Murder is an Art by Bill Crider Page B

firing line. Clancey put the target through its paces, running it from the back of the range toward her, flipping it from side to front, running it backward, and stopping it at five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-five yards.
    Sally blasted away, five shots at a time. Each time she reloaded, she was careful to observe range etiquette even though no one else was around. She believed in the virtues of discipline.
    When she was through shooting, a thin haze of smoke hung in the air, and Sally could smell the sharp odor of cordite. She took off her ear protection, and Sergeant Clancey ran the target up for her to examine. He came out of the booth for a look as well.
    All the holes were in the black, most of them clustered in the area of the chest, though a few of them strayed toward the head and stomach.
    â€œYou should hang that on your garage door,” Sergeant Clancey said. “The burglars would give your place a wide berth.”
    â€œI don’t think I could shoot a burglar if one ever showed up,” Sally said.
    â€œThat’s why you hang up the target. Discourage them so you won’t have to shoot them.”
    â€œI don’t think so,” Sally said. “Just put it in the recycling box.”
    She went to the booth to put her pistol back in the case.
    â€œYou might be surprised what you could do if you did have someone break into your house,” Sergeant Clancey said. “You’re a really good shot.”
    â€œAt a target. You never know what you’ll do in a life-or-death situation until you face it.”
    Sally and Clancey both knew she was simply repeating what she had heard in her firearms class. She had also heard that if you ever fired a pistol at an intruder, you should shoot to kill. Wounding wasn’t an option. She hoped never to find herself in that situation.
    â€œYou sure you don’t want the target for a souvenir?” Sergeant Clancey asked as she was leaving.
    â€œNo, thanks,” she said.
    *   *   *
    Back in her office, Sally called the number Fieldstone had given her for the Thompsons. She got an answering machine with a supposedly humorous tape that Sally didn’t find at all funny. She wondered why people didn’t just record their own announcements, and she thought about not leaving a message at all. In the end, however, she left both her office and home numbers and asked the Thompsons to call.
    She spent the rest of the afternoon grading compositions, and she was proud of herself for finishing all those for her Friday class. She could return them the next day and spend the class period analyzing them with the students. She went to the workroom to make transparencies of several papers that she wanted to use for illustrative purposes.
    The workroom was almost as deserted as the firing range. After all, it was nearly four o’clock. Few of the faculty stayed around much past three or three-thirty unless they had evening classes. Today, the only other person around was Merle Menton, the chair of the Division of Social Sciences, who was reading a newspaper in the lounge, which adjoined the workroom.
    Though Merle was nearing retirement age, he still had a full head of very black hair, hair that was the object of much speculation by the rest of the Hughes faculty. Did he dye it or not?
    Troy Beauchamp’s answer was a definite yes. He swore that he had talked to someone who had seen Menton buying a package of Just for Men at the local Wal-Mart, but there were several who weren’t convinced by his story.
    Sally was one of them. Menton’s hair just didn’t look dyed, and what difference did it make if it was? What bothered her about Menton was his personality, which bordered on the terminally dull. He could talk endlessly in his bland, monotonous baritone about almost any subject that popped into his head, and he would continue for as long he could get anyone to listen. Or force them to listen. His favorite technique