Murder is an Art

by Bill Crider

  Coy went to get his duffel bag, picking it up by the two thick nylon handles and hefting it to his side.

  “It’s great of you to take me in, Jack,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”

  “It’s only for tonight. After that, you’re on your own.”

  Coy didn’t say anything.

  “And you can’t come back here,” Sally told him. “Now let’s go.”

  “What about the video camera?” Jack asked.

  “In the movies, someone usually sprays the lens with hair spray,” Coy said.

  Sally held up her purse. “No hair spray in here. I don’t carry it. It never seems to help much.”

  “I think your hair looks fine,” Jack said.

  She smiled. “Thanks. Anyway, I don’t think we have to worry about the camera. I bet they’ll never check the tape unless something happens. Like another murder.”

  “You’re probably right,” Jack said. “If you’re willing to chance it, I am.”

  “It doesn’t bother me in the least. What about you, Coy?”

  Coy said that he’d prefer not to be on tape. “They installed that camera this afternoon, after I was already in here, so they missed me then. But now I guess I don’t have any choice.”

  “Maybe you do,” Jack said. “Maybe we can do something about it. When we get to the gallery, you two keep right on going, no matter what I do. Got that?”

  Sally and Coy nodded, and Jack led the way out of the room. Sally and Coy followed along behind. When Jack got into the gallery, he turned to the camera, did a little jig, tried a Michael Jackson moonwalk that didn’t work so well, and took a deep bow. Then he went outside, where Sally and Coy were waiting.

  “What was that all about?” Sally wanted to know.

  “I figured that if anyone watches those tapes, he’ll be so fascinated by my performance that he won’t notice you two slinking out in the background.”

  “Fat chance,” Sally said.

  36

  Coy’s old Dart still wouldn’t start, so Sally told him to leave it on the lot. Maybe the police would see it and think Coy was still around. Then they’d spend all night looking in the various buildings to see where Coy could be hiding. The exercise would do them good.

  “You can ride with me and Jack,” she said.

  “Are you sure I won’t be … interfering with anything?” he asked.

  “I’m sure,” Sally told him.

  Coy tossed his duffel in the back of the Acura and tried to follow it. It required the sinuosity of an anaconda to twist around the front seat, but he finally managed to fit himself into the rear.

  Jack got into the front and slid the seat back. Coy yelped when it slammed into his knees.

  “Sorry,” Jack said, easing forward an inch or so.

  Sally got behind the wheel with a grace that put Jack and Coy to shame. She started the car and ejected the Bobby Vee CD. Then she pulled out of the parking space.

  “Speaking of finding Coy a place to stay,” Jack said, “what do you think happened to Ralph Thompson? Why haven’t the police been able to find him?”

  “They’re not looking in the right place,” Sally said.

  “Where would the right place be?”

  Sally shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “People on the run always go home,” Coy said from the backseat.

  Jack turned to look at him. “How do you know?”

  “I teach in the prisons,” Coy said, “so I know about fugitives. That’s why they always get caught when they escape or violate their parole. They can’t stay away from familiar places and familiar faces.”

  “Well, you can bet that Ralph Thompson’s not at home,” Sally said. “I’m sure Detective Weems has the place staked out.”

  “I didn’t mean that he’d go home, necessarily,” Coy said. “He might have gone to his parents’ house. Or to a friend’s place. Or even to his in-laws’ home if there’s a chance they don’t think he murdered their daughter.”

  “I don’t think he’d go to his in-laws’ house,” Jack said.

  “Probably not,” Coy said. “My in-laws don’t like me at all, and I’ve never even killed anyone.”

  “We still don’t know that Ralph killed anyone,” Sally reminded them.

  She’d been thinking about that ever since getting in the car. It seemed likely now that Jorge was innocent, and she was glad of that.

  But there was always Ellen.

  Not to mention A. B. D. Sally still wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t gone into a rage and killed Val. Coy might not have heard anything happen, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been that way.

  And if not A. B. D., what about others who might have been in the gallery after Coy had left? What about Vera?

  For that matter, Sally wasn’t entirely convinced of Coy’s own innocence. Wasn’t it possible that Val had objected to Coy’s sleeping in the classroom? There could have been an argument, and Coy could have been the one who grabbed the little statue from the desk.

  Maybe having him spend the night at Jack’s house wasn’t such a good idea after all. What if he got mad at Jack?

  Sally shook her head. That was a ridiculous idea. Coy wasn’t capable of killing anyone. He wasn’t even capable of taking care of himself.

  And of course, it was probably true that Ralph Thompson was the guilty party. All the signs pointed to it. She had been misled by the missing painting, but now that she had an idea why it had been taken, she could pretty much rule out its having anything to do with the murder.

  She became aware that Coy was saying something to her.

  “I’m sorry, Coy,” she said. “I was drifting. Can you go over that again?”

  “I was just saying that when people hide, they go somewhere that they feel safe. That’s the important thing. It doesn’t have to be a house or a place with someone they know, like in-laws or parents or friends. It could be a neighborhood or even a place of business. I had a student once who escaped and spent two nights hiding out in back of the Dairy Queen where he’d worked when he was a teenager. He ate out of the Dumpster and slept in a big cardboard box.”

  “I guess we could check out the Dairy Queen,” Jack said. “Or maybe…”

  His voice trailed off, and he looked at Sally, who knew exactly what he was thinking. She wished she didn’t, but she did, no question.

  “There was no one at the craft shop when we found Tammi’s body,” she said.

  “I heard about that,” Coy said. “It must have been terrible. I don’t think I could have been as calm about it as you two.”

  Jack ignored him. “There wasn’t anyone there then. But think about it. If Ralph Thompson listens to the radio at all, and you can bet he does, he knows the body’s been found and removed. And speaking of bets, I’ll make you one: I’ll bet the police don’t have a guard on the place. They won’t expect him to come back there. His house, maybe, but not the shop. They probably won’t even think of it.”

  “Edgar Allan Poe,” Sally said.

  “Huh?”

  “‘The Purloined Letter.’ To beat a criminal at his own game, you have to think like him. The police can’t do it when the criminal is either much more stupid than they are, or a lot smarter.”

  “In this case, I hope you’re thinking he’s a lot smarter,” Jack said. “Besides, I didn’t come up with the idea. It was Coy.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose idea it was. And I’m not even sure Ralph Thompson’s guilty, much less whether you or Coy is smarter than the police. Besides, smart might not even enter into this. The Hughes Police don’t have enough personnel to stake out too many places. I’m sure there won’t be anyone at the store.”

  “Anyhow,” Coy said from behind them, “what difference does it make? We’re not going to do anything stupid like going to the Thompsons’ craft shop.”

  Jack and Sally didn’t answer.

  Coy said, “Well, we aren’t, are we?”

  “Who, us?” Sally said. “We’re profession
al educators, not cops. So we’re surely not going to do anything as stupid as driving by the craft shop, are we?”

  She looked at Jack.

  “I have a feeling that we are,” he said.

  37

  Sally didn’t really think that Ralph Thompson was hiding at his own shop. She wouldn’t have driven by there if she had. She would have called Detective Weems and told him to check the place out.

  Or that’s what she told herself at first.

  Then she thought about what Weems would say. He’d probably be condescending and tell her to leave investigating crime to the police. That’s what Desmond had said, and the local police didn’t seem to have a much higher opinion of her intelligence than Desmond did. In fact, they probably thought less of her than Desmond did, if that was possible.

  Which meant that even if she called Weems, he wouldn’t do anything. Or maybe he would. Maybe she had entirely mistaken his attitude toward her.

  But she didn’t think so. She was pretty sure he thought she was a totally incompetent woman, or maybe that she was incompetent because she was a woman. That’s the attitude that Desmond seemed to have. So she wasn’t going to call anyone.

  She would, however, drive by the shop just to satisfy her curiosity and to let Jack test his theory. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

  Well, maybe that was the wrong question to ask. The worst that could happen was that Thompson would be there, that he would have armed himself with an Uzi, or whatever kind of assault weapon he could get from the illegal arms dealers in the Houston area, and that he would mow them down in the street as they drove past his place of business.

  Sally thought again about the pistol in the trunk of the Acura. Maybe she should just start carrying it in a shoulder holster. Or in her purse, not that there would be much room for it there. She didn’t carry hair spray, but she carried just about everything else. Sometimes she thought half the world’s supply of crumpled facial tissue was in her purse, though she wasn’t quite sure how it had all gotten there.

  It was dark on the street where the Thompsons’ shop was located, not because there were no streetlights but because the street was overhung by the limbs of the large oak trees that grew in every nearby yard.

  It wasn’t so dark, however, that Sally couldn’t see the shadowy figure lurking near the rear of the building. She slowed the Acura to a crawl. She lifted her right hand from the wheel and pointed.

  “Do you see anything back there?” she asked Jack.

  “I do,” Coy said. “There’s someone standing by the building.”

  “He’s right,” Jack said. “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yes,” Sally said. She pulled the Acura to the curb and parked. “It’s in the car pocket. Why?”

  “Because I’m going to dial 911.”

  “Wait,” Sally said. “Let’s check things out first.”

  “I don’t want to check things out,” Coy said, sounding as if he wished there were a nearby desk to hide under. “I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

  Evidently, neither did Jack, who was trying to open the glove compartment.

  “It’s locked,” Sally said. “Anyway, I don’t think there’s a lot to worry about.”

  The dark figure started toward the car. Coy slid off the seat and somehow managed to fit himself into the tiny space between the front and back seats.

  Jack said, “Wait a minute. I know who that is.”

  “And it’s not Ralph Thompson,” Sally said. “It’s that woman who was here when we found Tammi.”

  Jack rolled down his window. As the woman came closer, her orange hair seemed to glow in the dimness as if it might be radioactive. She was still wearing the orange pants that she’d had on the day before. Jack realized that he didn’t know the woman’s name.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Jack Neville. I met you here yesterday.”

  “I remember you,” the woman said. “You’re the one that found that poor girl’s body.”

  “That’s right. What are you doing back here?”

  “I guess I could ask you the same question, now couldn’t I?”

  “You could, all right. We were just curious, that’s all.”

  “I guess you didn’t hear the dog barking, then, did you?”

  “Dog?” Jack said. “What dog?”

  “The one I told you about yesterday. The mean dog that Mr. Thompson keeps in his store.”

  “No,” Jack said. “I didn’t hear the dog.”

  Sally was tired of being left out of the conversation, so she got out of the car and walked around to stand by Jack’s window.

  “I’m Sally Good,” she said. “I was here yesterday, too.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” the woman said. “My name’s Estelle Franks. Not too many people named Estelle around these days. Young people like different names now.”

  “I think Estelle’s a very nice name,” Sally said. “What about the dog?”

  “I can hear things,” Estelle said. “My daughter thinks I need a hearing aid, but I can hear just fine. I live two houses down the street, and I heard that dog, all right.”

  Sally and Jack didn’t say anything. Coy was still huddled on the back floorboard, as if he were afraid that Estelle would suddenly turn into Tony Perkins, whip out a butcher knife, and slash them to death.

  The night was very quiet. A slight breeze turned the leaves in the oaks, and an occasional car shushed by on a parallel street.

  There was no dog barking.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Estelle said. “The dog’s quiet now, but it wasn’t quiet a few minutes ago. It was barking up a storm. I know what I heard. There was a light on in the back there, too.”

  There was no light on in the store now. The interior was quite dark, much darker even than the outside.

  “I can see just as well as I can hear,” Estelle said. “You needn’t be thinking I can’t see, because I can. I know a light when I see one.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Sally said, looking at Jack, then back at Estelle. “How long did the dog bark?”

  “Not long. I was watching Dateline, and I could hardly hear Jane Pauley for the barking. She’s really cute, don’t you think?”

  Sally said she thought Jane Pauley was very nice.

  “Well, she was doing that part about what year things happened in, and I couldn’t hear her for the dog. But by the time I got over here, it had quit.”

  “You really shouldn’t be coming over here alone,” Sally said. “Mr. Thompson’s a fugitive from justice.”

  She was sorry she’d said it as soon as the words left her mouth. She wondered what cliché she would come up with next.

  “He doesn’t scare me any, even if he is mean. I won’t put up with a dog barking while I’m trying to watch TV.”

  Sally leaned down to the level of the Acura’s window.

  “What do you think?” she asked Jack.

  “There could be someone in there, I guess.”

  “I think we should call the police,” said Coy, who still hadn’t moved from the floor.

  Sally didn’t think so. She was sure Weems would be worse than condescending when he heard about the dog and the light, no matter how credible Estelle sounded to Sally, who wasn’t in any mood to be patronized. Even if Weems sent someone to search the building, it wouldn’t be worth it. But if she had proof that someone was inside, Weems would have to be civil.

  “Why don’t you have a look?” she asked Jack.

  Jack opened the car door and uncoiled himself from the seat. He stood up and walked over to the front window of the store.

  “You can’t see anything that way,” Estelle said.

  She was right. All Jack saw was his own dark reflection.

  “You have go to the back, where the light was.”

  “There’s no light now,” Jack pointed out. “There aren’t even any windows.”

  “The light was shining under that door,” Estelle said. “The door y
ou opened when you went inside.”

  “Oh,” Jack said. “That door.”

  “Don’t go messing around with any doors,” Coy said. “Call the police.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to look,” Sally said. “You don’t have to go inside. But you do what you think is best.”

  Jack smiled and started toward the door. He didn’t make a sound as he strolled down the side of the building, not that he was trying to be especially quiet. Making noise might even be a good idea if someone was hiding in there, which Jack wasn’t sure was the case.

  And, like Sally, he wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that Ralph Thompson was a murderer. Anyone might panic when faced with the prospect of being arrested. What if Thompson had found his wife dead and simply run away? Coy Webster would probably have done the same thing.

  I might have done the same thing, Jack thought.

  He went to the door and looked back at the car. Sally was standing beside it, talking to Estelle. There was no sign of Coy.

  Jack rattled the door, a little more loudly than was necessary.

  There was no answering sound from inside the shop, other than a faint echo of the rattling noise.

  “Nobody home,” Jack said aloud to no one in particular.

  He supposed that he could force the door again, go inside, and have a look around. He might even have done it if he’d had a flashlight. But he didn’t have a flashlight, and he didn’t know where the light switch was.

  So he started back to the car.

  He’d gone about ten feet when the dog barked.

  38

  It wasn’t a loud bark, just a low, soft woofing sound, but it was definitely made by a dog—a dog that hadn’t been in the building the day before and that had no business being in there now.

  Oh, sure, there was a minute possibility that the police could have left a guard dog there to look out for things. Jack wondered just how minute the possibility was. He decided that it was about as minute as his chance of picking the winning numbers in Lotto Texas.

  It was considerably more likely, about ninety-nine-point-nine percent more, that the dog was the one Estelle had told them about, the mean one that belonged to Ralph Thompson.