The Competition

15

A few phone calls later, Bailey had a meeting set for five thirty at the teacher’s house in Tarzana, which would give us just enough time to drive through a fast-food joint and pick up a very late lunch.

“Feel like Taco Bell?” Bailey asked.

“Always.”

“She had no trouble remembering Carson,” Bailey said.

“She say why?”

“No, but the way she said, ‘Oh, yes,’ I’ll bet it wasn’t because he volunteered to clap erasers,” Bailey said.

“No one does that anymore.”

“Whatever.”

“They use whiteboards now,” I said. Bailey shot me a look. “Just saying.”

We found a Taco Bell on Ventura Boulevard, and Bailey pulled into the parking lot so she could eat without getting it all over herself.

I savored a big, crunchy bite. “Taco Supreme-the best fast food has to offer.”

“There’s also In-N-Out-” Bailey’s cell phone buzzed. She answered it with a mouthful of taco. “Keller.” Her chewing slowed, then stopped as she listened. When she ended the call, she wadded up her taco wrapper and threw it against the dash. “Son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“They found Carson. He’s in a hospital out in Santa Clarita-”

“Why the hell is he all the way out there?” That was at least an hour away from the school.

“His uncle’s a resident. His parents had him transferred straight out of the ER. They’ve been at his bedside this whole time.”

Which is why no one answered the phone or the door. But maybe he was just hiding in plain sight. Maybe he was just acting like a victim to fool us. “What’re his injuries?”

“Two shots to the gut. He’s stable, but they’re still worried about possible peritonitis. They couldn’t get all the shrapnel out of his intestines.”

That seemed a bridge too far. I could see shooting himself in the hand or the foot, but not in the gut. It was too dangerous. But if he was one of the shooters and his buddy did that to him, he might just be pissed off enough to talk to us. “Can we see him?”

“The uni said yes, but we need to get going. She said visiting hours for nonfamily end soon, and traffic’s going to be a bitch.”

Bailey canceled the meeting with Carson’s English teacher, and we headed for the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia. The place was a labyrinth. It took less time to get there than it did to find Carson’s bed. He had just been moved out of ICU and into a private room. The natural light flowing in through his window softened the harsh glare of the standard fluorescent bulbs, but even candlelight couldn’t have masked the gray pallor of Carson’s face. His doctor (uncle) warned us not to push him, said he was not out of the woods yet-can no one think of a new cliché?-and told us we had fifteen minutes, max.

His parents insisted on staying for the interview, his mom hovering on one side of his bed while his father glowered at us from the other and pointedly looked at his watch. There was no time for open-ended questions, so I went straight at it.

“Where were you when you got shot?”

“In the gym.” His voice was thin and strained.

I asked him to be more specific. At the top of the bleachers? The bottom? I had him describe who sat next to him, what class he’d been in that morning-questions designed to tell me whether he could’ve been a shooter. The answers would be easy to verify. If he was lying, I’d know soon enough. But seeing him now, I had a strong feeling they’d check out. “Can you describe the shooters at all?” I asked.

“One looked tall.”

“Taller than you?”

He nodded.

“I’m going to play a part of a video taken by one of the students in the gym. Tell me if you recognize this voice.” I played the snippet of the crazy laugh.

Carson shook his head, a barely perceptible move. “Is it…one of the shooters?”

“Yes,” I said.

He mouthed, “Motherfucker.”

“Does it sound like anyone you know?”

“Kinda sounds like Otis. But it’s not.”

“Why not?”

Carson snorted. “Fucking wuss. Couldn’t even cut up a frog.”

The frog lesson plan didn’t seem to have a lot of fans. But it didn’t mean Otis wasn’t one of the shooters. Animal lovers can be psychopaths too. Hitler had scientists working on a more humane way to cook lobsters. Couldn’t bear the fact that they were boiled alive. “But you agree, it does sound like Otis’s laugh?”

“Sort of.”

“Did Otis ever talk about guns?”

“No…wait. He told me about someone…this dude who said he could get stuff online.” Carson’s voice was starting to sound like it was being squeezed through a narrow tube.

“What kind of stuff?”

“AKs and shit.”

“Do you remember who that was?” I crossed my fingers behind my back.

Carson closed his eyes. Suddenly, he gave a sharp inhale and curled into a fetal position. One of the monitors started to shriek. Papa James stepped forward and pressed the call button for the nurse. “Okay, that’s all. You’re finished.”

Just as abruptly, Carson’s body relaxed. He lay on his back, panting. “S’okay, Dad.” He took a few deep breaths and I found myself doing the same. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to a whisper.

I leaned toward him, winding my body around the father, who’d stepped in even closer. “I didn’t catch that. One more time?”

“Logan Jarvis.”

“Do you know him?” I asked.

Carson shook his head.

I stepped back, and his father held up a thick hand. “That’s it. I mean it. You have to stop.”

I was about to tell him we had stopped when a nurse trotted in and shooed us all away. “Officers, whatever it is you need, it’ll have to wait.”

As she began to check his monitors, Carson whispered, “That school…bunch of fucking assholes.”

“Angry young man,” I said.

The nurse raised an eyebrow. “You blame him?”

Not now I didn’t.