Bond With Death (11 page)

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Authors: Bill Crider

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: Bond With Death
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When she got back to her office, she realized that she'd forgotten to close and lock the door. She'd have to focus better and try to remember to do that.
She looked at her telephone. The little red light was blinking to indicate that she had a message, but she didn't feel like talking to anyone. She'd check it tomorrow.
She locked the office and went home.
 
The light on Sally's home answering machine was blinking, too. She had a feeling that she knew who'd called, but she checked the caller ID to be sure.
Her mother had called at 4:35, but there were several calls before that, all of them from Jack Neville. She wondered what Jack wanted.
Whatever it was, it must have seemed urgent to him. She wished now that she'd checked her messages at the college.
Jack would have to wait. Sally would have to call her mother first. But not until she checked on Lola, who was lying in wait on the bed. When Sally came into the room, Lola jumped to the floor and started to scratch the rug.
“Stop that,” Sally said.
Lola stopped and looked up at Sally for less than a second. Then she started to scratch the rug again.
“You're going rip a hole in it,” Sally said.
Lola gave her a look that implied complete disdain for the fate of the rug.
Sally decided that bribery was the way to go.
“How about a kitty treat?” she said.
Lola stopped scratching the rug and padded away to the kitchen. Sally trailed along behind her. She got a “hairball prevention” treat out and pitched it on the floor. Lola sucked it up and looked around for more.
“That's all there is,” Sally told her, and Lola stalked back to the bedroom, tail in the air.
Sally needed a treat, too. She poured a glass of white wine and, feeling fortified, called her mother.
 
 
ARE THERE WITCHES IN OUR COLLEGE CLASSROOMS?
The
Hughes Journal
has learned that one of the instructors at Hughes Community College is distantly related to a witch named Sarah Good, who was convicted of the crime of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 and executed. Before her death, Sarah Good cursed her judges and promised one of them that “God would give him blood to drink.” Two days
ago, Harold Curtin, a former employee of the college who was an active opponent of the bond issue now before the citizens of the Hughes Community College district, died under suspicious circumstances, choking on his own blood. It would, of course, be irresponsible to suggest that there is any connection between the long-dead Sarah Good, her distant relative, and the death of Mr. Curtin, and the
Journal
draws no such conclusion.
However, it has been brought to our attention that there is an actual, practicing witch on the campus of HCC, a witch who, although unrelated to Sarah Good, had until recently a copy of a book about the pagan religion of Wicca on a desk in plain view. This situation begs several questions:
1. Is this the kind of instructor that we want for our college-age youth? A person who dances under the full moon at sabbats to celebrate the changing of the seasons?
2. Could it be that the current bond election has brought some kind of curse on those who are opposed to allowing the college a bigger percentage of our tax dollars?
3. Did Harold Curtin die of natural causes, or was something far more sinister at work?
The good people of our community deserve answers.
 
 
S
ally's mother had psychic powers. Or so she claimed. She wasn't psychic in a general sense, which might have had some practical use. For example, Sally wouldn't have minded getting advance word about which Texas lotto numbers were going to be winners when the jackpot was somewhere up in the millions of dollars, but her mother didn't claim to be able to predict things like lotto numbers. Instead she claimed that she knew, or at least could sense, when someone in the family was in trouble. There was no use in telling her that such things were impossible. Sally had about as much chance of changing her mother's mind as she did of running a hundred yards with a refrigerator strapped to her back.
Her mother must have been waiting by the phone. She picked up on the first ring. Even her “hello” had an accusatory tone.
“You haven't called in a while,” she said.
Sally held the receiver away from her head and took a sip of wine. When she'd swallowed it, she said, “I've been busy at the college.”
“There's more to it than that. There's some kind of problem. I can sense it.”
Maybe there was something to her mother's claims of clairvoyance after all. But even if that was true, Sally wasn't ready to admit it.
“The bond issue isn't going so well. Dr. Fieldstone has asked me to help out with a few things.”
Sally thought it would be wise not to mention exactly what the “few things” were, and she certainly wasn't going to mention the e-mail about Sarah Good.
“Dr. Fieldstone is a shrewd man,” her mother said. “You're by far the most capable person he has working for him.”
Sally's mother had never met a single member of the HCC faculty, administration, or staff, but she wasn't the kind of person to let a little thing like that interfere with her right to express an opinion, which to her was not an opinion at all. It was an incontrovertible fact. So Sally didn't bother to contradict her.
“One of the bond's major opponents died the other night,” Sally said.
“I had a premonition that something bad had happened. I didn't read anything about it in the
Houston Chronicle,
though. Were there suspicious circumstances? There seem to be a lot of those when people die in Hughes since you moved there. Some people have an aura that attracts danger, you know. You could be one of them.”
“There's nothing suspicious going on,” Sally said, though that wasn't strictly the truth. “And I don't attract danger. You don't have to worry about me.”
“If you had any children, you wouldn't say that. A mother always worries, no matter how old her children get. It's just one of those things.”
Sally drank the last of the wine. “Well, in this case, there's nothing to worry about. My classes are going well, I'm in good health, and Lola is feeling perky.”
Lola had, in fact, returned to the kitchen. She was lying under the table, staring intently at a catnip mouse that she must have brought there earlier in the day. Sally reached down for the mouse's tail and gave it a tug. Lola lunged at the mouse, missed, and skidded a couple of feet on the kitchen tiles.
“You spoil that cat,” Sally's mother said, harping on a familiar string.
“I know, but she's my cat.”
Silence. Sally's mother was touchy. It was easy to hurt her feelings.
The silence might have gone on for a while, but Sally heard the doorbell.
Lola heard it, too. She didn't like visitors and didn't welcome the interruption as much as Sally did. Grabbing her mouse in her mouth, she loped away toward the bedroom.
“Someone's at the front door,” Sally told her mother as Lola disappeared from view.
“That's a weak excuse to stop talking to me.”
“It's not an excuse. Listen.”
Sally held up the phone. The doorbell rang again and again.
Sally's mother must have been able to hear it. She said, “You're doing that yourself.”
“I wouldn't know how. I have to go now. I'll call you later.”
“You don't have to do that.”
It wasn't a whine, but there was a minute trace of self-pity.
“I want to,” Sally said. “Good-bye.”
Sally hung up the phone and went to the door. She opened it to find Jack and Vera standing there. Both of them were holding newspapers.
“Have you seen the
Journal
today?” Jack asked, waving his copy in her face.
Sally shook her head. “I haven't had time to look at it. I just got home a little while ago.”
“You need to read it,” Vera said, whacking the door frame with her copy.
Sally stepped aside and told them to come on in.
“We can have some wine while I read.”
Jack looked at the empty glass in Sally's hand.
“Looks as if you have a head start.”
“I needed it.”
“You're going to need a whole bottle,” Vera said as they followed her to the kitchen.
 
“Doesn't anybody know what ‘begging the question' means any more?” Sally said when she looked up from the editorial.
They were sitting at Sally's kitchen table, each with a glass of wine and a newspaper.
“I'm glad you can joke about it,” Vera said. “It shows you don't lose your composure easily.”
“Either that or she's nuts,” Jack said. “This is awful stuff.”
“I agree,” Sally said. “When an editorial writer doesn't know how to use the language, we're headed down the road to hell in a handbasket.”
“Ha. Ha,” Jack said.
“Come on, Jack. Lighten up. You, too, Vera.” Sally tapped the paper with her finger. “This sounds bad, but at least whoever wrote it had the sense not to name any names.”
“It's just a matter of time before names are mentioned,” Vera said. “Somebody has my book.”
“I was wondering about that. How did anybody manage to get it? And how can anybody be sure it's yours?”
“It has my name in it.”
“Now you're the one who's making jokes.”
“I wish I were. But writing my name in my books is a habit with me, something I've done with every book I've owned since college. Whenever I get a book, I write my name inside the front cover.
“Well, that answers one of my questions,” Sally said. “What about the other one?”
“You mean how did the newspaper get my book? I can't answer that. I wish I could.”
“The editorial says it was on your desk.”
“It wasn't, though. That's just not true. I would never leave it lying out in plain sight.”
“But it was in her office at the college,” Jack said.
“On the bookshelf,” Vera said. “Not on the desk. This is terrible. Terrible.”
Her voice was shaky. Sally had never heard Vera so unsure of herself.
“Let's all calm down,” Sally said. “I don't see anything so terrible
about it. Think it over. There's nothing in the least wrong with a college teacher having any kind of book at all on her shelves. You teach sociology, don't you, Vera? Why should anyone question the fact that you have a book on Wicca or anything else on your shelves? I'll bet you have books on Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and a couple of other religions, too.”
Vera's look of distress turned slowly to a grin.
“You're right. I do have a lot of books about religion and religious movements. They're all part of my library. I don't know why I didn't think of that.”
“I do,” Jack said. “You were too worried. And you were right to worry. Let's face it. People have a tendency to react emotionally when they read an editorial like that. They don't sit down and think things over.
We
didn't even sit down and think it over.”
Vera started to frown again. “So what are we going to do now that we have?”
“We're going to take the offensive,” Sally said. “First of all, I'll call Christopher Matthys.”
Vera brightened. “The school's attorney? Are we going to sue?”
“No, but we're going to have him call the paper and tell them what I just said about the books. Maybe throw in something about academic freedom.”
“I think that's a great idea. Why don't you call the paper yourself?”
“It will sound better coming from a lawyer than from an English teacher. And I think I'll suggest that he say a few things about that ridiculous e-mail, too. Apparently even the newspaper got a copy. It's turned out to be a lot more than a joke.”
“It was never a joke,” Jack said. “It was meant to do some damage to your reputation and credibility. Did they find out yet who sent it?”
“I sent it,” Sally said.
Vera and Jack both looked shocked.
“Just another little joke,” Sally said, and then she told them what Frankie had found out.
“I always leave my door wide open, too,” Jack said when she'd finished. “I always have. I never even gave it a second thought.”
“I'm the same way,” Vera said. “I've never lost a thing.”
“Except that book,” Sally reminded her. “Somebody took it from your shelves.”
“I can't believe anyone would do that.”
“Someone did, though,” Jack said. “Things aren't as safe as they seem. From what Sally's told us, the computer center guys can even come into our offices, take our computers, and do with them as they will. Or search through them right there in the office if they want to do that.”
“That's outrageous,” Vera said. “We should take it up with the faculty senate.”
“They aren't really
our
computers,” Sally said. “They belong to the college. We're just using them.”
“That still doesn't give anybody the right to take them and look at our files.”
“Try telling that to Frankie Gomez or to Fieldstone.”
Vera thought about that. “Maybe they have a point. Even if they don't, I'm getting us off the subject. We can worry about the computer issue later. When are you going to call Matthys?”
“Right now,” Sally said.
“Calling him sounds like a good idea,” Jack said. “But there's a problem with it. The
Journal
is a weekly paper. The next issue won't hit the driveways until next Tuesday. A lot can happen before then, even if they're willing to print some kind of retraction.”
Sally knew he was right, but she didn't see what they could do about the delay, other than hope the editorial didn't stir up any trouble. She was afraid that was a vain hope.
“I'll call him anyway,” Sally said. “It can't hurt, and I can't think of anything else.”
“Might as well give it a try, then,” Jack said, and Sally made the call.
 
Matthys, as it turned out, was already on the case.
“Dr. Fieldstone got in touch with me earlier,” he told Sally. “As soon as he saw the editorial, in fact. He was irate. I thought he might have a heart attack while we were talking about it.”
“The article's not libelous, is it?” Sally asked, hoping that he'd say
yes.
“No, but it's irresponsible. It's full of innuendo and insinuations. I think we can make the paper's owner and his editorial writer pretty uncomfortable.”
Sally didn't think
uncomfortable
was going far enough. She wanted the people responsible for the editorial to suffer some serious repercussions. She asked Matthys if he could at least get some kind of retraction and apology.
“I'll do my best. You can be sure of that. And here's another thing. The paper is in possession of stolen property. We can make an issue of that, too. Granted, it's not very valuable property, but it was stolen from an office, wasn't it?”
“Yes. Not from a desk, which is what the editorial said, but from some bookshelves.”
“It doesn't matter where it came from, as long as it was stolen. Maybe we can scare them a little at the paper with that charge.”
Scaring wasn't enough, either. Sally said, “Hang 'em high.”
“Isn't that what they did to witches?”
“I take it back,” Sally said.
“Good, because I don't think capital punishment will apply. Or even corporal punishment. All we can do is worry them and maybe get them to say they're sorry. But by the time we do, it might be too late.”

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