Hades

22

Nowhere more than academia did people look upon cops with suspicion and distrust. It was because, Justin thought, there was a type of so-called intellectual who could not deal with the black-and-white world that cops often had to live in. Academicians lived in a far grayer world, where actions often had no consequences, where theory did not have to relate to reality. Reality was not something this type of person particularly cared about. Reality was too physical, too harsh; so it was best to separate from it. In the real world, one's mind could take one only so far before strength often took over. It was like being in the jungle and coming face-to-face with a lion. You might be a lot smarter than the lion, but the lion had far sharper teeth. And was probably hungry.

Quentin Quintel, the dean of Melman Preparatory Academy, fell most definitely into this category, Justin decided. He was a man frightened of bumping into sharp teeth. He fell into another category, too: superobnoxious, asshole snob.

Justin sat in the head of the school's book-lined office, listening and doing his best to smile pleasantly as Dean Quintel lectured about Melman's high academic standards and spotless reputation and then began rattling off the list of illustrious alumni who had attended over the ninety-eight years it had been sheltering and educating the best and the brightest the world had to offer. As the bow-tied man in the tweed jacket spoke, Justin let his eyes shift toward the window and take in the rolling Connecticut grounds and ivy-covered stone walls and all the accoutrements that helped keep the place so spotless. When he decided he'd let the dean pontificate enough to satisfy even his own outsized ego, Justin said, "It's a very impressive place, all right."

Dean Q beamed. "Thank you."

"How long have you worked here?"

"It's a funny thing. People always ask me that question and almost always ask it the same way. But I don't even consider what I do to be work. I consider it a privilege."

"Okay," Justin said, "how long has it been your privilege to oversee the lives and curriculum of those also privileged to attend?"

Dean Quintel's eyes narrowed, both in surprise at Justin's ability to articulate the question with a reasonable degree of sophistication as well as in suspicion that the question was not entirely sincere. But he couldn't find a flaw in the phrasing and he was not secure enough to argue with the tone, so he just said, "I've been dean for three years now. I was the youngest dean in Melman's history."

"Congratulations. I'm looking for information a little before your time, then."

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"I need some information about the period when Evan Harmon was privileged enough to attend."

"Evan Harmon?" The dean immediately looked uncomfortable. "Wasn't he… I mean, wasn't he…"

"Murdered. Yes."

"That's why you're here?"

"That's right."

"But-but he was at Melman so long ago. In the eighties."

"I know."

"Then I don't see how I can possibly help you."

"I assume you have records of all the students who've been here."

"Of course."

"Academic records as well as anything that might have been notable-extracurricular activities, suspensions, anything out of the norm that might have required staff awareness."

"Yes."

"I'd like to see Evan Harmon's records."

Dean Quintel shifted uneasily in his seat. "I-I don't think I can do that."

"Then maybe there's someone else who knows how to access the files."

Quintel couldn't help himself. He gave Justin the kind of pitying look he'd give a dumb puppy. "I know how to access the files. I meant that the information in those files is privileged."

"Like you."

"I'm sorry you feel the need to deride my attachment to Melman. And I'm afraid we can't let anyone simply come in and rummage through our students' histories."

"First of all, I'm not anyone. I'm a member of the Providence, Rhode Island, police department and I'm working directly with the FBI on this case."

"I don't see how that changes anything."

"Then allow me to explain it to you." Justin leaned a little bit closer to the dean, putting his hands on top of the dean's dark mahogany desk. "I kind of know a lot about this sort of place." He told the dean where he'd gone to prep school in New Hampshire-a school that had a superior reputation to Melman, with even higher academic standards. Quintel didn't do much of a job hiding his shock at hearing Justin's academic credentials. "I know, it's surprising that the old alma mater would produce a cop. Actually, it produced two, although I guess you'd have to say the other one isn't just a regular cop, he's the number two guy at the CIA. But I digress. The point is, I know how things work here. So if you don't show me the records, I'll get a court order, which I can do very quickly. And it won't be to just look at Evan Harmon's history. I'll demand the phone numbers of every single parent of every single boy who's currently attending this place. And I'll call every single one of those parents and talk to them about what we're afraid is going on in the dormitories. And as someone who lived in very similar dormitories, I know that things aren't quite as pure and spotless as all the bullshit you've been spouting, so I can pretty much assure you I'll be talking about drinking and drugs and fairly serious homosexual activity. All the stuff they know about but don't really want to think about. Or discuss with federal agents. And since it's summer and a lot of your students are home right now, I'll bet a pretty decent percentage of them won't be coming back after I have these conversations."

Justin smiled even more politely and watched as Dean Quintel used his intercom to signal his secretary. When he answered, the dean leaned toward the phone and said, "Will you please make a copy of the complete file for Evan Harmon, please, Robby. Everything we have on record. He was one of our students, attended in the early to mid-eighties."

The dean leaned back in his chair, not smiling back at Justin, and several minutes later his door opened and a thin, athletic-looking young man came in carrying a manila folder. He started to hand it to the dean, but Quintel nodded his head in Justin's direction, and the assistant quickly swiveled to hand him the folder.

Justin riffled through the school records, stopped, and frowned.

"There's material missing."

"I doubt that," Dean Quintel said.

"Evan Harmon left here when he was a junior. He spent his last year and a half at Madden Prep."

"So?"

"There's no mention of why he left. There are two pages missing, the page numbers are off sequence. Then there's a handwritten notation that he transferred out. This isn't the page with the original information."

"If that's what's there, that's all we've got."

"There are no records at all of his last six months here."

"It's an old file. I suppose they just weren't as diligent then as we are now."

"Or the file's been tampered with."

Dean Quintel didn't answer, nor did he seem concerned by the accusation.

"Are there any teachers still here who were here when Evan Harmon was?"

"I really don't know."

Justin stood up. "Listen," he said, "I don't have time to screw around. So let me try to be as clear as I possibly can: I can make your life a living hell. I wasn't kidding about the court order. If I have to close the school down, that's what I'll do. And believe me, I'll really go out of my way to dog you personally. You're gonna look in your mirror while you're brushing your teeth and you're gonna see my reflection. So unless you haven't so much as taken an extra five dollars on your expense account, just give me the information and make your life a lot easier."

Quintel didn't even hesitate. "Leslie Burham. Miss Burham has been teaching here for over thirty years. And Vince Ellerbe. He runs our math department."

"How long has he been here?"

"As a teacher, just about eight years. But he was a student here in the eighties. I believe he knew Mr. Harmon."

"Is that it?"

"Yes. Those are the only teachers with ties to that period."

"Where can I find them?"

"Miss Burham is taking her summer vacation in Turkey. I believe she'll be back in another three weeks."

"Swell. How about Vince Ellerbe?"

"He's not teaching for the summer term."

"Where is he? Afghanistan?"

"No. I believe he's home."

"Okay," Justin said, "I'll bite. Where does he live?"

Dean Quintel couldn't hide his disappointment. "Approximately fifteen minutes from here," he said.

"Evan Harmon was an asshole then and I'd be willing to bet a year's salary he stayed an asshole," Vince Ellerbe said. "I mean, I'm sorry he's dead, I guess. Oh hell, no, I'm not. I wouldn't wish him dead, let's put it that way, but I don't really care one way or the other."

"Sounds like you two weren't exactly close," Justin said. He was sitting on a lawn chair in Ellerbe's backyard. The math teacher's wife had poured them both some lemonade-Justin would have preferred a beer but decided decorum called for a yes to the lemonade-and their eight-year-old daughter brought out a plate of chocolate chip cookies she'd helped her mother bake the night before.

"Very few people were close to Evan in those days."

"Why is that?"

"He wasn't a guy who invited people to get close. He had a very superior attitude, as if he were a different breed from most of us. And he was a bully. You know the type: his friends were mostly sycophants. He usually found one or two brainiacs who were frightened of him and that's who he spent time with. He'd get them to do some of his work for him and run errands for him-that kind of BMOC shit. I never understood it, but there were definitely a few of those kinds of kids who looked up to him and were almost in awe of him. Not to mention terrified."

"So you didn't know him all that well?"

"I knew him well enough. We were in the same grade. We were on the baseball team together-he was a pretty decent first baseman-and the track team… You know, there's a good example. It's a little thing, but when we were on the track team, Evan signed up for long-distance running, five and ten K races. At the beginning, we were kind of running partners. We were the same basic skill level, so we paired off well together for pace. So it wasn't so monotonous, we didn't just run on the track, there were a couple of country runs the coaches mapped out. After two or three sessions, Evan decided he hated running. But he couldn't quit. His father had been a long-distance runner back in the day and there was all sorts of weird family pressure, which is why I used to cut Evan some slack. Anyway, after a couple of practices, what he used to do was wait until there was a break in the running line-he'd deliberately fall behind or sprint ahead until he could do this without being seen-and then he'd duck out of the run and sneak off and have a cigarette or get a soda or whatever and then he'd just kill an hour or so, wait until we'd be heading back, wait until there was a natural break, and then get back in and run the last quarter mile back to school."

"Never got caught?"

"No. He really had it down pat. He'd cover himself with water so it looked like he was sweating up a storm, and he'd pant like crazy as if he were exhausted. I knew he was doing it, but no one else did. Evan was funny about stuff like that. I think he had to let someone know he was cheating-or it wouldn't have been worth it. Someone had to be aware that he was beating the system or I don't think he would have done it. I think he would have just kept running with the rest of us."

"How'd he do in the races?"

"That's the thing about Evan. He did fine. He didn't need the practice. He'd finish third or fourth or fifth. If he'd actually run hard and worked at it and trained, he could have finished first. But he didn't care enough to do it. He liked the cheating better. He was just basically dishonest."

"Is that why he got thrown out of school?"

Ellerbe thought long and hard about this. Took a swallow of tart lemonade, then another one. "No, I don't think so." He spoke slowly and carefully. "I think there were always problems with his grades-cheating on papers and exams, I mean. He got caught a couple of times, but somehow he was always able to weasel out of it."

"So what was it?" Justin asked. He wondered if it was safe to ask for a beer yet. Decided he should just stick with what he had and not rock the boat.

"Look," Ellerbe said, "the family's gone out of their way to keep this quiet. And I don't even know if it's true. I only got this secondhand."

"From who?"

"Evan was friendly with a guy named Bart Peterson. B. P. was another guy who liked to play a little fast and loose with the rules, also kind of an arrogant kid. Evan told him about this and B. P. told me."

"And now why don't you tell me?"

"What Bart told me was that Evan needed some money and his parents had cut him off. So he got another kid here to stage a fake kidnapping. I think Evan even got a TA to go in on it…" He saw the brief look of puzzlement in Justin's eyes, so he said, "Teaching assistant, sort of a faculty member in training. That was also one of Evan's-um-talents. He could always get people in authority to look the other way, to break the rules just for him. What B.P. told me was that Evan tried to get a hundred thousand dollars from his parents. But the whole thing got botched pretty quickly and Evan was transferred out."

"How'd the Harmons manage to keep this so quiet?"

Ellerbe rolled his eyes and said, "Do you really need to ask that question? Money."

"Enough money to get the school to expunge any record of Evan's behavior?"

"I do know for a fact that almost right after this supposedly happened, Evan's father donated a few hundred thousand dollars… I heard half a million… to Melman for the music building. The H. R. Harmon Music Building."

"Would have been cheaper to pay off his son."

"But not the Harmon way. You protect your children, but you don't reward them."

Justin pondered this last comment, then asked the amiable math professor, "Do you have a yearbook from the last couple of years you went to school with Evan?"

"I live twenty minutes from the school. I still teach there. I usually buy clothes that match the school colors. What do you think?"

Justin smiled thinly, then waited as Ellerbe went inside. It didn't take him long-his school-day mementos were clearly not packed away in some box in the attic-before he returned with two yearbooks. He handed them over and said, "I'd like them back, please. When you're done."

Justin promised. Took a long sip of the lemonade, and said, "Let me ask you something. Do you believe it? You think that's a true story, the one you just told me about the kidnapping?"

"Yes, I do. Two reasons. Bart Peterson was too dumb to make something like that up, so it had to come from Evan directly. And I think that, at heart, Evan Harmon was a crook. He liked to steal and he liked to lie. He just liked it."

Justin nodded. "And he was the kind of guy who did what he liked, is that right?"

"You got it," Vince Ellerbe said. "And I'll bet he was that way right up until the moment he died."

"I'll go you one further," Justin said. "I'll bet you it's exactly what got him killed."

Justin decided to take the ferry back from Connecticut to Long Island. The ferry was about twenty minutes into its voyage when Justin's cell phone rang. It was Billy DiPezio.

"You got an ID on my prints?" Justin asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do. And so do you. The results should be in your e-mail."

"Anything good?"

"No idea. The guy's meaningless to me."

"Connections to Lenny Rube?"

"Not that I can find."

"Rival mob?"

"I'm not sayin' no, Jay, but this guy ain't on my radar. His prints are on record, but I don't see any arrests, any suspicion, anything but the guy's name, which is all that's in the system. But that's not why I'm calling."

"Shit," Justin said. He knew that tone in Billy's voice and he felt goose bumps running down the back of his neck. "What happened?"

"The offices for the LaSalle Group were broken into last night. Files were taken."

"What files?"

"All sorts. But we do know that the lists that LaSalle's assistant made for you-"

"Ellen Loache."

"Yeah. Her hard copy of that is definitely gone." When Justin didn't say anything, Billy said, "Somebody sure seems to be very interested in what you're doin' and beatin' you to the punch."

"I just wish I knew what the hell I was doing." Justin sighed. "Was there any damage?"

"Only if you count the human kind."

"Oh Christ."

"One of the guys you met with, Stan Solomon."

"What the hell was he doing in the office on a Sunday night?"

"He was puttin' in some overtime, I guess you could say."

"What happened?"

"Had his windpipe broken. According to the witness, never knew what hit him."

"The witness? What witness?"

"Ellen Loache."

"She was there?"

"Yup. Ms. Loache… or I should say Mrs. Loache… is married. Looks like she and this guy Solomon liked to work together when no one else was around, if you know what I mean."

"Yes, Bill, I get the drift. I picked up on that when I was with them. Kind of thought there was something going on."

"Well, there was. And he was quite the valiant guy. When they realized there was an intruder, he told her to hide."

"But he didn't?"

"Nope. Not macho enough, I guess. And according to Mrs. Loache, when he saw who the intruder was he just kinda threw caution to the wind. Figured there was no danger."

"Who was he?"

"It wasn't a he, Jay. It was a she."

"A woman broke his windpipe?"

"Apparently one quick motion. Bam. That was it."

Even in the summer heat, Justin's skin turned cold as he flashed on the women who might possibly be in Ron LaSalle's office. Vicky, he thought. Then he thought, no, couldn't be her-she wasn't capable of doing that. And then he thought: Reggie. Could she have gotten up there and back down in time? Christ, was it Reggie?

"Okay, who was she?"

"We don't know. Ms. Loache didn't recognize her. Didn't even get a great look at her, she was too afraid, especially after she saw what happened to her boyfriend. All we got was that she was Asian."

"Asian?" He let his breath out in relief. "That's it? Nothing more specific?"

"Nothin' that's a giant help."

And then Justin saw her. It came as a sudden flash, something out of a movie, an image barreling into his brain. She was walking down the street, passing him by right after he'd left Wanda's car. Floating down the street was more like it.

"Billy, did Loache say anything else about her? Tall, really good-looking?"

"You got it. She said tall and beautiful, but she wouldn't recognize her again if she fell over her."

"It's okay. I would."

"You know her?" Billy DiPezio asked incredulously.

"No. But I saw her. I saw her when I got out of Wanda's car the other day. She was right there."

"Jay, there are a lot of good-lookin' Asian women walkin' around these days."

"It was her. I know it. I'm telling you, I can feel it."

There was a pause, then Billy said, "I've known you too long not to at least listen when you get a feelin'. What else can you tell me about her?"

"Let me think about it for a little bit, see if I can conjure up more. I'll get back to you and give you whatever details I remember."

Billy agreed, then he said something he'd never said to Justin before. "You be careful, okay?"

Justin nodded, realized Billy couldn't see the nod. "This is a weird one, huh?"

"There's somethin' goin' on here, Jay, and I don't like it. And, worse, I don't understand it. There're usually dots and the problem is connecting 'em. But I don't even see the dots on this one."

"You be careful, too, okay?"

"Later," Billy said, and Justin clicked his cell phone off.

Billy was right, Justin knew. He'd put his finger right on the fat of the problem: People were dying all around them. Something was happening. But where were the damn dots?

Justin sat in his car and, as the ferry churned forward, he stared at the dirty blue water stretching out ahead for miles and miles. The water looked as if it could go on forever with no land and no end in sight, and Justin realized he might not mind all that much if it did.