Burning Time

36

After breakfast, Jason drove around until he found North High School, which turned out to be south of both South High and Central High. It was a three-story brick building that looked only a few years younger than the municipal buildings nearby. It had a lot of steps going up to the entrance, green stuff that wasn’t ivy growing on the walls, a huge parking lot in front, and playing fields in the back. It was a real old-style American high school, the kind that’s always in the movies.

As he pulled into the parking lot, he tried to picture Emma as a lonely senior in this tight community, where the rest of her class had been together for years. What he saw instead was himself and Emma, talking so many times in a coffee shop, a half hour stolen here and there, between his patients and her jobs. He had interviewed her for a paper he was writing on adults who had been constantly uprooted as children. And they kept meeting.

He remembered the way she sat leaning slightly forward, with her hands relaxed in her lap as she told him how the Navy liked to move people as far away from where they had been as possible, preferring to move them laterally around the world, rather than up and down a coast. She had spent second and third grades in Jacksonville, fourth and fifth grades in Seattle. Sixth and seventh in Norfolk, Virginia. Eighth and ninth in Hawaii. Tenth and eleventh in Kodiak, Alaska. San Diego was her father’s last post.

The parking lot was nearly full at ten, on another in an endless succession of golden mornings in southern California. The cars parked here showed no sign of a recession in the country’s economy. This was clearly not a deprived area. Corvettes, Mercedeses, Miatas, a few Hondas and Toyotas were tightly parked side by side, all polished and shiny. It made Jason think again of maybe getting a car.

He parked in the area reserved for visitors and started toward the building. Earlier he had debated what to wear, and finally decided to stick with what he had come in. Khaki pants and a sports jacket in the kind of muddy colors women don’t usually like, but men find unchallenging and comfortable. He noted some temporary classrooms on what had been another parking area.

It didn’t take long to find Guidance, which was in the same office as College and Career Counseling. There was a list of names on the wall outside. He studied them for a second before going in.

“Can I help you?”

A plump woman with heavily rouged cheeks, red lips colored outside the lines, fluffy orange hair, and a purple blouse looked up from her computer screen.

Jason almost said “Wow.”

“Ah, yeah,” he replied diffidently. “I’d like to see Dr. Londry. Would that be possible?”

“Anything is possible.” She smiled, showing off a set of whiter-than-white teeth to prove it. “Especially now with all the students in the middle of third period,” she added. “He’s right in there.”

She pointed at a closed door behind her with frosted glass in the top half so nothing could be seen through it.

Jason tapped on it softly and obeyed the equally soft reply, “Yes, come in.”

He found Dr. Londry sitting at his desk with his feet up, reading a newspaper that he put down as soon as he saw his visitor wasn’t a student. Londry had long lifeless hair that grew unashamedly around a large circular bald spot on the top of his head. Rimless glasses magnified the lines around his pale eyes. His short-sleeved plaid shirt was open at the neck, and he promptly took his suede shoes off the desk.

“Hi.” Jason held out his hand. “I’m Frank Miln. I’m out here doing an article for New York Magazine on rising stars from California who make it in film in New York. It’s kind of a reverse coast thing.”

“Good lord,” Londry said, blinking. “Yes, I heard something about that. You want to come in?”

“Yes, thank you,” Jason said.

“Big film industry in New York, right? I’ve heard of people going down to Florida, too. What brings you here?”

“Well, Emma Chapman is going to be in the article, and she was at school here. She graduated thirteen years ago. Were you here then?”

“Oh, yes, somebody told me something about that just a few days ago.” He narrowed his eyes at Jason. “I was here, but I couldn’t tell you anything about her even if I had a file on her, which I don’t.”

Jason laughed comfortably. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to see what’s in the file. That would be—” he hesitated, “unethical, of course.”

“Well, they do,” Londry said disapprovingly, pulling his lips into a thin line. “Reporters ask for anything they can get. Sometimes it makes good reading.” Londry swiveled back and forth in his chair. “But I don’t have a file on her. I’d remember if I did.”

“Well, I wasn’t looking for a file. I just stopped by to see if you knew where I might find some of her friends. She’s lost touch with them.”

Londry sneaked a look at his bookcase. Jason followed his gaze.

“I talked with her, and her parents, of course. She said she didn’t mind who I talked to,” Jason said. “But she couldn’t remember the names of the people she knew then. You probably don’t either. I guess a lot of kids pass through.”

“I remember them when I see their faces.” He got up and crossed to the shelves of yearbooks. “Seventy-eight, you said?”

“Seventy-nine. She mentioned one person in particular. A guy, of course. Had a Harley-Davidson.”

Londry took down a book and opened it, searching for a face to attach to Emma Chapman. “Ah, yes, the actress. Yes, I remember. There was something.”

“What?” Jason asked too quickly.

“Oh, nothing. She was in a play. Noel Coward.” He turned pages. “I don’t know,” he murmured, shaking his head. “There are always a few kids in every year with motorcycles.”

“This guy might have gone into the military, or the defense industry.”

“Okay, then you must mean him.” Londry pointed at a small square picture that was slightly out of focus. “Great guy. You’d think he was running for president. Yeah, talk to him. He knew everybody.”

“Do you know where I might find him?” Jason asked, making a note of the name.

“Sure I do. He’s at General Defense.”

“Where’s that?”

“Lindbergh Field.”

“Of course.” Jason put out his hand with a broad grateful smile. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“No problem.” Londry turned his attention to the book he’d left open on Emma’s page. He was studying the faces on it as Jason left.

Out in the sun again, Jason began to tense up. He could feel the muscles tighten in his neck as he thought about how he would handle the thing. He was going to get the guy. He was going to get him in his office where he felt safe, and nail him to the wall. He liked that image.

There was a nice breeze off the ocean. Jason realized he had left his objectivity back in New York somewhere. He wanted to know what happened between Emma and this guy all those years ago that made her leave the only home her parents ever had. And he wanted to kill the guy for torturing her now. Son of a bitch. He was so tense over this thing he had broken out in a cold sweat.

He drove back down the main highway to Lindbergh Field and was directed from one building to another in the sprawling complex where jet engines and airplanes and rockets were made. Finally, in a new office building, he was shown into the office of Bill Patterson.

Jason glibly repeated the story that he was a reporter from New York Magazine to the secretary guarding the door, and asked if Mr. Patterson could spare him three minutes.

“Well, he’s here, but he won’t talk to you.” She looked Jason over with vague distaste. “You might as well forget it. We have a rule here. We’re not supposed to talk to the press about anything. Not the government contracts, not anything.”

“Tell him I’m doing a story on a girl he knew in high school,” Jason said evenly. “He’ll see me.”

A few seconds later, not bothering to hide her surprise, she ushered him into the office.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” Bill Patterson was a fit young man with a conservative haircut, in a white button-down shirt and striped tie. He looked up from some papers on his glass-topped desk, and examined Jason with unguarded, curious blue eyes.

“Thanks for seeing me. I’m Frank Miln. I’m doing a story on Emma Chapman.”

Patterson nodded and scratched his chin. His expression didn’t change.

Jason looked around. The walls of the room were covered with prints of airplanes. The man was pure middle management. He was wearing loafers. On his desk were pictures of a sailboat, two golden children in bathing suits, and a smiling woman. Jason got a sinking feeling.

Patterson moved his scratching on to his temple, worked on that for a moment. “Who is she?” he asked finally.

“She’s an actress in New York. She was in your class in high school.”

“Oh. Emma Chapman.” He paused, as if doing a computer search of his memory. Then he shook his head. “I’m not sure I remember her.”

“That’s very surprising, because when I was talking to her, she mentioned a guy with a motorcycle who works for General Defense.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she specifically wanted me to say hello.”

“Gee, I haven’t been on a bike in years,” Patterson said nostalgically, He pointed at the photos of his family. “Well, say hello right back, but it must be some other guy. I didn’t know her.”

Jason nodded and got up slowly. Before he got to the door, Patterson stopped him.

“Hey, wait a minute. There is a guy who works for us. But he wasn’t in our class. He was a year behind us. Matter of fact he still rides a bike. I see him in the field lot sometimes.”

Jason’s throat constricted. “What’s his name?” he said carefully.

Patterson scratched his face some more. “Funny name.” He reached for the company directory and started flipping the pages. “Here it is. Grebs, Troland.”

Jason leaned forward to look at the page. Grebs, Troland was in Technical Drafting, Building 4. The guy drew. It sounded right. For the second time that day Jason felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through him. He checked his watch. If he hurried, he might still be able to get home to Emma that night.