by Crider, Bill
They were sitting in the room next to Street's, which happened not to have been rented out the previous night. It looked just like Street's room, except that it was reversed. The rug was the same dull orange, as was the bedspread. Even the print on the wall—purple mountain's majesty—was the same. Burns could hear the evidence crew, or whatever it was, in the room next door.
"So you brought him out here last night and left him," Napier was saying. He was a big man, with short blonde hair and blue eyes. He wore a white Western-style shirt that was tight through the shoulders and around the stomach, brown jeans and brown boots. The chief didn't have to wear a uniform. Everyone in Pecan City knew who he was.
"You got any witnesses to prove you went straight home like you said?" he asked.
"No," Burns said.
"And I don't guess you have any idea who killed this guy?"
"No," Burns said again. He was sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs by the cheap Formica-topped table. "I'd tell you if I did."
"I guess you would at that," Napier said, "considering all we've been through together. What I can't understand is how you wimp English teachers keep getting mixed up in stuff like this."
"It's not because we want to," Burns assured him.
"Yeah. Well, tell me about this little seminar thing you've got going on."
There had been quite a bit about the seminar in the newspaper, but Burns didn't mention that. Maybe Napier had read about it and was simply checking to see if what he had read was accurate.
When Burns had finished explaining, Napier said, "So it's going on right now?"
"Yes," Burns said. "I called Clementine Nelson and told her to take my place."
"She going to tell them about Streak?"
"Street. Edward Street. No. She's just going to say he can't be there for the panel discussion."
"Well, she won't be lying." Napier walked aimlessly around the small room, looking at the walls and the furniture. He stopped for a second to admire the snow-topped mountains in the picture. "You think maybe one of those out-of-towners killed Streep?"
"Street! And I don't have any idea." Burns hadn't even considered that possibility. As far as he knew, none of the people reading papers for the seminar had ever met Street. Most of those in attendance at the seminar, except for the readers, would be HGC faculty who had felt a good bit of pressure from Miller to attend.
"I hope you aren't thinking about getting mixed up in this," Napier said.
"Believe me," Burns told him, "it's the farthest thing from my mind."
"Hah," Napier said. "That's what you said the last time."
"It was true the last time, too. I got involved against my will."
"Yeah, and you like to've got dead. I hope this time you'll stick to teaching that Julio Caesar and leave the detective work to me."
"I will," Burns promised. He meant it. He had not liked what had happened to him the last time he got involved with murder, though of course it was impossible not to speculate a little about why someone whose body you've found might have gotten killed.
So he asked Napier, "How did he die, anyway?"
"Shot with a small-caliber gun, probably a .22," Napier said. "You know anybody's got one of those?"
"No," Burns said, but he was thinking about the gun Fairly's son had been holding. That was probably a .22. Burns was no gun expert, however, so he decided not to say anything.
"Probably knew the killer," Napier went on. "At least he let him into the room and was still drinking in front of him."
"Or her," Burns added.
"Sure, or her."
"So I'll have to check on your speakers and everybody at the school who knew Street or had met him as soon as we get through going over the room."
"If you count the people at the banquet last night, that's a lot of people."
"Well, that's what we get paid for. Anything funny happen at the banquet that you want to tell me about?"
Burns told him about the reporter and the mysterious letter.
"Oh, fine. That's real dandy. I wish you'd told me that a little sooner. Now we got a motive. All I got to do is find that letter. I hope this Dunphy is a cooperative type."
"Duncan," Burns said. "I'm sure he will be," he added, though he was sure of nothing of the sort. Duncan looked like a lot of things, but cooperative wasn't one of them.
"He better be," Napier said, and Burns was reminded of all the stories he'd heard about the man, about his bullwhip and the secret wrestling hold he was reputed to use on particularly recalcitrant prisoners and his .357 magnum, which, to tell the truth, Burns had never seen him wear.
"You think he'll be at that seminar thing?" Napier asked.
"He probably wouldn't miss it, not if it would give him a chance to confront Street about the letter again."
"My men can finish up here," Napier said. "I guess we better go down to your seminar and meet Dunbar. And those folks who came to town to read their papers, too."
"My car or yours?" Burns said.
"Both," Napier told him.
They got there just as Melinda Land was finishing her paper. There was mild applause, and most of the audience of about thirty people turned to see who had come in the door. When the HGC faculty saw Boss Napier with Burns, the applause stopped altogether.
Melinda Land, an attractive red-haired woman of about thirty-five, looked out across the audience to see what was going on.
Burns walked up to the podium and joined her. "I hate to interrupt," he said. He looked out at the audience. Fox and Tomlin were there. So was Miss Tanner. Clem, Miss Darling, and Larry and the Darryls were there as well.
So was President Miller, whom Burns was sorry to see. He had hoped the president might have skipped out early.
"I know that most of you were looking forward to a panel presentation that we should be having now, right after this last paper," Burns said, "but we won't be having it after all."
No one looked too disappointed, but everyone looked extremely curious, especially the president. Burns had asked Napier about what to say at this point.
"Tell 'em the truth. You think if you keep murder a secret, somebody'll crack under the strain and confess? It won't happen that way, Burns. This isn't Barry Mason."
So Burns told them the truth.
"Edward Street is dead. He was murdered in his motel room."
There were gasps in the audience, looks of shock. Miller put his head in his hands and shook it slowly. Harold Duncan, sitting on the back row, got out a notebook and started scribbling away madly. Burns was certain that the seminar had suddenly become extremely interesting to at least one person.
Melinda Land, still standing beside Burns, put out a hand and touched his arm. "How . . . how did it happen?"
"Chief Napier of the Pecan City Police is here with me," Burns said, more to the audience than to the woman beside him. "He'll give you any further information that he can." That meant none at all, but Burns didn't say so.
Napier strode to the front of the room, and Burns stepped away from the podium.
"I'm going to have to talk to each one of you individually," Napier said. "Dr. Burns tells me we can use the classroom next door for the interviews. I won't keep most of you very long, and we're going to start with the back row and work our way to the front. I know this is inconvenient, but we have to get it done. Now is as good a time as any. Burns will send you in one at a time."
Several people tried to get Napier's attention to ask him questions, but he ignored them, walking to the back of the room and out the door.
"Please stay in your seats," Burns said loudly. Everyone was getting up, talking, pressing toward the front of the room to speak to him. "Chief Napier doesn't want me to say anything more about this right now. He'll tell you as he interviews you. Please sit down so that we can do this in an orderly manner."
No one sat down. It struck Burns, not for the first time, that teachers were very bad about behaving in just the ways that they did not allow t
heir students to behave. He felt as if he were dealing with an unruly class of high-schoolers.
He slipped his college ring around until the synthetic ruby stone was facing down and then banged on the hard wood of the podium with it. The room got quiet.
"Please sit down," he said. He waited for a minute, until they had done so. "Thank you. Chief Napier is ready, I'm sure." He looked at the back row. "Mr. Duncan, you can go first."
The reporter looked as if he might argue, but he didn't. He got up and went out of the room.
Burns looked at Melinda Land, who was still there next to him. "You can sit down," he said. "This might take a while."
"All right," she said. She took a seat on the front row.
Burns started to go and sit with Tomlin and Fox, but there was a vacant seat by Miss Tanner. He couldn't resist, even though out of the corner of his eye he saw Miller beckoning frantically.
"How were the papers?" he asked as he settled himself in the chair.
"Interesting," she said, looking at him with her big green eyes. "But not as interesting as your morning, I'll bet."
"Probably not," Burns agreed.
She glanced around. Clem Nelson was sitting on her left, but Clem was talking to Miss Darling, who still appeared to be in a state of shock.
"I want to talk to you after all this is over," Miss Tanner said. "In the library."
Burns resisted the urge to look over his shoulder to see if there was someone there. He could hardly believe that Miss Tanner wanted to talk to him, though it really wasn't so surprising. He was the center of attention, all right. But in the library?
"I thought the library was closed on Saturday," he said. "It is," she said. "But I have a key."
"Oh."
"There's something I want you to see."
Burns's mind immediately indulged itself in a wild flight of fancy. "I think it might have something to do with this murder," Miss Tanner said, spoiling the fun.
"Oh," he said again. "Shouldn't you tell Chief Napier about it, then?"
"It may be nothing. Besides, I'd rather show it to you first."
Burns remembered what he'd told Napier about getting involved. Then he looked into Miss Tanner's green eyes. "I'll meet you there as soon as we're finished here," he said.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Oh, God, he thought, Napier's already caught me.
But it wasn't Napier. It was Franklin Miller.
"I want to talk to you, Burns," Miller said. "Now."
"Of course," Burns said. "Of course." He got up and walked with Miller to the side of the large room.
"I want to know what the fu— what's going on here." Miller said. His voice was strained and tight. "Is this some kind of monstrous joke?"
"I'm afraid not, sir."
"Good Lord. Do you know what this means?"
Probably a lot better than you do, Burns thought. "No, sir," he said.
"It means a tremendous black eye for the school, that's what it means," Miller said. "How do you think this is going to make us look?"
"I hadn't given it much thought, to tell the truth," Burns said.
"Well, you'd better think about it. Edward Street murdered! At our seminar! Holy shi— my gracious! We'll be the butt of gossip all over the state."
"I expect Street feels pretty bad about that," Burns said.
Miller glared at him. "Is that a joke, Burns?"
"No, sir."
"It had better not be. This isn't funny. It isn't funny at all."
Burns was going to say that he didn't see anyone laughing when Duncan stuck his head in the doorway.
"Next," he said.
Chapter 6
It irritated Burns no end that he still thought of the library as Hartley Gorman III. He had always hated the designation of the buildings by number, a practice loved and encouraged by the late, unlamented Dean Elmore. And when the administration building had been destroyed by a fire, Burns had rejoiced to think that the numbering system had been rendered obsolete and even useless. Which it had. No one other than Elmore had ever cared for it or used it, and Miller apparently didn't want to take the time to learn it.
But now, for some unaccountable reason, Burns couldn't get the numbers out of his head. He supposed that when a new administration building was built—not one of the school's priorities—things would be easier on him. The new building would not have, would never have, a number.
The library itself was not anything to brag about, neither because of its architecture nor its holdings. To tell the truth, many of its volumes—too many in Burns's estimation—had come from such sources as former professors who, looking for a tax dodge or some such thing, donated all their books to the library upon their retirement. Thus there were many old and useless volumes, which, despite the fact that they helped inflate the book count in reports to accreditation associations, did no one any good at all.
There were also a great many—again, in Burns's mind, far too many—old textbooks. Professors at HGC, being too morally upright to do as many of their colleagues at other schools, refused to sell their desk and examination copies to the buyers who frequently came by offering tax-free cash on the spot for textbooks. Instead, everyone gave the books to the library, thereby clearing their own shelves of books that they would never read and once more increasing the library's holdings by a sizable number of books that no one else would ever read, either.
Miss Watts, the former librarian, had tried to "weed" the library every now and then, sending out notices to department chairmen and asking them to come by and check the stacks for outdated materials. Burns did his job conscientiously, but he wasn't sure how many others did. And besides, Miss Watts was erratic in what she might choose to do when the time came, no matter what was suggested to her, as Burns had reason to know.
One thing the library did have, something that Burns enjoyed very much, was a large collection of nineteenth-century magazines, donated by some long-dead patron, probably from a personal collection. The magazines had been bound and preserved quite well in the library. Burns liked to browse through them occasionally, but one day he had been walking to the mail room by a route that led him behind the library and he had happened to look into the large dumpster there.
What he saw horrified him, and he climbed into the dumpster, first looking around to see whether anyone was watching. He knew that he was about to go dumpster-diving, and he didn't particularly want any of his students to see him. No one was watching, fortunately, it being about 11:15, a prime time for classes.
Once inside the dumpster, he found that his eyes had not tricked him. He was standing on a thick layer of bound volumes of the Atlantic Monthly dating from the previous century. He opened one and flipped through it to an excerpt from Twain's Life on the Mississippi, the first publication of that work.
He forgot all about his mail and climbed out of the dumpster to go and confront Miss Watts, who calmly informed him that all the material in the cast-off periodicals had been transferred to microfiche; it was no longer to be allowed to take up valuable shelf space. The bound volumes themselves were nice, but by no means necessary.
Burns did not yell. "But you're taking up space with the second printing of The Harbrace College Handbook," he said. "Not to mention the third, fourth, fifth, sixth—"
"Our students need to learn about commas," Miss Watts said. "You, of all people, should know that, Dr. Burns."
"But those books were probably last checked out ten years ago," Burns protested.
"They are there if the students need them, however," Miss Watts told him.
He tried again. "But these are valuable research documents you've thrown away, the original printings, just like someone in the Nineteenth Century might have bought them and read them."
"And they are preserved exactly like that on the microfiche," Miss Watts said, pressing her thin lips together.
Burns knew when he was licked. He slunk back out to the dumpster, climbed in, and tossed out all the volumes that were
there. Later he got Tomlin and Earl Fox to help him carry them up to the third floor of Main, where they still sat on the shelves of a seldom-used classroom, along with the back issues of Burns's copies of Rolling Stone, documents of questionable historical value, he thought, but ones that certainly would not be found on Miss Watts's microfiche.
Nor would you find there that other legendary HGC hoard, or what had once been a legendary hoard. Pecan City's only claim to literary fame before Edward Street was a writer who made a small fortune writing under his own name and various pseudonyms for the pulps in the 1930s, churning out stories for magazines with titles like Spicy Detective, Thrilling Detective, Ten Detective Aces, and Ranch Romances. He had died of a heart attack at the age of forty, and his mother had donated his considerable pulp collection to the HGC library, where her son once was a student.
Miss Watts had been at the school even then, and she had objected strenuously to the covers of the magazines, which generally featured scantily-clad young women in some frightening situation that had little or nothing to do with the stories inside. Miss Watts had been more or less obligated to accept the gift, but she had stored the magazines in the darkest, most spider-infested reaches of the damp basement of Main, where they had rapidly deteriorated. Burns had found their remains during his first year at HGC, the old pages gnawed by rats and silverfish, crumbling to fragments at his touch. He'd never quite forgiven Miss Watts for that, either.
Seeing the library with Miss Tanner would help me get a new perspective, he thought. He was sure she would be progressive and yet eager to preserve the past. He waited outside until Boss Napier had questioned her and they left Main together.
"He's a very nice man, isn't he?" Miss Tanner said.
"Who?" Burns said. "Boss Napier? A nice man?" She must not be talking about the police chief, but there hadn't been anyone else in the room with her during the questioning.
"Yes, Mr. Napier. He seemed very polite and concerned. Sort of handsome, in a rugged way."
