Room was closed, but there were several cars parked in back of the restaurant. Sally thought they must belong to the owner and some of the employees, so she parked under the shade of the oak trees and got out.

“How are you going to get in?” Seepy asked, following her to the front entrance.

“I'm going to bang on the door until someone comes,” Sally said.

She didn't have to bang on the door, however. Although the
CLOSED sign was in the window, the door wasn't locked. Sally opened it and went inside. Rick Centner was standing at the counter behind the cash register.

“Hello, Dr. Good,” he said when he saw Sally. “And hello to you, too, Dr. Benton. I'm Rick Centner. I had you for algebra at HCC.”

“That was before I became the director,” Seepy said. “I don't teach classes these days.”

“Congratulations on the promotion,” Centner said. “But I hope you didn't come here to celebrate. We've closed for the day.”

“We didn't come here to celebrate,” Sally said before Seepy could speak.
“I
came to talk to one of your employees.”

“Which one?”

“Jerry Ketchum,” Sally said.

S
ally had thought she recognized a former student when she'd gone to the Tea Room with Jack and Vera, but the young man had turned away and hurried off to the kitchen before she had been able to put a name with his face. She was sure now, however, that the former student was Jerry Ketchum.

From the very first, she and Jack had speculated that one of the Garden Gnome's former students might have killed him, though they hadn't been entirely serious.

Yesterday, Larry Lawrence had told her that the anti-bond forces had recruited some students. Jerry might have been one of them. Maybe even the only one. If he'd read about the Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility in the paper and seen Curtin's name, he could have joined in the hopes that he could get close to Curtin and get revenge on him. Just why he'd want revenge wasn't clear to Sally, as Curtin had already left the college, but it seemed like a good theory.

She didn't explain any of that to Rick Centner when he asked her why she wanted to see Jerry.

“I thought I saw him here the other day,” she said, “but I wasn't sure. I wanted to talk to him about something that happened at HCC.”

Seepy opened his mouth to say something, so Sally used her elbow to give him a discreet nudge in the ribs. She didn't want him blurting out anything about Curtin's murder.

Seepy's teeth clicked together, making Sally think her nudge might not have been as discreet as she'd intended, but Rick didn't seem to notice.

“Jerry works here, all right,” Rick said. “I was glad to help him out.”

“Help him out?” Sally said.

“He needs a good job as a condition of his parole.”

“He's on parole?”

Rick laughed. “Not all former HCC students own Tea Rooms. I think Jerry dropped out of school for some reason. He didn't tell me why. After that, he started doing some drugs. His family wasn't much help, and he moved to Dallas. Got arrested for dealing up there. I think he's been clean since.”

Sally thought that depended on how Rick defined
clean
. She could see why Jerry would have had a big grudge against Curtin, even bigger than she'd thought, if he blamed Curtin for his later problems, and especially if even his family had given up on him. They had been supportive for a while, as Sally knew from their threats to sue the college.

“I'd like to talk to him,” Sally said. “Is he here?”

“Yes. He's working in the kitchen. I'll take you back.”

Rick walked through the vacant Tea Room. Sally started to follow him, but Seepy grabbed her arm.

“What's going on?” he said.

“It's possible that Jerry Ketchum killed Harold Curtin,” she said. “I'm going to ask him.”

Sally pulled her arm away and followed Rick. Seepy trailed along behind, looking bewildered.

They went through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen, which could have won an award for cleanliness. Sally had heard that restaurant kitchens were sometimes not as clean as the diners would like, but this place was spotless.

One man was taking a large plastic bag of trash out the back door, and another was cleaning the big stove top. A woman was working on the deep stainless-steel double sink.

“We're just about done here, Mr. Centner,” said the man cleaning the stove.

The man with the trash bag turned and looked to see who was in the kitchen. When he saw Sally, he threw the bag to the floor, blocking the doorway, and ran.

“That's Jerry,” Rick said. “What's the matter with him?”

“He doesn't want to talk to me,” Sally said.

“I'll go get him,” Seepy said, sweeping past Sally.

He ran across the kitchen, dodged the man at the stove, jumped the trash bag, and went after the fleeing Ketchum.

“He's pretty agile for a man his size,” Rick said. “I didn't think he'd be able to jump that bag.”

Sally hadn't thought so, either, and she didn't like the idea of Seepy chasing after Jerry.

“We'd better go see if he needs help,” she said, taking the same path Seepy had taken, except that she moved the bag out of the way instead of trying to jump it.

When she got outside, she saw that Seepy and Jerry were running down the street. It was a wide, long street that curved a bit, and Sally had a good view of the two running men. To her surprise, Seepy was gaining on Jerry.

She started after them at a brisk walk. She could run, but she didn't think it would be good for her head and bruised throat. Her voice was much better, so much so that the huskiness was hardly noticeable. But that might change if she didn't take care.

Three blocks away, Jerry abruptly veered off the street and into an open lot where a new house was under construction. Seepy went right after him.

Jerry might have escaped if he'd made it into the trees behind the construction site, but he stepped on something that Sally couldn't see, and his leg turned under him. When he fell, Seepy was there to keep him from getting up, using the simple expedient of sitting on him.

The men who had been working on the house gathered around to see what was going on, but Sally wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying. And she couldn't have heard them even if she'd
been closer, as she was already calling Lieutenant Weems on her cell phone.

“I didn't know you played guitar,” Weems said the next afternoon in Sally's office.

Sally looked at the guitar case that still lay on the floor.

“I don't. Dr. Benton left that here. He's coming by to pick it up later.”

He'd also promised to play Sally one of his songs, now that he knew she'd have time to listen. Sally thought that Weems's presence might inhibit Seepy, so for once she was glad to see the lieutenant.

“I guess I owe him one,” Weems said. “That guy might have gotten away yesterday if it hadn't been for him.”

Sally could tell from Weems's tone that he was giving her a mild rebuke.

“I know I shouldn't have gone to check on my own,” she said. “But I didn't really have any kind of proof. There were a lot of things that seemed to connect, but I wasn't sure they did.”

“They did,” Weems said. “Ketchum's pretty much confessed everything. He saw an ad in the paper for Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, and he saw Curtin's name in it. He called Curtin and volunteered.”

“I'm surprised Curtin let him within a mile.”

“So was Ketchum. But he said Curtin didn't even seem to remember him. That really got to him. Here he'd done all this suffering that he blamed on Curtin, and Curtin didn't even know who he was.

“âThe most unkindest cut of all,'” Sally said.

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, Ketchum had heard something while he was locked up about how a certain dishwasher detergent was an untraceable poison. You can learn a lot in a prison. As much as you can in a college. Maybe more, but it's not the same kind of thing, and for Ketchum the detergent idea was something he could use. He thought the only problem he might have would be getting Curtin to drink the stuff.”

“So the job at the Tea Room was part of a plan.”

“Probably not. I don't think Ketchum got the job with the intention of having access to the detergent. But when he got the job, he had what he needed if he ever got the chance to use it. The Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility gave him that chance.”

“And getting Curtin to drink poison proved all too easy.”

“He was too drunk to know what he was drinking,” Weems said. “Ketchum just took advantage of the situation.”

“Have you asked the Jacksons if they saw Jerry at Curtin's place the night he was killed?”

“What, you think I can't do my job?”

“Just asking.”

“Of course we checked on that. They left soon after they got there because Curtin was getting drunk. They don't know if Ketchum showed up later or not.”

“But we know.”

“Yeah. And Ketchum's going back to jail for a long time.”

Sally was sorry about that. She was sorry that something that had happened in a classroom with one of her instructors had led to ruining a young man's life and to his killing the teacher he blamed for his academic failure. It was terrible that something like a classroom confrontation could ultimately result in someone's death and the effective end of another's life.

“It's not your fault,” Weems said.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“No, but I know how people think. Believe me, if that kid could do what he did to Curtin, he'd have come to a bad end somehow or other. Remember, he'd been in jail before, for drug dealing.”

“Maybe if he'd stayed in school, he wouldn't have gone to jail in the first place.”

“Maybe. But maybe he'd have found some other reason to drop out and get busted. Don't beat yourself up about it. It's not your fault. You didn't kill anybody. Ketchum did. It was a choice he made.”

Sally knew Weems was right, but it didn't make her feel much better about things.

She was about to tell Weems that when Jack stopped by to tell her that things were looking up for the bond issue.

“Troy told me,” he said. “He would have told you, but he said you were busy.”

“I didn't even see him,” Sally said.

“He's pretty sneaky, all right,” Jack said with a glance at Weems. “Troy probably doesn't like policemen. Anyway, with the Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility pretty much discredited, the tide's turning our way. Very strongly our way. Fieldstone should be a happy man.”

Sally wished she could feel happy, but even Jack's news didn't cheer her up. She wondered if the passage of a bond issue, even though it would affect thousands of students for the better, was worth the human cost.

“The bond would have passed anyway,” Jack said.

“First the lieutenant, and now you,” Sally said.

“What?”

“Reading my mind.”

Jack and Weems looked at each other.

“The clairvoyant twins,” Jack said. “We could get up an act.”

“Forget it, Neville,” Weems said.

“I will. And I think I'll be leaving now.”

He went away, and Sally tried to count her blessings. At least she had escaped the fate that had cut short the lives of Sarah Good and the other accused witches in Salem. Sally felt a sympathy with them that would probably show through whenever she taught about the trials in the future.

She was about to ask Weems what he thought would happen to the Jacksons when Seepy Benton appeared. His shirt was covered with silver palm leaves on a black background.

Very restrained, Sally thought.

“I guess I'd better be going,” Weems said, standing.

“No, no, stick around,” Seepy said. “I'm going to play a song for Dr. Good. You might enjoy it, too.”

“What's it called?”

“âFriends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican.'”

“I wouldn't enjoy it.”

Weems stepped past Seepy and out the door, but he paused in the hall.

“You did good yesterday, catching that guy,” he said.

Seepy smiled. “I work out on my home gym. I have an elliptical trainer, too. He didn't have a chance.”

“Right,” Weems said. “Thanks again, Dr. Good.”

Then he was gone, and Seepy was unlatching the guitar case. He took out the guitar, and while he was tuning it, he said, “Some people don't like political songs. Maybe you'd rather hear one of my others.”

“Such as?”

“âFabric Free' is one of my favorites.”

“What's that about?”

“It's sort of related to âclothing optional.'”

“I think we'd better stick with politics,” Sally said.

Seepy strummed a chord.

“Fine with me,” he said. “Here we go.”

“I can hardly wait,” Sally told him, and Seepy started to sing.