Dead Soldiers (12 page)

“So why make such a big show of telling me to keep my nose out of things?“

“Because I know you, and I knew that’s what you’d expect me to say. I also knew it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. You just can’t keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you, can you, Burns? It’s a constitutional weakness, and you couldn’t change if you wanted to, which you don’t.“

“Well, I do have a tendency to get interested in things.“

“Yeah. Right. And you get in trouble, too, don’t you.“

Burns sat up a little straighter in his chair. “That’s never been my intention.“

“Don’t start with the intentions. We all know about that road where they’re used for paving stones.“

“Okay, forget it. Let’s just get down to business. Tell me how Matthew Hart was killed.“

Napier took a drink of Pepsi, then said, “He was shot.“

“That part, I know. You told me earlier. When, where, how? Those are the details I’m lacking.“

“First let me ask you about your buddy Tomlin.“

“What for?“

“Because I want to. Does he walk that dog of his every night?“

“Every night after the news,“ Burns said. “He told me that himself.“

“And that’s where he made his mistake. He fell into a routine. Potential murder victims should never fall into a routine.“

“I sort of get the feeling that Mal didn’t regard himself as a potential murder victim.“

“Yeah. Well, a man can’t be too careful.“

“What’s that supposed to mean?“

“It means that Matthew Hart had a routine, too. Every morning he got up at seven o’clock, right on the dot, and as soon as he’d shaved and brushed his teeth, he went out to his driveway and brought in the newspaper. Between twenty and thirty minutes after he got up. Every single day. And that’s what he was doing wrong. He got shot in his driveway when he went for the paper.“

“So somebody had been watching him.“

“And somebody had been watching your pal Tomlin, too.“

“There was a good hiding place where Mal walked the dog,“ Burns pointed out. “What about near Hart’s house?“

“Hart lives out in the Heights,“ Napier said.

The Heights was an older part of Pecan City, named because it was a little higher in elevation than the rest of the town. Recently a builder had started a new addition to the area, and some of the homes had nothing across the street from them except some
uncleared
woods.

“Let me guess,“ Burns said. “Hart bought one of the new houses out there.“

“That’s right. Hadn’t been in it for more than a month, but his routine had been the same ever since he quit teaching, according to his wife. After he read the paper, he’d get dressed and go to work. But this time somebody just hid out in the trees across the street and nailed him as he bent over to pick up the paper. Bullet went right into the top of his head.“

Burns didn’t like to think about what kind of mess that might have made, but Napier told him anyway.

“He was shot with a .22. If we find a slug at that old hospital, I’d bet it’ll be a .22 as well. A rifle of that caliber doesn’t make much noise at all, which is one of its good points if you’re shooting in a residential area. You have to be a pretty good shot to kill somebody with one, but a head shot generally works. A slug that size, it just sort of bounces around inside the skull and scrambles the brain like an egg.“

“Thanks for sharing that,“ Burns said.

Napier shrugged. “You wanted details. Now you have some.“

“Right. So now I want to know how the toy soldier got there with Hart.“

“Whoever shot him probably threw it across the street. It was lying about five feet from the body, a little scratched up from hitting the concrete.“

“Which of course leads us to the really important question. What do the soldiers have to do with all of this?“

Napier took another swallow of Pepsi, tilting the can back to get most of what remained. He set the can on the table, and Burns looked at him quizzically.

“Well?“ Burns said.

“Damned if I know,“ Napier told him.

N
apier put his Pepsi can in a recycling bin by his new refrigerator and asked if Burns wanted any more water. Burns didn’t, so Napier took his glass and set it in the sink.

“Anyway,“ Napier said when he was seated at the table again, “the question about the soldier isn’t the only important one we need to ask.“

“All right,“ Burns said. “I’ll bite. What’s another one?“

“Another one is, what’s the connection between Tomlin and Hart and the soldiers. Who’d want to kill them and leave a soldier with the bodies?

Burns resisted the strong temptation to say that
among
was the proper word rather than
between
. No need to irritate Napier unnecessarily.

Burns had wondered about the connection, too, and he and Dean Partridge had talked about that point, but they had come to no conclusions.

Now that a soldier had turned up near where someone had tried to shoot Mal Tomlin, it seemed clear to Burns that the soldiers hadn’t been taken because of their intrinsic value. Whoever took them wanted to leave them near the bodies of his victims. That didn’t mean that the people who had tried to buy the soldiers from Dean Partridge were off the hook, however. They were all well aware of the soldiers’ existence and would have known where to find them, no matter what use they had for them.

“We live in a funny world, Burns,“ Napier said. “You know that?“

“I’m not laughing,“ Burns said.

“I didn’t mean funny like that. I was talking about irony. Being an English teacher, you should know all about irony.“

“I don’t see any irony in people being killed.“

“You just aren’t looking at the big picture. If you think about some sniper killing people, you don’t think about a place like Pecan City. You think about those two nut-jobs up in the D.C. area.“

“I see what you mean. We’re supposed to be living in a safe small-town environment.“

“Yeah. It’s just like the Homeland Security people keep telling us. Nobody is safe anywhere, not
any more
.“

“I don’t think we’re in much danger of terrorist activity around here,“ Burns said. “I just can’t see them targeting Pecan City.“

“No, not terrorists. But there are nut-jobs everywhere.“

“And you think that’s what we have here? Some deranged veteran of the war with Iraq, maybe, has come home to keep on killing, leaving the toy soldiers as a clue?“

“I don’t much believe in those deranged veteran stories,“ Napier said. “But there’s a connection somewhere. Not just between Tomlin and Hart, but between both of them and the soldiers.“

“Tomlin isn’t a veteran of any war. What about Hart? Did you check?“

Napier gave him a disgusted look. “I know I don’t sit around reading
The Sound and the Fury
, but I know how to do my job. Of course I checked. Hart never fought in a war, and he wasn’t even a member of the National Guard. Didn’t take R.O.T.C. in college, either.“

“I don’t have my list of names with me. The ones Dr. Partridge gave me, I mean. Have you checked all of them out, too?“

Napier just looked at him.

“Okay, no harm in asking. What did you learn about them?“

“Neal Bruce is the only one with military experience. He was in Viet Nam, and don’t give me any Rambo theories. He’s a banker and wears a tie to work every day.“

“Guys with ties don’t kill people?“

“Sure they do. I just meant he isn’t any crazed vet with homicidal tendencies.“

“Neither was Rambo until somebody ticked him off.“

“Spare me the psychology. You’re an English teacher, remember?“

“I get the point. So where does that leave us?“

Napier stood up and stretched. “There has to be a connection between Hart and Tomlin and the killer.“

There was that
between
again. Burns let it pass.

“And there has to be some connection between all of them and the soldiers,“ Napier continued. “We just don’t know what it is. Maybe you can figure it out, sort of like you figure out what all the symbolism means when you read a poem.“

“Soldiers are symbols of war,“ Burns said. “The only war we’ve had lately is the one in Iraq, where the people are now enjoying the fruits of democracy.“

“I happen to be one of the people who approved of that war, Burns, so don’t bring any of your
wussie
pinko
politics into this, all right?“

Burns yawned.

“Am I boring you, Burns?“ Napier said. “Because I wouldn’t want to bore you.“

“You’re not boring me. It’s late, and I’m sleepy. And I have an eight o’clock class tomorrow.“

“Well, you’d better go, then. You need your sleep. You don’t want to bore the students and have them yawning in your face when you’re trying to explain something like why it’s so important to not split an infinitive.“

Burns gave him a quick look, but Napier’s face showed nothing.

“You’re going to have a talk with some of the people on that list tomorrow, aren’t you, Burns?“

“I might, if I have time.“

“Oh, I have a feeling you’ll find the time. Try not to aggravate them too much.“

“Aggravate? Me?“

“Yeah, you. And while you’re at it, try to come up with some answers to those questions we’ve been talking about.“

“Sort of like a take-home exam, right?“

“Call it what you want to. The sooner we find the answers, the less chance there is of someone else getting shot at or killed.“

That possibility was what had been bothering Burns more than anything. He said, “You think he’ll take another shot at Mal?“

“Who knows? He might, or he might go after someone else. It’s like I told you: we live in a crazy world.“

“You got that right,“ Burns said.

“Have,“ Napier said.

Burns looked at him.

“You
have
that right. Got is the wrong verb.“

“I know that. It’s just an expression.“

“Yeah. I just wanted you to know that I knew what was right. Just in case you were wondering.“

“I wasn’t,“ Burns said.

I
t was after midnight when Burns got home. He showered and got into bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about the list of suspects and wondering how any of them could be guilty of murder. No one on the list seemed capable of that act to Burns, though he admitted to himself that he didn’t know any of them very well. When he finally drifted off, he dreamed of toy soldiers and dead men with bullet holes in their heads and scrambled brains.

T
he next morning Burns felt terrible. He hadn’t slept well at all, and the inside of his mouth tasted as if a condor had nested there. He was feeling a little better by the time he got to the college, but not by much, and the climb to the third floor of the main building didn’t help. One of these days he was going to have to get in shape.

Usually he liked to get to school at least forty-five minutes before class, which gave him time to read the morning paper and gather his thoughts before facing his students. Today he barely had time to grab his textbook and papers and get to the classroom before everyone decided he wasn’t coming at all and walked out. He made it with a few minutes to spare, and he tried to ignore the disappointed looks he saw on a couple of faces.

The course was American lit, and about half the class looked as if they were even sleepier than Burns, which wasn’t unusual in an eight o’clock class. Many of them always looked sleepy.

Burns didn’t take pity on them, however. He passed out the pop test that he had planned to give and waited patiently while they completed it. He took it up, gave them the answers, and started his discussion of Francis
Macomber’s
short, happy life. A few students were actually interested in the story because of the ending. They’d had an argument before class about whether
Macomber’s
wife had killed him deliberately or whether it had been an accident. Burns, feeling a little like Boss Napier, told them to look for the details in the story, and then base their decision on what they found. He told them it would be fine even when they came to different conclusions, as long as there was evidence in the story to support them. This got the rest of the class, or at least the ones who’d actually read the story, interested. By the time the bell rang, Burns was feeling pretty good, almost like a real teacher.

The feeling deserted him almost as soon as he reached his office.
Bunni
was at the computer, and she told him that he’d had a call from the dean.

Déjà vu
all over again, he thought, knowing that the dean herself hadn’t actually done the calling. That would have been a job for
Melva
Jeans.

“Does she want me to return the call?“ he asked.