The headmaster scanned (he hall for wandering parents, and then ushered the prosecutors into the privacy of his office. His expression had turned grave.
Gardner and Jennifer sat in straight-backed chairs opposite a black inlaid desk. Charles twitched in his leather seat on the other side.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” Gardner asked suddenly, handing a mug shot photo of Roscoe Miller across the desk.
Charles leaned forward and adjusted his glasses, gingerly seizing the picture between his thumb and index finger.
Gardner and Jennifer waited as the headmaster studied the photo for an inordinately long time, his eyes hidden behind the glossy print.
“Do you know him?” Gardner finally prompted.
Charles put the photo down and removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “Believe he worked for us,” he said softly.
“Worked, as in past tense?” Gardner asked.
“Maintenance. Part-time. Came and went as we needed.”
“Is he still under that arrangement?”
Charles’s eyes began dancing again, the way they’d done in the hall. “Don’t think so. Hasn’t been here for several weeks.”
“What name was he using?” Gardner opened a file that Brownie had given him.
Charles wiped his hands with the handkerchief.
“Name?”
“On the payroll. How was he listed?”
Charles got up, went to a iile cabinet, and returned with a folder of his own. As he did this, Jennifer moved away from the desk, toward a side wall.
“Hiller. R. Hiller,” the headmaster said.
“Did you get any ID from him when you signed him on?” Gardner asked, turning his head to see where Jennifer had gone.
The man’s face darkened. “I don’t get involved in those things. Our business manager handles maintenance personnel, things like that. I would assume everything was in order, or he wouldn’t have been hired.”
Just then, Jennifer returned and tapped Gardner on the arm. He looked up, and she directed his attention to a photograph on the wall.
Gardner stood, and approached the picture. It showed a group of men standing in front of a skeet tower, wearing baseball caps. Third from the left, in the front row, was none other than Roscoe Miller.
“Mr. Charles?” Gardner pointed accusingly at the picture.
The headmaster rose and approached the photo. “What?”
“Who are these people?” Gardner asked.
“Skeet team. This year’s shooters.”
Gardner looked at Jennifer in puzzlement, then returned to Charles. “What’s he doing in there?” Gardner pointed to the third man.
The headmaster leaned close to get a better look. “He’s a team member.”
Gardner frowned. “You let your employees play on your sports teams?”
“Sir?”
“Miller! or Hillcr,” Gardner said loudly. “You allowed him to shoot skeet with the kids?”
Charles’s eyes widened. “What?”
Gardner was still pointing at the man in the photo.
“Oh!” the headmaster said, suddenly understanding the confusion.
“That’s not him. That’s one of our students!”
Gardner and Jennifer pressed in for a closer look. The cap cast a shadow across his face, and Roscoe’s wild hair was hidden, but the basic facial construction was similar, and the eyes burned the same clear blue flame.
Gardner shook his head. On closer inspection, he could see that it was not Roscoe. There was a lot more refinement and grooming evident.
“Amazing,” Jennifer said. “When f first saw it, he jumped right out.”
The chief prosecutor was still staring at the image. He looked enough like Roscoe to be his twin. And that similarity gave Gardner a nauseated sensation in the pit of his stomach. His mind suddenly pictured Granville, staring up at a pair of cold blue eyes. Mesmerized and immobile. Unable to move as the gun barrel was lowered toward his forehead…
“Gard.” Jennifer saw his eyes glaze over, and she knew she had to bring him back. “What are we going to do?”
Gardner snapped out of it instantly. He turned and glared at the headmaster. “We’re going to get some answers from Mr. Charles,” he said angrily.
* * *
“Need backup!’’ Brownie shouted into the radio of his cruiser. “Headin’ down Mountain, ‘bout to turn onto Meadow Lane.”
He’d encountered Roscoe in his old red truck, coming out of the Everheart coal field access road. Flashing emergency lights, Brownie had tried to pull him over, but Roscoe hit the pedal and took off. Now he had an arrest warrant in his pocket, and Miller in his sights. And he was not about to let him get away.
The truck fishtailed as it slipped from pavement to gravel apron and back to the road, sending up puffs of dust and spitting pebbles against Brownie’s windshield. The traffic was sparse, and several locals scrambled out of the way as the chase blew by them.
“Send a car down to Thomas Junction!” Brownie yelled as he took a sharp turn on two wheels and banged down on all four on the other side. “Set up a block at Meadow and Thomas! He’s runnin’!” Roscoe was heading for the interstate to the north that would lead out of the county, and out of the state.
“Shit!” The truck suddenly changed course. “Looks like he’s short-cuttin’ Thomas Road!” Brownie barked into his mike.
The truck made a sudden ninety-degree turn onto a dirt road, and Brownie went into a four-wheel skid to keep pace, narrowly missing a tree, leaping a small gully, and finally settling into the dusty straightaway at eighty miles an hour. The ground was very dry, and the dust flapped like a carpet behind the speeding truck, coating the front of the cruiser. Brownie hit the washer switch and racked his brain to recall if he’d ever explored the road they were on. The direction, at least, would bring them to the interstate below Thomas. And that meant there was no place for a roadblock before the county line.
“Okay you motherfucker,” Brownie grunted as he jammed the accelerator. He’d just made a decision. There was no time to get the backup into position. No time to reposition a roadblock. He’d have to make the stop here and now.
The cruiser’s two hundred horsepower engine was overpowering for Roscoe’s aging six cylinder. In an instant, Brownie was at the tailgate, a foot off the line.
“Stop now!” he ordered over the loudspeaker. “Stop your truck, now!”
Roscoe’s lips mouthed “fuck you” in the rear-view mirror, and there was no hint of a reduction of speed.
“Okay.” Brownie whispered softly, throwing the microphone onto the seat and gripping the wheel with both hands. “Have it your way!”
Brownie maneuvered the police car so it angled off on the driver’s side and slammed the pedal all the way to the floor. The cruiser leaped ahead and wedged against the truck, muscling it off the road to the right.
Roscoe screamed and tried to fight the momentum, but the force was too strong. He bounced through a mass of sticker bushes and smashed headlong into a row of saplings. The truck crunched to a stop.
Brownie raced to the door and pointed his 9 millimeter into Roscoe’s face. “This is for you,” he growled.
Miller gasped and looked into the little black hole. He held his breath and waited for the blast.
Just then, Brownie laughed, and laid a paper over the lip of the open window. “Not this! This!” It was the arrest warrant.
Roscoe blinked, and in seconds Brownie had him spread-eagled and cuffed on the ground. “You’re under arrest for three counts of murder, and one count of attempted murder,” he said. “Now lie there like a good boy while I read you your rights…”
Things were heating up in the headmaster’s office. Edwin Charles was being evasive.
“What’s his name?” Gardner asked for a second time. They were still gathered around the skeet team photo featuring the Roscoe look-alike.
Charles shifted nervously on his feet. “He’s just a student…”
<
br /> “But what’s his name?” Gardner repeated.
The headmaster returned to his desk and sat down, pulling out his handkerchief again. “You’ve got to tell me what this is about before I give you any more information. We have a policy of confidentiality here.”
Gardner stood up and leaned across the desk. “Sure. I’ll tell you. In case you didn’t know. Three people are dead, and another is under a death threat. Hiller’s real name is Miller, and he’s being arrested this morning for the murders. We have reason to believe that his accomplice may have come from this school!”
The headmaster looked as if Gardner had just whacked him with a stick. “That’s impossible!” he said, his voice lowered.
Gardner pushed in closer. “The hell it is. You’d better think about it. We can have you in front of the Grand Jury this afternoon! Now, are you going to cooperate?”
Charles stood up. “How dare you threaten me!”
Jennifer tugged on Gardner’s arm, fearful that he might go over the desk and engage the man physically. “Maybe we should sit down,” she said softly, “and start over.”
Gardner and Charles glared at each other in silence, then, in deference to Jennifer, sat down.
“I’m sorry,” Gardner said sullenly. “My son was almost killed by these people. He was hit in the head. Knocked out. Now they’re coming after him again…”
Charles’s face was blank, as if he was thinking about something else. “That’s very sad,” he finally said, “but I really do not see where the school is involved.”
Gardner continued. “We need to know Miller’s contacts while he was here,” he said. “Who did he hang around with, talk to, associate with…”
Charles shook his head. “I wouldn’t know those things. This is the administration center. We only deal with student matters.”
“Well, who would know?” Gardner asked.
Charles hesitated again.
“How about the business manager? Can he tell us?” Gardner could see that this was going nowhere. Charles had clammed up.
“He’s busy right now. With the commencement.”
“It won’t take long,” Gardner insisted. “Where can I find him?”
Charles swallowed and waved his hand toward the window.
“I see,” Gardner said sarcastically, “somewhere in the great outdoors.” The prosecutor stood up, motioning Jennifer to join him. “So you’re not going to tell us anything further?”
The headmaster shook his head. “No.”
Gardner took a deep breath. “And why not?”
“Because I don’t know anything,” Charles answered.
Gardner stared at the man in silence, then took Jennifer by the arm and led her from the room, slamming the door behind them.
Charles remained immobile behind his desk for a moment after the door closed. Then he wiped his face, and rewiped his hands with the handkerchief. Finally, he picked up his phone and dialed a number.
A recording answered, and he looked at his clock: 8:30 A.M. Too early for contact. When the beep sounded, he spoke. “This is Ed Charles. I have a major problem here. Please call as soon as you get in. It is extremely urgentr Then he hung up and walked to the window in time to see Gardner and Jennifer heading toward the maintenance shed on the far side of the running track.
“He’s hiding something,” Gardner said as they shuffled down an embankment toward a group of green-suited workers loading a stack of chairs onto a flatbed truck.
“What could it be?” Jennifer asked, once again hustling to keep up with her boss.
“Don’t know,” Gardner answered as they reached level ground. “He’s either involved or he’s trying to protect someone. Did you see how he reacted?”
“Didn’t want to tell us anything,” Jennifer answered, “not even a name…”
After several steps, they arrived at the truck.
“Mornin’,” Gardner said to a burly man who seemed to be directing the action. “Can you point me to the crew chief?”
The man eyed both of them warily.
Gardner flashed his State’s Attorney’s badge, and Jennifer followed suit.
“Need to speak with the chief. Official business,” Gardner said in his jury voice. “Murder investigation.”
The man moved away from the work crew so they wouldn’t hear. “You’re talkin’ to him,” he said in a lowered voice, glancing nervously toward the administration building as he spoke.
“I’m Gardner Lawson. This is Jennifer Munday.”
“Ralph Lambert.”
“Okay, Mr. Lambert, need to ask you some questions about this guy.”
Gardner handed the man the mug shot. When Lambert saw who it was, he glanced at the administration building again.
These people are spooked! Gardner thought. “He worked for you,” the prosecutor said.
“Uh-huh.”
“Off and on for the past six months.”
“Uh-huh.” Lambert was getting more and more uncomfortable.
“Who did he hang out with on the work crew?”
“On the crew?”
Gardner nodded.
“Uh, nobody. Always kept to himself.”
Gardner kept probing. “He must have spent more time with some. More than others.”
“On the crew? No. Just did his job. Never said a word.”
Gardner sighed. This was going nowhere. “In six months he never spoke a word to a living soul?”
“No. Not on the crew.” The chief sounded hesitant.
“How about elsewhere?” Gardner asked. “Maybe you saw him with someone outside of the work crew.”
Lambert glanced up the hill again, then looked at Gardner with a resigned expression. “There was a kid I seen him with…”
Gardner’s senses sharpened. “Kid?”
“Uh-huh. Student…”
Gardner’s eyes prompted Lambert to continue.
“Down at the skeet range. We done a lot of work down there, over the winter. Gettin’ it ready for the season…”
“Yeah…”
“Seem like this kid was always down there while we was workin’.”
“Yeah…”
“Well, Ross an’ him seemed to hit it off.”
“Ross?” That was a new one.
“Ross Hiller. The guy in your picture. That’s who we’re talkin’ about, right?”
Gardner nodded. “Right.” Ross Hiller. Roscoe Miller. Clever play on words for a backwoods punk.
“Anyway, they was always together when the boys took a break.” Lambert’s eyes shifted toward the sky as he thought back. “An’ one time…” His voice faded as he glanced over his shoulder. “Uh, one time the kid even let Ross shoot his gun,” Lambert whispered.
“What was the student’s name?” Gardner asked excitedly.
“Name?” Lambert was hesitating, maybe to play for time.
“Yeah,” Gardner urged. “What was his name?”
The headmaster suddenly appeared, almost at a full run. His eyes were on his crew chief.
“Don’t know none of the kids’ names. We jus’ work here, but—”
“Mr. Lambert!” The headmaster called.
“There was somethin’ strange,” Lambert’s voice dropped very low.
Gardner’s stomach tensed.
“He looked a lot like Ross. Yep. No question about it. Them two could’a been brothers.”
Just then the headmaster arrived. “Mr. Lambert, you’re needed at the podium,” he said breathlessly. “The wiring needs to be checked.”
The crew chief nodded and rushed off.
Gardner glared at Charles. “For the last time,” he said angrily, “I want the name of the student in the skeet picture. You give it to me now, or I’m going to charge you with obstruction of justice!”
Charles’s face blanched. “Okay,” he said, “okay.”
Gardner waited. “Okay, what?”
“I’ll give it to you,” the headmaster said, “as soon as my lawyer gets h
ere.”
“Lawyer? Now why would you” he glanced at Charles, “need a lawyer?”
The headmaster crossed his arms. “To protect the school,” he said.
Gardner suddenly grabbed Jennifer’s hand and pulled her toward the commencement area. The headmaster was caught by surprise and left behind. Soon the prosecutors were sprinting toward a stand that had been set up by the podium. Several students were milling around it, carrying boxes.
They halted in front of the stand. “How much for a book?” Gardner asked, trying to catch his breath.
“Twenty-five dollars,” a student answered, laying a square black volume on the counter.
Gardner dug in his pocket, retrieved several bills, and handed them over.
Silver Linings was the title of the Prentice Academy yearbook. Gardner flipped open to the index, and ran through with his finger until he found the “Skeet” reference. Then he fanned the pages. Jennifer pressed close as the photo came to light. It was the same one in Charles’s office.
Gardner skimmed his finger under the names until he came to the third one from the end. “IV Starke,” he said aloud.
Just then Jennifer nudged him and pointed toward the parking lot where a familiar burgundy Jaguar was pulling in. “King,” she announced.
“I might have guessed,” Gardner said sarcastically. “Let’s get out of here.” He snugged the book under his arm and they walked toward his car.
King was getting out when they arrived. “Heard you wanted some questions answered,” he said.
Gardner ignored him and opened his car door.
“So. Do you want to talk, or not?” King persisted.
Gardner shrugged and entered his vehicle while Jennifer got in on the other side.
King stood there in silence, and by then the headmaster had caught up and run to him like a lost calf.
King whispered a few words to Charles, then motioned for Gardner to lower his window.
Gardner backed out, and hit the power button, pulling to within a few feet of King.
The defense attorney smiled. “My client is ready to talk now. In case you’re interested.”
Gardner scowled. “What’s it going to cost me?”
King smirked. “The usual. Full transactional immunity.”
Silent Son Page 14
