Bond With Death

by Bill Crider

  She asked Jack about the photographs, and he told her that they were of the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, the other two singers who had died on the plane carrying Buddy Holly. Sally thought that was a little morbid for a tearoom, but Jack thought it was a touching tribute to the day the music died.

  “That’s a line from ‘American Pie,’”Jack said.

  Sally said she knew that. “And it’s as morbid as the pictures.”

  “Maybe,” Jack said. “One thing’s for sure, though. It’s not true. The music never really died. We’re listening to it right now.”

  And they were. Buddy Holly sang about Peggy Sue exactly the way he had forty years previously.

  Sally couldn’t decide if that was morbid or not. She was saved from commenting when a young woman arrived to take their order. Her name was Madison, and she was a student in Sally’s composition class.

  “Hi, Madison,” Sally said. “I’d like chicken salad on whole wheat. And plain unsweetened iced tea.”

  Madison managed not to gape the way some students did when they saw their instructors outside the classroom. Sometimes it appeared to amaze them that teachers ate, bought groceries, or went to the movies like actual human beings.

  After Madison had left, Sally said, “Now, Vera, just how did you find out that Harold Curtin was a witch?”

  “She used her supernatural powers,” Jack said, then winced as if someone had kicked him under the table. Sally was pretty sure that someone had.

  “I didn’t use anything more supernatural than the telephone,” Vera said. “This morning I got a call from a friend in Houston. Her beliefs are pretty standard for a Wiccan, but she happens to know a few people who don’t believe in the threefold law.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Sally said. She was finding it a little difficult to keep up with all the new things she was learning about witchcraft.

  “‘All the good that a person does to another returns threefold in this life; harm is also returned threefold,’” Vera said. “That’s what Wiccans believe. But some witches who follow another path don’t believe it in the least. They believe in doing harm. My friend knows some people like that.”

  “Some people can twist anything good and make it bad,” Jack said.

  Sally couldn’t tell whether he was serious. Vera didn’t kick him under the table this time, so maybe he was. Or maybe Vera just thought he was.

  The tea came, and Sally tried it. It wasn’t sweetened, so she was satisfied.

  “You mentioned something yesterday about people who cast spells for money,” Sally said to Vera.

  “Those aren’t the ones I’m talking about. Those are just charlatans for the most part, and they do love charms and ridiculous things like that. I’m talking about the ones that should be avoided.”

  “So why is your friend mixed up with them?”

  “She’s not. Or not really. You know how gossip gets around on the grapevine at the college?”

  Sally nodded. In her experience, there was no better example of the grapevine at work than an institution for postsecondary education. People like Troy Beauchamp made everyone’s business their business. Spreading the word was like a religion to them, and they were everywhere in the academic world.

  “There are grapevines everywhere,” Vera said. “Even in the world of Wicca. So my friend heard something from a friend who’d heard it from another friend. You know how it is.”

  Sally knew how it was, all right, and she knew that the result was sometimes a distorted version of the truth. The distortions, like the thunderstorms that frequently roamed the Gulf Coast area, varied in size and intensity, but they were always present. Sally was about to mention that fact when Madison appeared with their food.

  Jack had gone for the soup, which was cheese with broccoli, along with honey ham on a croissant. Vera had ordered the chicken salad on whole wheat as Sally had done. The sandwiches didn’t have crusts. Sally took a bite of her sandwich. It was quite good, and she began eating to the accompaniment of Buddy Holly singing about an unusual weather condition: it was raining in his heart.

  After she’d eaten a couple of bites of the sandwich, Sally asked Vera how she knew the information she’d received was reliable.

  “I don’t know that it is,” Vera said, “but it’s interesting whether it’s reliable or not.”

  “Then why don’t you tell us what it is,” Jack said.

  “I told you. Harold was a witch. He joined a coven in Houston about a month ago.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?” Sally said.

  “I don’t know, but it makes his death seem even more suspicious, don’t you think? He could even have been killed by someone in his coven if he was suspected of being a spy or of revealing their secrets.”

  “I don’t see how all this information we’re getting fits together,” Sally said.

  Jack said he didn’t see it, either, but that there was a common theme.

  “It all has to do with witchcraft. Think about those notes Weems read to us. And then there’s the e-mail that went out about you. There’s something funny going on, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

  He went on to tell them about his visit with Seepy Benton and what he’d learned.

  “He does horoscopes for money?” Sally said. “Isn’t there some college policy about that?”

  “Nope,” Jack said. “Plenty of people at the college have second jobs. Seepy’s is just a little more unusual than most of them. It’s the bit about Desmond that’s interesting.”

  “I knew about that,” Sally said. “Troy told me.”

  “You didn’t tell me,” Jack said, looking hurt.

  “I try not to pass things like that along. They just hurt innocent people. Besides, I didn’t know the part about the Lawrence woman’s substance abuse problem. What does that have to do with Curtin, anyhow?”

  Jack explained that Larry had turned against the college and was working with Harold and the Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility. Sally hadn’t known about that, so obviously Troy didn’t, either. He’d have been in her office in a shot with information like that if he’d had it.

  “You don’t think Larry killed Harold, do you?” Sally said. “I mean, he might want Desmond out of the way, but not Harold.”

  “I don’t know that there’s any connection. I’m just telling you what I found out. We have to get all the information we can if we’re going to solve the crime.”

  “Hold on a minute there, bub,” Vera said. “We’re not going to solve any crime. This isn’t a meeting of the HCC branch of Scotland Yard. Or even of the HCC branch of the Nancy Drew fan club. The only thing I care about is helping Sally and setting the record straight about witches. Without having my name mentioned, of course. The police can solve the crime. That’s what they’re paid to do.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, “but sometimes they arrest the wrong people.”

  “I know,” Vera said. “Including you. But they let you go, and it’s not a good idea to get involved with them unless we have to. I think the best thing for us to do is keep our heads down and stay out of the way.”

  “Weems isn’t going to let us keep our heads down,” Jack said. “He’s already been by to see me and Sally. He thinks we’re involved.”

  “Grasping at straws,” Vera said. “That’s all he’s doing. And remember, we don’t even know that Harold was murdered.”

  “If he was, the police hadn’t told anyone by this morning,” Sally said. “I listened to the news on the way to school, and there was nothing like that mentioned.”

  “My friend hadn’t heard even that much,” Vera said. “But someone had heard something. Otherwise the story about Harold’s connection with witchcraft wouldn’t have been making the rounds.”

  Jack ate the last bite of his sandwich and wiped a crumb off his chin.

  “I still think we’re in trouble,” he said.

  “Not yet,” Vera said. “I say we teach our classes and leave the investig
ation to the professionals.”

  “All right,” Jack said. “But I’m predicting trouble.”

  “You’re such a pessimist.”

  “You just wait and see who’s right,” Jack said. “I’ll bet it’s me.”

  “I,” Vera said. “You’re an English teacher, after all. You of all people should try to have some standards.”

  “When I’m speaking informally, I can say me. That’s acceptable. Tell her, Sally.”

  Sally didn’t want to be the mediator, and she didn’t want to explain levels of usage. She didn’t want to be a crime fighter, either.

  “Write a letter to ‘Ask Mr. Grammar Person,’” she said.

  14

  Contrary to Jack’s prediction, Sally didn’t have any trouble for the first part of that afternoon, unless grading papers could be considered trouble. She supposed that it could in some cases.

  A little later, things took a turn for the worse. A. B. D. Johnson dropped by her office to complain that someone had moved the overhead projector from the room where he taught composition.

  “I don’t see how they expect us to teach if they don’t provide the right equipment,” he said.

  This was a mild complaint, coming from A.B.D. The initials before his name hadn’t been given to him at birth. He had earned them by virtue of having left graduate school after completing his course work for the doctorate but never having written his dissertation. A.B.D. meant all but dissertation, though nobody ever called him that to his face. Perhaps because of his frustration at not having received a degree that would have qualified him for a bigger paycheck, he spent a lot of his time complaining about things at the college. Sally didn’t bother to ask him who “they” were, for in A.B.D.’s life “they” were the vast forces forever arrayed against him.

  Or maybe, Sally thought, the forces arrayed against A.B.D. were only half-vast.

  “The state’s having serious budget problems,” she said. “And you should know by now that the first cuts the legislature makes are always in education. We’re talking about a state where more than a hundred and eighty million dollars was cut from the high school textbook budget. Some students are using books fourteen or fifteen years old. And the TIF funding has been scrapped besides. That’s a huge loss of money for public schools and libraries.”

  A.B.D. plainly wasn’t concerned about high school students who were using textbooks that were old and out of date because the legislature didn’t provide money for new ones, or whether libraries could buy new computer equipment. He was concerned about his own situation.

  “I read about those budget cuts,” he said, “but how much can an overhead cost? I can’t do my job without one. If I can’t have one of my own, I want you to find out who’s taking the one I’ve been using and moving it out of the classroom. And I want you to make sure it doesn’t disappear again.”

  Sally told him that she’d do what she could, but she didn’t make any promises. She didn’t think it would be as easy to find out who’d moved the overhead as it had been to find out who’d taken Samuel Winston’s stapler.

  After A.B.D. left, Sally graded a few more papers, wondering when the phrase a lot had become one word in the minds of so many students. It had been years since she’d first noticed it, so long that she couldn’t remember. She had decided to grade one more paper and leave for home, but the ringing of the telephone interrupted her. It was Eva Dillon, who said that Fieldstone wanted to see Sally right away.

  “He has Chief Desmond with him,” Eva said, “and Frankie Gomez is there, too.”

  Frankie was the head of the computer center, so Sally thought maybe something had been discovered about the malicious e-mail. She left the office in such a hurry that she didn’t even finish grading the paper she’d already started.

  “They all looked very serious,” Eva said when Sally walked into the office. “I hope everything’s all right.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Sally told her. “I think it’s about that e-mail.”

  She didn’t have to explain which e-mail she meant. Eva, like everyone else, had received a copy of it.

  “Go on in and find out,” Eva said, and Sally did.

  Eva had been right, Sally discovered. Everyone in Fieldstone’s office looked as serious as if there had just been some terrible catastrophe, like the school’s funding being cut yet again. Even Frankie Gomez, normally the sunniest of people, looked grim. She had lustrous black hair that Sally envied, and eyes that were equally black. She was attractive even when she looked grim.

  Sally took her usual seat on the couch. Frankie, whose actual name was Francisca, was beside her, and Desmond was in one of the chairs. For a second or two nobody said anything. Sally would have tried to lighten the mood, but she didn’t think it was her place, and she didn’t want to seem foolish if there was really something serious going on.

  Desmond moved around in the chair like a man with a serious wedgie. Sally hoped he was as uncomfortable as he looked. She wasn’t too fond of him in the first place, and what she’d learned from Jack about Larry Lawrence’s daughter’s problems hadn’t helped. Desmond looked at Fieldstone, who nodded as if giving him permission to speak.

  “We have a situation here, Dr. Good,” Desmond said.

  Sally wished he had better communications skills, but she thought she got the meaning he intended even if he was using cop-speak. To make sure, she said, “You mean there’s something wrong?”

  “That’s right. We found the source of that e-mail about you.”

  “Then why the long faces? I thought that would be a good thing. We need to know who sent it so we can make sure there won’t be any more like it.”

  “Well,” Desmond said, “that’s the trouble. We do know who sent it.”

  “Who was it?”

  Desmond grimaced, as if his wedgie had been pulled even tighter.

  “I’ll let Ms. Gomez answer that one, I think.”

  Sally turned slightly so she could see Frankie better.

  “Who sent it?” Sally asked.

  “You did,” Frankie told her.

  Even when Frankie explained what had happened, Sally wasn’t sure just how she’d managed to send an e-mail about herself, one that she hadn’t written and had known nothing about. However, it seemed that Sally now had one more thing to blame on the Internet.

  “There are certain kinds of services that specialize in anonymous e-mails,” Frankie said. “Some of them are even located offshore, and they guarantee security. The sender’s name and network information aren’t shown in the message header. The sender can use a regular e-mail program like the one we use here at HCC to send the message through the secure server, and the recipients will have no idea where it came from.”

  “Then how do you know it came from my computer?”

  “We started checking, and we found out that you had an account with one of those companies.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “You might not know about it, but you have one. It’s set up on your computer.”

  Sally shook her head, still not accepting it, and sank back on the couch.

  Desmond said, “You might remember that I’ve sent several memos to the whole faculty about locking office doors.”

  “And I’ve sent even more about the importance of password protection,” Frankie said. “Do you leave your office door open and your computer turned on when you’re in class or in a meeting?”

  Sally admitted that she did.

  “But nobody’s ever stolen a thing,” she said.

  “You’ve been lucky,” Desmond said. “I think Dr. Fieldstone should require everybody to lock their offices when they aren’t there.”

  Sally was so dazed that she didn’t even think about Desmond’s pronoun problems. She had a much bigger problem of her own.

  “This isn’t like stealing,” Frankie said. “But it’s just as bad. Maybe worse. Your privacy has been invaded. I don’t know why we haven’t had something like this before.” She paused.
“Probably because nobody ever thought about it.”

  “What about requiring everybody to lock their offices?” Desmond said.

  Fieldstone, who had kept quiet so far and seemed preoccupied, said, “I think it’s a good idea. Security is more important than ever these days, especially computer security. I’ll send a memo tomorrow, e-mail and hard copy.”

  Desmond nodded with satisfaction.

  “What about finding the person who sent that e-mail?” Sally said.

  “It would take a computer-savvy person to do something like send that e-mail,” Desmond said.

  “Not necessarily,” Frankie said. “Just someone with a few basic skills. And I hope you’re not suggesting that one of my staff had anything to do with it.”

  “I’m not,” Desmond assured her. “I was thinking about a student. They seem to know a lot more about computers than most of us old guys do. Not just everybody would know about that secure e-mail service.”

  Frankie conceded the point, but she said that it was easy to find out about such things with a simple search.

  “Students would know about all that, I’ll bet,” Desmond said.

  Sally wondered again if Wayne Compton might have had something to do with the e-mail. She could check his records and see if he’d taken any computer courses. Not that it would prove anything if he had. Or hadn’t. What had been done with the e-mail wasn’t something that was taught in class.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any way you could find out who set up that account,” Sally said.

  “No. It’s funny that whoever it was left the information about the account on your computer, though. They didn’t cover their tracks very well.”

  More pronoun problems. Sally thought it might be a good idea to invite Mr. Grammar Person to campus for a faculty seminar.