Point Blank

No one spoke: They simply waited. Gordon sipped at his coffee, unaware of what he was doing.

Ruth finally said, “This is a nice quiet place, Dr. Holcombe. I can see how you could view it as a sort of sanctuary, a place where you can be by yourself, away from students and colleagues. Do you always come here alone?”

“Sure, always alone, Agent Warnecki.”

Dix asked him, “What else did Helen tell you, other than to be careful and that we’re snooping around?”

“She said you told her that you knew about my relationship with Erin and some of the other students, that she’d already given you some names but you wanted all of them. She said she didn’t have a choice but to help you. She started crying, begging for my forgiveness.”

There was only the soft sound of Dr. Holcombe’s palms rubbing the sides of his scotch glass.

“That’s a pretty sturdy motive, Gordon,” Dix told him. “Your ex-lover spilled the beans, starting a scandal that might get you fired from your prestigious job, and giving parents an excellent reason to yank their kids out of Stanislaus. I could arrest you right this minute.”

Gordon nearly knocked over his glass. He grabbed it, righted it. His breath was coming hard and fast. “I didn’t do it, Dix, I swear to you. I couldn’t kill Helen. I loved her, in my way.”

“What is your way, sir?” Ruth asked.

“She was my anchor. She knew people, understood them in ways I couldn’t begin to; she gave me comfort and advice. I’ll never forget how I was interested in this viola student, and Helen told me she wasn’t stable, that she’d cause scenes and probably hurt me, so I stayed away from her. A couple of months later, she accused a boy from town of rape.”

“I remember that,” Dix said. “Kenny Pollard, but he had a rock-solid alibi. Seems clear to me now, Gordon, that Helen actually helped you seduce your own students.”

He shook his head back and forth, obviously shaken.

“When you realized she had told us about you, you killed Helen for revenge, didn’t you? That, and you couldn’t stand the world knowing you’re a philandering old fool.” Savich’s voice was so hard, so brutal that Gordon froze like a deer in headlights. Savich sat forward, grabbed Gordon’s wrist and squeezed. “You will tell me the truth, you perverted old man. Why did you kill Erin Bushnell? Did she of all the music students see through you? Did she threaten to tell the world what you are, want to see you humiliated and run off campus, stripped of your power and prestige?”

Suddenly, the man who’d hunched over his drink, desperate and pleading, was gone. In his place was Dr. Gordon Holcombe, director of Stanislaus, back in all his dignity, his patrician face set in arrogant lines again. He looked at each of them in turn with disdain and a superior’s patience. “I will tell you the truth about Erin. I first became involved with her on Halloween when she showed up at my house to trick-or-treat, dressed like Titania from Midsummer Night’s Dream. She called me her Oberon later that night.”

The expression on Ruth’s face never changed, although Dix fancied he saw her shudder.

“Erin was the most talented violinist I’ve heard in a very long time. Gloria Stanford was convinced she’d be known the world over someday. She had glorious technique, could make you weep listening to her play. The three violin sonatas composed for Joseph Joachim by Brahms—she was transcendent. I was blessed by her company, I reveled in it. But I did not kill her, there was no reason. I didn’t kill Helen Rafferty, either. I loved both of them, in different ways.

“Whatever you may believe about my personal ethics and behavior, none of it concerns you unless I did something criminal, which I did not. Dix, you are the sheriff of Maestro. Everyone says we are lucky to have you. Well, prove it. Find out for all of us who killed two citizens of our town in under a week.”

“You forgot Walt McGuffey, that kind old man who never harmed a soul in his life.”

“I heard about him. You want to lay the old man’s death at my door, too? Fact is, I didn’t know him well, he meant nothing to me. Why would I kill him?”

“His house is on the way to Lone Tree Hill and the other entrance to Winkel’s Cave. Ruth’s car was hidden in his shed. That’s why someone murdered him.”

“I don’t know anything about her car! I haven’t seen Walt in months.”

Dix said, “When did you last see Erin alive?”

“On Thursday afternoon, at Stanislaus. She was working hard rehearsing for the upcoming concert, and we had no plans to see each other over the weekend.”