by Bill Crider
“Good night, Sally,” Seepy said. “Good night, Lola.”
“Good night,” Sally said. “Thanks for coming by in time.”
“Glad to be of help.”
“Meow,” Lola said, and Seepy left them there.
Sally went into the bedroom, ready for a hot shower and some sleep. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door.
She didn’t look as bad as she’d thought. No, the awful truth was that she looked even worse. Maybe in addition to the turtleneck, she should wear a paper bag over her head.
When she started to get undressed, the telephone rang. Sally looked at the caller ID.
The call was from her mother.
Lola peered out from under the bed. Sally looked at her and said, “The perfect end to a perfect day.”
“Meow,” said Lola.
From Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of the Invisible World
If a drop of innocent blood should be shed, in the prosecution of the witchcrafts among us, how unhappy are we!
30
When Sally got to her office the next morning, Troy Beauchamp was standing at the door.
“Tell me everything,” he said.
Sally had no idea how he’d already heard about her adventures. It was as if he picked up gossip out of the air. Or maybe he talked to her mother.
Sally unlocked the door and went inside. Troy was right behind her, so as soon as she put down her books, she told him an abbreviated version of the story.
“Details,” he said. “I want details.”
Sally gave him a few, and he left. She wondered if he would teach class at all that day or if he’d simply spend his time going from one office to another, spreading the news.
While he was doing that, Sally checked to see if she had any messages. She didn’t, so she picked up the phone and called Wynona.
“Wussup?” Wynona said when she answered the ring.
Sally thought Wynona really could use a refresher course in telephone etiquette.
“Have you heard from Ellen Baldree today?” Sally asked.
“She called to let me know she’d be here. I haven’t actually seen her.”
Sally thanked her and hung up. She wasn’t surprised that Ellen hadn’t called her. At least she’d gotten in touch with someone, and Sally wouldn’t have to worry about meeting the classes for her.
Almost as soon as Sally put the phone back on the hook, Jack showed up. He looked tired, and Sally was sure that he and Vera had made up their differences.
Jack didn’t have Troy’s sources, and he seemed a little taken aback at her appearance.
“Were you in a car wreck?” he said.
Sally’s forehead was bruised, and her face was a little puffy. When she talked, she sounded as if she had a terrible cold.
“It wasn’t a car wreck,” she said. “Someone tried to hang me.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I wouldn’t joke about a thing like that. Jennifer and Sherm Jackson tried to hang me. Literally.”
“Why?”
“For the crime of witchcraft.”
Jack sat in the chair by her desk and asked her to tell him all about it.
“If it doesn’t hurt too much to talk,” he added.
“It’s not so bad. My mother recommended hot tea with lemon and honey. It actually helped.”
“Did she recommend the scarf?”
Sally touched the scarf. “Yes. I was planning to wear a turtleneck sweater, but it’s too hot for that, and none of my summer things have turtlenecks.”
“The scarf makes you look, oh, I don’t know. Kind of exotic.”
“Yes, like Isadora Duncan. Remember that story? There was a movie about her.”
“With Vanessa Redgrave. I saw it when I was a kid. But you shouldn’t be so paranoid. Cars don’t have spoked wheels these days.”
“I’m not paranoid. The scarf makes me feel old.”
“Then I guess you wouldn’t be wearing it if your neck weren’t in bad shape. So tell me about it.”
Sally gave him an abbreviated version of the events, with fewer details than Troy had demanded.
“Wow,” he said when she had finished. “You really weren’t kidding. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I don’t know that I’d have made it if Seepy hadn’t arrived when he did.”
Jack smiled. “You and Seepy, huh?”
“No, not me and Seepy He’s very nice, and he may even have saved my life, but I’m not sure I need to hear him sing his songs. I don’t care if he sounds like Johnny Cash.”
“He does have a deep voice,” Jack said. “But there was only one Johnny Cash, and now he’s gone. Seepy can’t even come close.”
“You’ve heard him?”
“I don’t have to hear him to know that.”
“You could come by this afternoon at three. He’ll be here for a serenade.”
“Lucky you. You get your life saved, and then you get songs composed in your honor. But the best thing is that you’ve put two more killers behind bars.”
“They put themselves there. And to tell the truth, I’m not sure they’re killers.”
Sally had thought everything over before she went to sleep the previous evening. She’d thought she’d fall asleep as soon as she lay down, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Even the pain pills she’d taken hadn’t had much of an effect. She’d lain awake for quite a while, and the events of the past few days had paraded themselves through her head. A couple of things had been explained. She had found out who had sent the e-mail about her, and she knew why Harold Curtin had spent some time with a witches’ coven. She even thought that she knew why Curtin had been killed. But Weems wasn’t convinced, and when Sally thought about his arguments, she could see why.
Jennifer and Sherm had been intent on going by the book when it came to hanging her, or at least Jennifer had. It did seem logical that if they’d executed the Garden Gnome for witchcraft, they’d have done it the right way.
And there was something Jennifer had said, something that Sally had forgotten to tell Weems. Sally couldn’t remember the exact words, having been occupied with trying to survive at the time they’d been spoken, but they had something to do with the fact that Jennifer didn’t want people to think Sally’s death was a suicide.
If Jennifer didn’t want Sally’s death to look like a suicide, then why had she and Sherm killed Curtin in a way that made people think of suicide immediately?
Sally didn’t have an answer, and she had called Weems before leaving for school to ask him if he had one.
He didn’t, but he’d reminded Sally again that he didn’t think the Jacksons were guilty of Curtin’s death.
“So there’s still a killer out there somewhere,” Sally had said. “And we’re right back where we started.”
“There’s no we,” Weems had told her. “I don’t want you getting mixed up in this again. You’ve done enough damage already, and you’ve nearly gotten yourself killed in the process. Just relax and let me handle things.”
Sally had promised that she would, and she tried not to think about the case anymore. But she found that she couldn’t help herself.
“Are you still there?” Jack said, waving his hand in front of her face.
Sally came out of her trance.
“I’m still here. I was just thinking.”
“I was worried about you. That knot on your head could be dangerous. Did you have it checked out?”
Sally told him that she was fine and that there was no danger of concussion.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Jack asked.
“None. Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m only trying to help. I’m sorry I wasn’t there last night. Even if you aren’t sure the Jacksons are killers.”
Sally didn’t think he would have been much help. She said, “As I recall, the last time you were in danger, I had to do the rescuing.”
“Well,” Jack
said, “Hector helped.”
“Lola didn’t.”
Jack laughed. “Hector is unique. You can’t expect any other cat to be as vicious as he is. But tell me one thing.”
“About Lola?”
“No. About the Jacksons. You said you weren’t sure they were killers. They certainly tried to kill you.”
“They were pretty inept when you think about it. But what I meant was that I don’t think they killed the Gnome.”
“If they didn’t, who did?”
“I don’t know. And Lieutenant Weems doesn’t want me to try to find out. He made that very clear.”
“I don’t think you’re in any condition to be tracking down a killer,” Jack said.
“I’m not. It’s just that I feel as if I know something that would help, and I can’t remember what it is.”
“You’re too young to be having senior moments,” Jack said, standing up. “I have to go get ready for my next class. Can you stay out of trouble for a while?”
“I can manage. What about you? Are you and Vera getting along now?”
Jack blushed, and Sally knew she’d been right about why he looked tired.
“We’re getting along fine,” he said.
“Good. I hope you don’t spend so much time with her that you forget about your friends.”
“Rave on,” Jack said. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“What did you just say?”
“That you don’t have to worry. I’ll be hanging around as usual. I’m still your friend.”
“Not that. The first part.”
“The first part of what?”
“Of what you said. It was a song title.”
“Oh, that. I said, ‘Rave on.’ It’s the name of a Buddy Holly song. It begins, ‘Rave on, it’s a crazy feeling …’”
“I know,” Sally said, and then everything clicked into place.
31
Harriet 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.”
