Murder is an Art by Bill Crider Page A

pets.
    â€œYou have to put your cat on a diet,” the vet told Sally. “It’s for her own good.”
    Sally had tried her best, but Lola could be very demanding where food was concerned. In six weeks, she had lost perhaps a pound, which was good news. But her disposition had not improved.
    Sally went into her bedroom and opened the top middle drawer of her dresser. Where other women might have kept nightgowns or slinky underwear, she kept a burgundy carrying case that held a Smith & Wesson Model 36, the Ladysmith. It had a three-inch barrel and rosewood grips.
    Lola, having devoured her treat and for once deciding to be sociable, followed Sally into the room. She stood on her hind legs and put her front legs on the drawer, stretching her neck as she tried to see inside.
    â€œGet down,” Sally said. “This is none of your business.”
    She slid the drawer closed, and Lola lowered her front legs to the floor, gave Sally a disgusted look, and left the room, probably to shred the furniture or claw a hole in the already worn carpeting.
    Sally put the gun case on top of the dresser and opened it. The pistol was there, looking rigidly lethal and smelling of gun oil. Sally closed the case and went into the kitchen, where she opened a can of tuna. It was dolphin-free, according to the label, though she supposed you could never be sure.
    The sound of the can opener brought Lola running, and the smell of the tuna excited her so much that she actually rubbed against Sally’s ankles and purred.
    â€œAll right,” Sally said, “but just a little.”
    She gave Lola some of the tuna in a blue plastic bowl, and ate some herself, on lettuce.
    She rinsed off her plate and put it in the dishwasher; then she went and got the pistol.
    â€œSee you later, Lo,” she said as she left.
    Lola, who was stretched out on a throw rug by the table, didn’t bother to answer.

9
    Sally parked in one of the faculty spaces by the Law Enforcement Building and went through a heavy steel door in the side of the building away from the classrooms. The door led into the firing range.
    Several years earlier, Sally had taken a handgun safety course, more or less on a whim, and had discovered that not only was she a naturally good shot but she also liked guns.
    She had never owned a gun, and she had not come from a family of gun owners. In fact, before taking the course, she had never fired a pistol or a rifle in her life. She still hadn’t fired a rifle, but she had become skilled with a pistol.
    At first, she had simply rented one of the pistols available at the range, but after a while she had decided that she wanted to own her own gun. The Ladysmith, which was supposedly small and light and built for a woman, actually weighed only about half an ounce less than the Chief’s Special, but the grips seemed to fit her hand better and she liked the rosewood. So she bought the Ladysmith.
    With the three-inch barrel, it was a little more accurate at a distance than the same gun with the two-inch barrel was, but it still wasn’t exactly a target pistol. That didn’t bother Sally, who wasn’t interested in competition shooting. Not yet, at any rate. She was perfectly happy to be blasting away at the sinister outline on the paper targets controlled by the rangemaster. It was a wonderful way to relieve the frustrations of a hard day, even better than her aerobics class.
    The only other person on the range when Sally arrived was the rangemaster for the day, Sergeant Tom Clancey. That was one reason she liked going in right after lunch. There was usually no one there at that time.
    Clancey was one of the young officers employed by Campus Security. He greeted Sally with a wave and a smile.
    Sally got her shooting glasses and ear protection from a small locker, put on the glasses, and fitted the earmufflike plastic coverings over her head. Then she got her pistol out of its case and took up her position on the