Teacher's Threat

by Diane Vallere

  “Madison, I know I put you on the spot today, and I wanted to thank you for your grace under pressure. I don’t know why Professor Gallagher singled you out as a case study, but it makes for a good lesson plan for the class. Now, don’t go listening to the fellow in the back row. He was just trying to get your goat. I don’t know much about his hat company, but around here hats are easier to sell than water to a guy in a desert. Know what I mean?”

  “I think so.”

  “This might sound unorthodox, but I like your moxie, and I think you’re probably a good bet. I have some ideas for you that might not fall under the class curriculum. How about we get together to discuss them?”

  Either the dean had taken an interest in my unique business proposition or he was using the moment for a unique proposition of an entirely different business—me. Several responses sprung to mind, from “I’m in a relationship” to “is it appropriate for the dean of the college to date a student?” But angered at Tex as I was, I knew it was smart to keep him out of this.

  “That sounds nice. What time should I come to your office tomorrow?”

  He laughed. “We don’t need to spend office hours on this. There’s a club not far from campus. We could go there now.”

  “Now?” I said a bit too harshly. “I can’t go anywhere now,” I added in a softer voice. I patted my backpack. “I’ve got an awful lot of homework,” I said. “Between my entry level courses and now this one at night, I don’t want to slip behind.”

  “I see.” His face fell. “Yes, I suppose you have a lot on your plate. Okay. Well, then. Office hours it will be.”

  I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and made it to the door before he called out behind me. “Oh, Madison? I understand you’re the student who found Professor Gallagher’s body. As you can see, there’s going to be gossip about what happened. I’d consider it a personal favor if you kept what you know to yourself.”

  Whether it was the guilt over my rejection or the power dynamic of him being my professor, I quickly acquiesced. “Of course,” I said, though it wasn’t until I was at my car that I wondered why he cared.

  13

  On the bright side, getting out of class at eight thirty at night allowed me to completely miss rush hour, though Rocky wouldn’t be happy. Even with long walks both morning and night, he probably felt neglected.

  I was surprised to find Tex’s Jeep parked by my house. I was more surprised to find him sitting inside it waiting for my arrival. I parked my Alfa Romeo and approached him. My surprise was tempered with residual anger; I was still mad at his criticism of my plan.

  He had his arm dangling out of the driver’s-side window. “I told you not to go back to class, Night.”

  “You of all people know how important this is to me. Do you think it’s easy to let a classroom full of strangers attack me?”

  “This isn’t about your MBA. It’s a police investigation. You heard Ms. Talbot.”

  “Who?”

  “The blonde. Her name is Faye Talbot. She was right. Mr. Gallagher was murdered. Until we find out who murdered him, that campus isn’t safe.”

  Tex had an unfair way of winning every argument by reminding me his actions were driven by loftier goals than mine, but I was too mad to give in so quickly.

  “That explains why you would send an officer to question the students or even assign a detective to go undercover but not why it had to be you.” I crossed my arms. “Is that why you wanted me to drop the class? Don’t worry, Captain. I won’t blow your cover.”

  “Are you going back to class tomorrow night?”

  “Of course, I’m going back to class tomorrow night. I was there first!” I turned around and left him there.

  “Night,” he called. “We’re not done talking about this.”

  “You can wait. I have to check on Rocky.”

  But before I had the house unlocked, Tex’s Jeep peeled out down the road.

  Complications upon complications upon complications. That was how life felt. I had a business, then I lost my business, and now I wanted my business back.

  I didn’t have a relationship with Tex, then I did have a relationship with Tex, but now it seemed we were at odds once again.

  I had a sweet, peppy, affectionate Shih Tzu puppy, and at least that hadn’t changed. Rocky was as steadfast as, well, a rock. We went out for a walk (and two separate deposits in the garden) and had a snack (peanut butter for him and a couple of cookies from a fresh box of Peanut Butter Patties for me.). Rocky required less fuss to get ready for bed, so I left him with his rope bone and showered off the day then dressed in a set of mint green silk pajamas previously owned by Thelma Johnson herself. Of all the deceased women whose clothes I wore, I knew the most about her.

  I came to her through the obituaries. I entertained a brief memory of her son hanging up on me when I first made an offer on the estate. He’d thought it was a joke. A few minutes later he called back, accepted, and thanked me. We both won. I won further when he gave me this house. You could argue I wouldn’t be where I was today if not for the obituaries. If not for my interaction with Thelma Johnson’s son, I might still be living in my apartment building. Was I willing to risk everything I had to expand the business everyone else seemed to think was a sinking ship?

  I went downstairs and unpacked my backpack, but I wasn’t of the mindset to tackle homework. I pulled Professor Gallagher’s book out and carried it upstairs. I climbed into the bed and Rocky jumped on top, and while the book seemed interesting, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t make it through the introduction before falling asleep.

  The ringing phone didn’t wake me in the middle of the night. It didn’t wake me in the morning either. That was not a statement of how soundly I slept but about the absence of calls. I took Rocky with me to the swim club and dropped him off in the dog room, swam for an hour, and then collected him and drove home. There would be no Round Two with Tex.

  I dressed in a sleeveless pink A-line dress with a bow at the collar, white daisy earrings with pink centers, and white Keds. Having my Radical Business Strategy course moved to night left me with a leisurely morning, so I poured a fresh cup of coffee and reviewed my class notes for Decision-Making for the Business Leader. The material was dry, and I welcomed the sound of the doorbell. It was Dennis, the realtor.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I wasn’t sure whether we were going to meet here or next door.”

  I’d been so focused on what I could do with the property that I’d forgotten all about my scheduled walk-through. “I guess it’s good that I live next door.” I smiled.

  He declined my offer of coffee, so I left my mug on the table. I clipped on Rocky’s leash and led him through the living and sitting rooms (old houses were funny that way) and out the front door. It was an entrance I rarely used but that put us on the sidewalk in front of the vacant property.

  Rocky trotted in front of us and sniffed the sidewalk. A cardinal sat on the For Sale sign. A sign on a sign? I shook off the thought. If this was a business decision, then it had to be made with cold, hard facts, not because of a pretty red bird.

  Dennis fumbled with the key to the lockbox, and for a moment I worried once again he’d brought the wrong key. Eventually the lockbox opened. He unlocked the building and entered. Rocky and I followed.

  The interior smelled musty. Dennis pushed the curtains on the windows aside and then hand-cranked the window to open it. Natural light filled the interior. It was a cavernous square filled with boxes.

  “Thelma Johnson sold it after her husband died. The new owners never had a chance to use it. When Hurricane Alicia hit in ’83, the damage was extensive. The insurance money covered their losses, but they reopened elsewhere and let the place sit. It’s been paid off for decades and occasionally pops up on the market, but it’s a weird little commercially zoned building on a small property in a residential neighborhood, and these days, that’s three strikes.”

  Aside from the curtains, which were lined in co
ated cotton, there were few fabrics in the interior, which made our voices carry. Cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly along the back wall. Several had visible damage. I walked away from Dennis to the window facing my house. When I looked out, I could see the yellow and white daisy curtains hanging in my kitchen. A bright yellow butterfly passed the window in an erratic flight pattern, and I watched it until it disappeared from view. I left the window and walked to the back of the building.

  A small kitchenette, complete with two burners, and a powder room were at the back by a rear door. I turned the knob and pulled the door open. The gray cat sat outside looking in. It startled me so much I shut the door quickly. When I opened it again, the cat trotted away.

  I closed and locked the door and returned to the musty interior. “How much are they asking?”

  “Before we talk price, we should talk damage,” he said. “The foundation has sunk, so it’s going to need to be supported. Two jacks, maybe more. The price is as-is, so repairs would fall on you.”

  “It’s a fixer-upper,” I said.

  The longer I wandered the interior, the more I knew this was a decision I didn’t need to sleep on. Three days of business school pointed at one thing: I already knew how to run a business, and I knew it by doing it. The most passionate I’d felt in the past month was in class and with Tex—it was his unexpected lack of belief in me that set me off last night—but that told me I still had the fire to make this work. And if the real estate mantra of “location, location, location” was true, then this was a bullseye. It was thirty feet from my house.

  “Let’s do it,” I said. “Draw up the paperwork and see how much equity I have in Thelma Johnson’s house. But do me one favor: keep this quiet. I don’t want anyone to know the new owner is me.”

  “Won’t it be obvious when you move your showroom here?”

  “I’m not going to move my showroom. Find out what I need to make an offer, and I’ll go from there.”

  14

  Dennis and I went in different directions. I repacked the books I’d left out on my kitchen table into my backpack and added a ham and cheese sandwich on rye. Those vending machines were going to leave me broke, and if things went according to plan, I was looking at a new level of financial risk. Professor Gallagher would be proud.

  Creature of habit that I sometimes was, I parked in Lot B and walked to the Canfield building.

  Barbara greeted me at the admissions desk. “Madison, I have a message for you.” She turned her back and leaned over the desk to retrieve a folded piece of paper. She straightened and extended it to me. “Dean Wallace asked me to give that to you.” Her expression was disapproving, which hinted that she’d already peeked inside.

  “Thank you.” I took the paper but didn’t open it in her presence. There seemed no point in letting her see my reaction. “Have there been any new updates to the curriculum?”

  “If there had been, there would be a notification on your student profile. Have you logged into the portal today?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t be like the kids, Madison. Make it a habit. You won’t always get preferential treatment.”

  “Am I getting preferential treatment now?” I asked. Her eyes shifted to the paper in my hand and back to my face. It was so quick I didn’t think she realized she’d done it, but I was more curious than before to walk away and see what the note said.

  The door behind her opened, and Hugo strode in. Today he wore a tan suit and cowboy boots. His white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing a white undershirt. “Madison. Good to see you back at school. Did you get my message?”

  I held up the piece of paper. “This?”

  “Good.” He stood behind Barbara, and she seemed to have created a task to keep her from looking at him or me. “I was hoping to talk to you after class,” he said. He glanced at his watch, a brushed gold face on a well-worn brown leather strap. “But I can spare a few minutes now.” He walked through the maze of desks in the office and paused by the stout office manager. “Barbara, you’re looking very smart today.”

  She turned around. “Don’t waste your sweet talk,” she said. “I’ve worked here too long for charm to work on me.”

  Hugo smiled as though he got the response he’d wanted. He flipped the counter up and walked through and then eased it back into place.

  We walked side by side down the hallway to his office. “I’ve been thinking about your predicament since last night,” he said.

  “Which predicament is that?” I asked innocently. It had been a busy twelve hours for predicaments!

  He turned the knob to his office door and pushed it inside then stood back and let me enter first. He closed the door behind him. “Have a seat. I won’t keep you long, but there’s no reason to stand on ceremony.”

  I sat in front of his desk, and he sat behind it. The chairs were calibrated to varying heights, putting him in a position of dominance. I’m not sure why I was surprised; he was the dean of the business school, after all.

  “I took the liberty of checking your schedule,” he said. “You’ve packed it pretty tight.”

  “My bachelor’s degree was in General Studies,” I said.

  “From here?” he asked, pointing to the college grounds.

  “No, from a university in Pennsylvania. Two, actually.” I spared him the details of dropping and eventually filling in the course requirements needed to quietly graduate. “I relocated to Texas after that.”

  “Why do you want an MBA?”

  “You heard about my business in class last night. I need a loan to get me back on my feet, but the banks don’t see me as a good risk. I’ve turned a profit since the day I opened, but every move I’ve made was based on instinct, not practical business strategy. An MBA would show them they were wrong.”

  “Business is like sex. If done correctly, nothing about it should be practical.”

  I wondered briefly if I’d treated my loan applications with this in mind, would the decisions have turned out differently? Perish the thought!

  “Will that be covered in class?” I asked with feigned innocence.

  “I’m still working out the new syllabus,” Hugo said absentmindedly. He leaned back in his chair. It tipped at an extreme angle and creaked. He laced his fingers together and rested them across the mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt. It was the same body language Professor Gallagher had adopted the day we met. “Depending on your transcript, you might be missing some qualifications, but if you have run a successful business, I can give you credit for the experience. That’ll free up your days for more pressing matters.”

  “That would be fantastic,” I said without filter.

  “Go to class as usual and I’ll talk to your professors. I may have an answer for you after class tonight.”

  “Thank you, Dean Wallace.”

  He chuckled. “You’re welcome, Student Madison.” He slapped his fingertips against the desk. “Time’s up. You’re already late for your eleven o’clock.”

  I sat through Decision-Making for the Business Leader and thought about how drastically things had changed for me in a matter of days. Earlier this week, I talked my way into Professor Gallagher’s course, and already I was poised to act on what we’d discussed. Hugo Wallace was nicer than Professor Gallagher, but he lacked the killer instinct I’d felt from the passionate professor in my one and only class with him. My mind wandered back to Monday, when we’d been alone in the parking structure.

  I’d spent much of my time since then thinking about my business, and all of those thoughts had been triggered by Gallagher’s lecture. My embarrassment had quickly turned to the fire that fueled my plans, and in a matter of days I was looking at a completely different reality. But what if I hadn’t been so quick to get on board? Would his use of my company as an example for the class made me resentful enough to kill him?

  It seemed unlikely. But the way Gallagher had died left me with questions. He’d said the break-in to his car was the thi
rd time this month. Someone had wanted to make life difficult for him. Was the break-in connected to the clogged tailpipe? Had murder been the endgame for the vandal, or had the entire set-up been meant as a threat? Nasty had said the car would have stalled or blown out whatever was clogging the tailpipe, so why had it continued to run?

  The memory felt like a series of pictures taken of the same subject at different times, torn apart and then pieced back together from mismatched originals. If Tex had results from the forensic automotive specialist, he wouldn’t mention them to me. I should forget about it and focus on my classes, but the two had become intertwined. I couldn’t shake the belief that Gallagher’s death was linked to the school.

  Secure in the anonymity of the lecture hall, I tuned out the professor and flipped to a fresh page in my notebook. I’d had few interactions with Gallagher, but details about him had come to me through a variety of sources. He shared an office with Ansel Benedict. Barbara implied he had improper relations with female students, and Hugo claimed his syllabus was controversial. Tex said a deep dive into Gallagher’s background had revealed similar things: sexual harassment complaints leading to termination from a different college. If he hadn’t literally written the book on radical thinking, I would have dismissed his credentials. But despite all of this, I recognized that it was Gallagher’s aggressive teaching style that had shaken me out of my malaise. I felt the loss of him even though I’d barely known him.

  As my mind wandered, a student in the third row raised her hand. When called on, she asked her question, but from my seat in the back of the class, I couldn’t hear. The guy two seats next to me cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Louder.” A few other students mimicked the request.

  The professor gestured for the student to stand. It wasn’t until then I recognized Faye.

  “I asked under what circumstances should a business owner make a decision that’s unpopular with her team? If she feels strongly, is it worth alienating the people around her to follow her instincts, or should she try to convince them she’s right?”