Teacher's Threat

by Diane Vallere

  My timing wasn’t great. I’d spent longer than anticipated in the empty classroom, and now the halls filled with students. I sat on a bench in the hallway and observed the energy of youth as students mingled, laughed, flirted, and complained.

  Octavio, my classmate from Radical Business Strategy, dropped onto the bench next to me. “Our class was moved to night,” he said. “You remember that, right?”

  “Of course, I remember that,” I said, and then I added, “I wanted some quiet time to study, and I figured the classroom would be empty.”

  “So you’re not dropping the class? I heard a rumor you were.”

  “From whom?” I asked instinctively. For all the gossip I’d expected, I hadn’t expected any of it to be about me.

  “Eric. He said he overheard you talking about it at a club over the weekend.”

  I’d started the gossip myself. “I’m considering it,” I admitted.

  “Don’t,” he said. “I took this class to learn something different, and the best part of class was when we talked about your business. That first day when you walked in, I thought you were in the wrong place. You don’t exactly look like a businessperson.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I don’t look like a businessperson either,” he said. “My uncle owns a landscaping company, and my whole family expected me to go work for him. I have tendonitis from playing baseball all my life, but I don’t want to let them down. Thanks to you, I saw I could write my dad a business plan for expansion.” He held up his notebook. “I have twenty ideas of how to get the word out and bring in new clients.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “Yeah, but Dean Wallace is all about moderate growth and safety measures. He keeps trying to sound like he’s teaching us Gallagher’s syllabus, but he doesn’t get the material.”

  I thought back to the manuscript pages Tex and I found at Dean Wallace’s house. If it were originally his content, then the material should have been second nature to the dean. It seemed taking over the class had given him the perfect platform to illustrate he was the leader in the field, not the prof who had inspired the students with his concepts of radical thinking. But if Dean Wallace were the fraud and Professor Gallagher knew what he was doing—

  “Would you recognize Dean Wallace’s handwriting if you saw it?”

  “If it’s a C- or a D+, I would.”

  I pulled the syllabus I’d found in the classroom out of my bag and handed it to Octavio. He glanced at it. “That’s it. See what I mean?” he said, indicating the notes on the page. “He crossed out the best parts of class.” He handed me the paper, and I put it away. “Don’t drop the class,” he said.

  “I haven’t decided what I’m going to do,” I said, “but either way, you’re welcome to visit me at my showroom any time.” I pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “I like the principles of radical business strategy more than I anticipated.”

  Octavio pocketed the card. He looked up at hallway. “I gotta run or I’m going to miss my next class. See you at the hat store tonight?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I watched him tuck his books under his left arm and weave through the thinning crowd of students, feeling mildly guilty about lying. I’d probably never see him again.

  I refolded the syllabus and placed it between the pages of my copy of Rad Rage. Like the welcome I’d received after my first day of class, Octavio’s unexpected compliment felt good. I pulled the syllabus back out and flipped through the book pages to find the chapter we were expected to discuss next.

  “Eliza,” said a boisterous voice. “You’re looking lovely today.”

  I used the syllabus as a bookmark and looked up. Today Ansel wore an unseasonable tweed suit with suede elbow patches, a dress shirt, and an ascot. “Hello, Henry,” I said. “How’s the rain in Spain?”

  “I believe that’s my question.” He bowed slightly. “But I do appreciate how you let me stay in character.” He dropped onto the bench next to me. “I’ve been trying to impress upon my students the need for an actor to connect with the material. Look at the world through the character’s eyes. Understand their motivations. It’s an easier lesson to experience than to teach.”

  “Costumes help,” I said, nodding at his attire.

  “That is the lesson I attempted to instill in them today, but as with many things in life, seeing and doing aren’t the same.”

  I stared at the suit he wore. It was mid-fifties, well-made. “Have you heard about the pop-up vintage menswear sale this weekend?” I asked. I gestured to his suit. “Clothes from the forties through the seventies. My business class is taking a field trip there tonight. Your class might enjoy it, too, for entirely different reasons.”

  His eyes sparkled. “A pop-up vintage menswear sale? My theater group would be interested. Who’s promoting it?”

  “Rexford Allen,” I said tentatively. I was treading in dangerous waters. “If I see him, I can have him come by your office.”

  “No need. I’ll get his contact information from Barbara. Thank you for the tip, Eliza.” He shared a genuine smile and said goodbye.

  I didn’t regret the effort put into Rexford Allen’s Stetsons and More because it didn’t matter if Tex planned to maintain his cover. I owned the inventory (minus the hats); his claim to the business was in name only. One big blowout sale, if promoted correctly, could give me a jumpstart on my first loan payment. What I needed were flyers or a way to promote the thing. Right now, word of mouth was the best thing I had going.

  Unsure where things stood with my course load, I slipped into the back row of Decision-Making for the Business Leader and set my backpack on the floor behind the seat in front of me. The professor was talking about making decisions. Eric stood off to the side, leaning against the wall. The professor continued, and Eric watched the lecture hall as if gauging interest in the subject matter.

  Instead of taking notes, I sat back and listened. It was as if the professor were describing me. Before I recognized what I was doing, I raised my hand. The professor took a moment to notice. He pointed at me. “You in the back row. Question?”

  “Is it possible to make a wrong decision?” I called out.

  He repeated my question for the benefit of the class. “Is it?” he asked, this time looking to the class for feedback. A couple of heads nodded, and one guy in the front said something about the circumstances.

  The professor leaned back against the wall. “Simple answer: no. It is not possible to make a wrong decision.”

  Rumblings of dissent rippled through the two-hundred-student audience, and a few hands went up. The professor looked at me. “Do you know why?”

  “Because every decision is a step forward,” I guessed. “It is taking the business to a new place. And every time you take your business to a new place, opportunities arise.”

  He pointed at me but looked at the class. “Yes. Did you hear that?” he asked them. “Every decision takes a business to a new place. Is your job as a business owner to manage your business? No. That’s what a manager is for. A leader’s job, a business owner’s job, is to keep the business moving. And the way to do that is to decide. Every crossroads: decide. Every day: decide. Every minute: decide. Choose to change things. Experiment. Innovate. Shift. Take risks. Leading is not comfortable. Leading is not making friends. Leading is not making your employees happy, or content, or secure. Leading is inspiring people every day with new ideas, and new ideas come from one place: decisions.”

  The student next to me leaned over. “Nobody ever asks questions in a lecture hall,” she said. “Thanks.”

  The professor asked the class to turn to page one forty-three in our textbooks. I hadn’t brought mine, so I relaxed while the rest of the class shifted around and pulled them out.

  The doors to the back of the lecture hall opened, and two campus police officers entered. They descended the stairs in the aisle between the center and right side of the room, and the closer they g
ot to the front, the louder the ripple of whispers from the audience. As they reached the front, they said something to the professor. He turned to Eric.

  Eric dropped the stack of papers he held and took off. He ran up the left-hand side of the lecture hall, taking the steps two at a time. The campus police didn’t chase him. He charged through the doors at the back of the auditorium.

  I was in the back row on the other side, and without thinking, I jumped up and left. Whatever assistance I’d hoped to contribute was unnecessary. Additional CPs were in the hall outside of the lecture hall, and Eric was in their custody. The same campus police officer who’d answered the call when Gallagher died in his car instructed him to face the wall with his hands up. He put handcuffs on Eric’s left wrist, pulled his arm down behind his back, then pulled his right arm down and cuffed it too.

  Eric turned his head. “What are you looking at?” he asked me.

  “I can’t believe it was you,” I said.

  “You don’t know anything,” he said. He shrugged away from the CPs, and they escorted him out of the building.

  I watched as the group of men in uniform walked away. It felt anticlimactic. Where were the police sirens? Where were the homicide cops? Where was the reading of the Miranda rights, the proclamation of charges against Eric, or his inevitable claim of innocence?

  Two CPs remained behind. One pointed at the class. “Were you in there?” he asked. I nodded. “How many students?”

  “About two hundred.”

  This time he nodded and then looked at the clock on the wall. “Give it an hour and see how fast word spreads. Of course he couldn’t be in a twenty-student class this morning.”

  “You could have waited.”

  “Couldn’t take a chance. The evidence came in this morning, and we knew we had him.”

  The doors to the lecture hall opened, and students flooded the hallway. I stepped out of the way with the CP and watched as curious onlookers searched for signs of gossip they could report to friends and roommates later. Thanks to the swift action of the campus police, Eric was already out of the building.

  “He seemed so driven,” I said.

  “That was the problem. He and his friend got greedy. They’ve been running a credit card scam from local restaurants, charging against open balances then pocketing the difference the companies write off.” He shook his head. “Apparently one of the professors here threatened to turn him in, and he vandalized the professor’s car as a message. I guess none of that matters now.”

  “I guess not,” I said slowly.

  35

  The college kept the news of Eric’s arrest quiet. It was an unusual end to an unusual case that I’d been closer to than I thought. My credit card had been linked to the scam being run from Kanin’s, but I’d been savvy enough to demand the card’s return. I’d overheard a portion of an incriminating conversation outside the venue yesterday, and I now wondered if I’d be expected to make a statement or testify.

  If the student gossip could be trusted, then Eric’s friend, the bartender, had been the one to suggest sending the professor a message by vandalizing his car. A five-hundred-thousand-dollar profit from one night was enough motive for the two students in question to send the professor a warning. I must be getting jaded, because my first thought was that I’d seen people kill for less.

  I remembered how Eric hung out at the admissions desk and how he used the door at the back to leave. I told the police about hearing a door slam before I spoke to Gallagher that first time and how Eric could have easily gained access to spike the professor’s coffee. It was conjecture on my part that fit the narrative. It was up to the Sues to either gain a confession or find evidence to support the theory.

  Being anywhere other than where I was expected to be felt suspicious. I double-checked that my phone was on silent, and I made the rounds through Ethics, Accounting, and Statistics.

  As much as I wanted to meet up with the Radical Business Strategy class at Tex’s fake store, I doubted I should. Hugo thought I was dropping the course, and Eric’s absence would trigger gossip amongst the students. I hadn’t heard from Tex, so I didn’t know whether he’d canceled the field trip or was juggling the added pressure of showing off his store to maintain his cover. It was a perfect storm of comedy and tragedy, and I wanted no part of it.

  It was quarter to seven by the time I left the Canfield Building. The sun was on its descent, and a warm glow of dwindling rays coated the quad. A sparse crowd wandered across the lawn, most of them heading toward the cafeteria. Sweatshirts and denim jackets had been pulled over T-shirts. Dallas’s version of autumn was right around the corner.

  I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and headed toward the parking structure for what might be the last time. Tomorrow, I would pick up my check at the bank, and from there, I’d set my business plan in motion. I’d learned more from a few short lessons at Van Doren College than I could have wallowing in my circumstances, but I wasn’t equipped to sit around in a lecture hall when I could work on reopening Mad for Mod instead. I was halfway to the parking structure, lost in thoughts of Nelson bubble lamps and Noguchi coffee tables when I heard my name—or rather, the name I’d come to know was meant for me.

  “Eliza.” Ansel Benedict jogged toward me. “I’m glad I caught up with you,” he said. “Are you walking to your car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s walk and talk.” He dropped into step next to me. “I spoke to your classmate. Rexford? He said you were the one running the menswear sale this weekend.”

  “He did?” Tex had said nothing about making that public knowledge, though if his case was solved, there might be no further reason for his cover. He was going to owe me double if the entire execution of the store now fell on my shoulders. “We discussed it briefly, but nothing was decided,” I added, attempting to be vague.

  Ansel waved his hand as if the details didn’t matter. “I don’t care who’s running the event. I’d like to arrange a private sale ahead of time. Perhaps tonight?”

  “Tonight won’t work,” I said. “My Radical Business class is there on a field trip.”

  His forehead creased, and his thick black eyebrows almost touched. “But you’re here. Why would you be here if they’re on a field trip?”

  Now that I’d made the decision to myself, it was easy to say out loud. “I’m dropping the course. The whole program.” We walked side by side for a few wordless steps. “Van Doren is a good college, but it isn’t for me.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said. “I’ll miss seeing you around the campus, but we must all follow our chosen paths.”

  We entered the parking structure. It was darker than usual. The truck on loan from Mickey was parked next to a small black Mercedes. A row of lights nearby cast the two vehicles in shadow. I was happy to have accepted an escort from Ansel even if he was more mild-mannered than most. The parking structure creeped me out.

  As we approached the cars, Ansel pulled out his pipe. A piece of red and white striped fabric fell to the ground and landed next to my sneaker. He bent down and scooped it up and then shoved it back into his jacket pocket, but not before a sense of familiarity washed over me.

  I’d seen that fabric somewhere before. I’d seen more fabric in the past two days thank I had in months thanks to the cartons of clothes from the store next to Thelma Johnson’s house and the menswear I used at Tex’s store. Yet there was something familiar about it—

  “Well, I suppose this is our goodbye,” Ansel said. He held out his hand. “Eliza?” He reached out and tapped my arm with the hand not holding his pipe. “Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

  I directed my attention to his face. “How did you know this was my truck?” I asked.

  “There are two cars in the parking structure, and the other one is mine,” he said. He held both arms out, indicating the lack of other vehicles around us, which did make these two stand out in contrast. “And you did lead the way.”

  “I
suppose I did,” I said. I reached into my backpack and pulled out my keys, then shifted them to my left hand and held out my right. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Ansel—I mean Henry.”

  He took a deep breath, and his chest puffed out. He put his pipe between his lips and extended his hand, and I shook. The moment of contact, a flash of memory pierced my mind. The fabric. The rag. It was the same as the rag that had been shoved inside Gallagher’s tailpipe the ay he died. Ansel had had a length of it on his desk the day I wandered in looking for Gallagher. The day he showed me the prop starter’s pistol and started calling me Eliza. I’d been distracted by his theatrical manner and had written it off as him cleaning his pipe.

  Realization must have crossed my face the moment my suspicions became clear, because Ansel tightened his grip around my hand. I matched the pressure to keep my fingers from becoming crushed. I forced a smile to my face. “You know, maybe I should meet up with my class on their field trip after all,” I said. “One last hurrah, as they say.”

  He kept his hand tight around mine. I tried to pull my hand away.

  “Ms. Night, there’s no need to panic,” he said. He smiled malevolently. “You’re really not my type.”

  It was an odd thing to say. Ansel spoke in theater quotes and character, though the scene felt less My Fair Lady and more Silence of the Lambs. His type? What Broadway play was that from?

  A new thought entered my mind. The animosity Ansel had shown toward Professor Gallagher and how he’d gone so far as to have his classroom soundproofed so the neighboring prof couldn’t overhear him. He hadn’t said anything about the neighboring class. It had been about Gallagher. Why would he care if the professor next door could hear him? He’d care if he used his classroom for something other than classes.

  “You like college girls,” I said suddenly. “That’s your type, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “The heart wants what it wants,” he said. “The last one shouldn’t have played hard to get.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “And he shouldn’t have gotten involved.”