by Rosie Genova
“What about him, Mr. A?” I persisted.
He held up a broad palm. “Heaven forfend I should criticize one of our young scholars, but Mr. Connors got up a lot of people’s noses.”
“By people you mean staff, I take it.”
“Staff, students, the custodians, the cafeteria workers, you name it,” he said, waving his hand. He leaned toward me, dropping his voice. “Look, the kid’s brilliant. Not a word I use lightly, Victoria. But he knew it. And he lorded it over the other students and even his teachers. There was a . . . ruthlessness about him.” Almost involuntarily, he glanced up at the Macbeth poster and then back at me. “Anyway, once he got into MIT, he was insufferable.”
“Okay,” I said, “I already know he’s not the most personable boy. But I’m wondering if he did something wrong—possibly even illegal—”
“To what do these questions pertain, Ms. Rienzi?” he interrupted.
Several of the kids’ heads lifted at the sound of Mr. Ainsley’s sharp tone. One ponytailed girl in wire-rimmed glasses was standing a little apart from the other kids. Though she appeared to be working, it was clear she was listening to our conversation.
I turned my attention back to my old teacher and tried an approximation of the truth. “Jason worked for the restaurant this summer and there was some trouble. I’m trying to ascertain whether he might have had something to do with it.”
“Trouble, eh? Would that be like the trouble last May when that producer was found dead behind your family’s restaurant? Did you think I didn’t know about that?”
I sighed. “I think there’s very little you and the Cormorant staff don’t know, Mr. A. That’s why I’m here. Can you please tell me if Jason Connors got mixed up in something illegal when he was at Oceanside High?”
He slapped his palm down on his cluttered desk. “That I cannot speak to,” he said, echoing Father Tom’s words about Pete. “I won’t speculate about a situation that is based merely upon rumor and innuendo.”
“So there was something?”
He glanced over at his students; the girl with the ponytail and glasses was holding marked-up article copy and making suggestions to a boy working at a computer. Though she seemed engrossed in her work, I knew she had her ears trained on us. He scowled at her and her cheeks reddened.
He looked back at me and lowered his voice again. “Last fall, the online grading system was hacked. Whoever did it didn’t change any grades. They only used the comment function to leave stupid messages. It was a malicious prank—nothing more. The school kept it in house and out of the media. The kids were never caught.”
“Kids?” I asked. “There was more than one? And Jason was one of them?”
He shook his large, shaggy head, looking like an intelligent dog. “There is no proof that he did it. But he had the skills for it, as did any number of kids in this building.”
“You said it was kept out of the media. But did the Cormorant report on it?”
“We did,” he said, nodding. “It was a straightforward news piece. We indicated that the perpetrators were unknown, featured some bland quotes from administrators, and that was that.”
I glanced over at the busy staff. “I remember how you trained us, Mr. A. Those kids did some digging, didn’t they? But if they had names, they wouldn’t have shared that information with you.”
“No, because I’d be legally bound to turn those names over to the authorities.” He shook his head. “We’re not in the business of ruining lives here. Certainly not for a stupid prank that ended up hurting no one.” He jabbed his forefinger in my direction. “And what did I teach you fifteen years ago?”
“That we have to balance truth with harm,” I said with a sigh. “But prank or not, Mr. A—what they did was illegal. And if a college got wind of such activities, isn’t it possible it would rescind that student’s admission?”
“Of course. That’s why, if my staff had information about who hacked into the system, they weren’t sharing it with me. Nor would I want them to.” He stood up, a clear signal that our conversation had ended.
“Thanks, Mr. A. I’ll let you get back to it.” I stood up and held out my hand, wincing as Mr. Ainsley crushed it in his large paw.
“Nice seeing you again, Ms. Rienzi. And remember what I said: I want to see a real book from you one of these days!”
I walked down the hallway mulling over my conversation with Mr. A. Was the grading system hack truly a victimless crime? Was it merely a prank perpetrated by very smart kids just to prove they could do it? In Mr. A’s place, would I have also turned a blind eye? But why wouldn’t the school have worked harder to find out who was behind it? And just as I reached the door to the parking lot, it struck me: Jason Connors was a classic success story. The son of a working-class single mother who wins academic awards, gets a full ride to a prestigious institution, and brings lots of positive attention to the school that fostered his talents. Even if the school suspected he was behind the system hack, they would be reluctant to call him out on it. Geez, Vic, you’re getting cynical in your old age. Maybe Jason—or whoever did this—just covered his tracks too well to be caught.
I was opening my car door when I heard a breathless voice behind me. “Miss Reed?”
Not expecting to hear my pen name, I turned, a little puzzled. The girl with the ponytail and glasses held out a pen and a battered copy of Molto Murder, one of my early Bernardo Vitali mysteries. “Would you mind signing this for me?” she asked a little shyly.
“Sure. What’s your name?”
“Kelly,” she said, peering over my shoulder. “I recognized you from the back cover.”
I scribbled our names on the title page and handed it back to her. “How do you like working on the paper?” I asked her.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s so cool getting that first byline. But it’s nothing like having a real book out with your name on the cover.”
“Yeah, it is. How do you think I started? With bylines on the school paper.” She seemed in no hurry to leave, and I knew that she had not followed me out here just to have me sign her book. “Can I ask you something, Kelly?”
Her blue eyes gleamed behind her glasses. “Sure.” Her expression was expectant, almost excited.
“I think you overheard some of what I was talking about with Mr. A,” I said. “The system hack that you guys reported on last year.”
“We wanted to do an investigative piece on it, but he wouldn’t let us.” She rolled her eyes. “So much for hard-hitting journalism.” She shrugged. “In the end, though, nothing we got could be substantiated. But we all knew who did it.”
“Was it Jason Connors?”
She nodded. “And someone else from the robotics team. Here’s the thing: People didn’t really like Jason that much, but there’s nobody who doesn’t like Guy. So nobody would, like, run and tell about the hacking.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You said no one liked Jason, but then you indicated that everybody liked the guy. Which is it?”
She shook her head. “I said everybody liked Guy. Guy St. Vincent. I guess you could say he was Jason’s accomplice.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Of course. Guy is gone was what Florence had said, not that guy is gone. I’d had the name all along, without even knowing it. “Kelly, where is Guy St. Vincent now?”
“At school, I guess, like they all are.”
College kids make terrible suspects, I thought. Especially in September. I crossed my fingers and sent up a small prayer to the Holy Mother. “Do you know where he goes to school?”
She frowned slightly. “Why do you want to know? Are you gonna make trouble for him?”
“No, really, I’m just looking for information. I won’t get him in trouble. I give you my word.”
“Okay,” she said with a sigh. “He’s at Rutgers.”
“New Brunswick?” I could barely contain my excitement. Aside from being my alma mater, Rutgers was a relatively short hop along Route 18; I could be there in under an hour.
She nodded. “Look, he’s a really nice kid. He made a stupid mistake by following Jason. Please don’t tell anyone about what they did, okay?”
I wanted to be able to promise Kelly that I would keep my mouth shut. But that would depend on what I learned and whether I needed to bring the information back to the police or the county prosecutor. “I’ll do my best, truly.” I held out my hand. “Thanks for the information. It was nice meeting you, Kelly. You better get back inside before Mr. A has to hunt you down.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” she said, but her hurried gait said otherwise. “Thanks for signing my book,” she called.
I hopped in the Honda, turned on the ignition, and checked the gas gauge. Plenty to get me to New Brunswick and back. It was time for my next class reunion.
* * *
I had barely gotten onto the highway when I realized that I only had a name—Guy St. Vincent. He was one student out of thousands. Heck, tens of thousands. I didn’t know his dorm; I didn’t even know if he lived on the main campus. The Rutgers campus sprawled over several miles and a couple of towns. Where would I even start? College Avenue seemed the natural choice, but did they even house freshmen there these days? Think, Vic. Think. I considered calling the university and pretending to be his mother, but what kind of mother forgets where her own kid is housed? It was Friday of the holiday weekend—did I really think some helpful administrative assistant would pick up her phone and just hand me the info I needed?
This wild goose I was chasing was likely to leave me with nothing but an empty gas tank and a heap of frustration. I turned off the highway into a strip mall and parked my car. I took a swig of warm water from the bottle in my cup holder and tried not to think about how old it was. I fished my phone out of my purse and stared at it, as if for answers. And it gave me one, in the form of a tiny “F” that appeared among my apps. Gotta love Facebook. And uncommon names.
Unlike Jason, Guy St. Vincent had a Facebook page. And Rutgers, New Brunswick, was listed as his college destination, but there was no mention of his dorm. He had posted on his timeline this morning, though: Move-in day at RU!!! So he was on campus, as Kelly had said. I scanned his page, spreading my fingers across the window to zoom. And then I saw it—a link to a Twitter account.
One quick tap and I had what I needed because Guy St. Vincent was live-tweeting his move-in day for all the world to see:
Last trip in the elevator to the top of Hardenburgh. Whew.
So the wild goose wasn’t so elusive after all. He was living in one of the freshman dorms—in fact, it was my old freshman dorm. I started the car and got back onto Highway 18, taking the same route I’d driven more than a decade ago, with almost the same sense of excitement and adventure.
In another thirty minutes I turned onto College Avenue. With a little shock of recognition I took in the student center, the library, and the three river dorms that stood sentinel over the Raritan. And it was all much more crowded and busy than I remembered. I parked in a lot near the dorm (illegally, I was sure) and took a minute to orient myself. These were not the shabby 1950s high-rises I remembered. Wow. They sure have spruced these up.
I walked to the back of Hardenburgh, where a lone young man in a ripped black T-shirt stood smoking against one of the cement columns. As I got closer, I noticed his eyeliner and black nail polish.
“Excuse me,” I said a little breathlessly, “but I’m looking for Guy.”
He slid his eyes my way and blew smoke at me in a world-weary fashion. “Get in line, sister,” he said. “We’re all looking for a guy.”
“No, not a guy. Guy is his first name. Guy St. Vincent. He’s a freshman.”
“Cool name.” Black Nail Polish narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re too young to be his mother and too old to be his girlfriend. Are you a creeper?”
I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring, as opposed to creepy, way. “No. I’m an alum, actually, and I have some information for him.”
He raised one penciled eyebrow, took another drag on his cigarette, and waited.
“Really,” I said. “I need to see him about, uh . . . a scholarship.”
“Right. The Cougar Award, no doubt.” He stamped out his cigarette and pointed to his left. “I think that door’s open, though.” One side of his mouth twisted in a lopsided grin. “Good luck finding your Guy.”
Thanks, kid. But I took his advice. Inside the dorm, small knots of students stood talking, holding boxes and bags. A little rush of nostalgia came over me as I remembered my own first day at college; I felt ancient as I listened to their chatter and laughter. I moved from group to group, but no one knew Guy or recognized the name; I had likely come all this way for nothing. I was heading out the door when I spotted a gangly boy with blond curls in the parking lot. He was holding a duffel bag in front of his chest; as he shifted it, I saw his T-shirt: SAVE THE CAROUSEL, OCEANSIDE PARK, NEW JERSEY.
“Excuse me,” I said, hurrying toward him. “Are you from Oceanside? And is your name Guy, by any chance?” And please don’t think I’m a creeper.
He frowned, more out of curiosity than dismay. “Yeah. It’s actually pronounced Gee, ’cause I’m French, but everybody says ‘Guy.’ Do I know you?”
I held out my hand. “I’m Victoria Rienzi. My family owns the Casa Lido Restaurant in town. Jason Connors worked for us this summer and—”
He held out both hands in front of him, his duffel bag sliding to the ground. “I don’t know who you are or why you showed up here, but I don’t want to talk to you.” He scooped up his bag and tried to push past me, but I stepped in front of him.
“Wait, Guy, please. I’m not here to cause trouble for you, I promise. I need five minutes of your time and then I’ll go, okay? My questions are about Jason, not you.”
His shoulders sagged, and when he looked at me I saw the worry in his face. “Five minutes?” he asked in a low voice.
“Absolutely. We can stand right out here and talk if that’s okay, and then I’ll go.”
Guy nodded, but looked unhappy. “What do you want to know?”
“Look,” I said quietly, “you probably know this is about hacking the school computer system. I would never ask you to incriminate yourself in any way—do you believe me?”
“I guess.” He looked at me, his pale blue eyes filling with tears. “I thought that crap was behind me. I’m starting college, for God’s sake!”
“I know. I’m not here to rake it up, but I need some information. You can just nod or shake your head, okay? Was it Jason’s idea to hack the system?”
He nodded without hesitation and I sensed that he was being truthful. “I don’t want to know details,” I said. “But could someone have seen you near or in the school?”
He shook his head and then spoke. “When Jason and I . . . hung out, we were usually at his house. If we, uh, played computer games, we played them on our own desktops.”
“Got it. Did his mom know you guys were ‘playing computer games’?”
“Afterward, she knew.”
“Okay. In terms of playing these games, did you guys talk about the games first? I mean, there had to have been some planning involved, right?”
He nodded, looking more miserable by the minute, but stayed silent. “Did you do this talking at his house or at your house?” I asked.
“His. But if his mom was home, we’d talk somewhere else in town.”
“In a public place?” My pulse picked up its pace. “Such as?”
Guy shrugged. “Usually outside somewhere. The park. The boardwalk.”
The park. The boardwalk. Two places Stinky Pete frequented, and two places that offered areas to hide. My heart raced as I asked Guy my next
question. “Do you know if anyone ever saw or heard you talking about the, uh, computer games?”
Guy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple prominent in his thin neck. “There was a homeless guy,” he whispered. “He was asleep under the boardwalk one night. Jason said we shouldn’t worry about it. That the guy was a drunk and wouldn’t have understood what we were talking about anyway.”
“Thank you.” I held out my hand again and Guy took it reluctantly. “I promise you that this conversation never happened,” I said.
And I meant it. Even if I had to bring information to the authorities, there was no way I would mention this boy’s name. I pointed to the building behind him. “I lived there my freshman year. It was great. In the winter we’d steal trays from the dining hall and slide around on the frozen river.”
He smiled, though he still looked as though he wanted to cry. “I don’t think you can do that anymore,” he said, pointing. “There’s a big fence up now.”
“Yeah, well, that was back in the day. I loved it here. And you will, too.”
I watched his figure grow smaller as I drove away, grateful that Guy St. Vincent had taken the risk to talk to me. Because another tiny thread had just been woven into the fabric of the mystery of Pete’s death—maybe soon a true pattern would take shape.
Chapter Twenty-two
Bidding my college alma mater a fond farewell, I popped in my earbuds and called Sofia on the ride home to fill her in.
“So, are we pretty sure that Pete overheard Jason and Guy talking about hacking the school computer system?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I think Guy was telling the truth. The poor kid was terrified that I was there to drag it all up again. I promised him I’d try to keep him out of it.”
“I think you’ll be able to keep that promise, Vic.”
“What do you mean?”
