Dead Soldiers (19 page)

“Yeah. Anyway, you’re right. He could cover himself. But if he’s guilty, we’ll find out.“

“He has soldiers,“ Burns said.

“Not the right kind, though.“

“But there’s a connection. It’s tenuous, but it’s there.“

“Tenuous. Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. You really do have a good vocabulary, Burns.“

Burns got the impression that Napier wasn’t impressed by his reasoning. He said, “Did you notice the questions I asked Karen Ball?“

“Very subtle,“ Napier said. “No one would ever guess what you were getting at.“

“She took classes from everyone who’s been shot at, so at least it’s a connection. And it’s not tenuous.“

“Maybe not. But how many people do you think there are who’d had Tomlin, Hart, and Elliott for class?“

“Hundreds,“ Burns said.

“Right. So it’s pretty tenuous if you ask me. Of course if you’re right and it’s important, then you should be worried.“

“Why?“

“Because she took your class, too,“ Napier said.

Score another one for the Boss, Burns thought.

T
he investigating team was still on the job when Burns and Napier got back to the big metal building, but Napier didn’t want to disturb them, so he and Burns walked on back to the baseball field.

They had crossed the creek and were nearing the fence when Napier stooped down and picked up the softball that Burns had hit.

“What’s this doing here?“ Napier asked.

Burns told the story of his first home run, the longest hit he’d ever gotten.

“I guess they forgot to come after it in all the confusion,“ he concluded.

“And you just ran right past first base and climbed the fence?“ Napier said.

“That’s right. I didn’t get to enjoy my moment of glory, and I’m sure I’ll never get a hit like that again. For me, it was a once in a lifetime thing.“

“So you didn’t run around the bases?“

“Of course not. Don had been shot. I wanted to help, and I wanted to catch whoever did it. Surely you don’t think I’d run around the bases.“

“You never know,“ Napier said.

“Well, you do now.“

“That’s right. I do now.“

Napier touched Burns with the ball.

“What did you do that for?“ Burns asked.

“I tagged you.“

“I know that. But why did you do it?“

“You’re out,“ Napier said.

B
urns was still steaming when he got in his car. His one big moment on the ball field, and Napier had taken it away from him. Napier had handed him the ball after tagging him, and Burns threw it into the floor on the passenger side, where it bounced around a few times before coming to rest.

“You’d have been out anyway,“ Napier had told him. “You left the
basepath
, and that’s an out. When you play a game, you have to play by the rules.“

“But I hit a home run!“

“Not exactly. It would’ve been a home run if you’d completed your trip around the bases, but you didn’t do that. So you’re out. But don’t worry about it. It wasn’t a real game, just a practice. So it doesn’t really matter.“

It mattered to Burns, however. His one big moment, and Napier had ruined it.

Napier had tossed him the ball. Burns surprised himself by catching it.

“Besides,“ Napier said, “nobody’s going to know you were out except you and me. Everybody’s gone home, and all they’ll remember is that you hit it.“

“Shouldn’t you have questioned them?“

“I had somebody here to do that. You know what?“

Burns had a feeling he didn’t want to know, but he said, “What?“

“They might not even remember you hit that ball so hard. When somebody gets shot, people tend to remember that, not anything else that happened.“

Burns knew that his measly little home run meant nothing compared to Don Elliott’s being shot, but it rankled him that Napier was rubbing it in.

“I think I’ll go to the hospital and see how Don is doing.“

“They might not let you in, dressed like that.“

Burns hadn’t bothered to comment. He’d taken his ball and gone home.

Well, not home. He had gone to the hospital, where he didn’t get to visit Elliott but where a duty nurse told him that Elliott was asleep and doing just fine.

Burns started home then, but he changed his mind and drove to the HGC campus.

It was almost six o’clock when he got there, and students were going into Main for their evening classes. Burns knew that his appearance was undignified and not in keeping with the way a faculty member should appear to the students, but he was still angry with Napier and didn’t much care what anyone thought about how he looked.

He walked up the stairs to his office, ignoring the curious looks that he got from the students, and shut himself inside. When he had caught his breath from the climb, he sat down at the computer and turned it on. In theory he had access to the records of every student who had ever attended HGC, as all of them were supposedly entered into a database that was part of the new and hugely complicated software the college had purchased. It was so complicated, in fact, that many of the faculty members had simply given up on ever learning how to use it. Burns had faithfully attended every training session and practiced diligently. Even so, he was only barely competent. But he thought he could at least look up Karen Ball’s transcript and find out whose classes she had taken. He might even be able to find out more, though he didn’t know what that might be.

He worried for about two seconds over the doubtful legality of what he was doing. As an instructor, he had a right to look at the records, he knew, but he was pretty sure he was supposed to do so only for academic reasons. However, he told himself that he didn’t plan to tell anyone about what he might find, so it was all right to look.

But what if there was evidence that would lead to the person who had killed Matthew Hart and shot at two other instructors? Burns decided he’d worry about that later. He had to find the evidence first, and that wouldn’t be easy, since he didn’t even know what he was looking for.

He started with Karen Ball. It took him a while, but eventually, after navigating through several screens, he found her transcript. Her grades were generally very good, though she hadn’t done as well in Tomlin and Elliott’s classes as she’d done in Burns’ American lit. She’d made a C in both sections. And she had flunked Hart’s course in educational psychology. That was interesting, but it had been a long time ago. Besides, Burns saw, she had taken the course again, from Hart, and made a B, so there was no reason for her to be upset after so long a time, certainly not upset enough to start shooting people.

Burns drilled down through more and more screens and located the rosters for the classes Karen had attended. He saw that her fellow students had included Steven Stilwell’s son, who had also flunked Hart’s class. But then so had another couple of students. It must have been a bad semester.

Burns fooled around with the computer for another half hour, but he learned nothing of interest. He left his office and went downstairs. Everyone was in class, so no one saw him.

He thought about going home, but there was nothing there that he wanted to eat for supper, so he drove to the Whopper Burger and got a number six (“an old-fashioned burger, just the way your mother used to fix ’
em
“) with fries and a soft drink. He found a space in a deserted corner of the parking lot where he could eat and think.

He didn’t think much about the murder. Instead he thought about his home run that had become an out, thanks to the sneaky Boss Napier, and he thought about Elaine Tanner. Then he remembered why she hadn’t been in the library that afternoon when he’d gone by to see her. The library staff took turns at working in the evenings, and when they did an evening shift, they got the afternoon off. Which meant that Elaine would be at work at that very moment.

Burns finished his burger, wishing he hadn’t gotten the old-fashioned one with onions, and washed it down with what remained of the watery soft drink. They always put too much ice in the drinks at the Whopper Burger, he thought. In fact, that was true of every fast-food place where he’d ever eaten. Maybe it was a way to save money.

He listened to the radio as he drove to the library, but the news on the all-talk station was depressing. Several more American troops had died in yet another helicopter accident in Iraq, and even though the war was over, the casualties kept mounting. He put in the Warren
Zevon
CD. Listening to
Zevon
sing about the werewolves of London was a lot more uplifting than hearing the news.

When he arrived at the library, Burns managed to get back to Elaine’s office without being spotted by anyone other than the student at the check-out desk. He felt grungy, and the scratches on his arms and legs itched. The good news was that he’d found a package of breath-freshening strips in the console of the Camry and let two of them dissolve on his tongue, so his mouth no longer tasted like onions and mustard. He might not look the part, but he felt he was a fine candidate for a romantic reconciliation.

Elaine was at her desk, reading a book, and she looked up when he got to the door.

“What happened to you?“ she said.

Burns told her about Don Elliott’s being shot and his own run through the woods to look for the shooter. As it happened, Elaine had already heard about Elliott, although she hadn’t heard about
Burns’s
heroic attempt to find the person who shot him.

“So you were in real danger?“ Elaine said.

Burns smiled modestly. “Not as much danger as I was in from Mary Mason in that elevator.“

Elaine’s look of concern turned to one of disgust. “I don’t want to talk about that.“

“But we have to,“ Burns said, blocking the doorway so that Elaine couldn’t make a quick exit. “Believe me, it was nothing. Well, okay, it was something, but I didn’t have a thing to do with it. I didn’t grab her. She grabbed me.“

“I don’t believe that. She’s a lady. She would never throw herself at a man.“

“You must be the only person in Pecan City who believes that. And you should know me well enough to realize that I’d never try to make out with a woman in an elevator.“

Elaine thought it over. After a few seconds she said, “That’s true. And it’s not one of your most endearing qualities, if you must know.“

Burns was taken aback. “You mean you’d like me better if I tried to make out with you in an elevator?“

“I didn’t say that.“

“Well, you implied it.“

“Possibly. But we aren’t anywhere near an elevator, are we.“

“No, but we’re in your private office.“

“It’s not so private. People walk by here all the time.“

“But they couldn’t see anything if the door were to be closed.“

“That’s right, they couldn’t. But as you can see, the door’s wide open.“

“Not for long,“ Burns said, stepping into the office and pulling the door shut behind him.

B
urns felt much better when he left the library. Elaine was no longer angry with him, and he even wondered if she hadn’t simply pretended to be in order to goad him into making up with her. It didn’t matter to him, one way or the other. The making-up had been worth the anxiety he had felt.

On his way home, he drove by the
Yowell
Pharmacy. It was still open, so Burns parked in the lot and went inside.
Yowell
was on his list of suspects, and this was as good a time as any to talk to him. The element of surprise, as Napier would say.

The fluorescent lights in the pharmacy gave the place an icy brightness that Burns didn’t much like. It gave an odd color to the scratches on his legs.

One of his former students, Ron Williams, was at the check-out counter in the front of the store. There were no customers in sight.

“Hi, Dr. Burns,“ Ron said, looking him over. “You need something to put on those scratches?“

Burns hadn’t even thought about putting anything on the scratches. And he figured it was too late now. If they were going to get infected, they’d already done it.

“I’m all right,“ he said. “I was wondering if Mr.
Yowell
was working tonight.“

“Nope. Mr. Lee’s filling in.“

Burns was immediately suspicious. “Is Mr.
Yowell
sick?“

Ron laughed. “I hope not. He and his wife drove to Galveston yesterday. They’re going to meet his brother and go on a cruise over to Key West and then on down to somewhere in Mexico this weekend.“

“Oh,“ Burns said. It sounded like the perfect alibi to him. If the person who had killed Hart was the same one who had shot at Tomlin and Elliott,
Yowell
was in the clear. “Well, I hope they have a good time.“

“I’m sure they will. They’ve been looking forward to this for months. He said he really needed some time off. I hope what you wanted to talk to him about wasn’t an emergency because he didn’t even take his cell phone with him.“