Abby shifted on her feet, gazing somewhere off my shoulder, and then looked me square in the face. “No.”
I nodded. “Thanks for the honesty.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Abby asked.
I sipped my drink, stalling, and realized my cup now held only ice cubes. How to answer that question? My choice was, as usual, avoidance. “Why did you all declare Fritz dead?” I asked. My voice was hard, callous. It wasn’t me speaking, I thought.
Abby stared at me. I crunched an ice cube in my mouth, waiting for an answer. The moment yawned before us, as if I had just taken a step and only now understood that I was falling.
“Wow,” she finally said. “That’s amazing. We’re having a nice . . . moment, or whatever this is, and you just kill it off with a handful of words.” She was furious, tears filling her eyes, although she looked as if she were refusing to cry.
“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked. “Because I don’t.”
“Go to hell,” she said. She threw her can of Diet Coke at me. I ducked late, and the can skipped off my shoulder. Coke fizzed down the back of my coat, although most of it splashed on the ground. When I looked up, Abby was stalking out of the tent into a crowd of people who had suddenly appeared from the stadium. Halftime.
I gathered a handful of napkins and was wiping off my coat when Trip appeared. “Was that Abby Davenport who just walked out of here?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We said hello.”
Trip took in my coat and the napkins in my hand, and then apparently decided not to ask. “Look,” he said. “About . . . in there. I’m sorry. I heard about the boy who died at school. That must have been rough.”
I sighed. “No, man, I’m sorry. I was a complete asshole. No excuse for it.”
Trip raised his hands in appeasement. “We’re good, then.”
I continued to wipe off my coat, not looking at Trip. “Did we score before the half?” I asked.
“Yeah, touchdown. Our guys looked like they were about to apologize for it, too.” He hesitated. “You want to get out of here?”
I wadded up the napkins and threw them into a nearby trash can. “Absolutely,” I said.
WE FOUND AN APPLEBEE’S two blocks away, and Trip ordered a burger and a beer while I prudently ordered iced tea and a club sandwich. We avoided talking about Blackburne. Instead, I asked Trip more about his life since graduation. He told me about going to school in Missouri, switching from political science to journalism, meeting his fiancée, Mary, and then moving with her to D.C. where she took a job as a nurse anesthetist and he started writing a financial blog for a nonprofit. He’d been among the first professional bloggers to write about the subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing tsunami that wrecked the financial world, and he’d been able to parlay that into a job as a staff reporter at the Post. It sounded both extraordinary and normal, a life with a person he loved and marriage and kids on the horizon, and as I bit into my club sandwich, I felt a pang of jealousy.
“I thought newspapers were dying,” I said. “Print journalism is a dinosaur, and all that.”
“You mean like book publishing?” Trip said.
“Touché.” The third whiskey sour had turned my earlier warm glow into an angry burn behind my eyes. I scanned the restaurant for the waiter to order more tea.
Trip smiled. “It’s bad, and it’s changing. Newspapers can’t keep up the old business model. People get their news off the Internet for free.”
I finally caught our waiter’s eye and held up my empty glass. He scurried away. “So you did this sort of backward?” I asked. “Starting as a blogger and then moving to print?”
Trip picked up his burger in both hands. “Oh, I still write a blog,” he said. “On the side. The Post might eventually pay me to write one for them. Although what’ll probably happen is I’ll get an offer from somewhere else, maybe an online magazine.” He took a bite of his burger, savoring it the way a man who is pleased with his life can enjoy little things like his lunch.
I shoved some fries into my mouth. “I can’t balance my checkbook, let alone figure out Wall Street,” I said around the mouthful of fries. “Nice to know they’ve got somebody with brains writing about finance so the rest of us know what the hell to do.”
Trip wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You must have done all right with your novel,” he said. “I heard film rights can sell for good money. If you like, I could set you up with a financial planning guy I know. He could talk to you about investments.”
“You’re about a year too late, my friend,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant but unable to keep a bitter note from creeping in. The burn behind my eyes refused to die down. “Which is why you now see me as a humble teacher of English at our alma mater.”
Trip looked at me quietly as the waiter came back and dropped off another glass of iced tea, whisking the empty one away. As I took a bite of my sandwich, Trip said, “It must be hard, teaching at Blackburne.” The quiet way he said it made it clear he wasn’t talking about classroom management.
Slowly, I nodded. An idea had been forming in the back of my mind, although I hadn’t been sure how to broach it with Trip. His comment provided an opening. The bite of club sandwich had turned to sawdust in my mouth, and I concentrated on chewing. When I’d swallowed, I said, “I’ve learned some things. About Fritz.”
Trip didn’t move other than to blink, but I could sense the excitement and dread stirred in him by my words. Fritz was a taboo subject, and therefore talking about him, crossing that boundary, had caused a thrill to run up Trip’s spine, the same thrill I was feeling. It was a little like we were teenagers again, both eager and frightened as we talked behind the closed doors of our rooms about sex or drugs, hoping the teachers wouldn’t overhear us.
“What do you mean?” he asked after a long pause.
“Last Sunday I talked with the sheriff’s deputy who came out the night Fritz disappeared. Guy named Lester Briggs. Briggs told me some things about the investigation into Fritz’s disappearance. Like how the FBI showed up and then a week later suddenly left, like they’d been called off.”
Trip frowned, causing his glasses to wobble slightly. “What do you mean, ‘called off’?”
“That’s just it. They came in, interviewed some people—like Tofer, remember him, the cook?—and then just left, said they hadn’t found any reason for their involvement.”
“So why’d they show up in the first place?” Trip asked. Then he answered his own question. “The Davenports.”
“Exactly. But Briggs said it seemed too abrupt the way the feds dropped the case, like someone had ordered them to stop.”
“Someone? You mean like a supervisor or something?”
I paused. “Briggs said I ought to take a look at the Davenports.”
Trip looked blankly at me. “Why?”
I knew how Trip would react, and how he might even be right, but I couldn’t let it go. “He wondered if Fritz’s family might have something to do with him running away. If they didn’t want the FBI to find out what had really happened.”
Trip took a long sip of his beer and then carefully put down the glass. “You know how that sounds,” he said. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. But Briggs said the FBI doesn’t usually back out like that once it gets involved in a case.”
Trip sat back in his chair. “Has he had a lot of experience with the FBI, this Deputy Briggs guy?”
I shrugged. “Sounded like he had.”
“But maybe not,” Trip said, not unkindly. “So maybe he’s misreading it. The feds didn’t find any reason to be involved, so after doing a favor or whatever for the Davenports, they backed out.”
I hesitated, but Trip was an old friend, and if I was committing to this, I might as well go all in. “There’s more,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out Fritz’s Saint Christopher medal. It sat dully in my palm, the chain coiled around it. “It’s Fritz’s. I found it underneat
h my pillow the night he disappeared.”
As Trip stared at me in astonishment, I told him about how I’d found the medal, about my encounter with Mr. Davenport the next day, about talking with Pelham Greer and then Sheriff Townsend a few weeks ago. He listened intently, his hamburger lying half-eaten on his plate. When I finished, he looked down at the table, gathering his thoughts. “So you’re trying to find Fritz?” he asked. “Actually find him?”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Did you talk with Abby about this?”
The sense of optimism I’d felt now sank a bit, like a leaking life raft. “Sort of.” Trip raised his eyebrows. Irritably I said, “I asked her why her family had Fritz declared dead.”
Trip looked at me with compassion. “That was her drink you were wiping off your coat, then. You dumbass.”
I leaned forward. “Listen, I need a favor. Two, actually. I want to take a look at whatever news there was about Fritz’s disappearance. The actual articles. I found some stuff online, in the Richmond paper archives, but I thought maybe you could find something more useful.”
I paused, waiting. Trip gave no sign of agreement; in fact, he had the look of a man with doubts. “You said you needed two favors,” he said.
“I need you to dig around and find out what you can about the Davenports,” I said. Trip’s eyes widened in alarm, and I hurried on. “See if they have any secrets, any kind of—”
Trip’s voice rose sharply. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Just hear me out—”
“What the hell do you think I do? I’m not a cop or some—”
“Listen. Davenport’s company does lots of work with the government, the military. Briggs said—no, listen—he said that the feds had a theory that maybe Fritz was kidnapped because of NorthPoint. They handled contracts that had to do with national security—”
“According to Briggs, an ex-deputy from rural Virginia.”
“These were contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Trip. Maybe billions. That’s what you write about, isn’t it? Maybe someone grabbed Fritz to get at some of that money.”
Trip shook his head, like someone shaking off a punch. “Okay, first, I write about finance, Matthias, not criminal investigations. Second, there wasn’t ever a ransom demand. Even your deputy said that, right?”
“No demand that we know of,” I persisted. “Maybe the Davenports got one and called the feds off, settled with the kidnappers.”
Trip tried to follow my reasoning. “If they paid a ransom, then where’s Fritz?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I want your help.”
Trip ran both hands through his hair and settled his glasses on his nose as if regrouping. “Have you thought that maybe you’re seeing conspiracies that aren’t there?” he asked. “This boy at Blackburne, the one who shot himself. That has to be upsetting to you.” I saw where this was going and opened my mouth, but Trip stilled me with a raised hand. “It would upset me, too. And so you’ve got this boy who died, and it reminds you of Fritz, and how we were all afraid that he was dead, too.”
“He’s not dead,” I said. “I don’t believe it. I refuse to believe it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not true. But regardless, this boy last week, he is dead. And you can’t do anything about that. But you think maybe you can do something about Fritz.” He sat forward, eager on making his point. “Let’s say for argument’s sake that Fritz isn’t dead, that he’s alive. He took all that money out of the ATM the weekend before. Maybe he was planning to run away, Matthias. He was going to use that money to get away from school. If he did, then he doesn’t want to be found. Or maybe he was picked up by some wackjob. We don’t know.”
“That’s the point, Trip. I don’t know. Look, I just want to know what the fuck happened to my friend, all right? Is that so wrong? He was your friend, too.”
Trip’s eyes flashed with anger. “That’s not fair. Of course he was my friend! We were all devastated when he disappeared. You weren’t the only one.”
I placed my palms on the table, forcing myself to calm down. “I never said I was the only one hurt by Fritz disappearing. We all were, I know that. But that doesn’t make how I felt any better. How I feel. It’s . . .” I took a deep breath. “Look, I cut myself off from everyone at Blackburne. You, Diamond, everybody. I tried to move on like it was just a—a bad accident, some car wreck I had to get over. And I fucked up everything in my life. My relationships. My friends. I wrote a novel, but now I can’t write anything anymore. It just—doesn’t come. My agent dropped me, my girlfriend and I imploded . . .” I paused. “Nothing’s good,” I said. “Except I think I might actually be good at teaching. I took the job because I was a fucking mess and had nothing else, but I like it. I like the kids. I like talking about poetry with them, for God’s sake.” I paused and closed my eyes. “But everywhere I turn, I see Fritz, or something that reminds me of him. Christ, the fucking Manassas wide receiver reminded me of him.” I opened my eyes. Trip sat stricken across from me, but I plowed on. “The night Fritz vanished, when I talked with you in the library?” Trip barely nodded. “The night before, I cheated on a take-home test.” Trip’s eyes grew wide. A heavy, crushing weight sat on my heart, and I kept talking, hoping I could dispel it. “I had to go in front of the J-Board, with Fritz right there, and I lied and said I didn’t do it, and they found me not guilty. I walked around all that day feeling like such a liar, a fraud. And when I ran into Fritz that afternoon, down at the lions, I was drowning in it, in my own guilt. He—he told me he knew I hadn’t cheated, and I couldn’t fake it. He took one look at my face and he knew. He looked so hurt, like I’d stabbed him in the back. Which I guess I had.” I took another deep breath, this one shuddering a bit, but I held it together. “We fought about it. And then he turned and ran away. He ran away from me. That was the last time I saw him. I don’t want that to be the last time I see him. The last thing he remembers about me. If I don’t . . . put him to rest, I’m going to fail at this, too. I’ve fucked up almost everything else, and I can’t fuck this up. I have to find out what happened to him. I have to.” I sat back in my chair, suddenly exhausted, emptied.
After a minute, I realized Trip had stood up and was laying cash down next to his plate. I looked up at him.
“I’ll get those articles for you,” he said. He kept his voice neutral, calm. “But the Davenports . . .” He shook his head, clapped me once, hard, on the shoulder, and left.
I didn’t feel especially relieved about disclosing everything to Trip. What I felt was a certainty that Trip would help me, and while the heavy weight on my heart was not gone, it was a bit lighter nonetheless.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
On Sunday, my head pounding after three hours of grading papers, I threw on my barn coat and headed out into the chill air for a walk. The windows of the Brickhouse were steamy from the students gathered inside for fries and Cokes, and a couple of new boys were halfheartedly throwing a Frisbee on the Lawn, but otherwise a kind of limp exhaustion had settled over the Hill, as if even the few leaves left on the trees were too tired to let go and sail to the grass below. Sundays were for doing laundry, catching up on homework, or watching an old movie for the fourth time in the A/V center. Students were bored and already mourning the weekend that was not yet over, watching with dread the hours tick by toward Sunday dinner, chapel, and study hall.
I didn’t want to just take a short stroll around the Lawn and head back to the dorm, so I walked past the chapel and Sam Hodges’s house, thinking I might stop by the infirmary and see if Porter was in. But the porch was empty and Betty Yowell’s kitchen window was dark, so I decided to wander down the drive to at least the start of the trees. It was brisk, a light wind cooling my breath. Low gray clouds hid the sun, although you knew it was there, like a lamp held up behind a shade. If it had been colder, I would have thought of snow, although we were a few weeks away from that at least. In that strange, soft ligh
t, I cast no shadow as I walked down off the Hill, the drive a ribbon of asphalt at my feet.
I reached the grove of hickory, oak, and poplar that were older than the trees by the lions at the other end of campus. Rather than a manicured green lawn, the ground underneath these trees was blanketed in dead leaves. This drive was used more as a service entrance, a back door that did not require the same attention to appearances that the lions’ entrance did. As a result, the woods here were more like an actual forest, wilder, more real. The light dimmed around me as I continued to walk down the drive that led to the bridge and the river, where Porter and I had spotted Terence’s body. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the gentle slope that rose to Saint Matthew’s Chapel and the rest of the brick-and-columned Hill. Then I turned my back on it and walked on into the trees.
When I had been a student, this had been a favorite run of mine in the spring, when flowers bloomed in the undergrowth and the oak trees rose like gray columns wreathed at their crowns by golden-green leaves. Now in mid-November, the leaves scorched and the bushes bare, the branches were more skeletal and angular, like the naked limbs of an older woman stripped of her finery. Still, there was a melancholy beauty in the fading gold leaves and the stark branches, and the trees still held a sense of majesty, if less splendid than in early fall or spring.
Such thoughts on the relative beauty of the woods vanished when the bridge came into view. It lay across the river like something abandoned, a graceless span of metal and wood. Beyond it, around another curve, were the skeet range and a couple of faculty houses tucked away among the trees, and then the back entrance to Blackburne. I walked out onto the bridge. Leaning against the rail, I looked down at the flat rock a football field away where Porter and I had found Terence’s body. There was no visible mark left on the rock, no bloodstain or other sign that a boy had died there. Still, the place seemed marked, somehow, the air itself haunted by what had happened. But Terence Jarrar was not a ghost wandering the banks of the Shenandoah. His body was in the ground by now, far away. It was sad how little I knew of him. And now I wouldn’t have the chance to know him any more.
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