Murder is an Art by Bill Crider

disarray that covered it. Well, in a situation like this, there was only one thing to do.
    She’d go home and get her pistol.
    *   *   *
    Hughes Community College was located at the intersection of Texas Highways 6 and 288, just a few miles from downtown Houston. The town of Hughes stretched up and down both highways in all four directions from the intersection, and most of the faculty lived near the campus. When Sally reached her red Acura Integra in the parking lot, she was only five minutes from her front door. Four if she was in a hurry.
    One reason for the college’s financial difficulties was that Houston had not grown in the direction everyone had anticipated. Highway 288 had seemed like a natural corridor for growth, especially after it had been widened in the late 1980s. But Houston had expanded in every direction except toward Hughes. Some in the town regarded this as a blessing, but not those involved with the college, which desperately needed to expand its tax base to keep up with its ever-increasing costs.
    And, of course, one reason why Fieldstone wanted to avoid a lawsuit was that a juicy scandal, especially one involving improper conduct with a student, would cause many of Hughes’s conservative parents to see to it that their sons and daughters went to some other school, causing an immediate drop in enrollment at Hughes.
    To Sally’s way of thinking, there were all too many other schools in the area, making it too easy for students to get an education elsewhere. Community-college extension campuses were springing up everywhere in the schools’ attempts to increase their enrollment and, by doing so, to get more state funding. Just a short drive from Hughes would take students to college classes in Alvin, Brazosport, Sugar Land, Houston, Galveston, or Texas City.
    So Sally understood Fieldstone’s desire to get Val’s case settled. Even something like the painting of the goat, as ridiculous as the idea of its Satanic implications seemed to Sally, could cause trouble.
    She turned the Integra into her driveway and punched the garage-door opener. The door slid up with an annoying metallic squeal, which Sally was sure meant that the foundation of her house was shifting, a common problem in the area and one that sometimes resulted in the need for expensive repairs.
    She hoped that she could avoid both the repairs and the expense because she had other expenses to worry about. The house needed a new roof, and a fresh coat of paint wouldn’t hurt it, either. And new carpet would be nice.
    She got out of the car and went inside the house, where she was greeted by Lola, the meanest cat west of the Mississippi—and possibly east of the Mississippi as well. Lola was a large calico, three years old, and possessed of all the charm of Attila the Hun.
    Most cats liked to be rubbed and petted. Not Lola. She seemed to resent any attempt to touch her and would snarl and snap at anyone who tried, except Sally, and even Sally could get close only on rare occasions.
    This wasn’t one of them. As soon as Lola saw Sally come through the door, she hissed and ran through the breakfast area into the den, where she scooted under a lamp table and hid.
    Sally opened a cabinet and took out a box of kitty treats. When Sally shook the box, Lola slipped out from beneath the table and zoomed back to Sally at something only slightly slower than the speed of light. While she didn’t relate well to people, Lola had never met a kitty treat she didn’t like.
    Sally tossed a treat into the air. Lola caught it on the fly, and then settled to the floor to crunch on it.
    â€œI hope you enjoy it,” Sally said. “It’s your limit for the day.”
    Another thing about Lola was that she was, in Sally’s words, “slightly overweight.” The vet had put it differently at Lola’s last checkup and had given Sally a pamphlet about the dangers facing overweight