Angel Food and Devil Dogs by Liz Bradbury Page A

waved his arm, not able to think of what to call all this.
    "You're the Dean of Students, right? Are you also in the Athletic Department?" I asked as an icebreaker.
    "No, no, I used to coach college football at St. Bonny's in Hadesville, and I still coach Pop Warner in the fall." He gestured to the mound of beat up footballs in the corner. "Gotta fix those up for the kids for next fall, but here I just do administration stuff. Love the game though," he said enthusiastically.
    I smiled, "Start with Bart Edgar..." I was booting up my laptop to enter his impressions.
    "Excuse my French but Bart's a screw-up... don't get me wrong, I'm sorry he's hurt... but Holy Mary, the guy can't make a spreadsheet, remember data, compile stats... he was always coming in here asking me to help him get his computer working. Sometimes he just forgot to turn it on! Forget about loading software. And sometimes," Getty was warming to his whine, "he'd screw something up so bad, it would take an hour to fix. Usually I helped, but I was beginning to tell him I was too busy. The thing is, he'd just wait until later and ask me again. Can't figure why he still works here... nope, notta clue. Hey listen, have you heard anything about Georgia?"
    "Well, she has serious burns on her legs, but I guess the doctors are cautiously optimistic that she'll recover."
    "Oh, geez, well thank God for that, right? Georgia's a nice gal, good with the kids, the students I mean. I knew her first husband, Jacob Elliot. Jake's a good guy. Between you and me, I think she'd have been better off with Jake."
    "Why?"
    "She has two kids and Jake's their father. He could have went away lots of times, but he stayed with her, then she left him ." Getty shook his head.
    I tacked to, "Remember the drinks that Connie Robinson brought in to everybody?"
    "Yeah?"
    "What did you have?" I asked.
    He hesitated. A wave of something passed over his face then he was back to Mr. Affable, "Me? I always have an ATreat. Any flavor. Cola, grape, orange. You thinking someone was drinking something hard?"
    "A can?"
    "Huh, oh, yeah, a can of ATreat, why?"
    "Just trying to keep track of everything. Think about the room and the people getting their drinks. Do you remember anyone carrying more than one bottle?"
    "Nope." He paused frowning then looked up and laughed, "You think somebody swiped someone else's drink?"
    "What did you do after the meeting ended?"
    "Right after? I..." he looked at the ceiling, scratching his head, "I asked Carvelle about some freshmen orientation event, and," he screwed his face up with thinking effort, "oh yeah, I missed the elevator so I took the stairs. The alarm started when I was almost to the bottom. I got outside, then all hell broke loose."
    I nodded and made a note, "You mentioned you liked Carl Rasmus. How well did you know him?"
    "Oh, I knew Carl for years," said Getty tipping back in his chair, "When I was coach at St. Bonny's, Carl's family lived in our neighborhood. I knew him from a kid. My boys knew him in school..." Getty tossed his head at two photos on the wall near his framed Ph.D. diploma. The pictures were of average looking guys with wives. One had a little girl; the other had a boy about four and a baby.
    "Yeah," said Getty proudly, when he noticed me looking, "those are my boys, Leo Jr. and Arnie and their families." He beamed, but I didn't want him sidetracked by the excitement of having his DNA carried on to the next two generations.
    "So you knew Carl's family in Hadesville?"
    "Went to the same church as us. That kind of thing. He was always blind, didn't have a dad. He did music. It's a shame what happened. He was very unhappy. He told me that several times..." said Getty trailing off, "but you know, a man needs to work things out, even a person who's crippled like Carl. Well, I don't know. I'm just a sports guy who wants to help kids get through college."
    "Carl seemed down to you?"
    "Depressed. Unsure of himself. Unhappy maybe. Hey, I'm not very good