…A Dangerous Thing

by Crider, Bill

  On the other hand, like Walt Melling, Henderson might have thought he had something to prove—to himself, to women, to the world in general. It was hard to judge people without knowing them better, and no one was ever going to get to know Tom Henderson any better, not now.

  Burns got his mind back on track. "And Walt threatened to do something to Tom? Like beat him up?"

  "Yes, but he didn't really mean it. He gets mad like that sometimes, but in a few days he gets over it. You know how that is."

  Burns didn't really know, but he nodded anyway. "And did he get over it this time?"

  "I guess," Dawn said, but Burns could tell that she wasn't sure. "He told me that he was going to confront Tom, but he never said whether he did or not. So I guess he didn't."

  Or maybe he didn't want to talk about knocking Henderson through his office window during the confrontation, Burns thought. He said, "Where was Walt last night?"

  Dawn didn't even have to think about it. "Oh, he was at home with me. We watched TV. Coach and Roseanne. Those are our favorite shows."

  Burns wasn't a TV watcher. "What time did he get home."

  There was a clock on the office wall. Dawn looked at it as if it might tell her something. "About six-thirty. He had to stay late and work on some expense sheets."

  Six-thirty. Henderson had landed on the walk at about six-fifteen. And Melling lived only a short distance from the campus, which meant that he could have clobbered Henderson, left Main, and gotten home by six-thirty with no trouble at all.

  "Was he upset when he got home?" Burns asked.

  Dawn looked surprised at the question. "Well, of course he was. Wouldn't you be if someone got killed right outside where you were working?"

  "I'm sure I would. But was Walt questioned by the police?"

  "No. He said there was nothing he could tell them. And he was too upset by what had happened to stay here at school. So he just came home."

  Burns considered that. It was possible. It was even more than likely, if Melling had thought he might somehow be implicated because of his earlier statements about Henderson. He wouldn't have wanted to stay around Main and talk to the police even if he were innocent.

  "Did he want to talk about it?" Burns asked. "Tom's death, I mean."

  "Yes. He knows I'm very good at helping with things like that. I have a way with soothing the savage breasts."

  Burns started to say something, but he thought better of it. Dawn was simply guilty of a slight misquotation, and not an uncommon one, though people usually mentioned beasts instead of breasts.

  He said, "I'm sure you do. And did Walt seem all right after you talked things over?"

  "He certainly did. He slept like a bug."

  Burns caught himself before he asked exactly what that meant. "And he came to work today?"

  "Yes. He has a recruiting trip tomorrow, and he had to get things set up."

  "I should probably talk to him," Burns said. "It might get his mind off his troubles."

  "Oh, would you?" Dawn took Burns's hand again and gave him a confidential look. "It might be good for him to talk to another man. Sometimes there are things you might not want to discuss with your wife."

  Burns got his hand back. "I'll talk to him. I know that your talking to me has helped me deal with things."

  "I'm glad," Dawn said. "To tell the truth, you're the first person who's come in for grief counseling all day."

  "If I see Dean Partridge, I'll tell her how much it meant to me."

  "Thank you. And please do go by and see Walt."

  "Don't worry," Burns told her. "I will."

  Walt Melling's office was quite close to Dawn's, practically on the other side of the wall, in fact, but to get there Burns had to leave the counseling area and go back out into the main hallway. Then he had to go through another glass door to the recruiting office.

  The sad truth was that Hartley Gorman College, unlike the big state-supported universities, the schools of the Ivy League and certain other prestigious colleges, and well-known party schools, didn't get its pick of the nation's high-school graduates. In fact, HGC had to scratch for nearly every entering freshman it got.

  Not that things were as bad as they had been under the previous administration. Franklin Miller was a master of public relations as well as a shrewd money-raiser, and he had improved both the school's image and its financial situation. However, that didn't mean it was easy to persuade students to attend a small liberal arts college with no national reputation, a losing football team, and a location that might best be described as out-of-the-way.

  All of which meant that it was necessary to have a staff of full-time recruiters, men and women who travelled around the state to attend "College Night" at high schools from the Red River to the Rio Grande, setting up at a card table and passing out college catalogs and pamphlets praising the virtues of the small, liberal arts college.

  And since HGC was a denominational school, it helped if the recruiters had certain talents beyond the ability to glad-hand high school seniors and their parents. Being able to sing a solo at the local church's Sunday service was a real plus. A talent for preaching didn't hurt, either.

  Or, like Walt Melling, you could be a former football hero with a full head of wavy black hair, soulful brown eyes, and only the tiniest beginning of a paunch that signaled that the stomach muscles were finally loosening up a tad.

  Coach Thomas, Melling's best friend, was in the recruiting office when Burns entered. Thomas and Walt Melling were swapping football stories. Thomas had once tried out for offensive center with the Houston Oilers, and while he hadn't survived training camp, he was as close to a pro as anyone in Pecan City knew. Melling had been neither drafted nor signed as a free agent. He was good enough for small college ball, but he was too slow for the big boys.

  The walls of the office were decorated with black and white photos of Walt in his college football glory. There was an obviously posed shot of Walt leaping gazelle-like through the air, offering a perfect stiffarm to a nonexistent tackler. Another showed him receiving a flawless pass from an invisible quarterback. Yet another was a head-on shot of Walt, charging down the field, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, teeth clenched.

  Burns thought all three were excellent photos, but he thought they would have been considerably more realistic if only Walt had been wearing a helmet in them.

  "Hey, Burns," Thomas said. "Conjugated any tough verbs lately?"

  Thomas was always saying something like that, but Burns didn't hold it against him. He didn't really mean anything by it. Actually, he was quite fond of Burns, who had gotten him out of a jam after the murder of Dean Elmore the previous year.

  "How does the recruiting for next year's team look, Coach?" Burns asked.

  "Going great. I was just telling Walt that if we can sign that kid from Pecos, Ralph Rippon, we'll be in the tall cotton. None of the big schools want him because he's only five foot four, but he's faster than a mule deer. He'll be an all-conference receiver his freshman year, you hide and watch."

  "Do you believe that, Walt?" Burns asked.

  "Huh? What?" Melling obviously hadn't been paying the least attention. His mind was on something else, maybe on his recruiting trip, but somehow Burns didn't think that was the case.

  "That Ralph Rippon will be all-conference his freshman year."

  "Oh, yeah, quite a kid. An honor student, too. You'll get him, Coach. Don't sweat it."

  Thomas left the office with a smile, obviously lost in dreams of a winning team. Burns thought it would be nice if the Panthers could just break even one year.

  "It's not like it was when you were playing," he told Melling.

  Melling nodded. "Nope. But that was before everybody wanted to go to school where there were shopping malls and movie theaters on every corner."

  "Is that what they're looking for?"

  "I guess so. I don't really know to tell you the truth. But the old idea of a little school where everybody's somebody doesn't sell
like it used to."

  Looking for a way to change the subject, Burns glanced out the office window. He could see the sidewalk where Henderson had landed.

  "Nice view," he said.

  Melling was looking too. "Sometimes."

  "Not last evening, though."

  "No."

  This wasn't getting them anywhere. Burns decided to take a more direct approach. "I heard that you and Tom had a little disagreement not long ago."

  Melling hadn't asked Burns to sit down. They both stood there looking out the window. There were two students coming up the walk, a man and a woman. They both stopped and looked down at the approximate spot where Henderson had hit the concrete. Rose or someone had hosed down the walk to clean off the bloodstains, but Burns suspected that there still might be signs of Henderson's sudden demise. After a second or two the man pointed to the second floor window. The two students looked up for a while, then shook their heads and walked on into the building.

  "I wasn't the only one who had a disagreement with Tom," Melling said. "Lots of people didn't like him."

  "Who?" Burns asked.

  "You should know. One of your faculty members told him that he'd better stop asking questions about him."

  Burns didn't have to ask who Melling meant. "Did you see Tom fall?"

  "No. I was working at my desk. I didn't know a thing about it until I heard all the commotion."

  "And then you just went home."

  Melling turned his head slightly and looked at Burns. "That's right. I saw that you were there, and I didn't think there was anything I could do to help."

  Burns knew that he could have been seen from either the window they were standing in front of or the one in Henderson's office, but he didn't think Melling was going to say which one he'd seen Burns from.

  "About your disagreement with Tom," Burns said.

  "That's all it was. Just a disagreement. I didn't kill him, if that's what you're getting at. I know you're in tight with the police."

  That had been what Burns was getting at, more or less, but he didn't want to admit that to Melling. He didn't want to admit to being "in tight with the police," either.

  "I didn't mean to be prying," he said. "I was just curious about your reaction to Tom's death, considering what he said to your wife."

  Melling turned his entire body toward Burns. His face didn't look nearly so handsome now. "You know what he said?"

  "Well, not really. Just sort of generally. I mean, I didn't hear him say it. So how could I know what he said?"

  Melling's face didn't change. The hands that had carried a football for more than a thousand yards two seasons in a row were balled into fists. "Nobody says things like that about my wife. Not if I find out about it."

  "I don't blame you for being angry," Burns told him. "Not that I know what Tom said, mind you, but I'm sure it wasn't pleasant."

  "People shouldn't say things like that. Especially not if they teach at a religious school."

  "You're right," Burns said. "You're absolutely right. Well, I know you have to get ready for that big recruiting trip, and I have a class. I'll see you around, Walt."

  Walt didn't say anything to that, and Burns left before he thought of something. Walt, Burns thought, really didn't look much like his old photos any more, except for the one where he was charging down the field.

  He wondered if a man like that wouldn't be capable of throwing Tom Henderson from a window and decided that he probably would.

  Chapter Nine

  Safely in his office, Burns opened the center drawer of his desk and pulled out a piece of paper and an old Parker T-Ball Jotter that he liked. He started making a little list, trying to get his thoughts organized. The list was headed by Tom Henderson's name, and beneath the name Burns wrote what he knew.

  1. Eric Holt wasn't around the building the night Tom Henderson died. Or if he was, no one seems to have seen him.

  2. Melling says that Holt threatened Tom because Tom was asking questions about Holt. (Melling didn't use Holt's name, but that's who he meant.)

  Burns stopped writing and looked out his office window. There was a lizard sunning itself on the cracked stone window sill outside. Burns wasn't particularly interested in the lizard. He was interested in what questions Henderson had been asking about Holt. And whom he had been asking. Burns would see if he could find out. He looked down at his list and began writing again.

  3. Walt Melling was clearly infuriated with Tom for making remarks about Dawn. He's still upset about it.

  4. There had been a complaint against Henderson made by a female student.

  Burns stopped writing again and clicked the Jotter a couple of times. He was going to have to talk to Earl Fox about that student. Fox hadn't revealed the student's name, which was the proper and professional thing, of course, but the fact that Henderson had definitely been murdered changed the picture. As far as questioning the student went, rightly or wrongly, Burns considered himself a little more sensitive than Boss Napier. Better for Burns to talk to her than for Napier to find out about her first. Burns would talk to Fox later and get the name.

  5. Henderson thought he might know Holt, but couldn't remember where he might have met or seen him.

  That one went along with number 2, and Burns drew an arrow connecting the two entries.

  6. People suspect that there might be some tie between Dean Partridge and Holt. Why else would Holt have come to HGC?

  Burns stared down at the list. Was that all? It didn't seem like much to go on, but he would do what he could with it. There was something else that was bothering him, something that someone had said or done, but he couldn't pull it out of his memory. Maybe it would come to him later.

  He put the list in his desk drawer along with the pen and started grading some papers from his developmental students. He used a green pen for that.

  Some of the students had actually improved over the course of the semester. Burns wasn't sure whether the improvement was due to his teaching skills or whether the students had finally managed to absorb something through some mysterious process of osmosis. After all, it seemed nearly impossible that they could have sat in classrooms for nearly thirteen years now without learning anything about how a sentence was put together.

  After a few minutes of grading, he decided to discard the osmosis theory. If anything good had happened, he was going to take credit for it himself.

  By early that afternoon, Burns was feeling good. He had put Henderson's murder out of his mind and had graded all his papers; some of the students had even made A's. Burns leaned back in his desk chair and told himself that he was a pretty fair teacher even if he did say so himself, which he had to do, since no one else at HGC was going to say it for him. So far, Dean Partridge hadn't been one to lavish praise on the faculty.

  And while he hadn't solved Henderson's murder, he was making progress, wasn't he? He had made a list, and he was convinced that getting his thoughts down was an orderly first step, necessary in the investigative process.

  He looked out the window. The sun had moved, and so had the lizard, probably having slithered away down a convenient crack in the wall. Burns thought it was just about time to go home.

  But then George (the Ghost) Kaspar came moping through Burns's office door.

  "What's the trouble, George?" Burns asked, struck by the young man's gloom. George had never been the despondent type before, not even in the depths of a losing football season.

  "It's Bunni," George said. "And it's all your fault, Dr. Burns."

  That didn't sound promising. Burns wondered where the lizard had gone and whether it needed any company in its crack in the wall. Probably not.

  "Sit down, George," he said trying to sound cheerful for George's benefit. "Tell me what I've done."

  George sat heavily. "You made us read that poem last year," he said.

  That cleared things up, all right.

  "What poem?" Burns asked. He had assigned quite a few poems in the class Georg
e had taken, dozens probably.

  George was looking at the floor, his hands clasped between his knees. He was the very picture of dejection. "The one about the woman."

  Burns wasn't catching on. There were lots of poems about women. "What woman, George? Remember what I said in class about being specific?"

  George did not admit remembering. "You know which woman. The one who walked in beauty. Like the night."

  "Oh," Burns said. "That poem."

  George looked up. "I really liked that poem, Dr. Burns. Maybe you couldn't tell in class, but I really did."

  "It's a very fine poem," Burns said. He didn't know what else to say.

  "It reminded me of Bunni."

  Burns just sat there. He couldn't tell where this was leading, and he couldn't think of a response.

  "Did you ever memorize a poem?" George asked.

  Burns had memorized many poems in his youth. Some of them because he was required to and others because he liked them. Not many people did that these days.

  "Yes," he said. "I've memorized a poem or two."

  "Well, I hadn't. Never, not even in grade school. But I memorized that one."

  "I'm glad to hear it. You should be proud of yourself, not depressed."

  "I'm not depressed because I memorized the poem. I'm depressed because it got me in trouble with Bunni."

  "How?" Burns asked. He really didn't see how memorizing a poem could get anyone into trouble.

  "She says I'm oppressing her."

  Uh-oh, Burns thought. "Didn't we decide earlier in the semester that you weren't oppressing her? You were oppressing other people, but not her."

  "Yeah, but that was then. Now she's feeling oppressed. And all because of that poem."

  "I don't think I see the connection," Burns said.

  "Well, the reason I memorized that poem was because it reminded me of Bunni, so I said it for her. 'She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies.' Bunni's like that, Dr. Burns."

  Bunni was a little too young for Burns's tastes, but he could see how a young man like George might be affected that way, though he was a little surprised at George's sensitivity. He hadn't thought the boy had it in him.