The Chatham School Affair

figured out exactly. Even the way he looked led you slightly off the mark. He had had wiry reddish-brown hair and a sallow complexion that easily burned in the summer sun. He had not been an intimidatingly large man, but when he came into a room, he seemed to shrink it just a bit. He had liked the woods but hated the water, loved fast cars but avoided planes, talked religion but never gone to church, read but rarely spoken of what he read. There had been something mysterious about him, something Kinley had noticed even mat first day in the canyon, the way his eyes seemed to focus on something far away, unreachable even when he spoke of something near at hand, perhaps no further than a short walk into the woods.There’s an old house down here, but nobody lives in it anymore.In the canyon? Where?Not far from here. You want to see it?I guess.It’s the perfect place. You can only find it if you really look hard.Even now, it was impossible for Kinley to know why he’d followed Ray down the narrow, granite ledge and into the dark labyrinth of the canyon. He could remember the frothy green river that had tumbled along the canyon bottom, the sounds of its waters moving softly through the trees, even the unseasonably cool breeze that shook the slender green fingers of the pines, then swooped down to rifle through the leaves at his feet. It was his one great gift. He could remember everything.And now he remembered that as they’d advanced on the house, the going had gotten rougher, the sharp claws of the briers grabbing at his shirt, low-slung limbs suddenly flying into his face like quick slaps to warn him back. The last hundred yards had seemed to take forever, as if the air had thickened, turned to an invisible gelatin which had to be plowed through as arduously as the bramble. It had taken them almost an hour to make it to the general vicinity of the old house Ray had spoken of, and by that time, Kinley remembered, the trek had begun to exhaust him, his legs growing more feeble with each step, his breathing more labored and hard-won, the old plague of his asthma snatching at his breath. It had been enough to rouse his new friend’s concern.Kinley, are you all right? We don’t have to keep going.How far is it?Not far. Just through those last trees. Then we hit the vines.What vines?The ones around the house. Like a wall almost. You want to keep going?Yes.Okay, let’s go.The wall of vines had been exactly as Ray described it, a tall impenetrable drapery of coiling green that hung from the trees and sprouted from the ground simultaneously, its sticky shafts so covered with the dry husks of thousands of insects that in certain places the vines themselves appeared like lengths of tightly knotted rope. The very look of it, Kinley remembered now, had unnerved him so much that he’d actually drawn back, his breath now coming in short, agonized gasps.I think we’d better stop, Kinley.Why?You need to get back. I think you may need a doctor.No.You can’t really get to the old house anyway. There’s no break in the vines.But I want …No.Ray had said it just that firmly. There was to be no argument in the matter. They would go no further. Then he’d taken Kinley by the arm and led him away, the great wall of green disappearing behind him forever.“Forever,” Kinley whispered now, realizing that they’d never tried to find the old shack after that, but had simply let it sink, first from their conversation, then from their boyhood plans, and finally from their remembered hopes.

     The phone rang again around ten. It was Serena again.“I just wanted to tell you about the autopsy,” she said. “My mother called to let me know, and I thought you might want to hear about it, too.”“Yes, I do.”“It was a heart attack,” Serena said. “Massive. That’s what the doctor said. Massive.”“So he died quickly,” Kinley said before he could stop himself.“And so young,” Serena said. “I guess that’s why they wanted an autopsy.”“Who did?”“Mr. Warfield,” Serena said, “the District Attorney, the man he worked for.”“Ray was working for the District Attorney’s Office?”“Yeah. He didn’t run for Sheriff again. Didn’t he tell you that?”“No.”“Well, I guess he just got tired of it, decided not to run. That’s when he took this job with the District Attorney.”“I see.”“Anyway, Mr. Warfield wanted an autopsy.”“It’s probably a good idea.”“You know about this kind of thing, I guess. From your work, I mean.”“A little.”“He was a good man,” Serena said. “I’m just sorry he had to die alone, way down in the canyon.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “Looking for something, I guess. What do you think it was?”Kinley shook his head silently. Maybe just a way through the vines, he thought.

The Chatham School Affair

A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1996 by Thomas H. Cook.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-4021

For information address: Bantam Books.

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eISBN: 978-0-307-43483-8

v3.0

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books By This Author

Title Page

Dedication

Part 1Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6

Part 2Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11

Part 3Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15

Part 4Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22

Part 5Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32

About the Author

Copyright