Deception

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Whatever—if I say don’t write it, you won’t?”

“Not a comma.”

“He doesn’t take well to being told no.”

“I’ve told him no before.”

Brown eyes widened. “In what context?”

I said, “He’s been bugging me for years to give up my practice and work for the department. Keeps tossing more money and better titles my way.”

“Yeah, that’s his style. So what, you shine him on because you don’t like him?”

“I could deal with him, Charlie, but the money still sucks and always will and, more important, I prize my independence. You can relate to that.”

His look turned sour. Don’t Patronize Me.

I said, “Don’t get all sensitive, I’m stating a fact. No need for me to kiss your ass.”

The follow-up look, saucer-eyed and confused, said Who Is This Space Alien?

We walked a bit more before he said, “It’s utterly absurd, his thinking I deserve a prize. I just did what was necessary.”

“Were you and Marty friends?”

“I don’t have any friends,” he said. “Neither did he, at Prep.”

“Common enemy’s as good a reason as any for rapport.”

First smile of the day. “True… he used to sit by himself, a couple of times I went over and talked to him. He was polite but didn’t have much to say. After he hurt his shoulder he wasn’t much for any kind of sociability, I could see he wanted to be alone, so I stayed away. But then I heard some of their clique trash-talking about Marty killing Ms. F., I knew I had to do something. Planting lies is so typical. They live to deceive.”

“T and Q,” I said.

“They take no responsibility and the system feeds their narcissism.”

“Finding scapegoats.”

“Finding and tossing them over cliffs. That’s the original concept. Of scapegoat, I mean. It’s from the Old Testament, used to be literal. When the community deteriorated to utter corruption, they picked two goats. One was designated godly, the other was the Azazel and they tossed it over to atone for everyone’s sins.” Huffing. “As if.”

“They teach Bible at Prep?”

“Oh, sure.” He snickered. “Between agonizing analysis of Malcolm X and Catcher in the Rye there isn’t much time left for ancient texts. No, I’ve been known to read on my own. Even when I should be studying for the SAT.”

I said, “You like the Old Testament.”

“Old, New, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita. The truth is, all religions promote kindness as well as incredible brutality.”

I said, “So T and Q’s clique had pinned Ms. Freeman on Martin. Think they believed it?”

“Who knows? Are they even capable of belief?”

“They talked about it openly?”

“No way,” he said. “But one time I was being my usual asocial loser self and walking near the back of the campus—right at the back, there’s a dense, kind of foresty area where no one goes, which is precisely why I do, I need peace and quiet so I can read what I want to, cut myself off from all the—anyway, I was back there. Reading Job, actually, and for the first time I heard someone else. It was T, smoking weed. Then Q joined him and he lit up. I said, Great, there goes my last refuge. I thought of leaving but didn’t want them to see my—I just didn’t want to deal with them. So I stayed, I was behind some thick bushes, it’s a place I always go, just me and the beetles, once in a while there’s a squirrel. They had no idea. I had no interest whatsoever in anything they had to say but they were close by and talking loud enough for me to hear. Then some of their clique joined them and they all started talking about it.”

“Ms. Freeman.”

“Yes. No one was exactly grieving. Mostly because they’re superficial. But in T’s case and Q’s, there was anger. ‘Ding dong the bitch is dead,’ that kind of thing. Then T started going off on Marty, blaming him for it, saying he was going to call in an anonymous tip to the police and name Marty. Everyone thought that was a great idea. Then everyone lit up and the air started stinking of weed and I wanted out of there but I waited until they were gone, then took out my cell and texted Garret and he called his grandfather and he called the Mendozas. They decided they needed to keep Marty safe until it became clear if those threats were real. Mrs. Mendoza packed up a suitcase and drove Marty to Garret’s.”

“You texted Garret first because you and he are friends.”

“I already told you: The concept of friendship is alien to me. I knew him from surfing. He surfs at County Line and I do, too, because the waves are usually good and I can just drive over the canyon from here.” Second smile of the day. “Bet you didn’t see me as a surfer. I can’t play ball worth shit and I spaz out in basketball but on a board my balance is pretty good.”

“You’re full of surprises, Charlie.”

“Going to put that in your letter?”

“Am I writing a letter?”

“Far as I’m concerned, there’s no need. The entire process is utterly absurd, not to mention corrupt and despicable. Look where it led.”

“Bad people can turn anything rotten.”

“The system’s rotten,” he said. “The haves keep getting more, the have-nots keep getting ripped off. Don’t think I’m a socialist or an anarchist—any kind of ist. Those systems inevitably sink into corruption, as well. I just work at seeing things the way they are.”

We walked some more.

I said, “What made you decide T and Q might be guilty themselves?”

“My long-term analysis of their personalities plus the anger—rage, really—that I heard in their voices when they were discussing Ms. Freeman. It all made sense, when you knew about the SAT scam.”

“Did everyone at Prep know?”

“I can’t speak for everyone, but anyone with a brain in their head had to know. T getting a 1580? Q pulling 1520? That’s about as likely as me dating a supermodel.”

“So you suspected them, but didn’t want to go to your father.”

“He’s the last person I’d go to. All he’d care about is how it impacted my application.”

“Instead you called in those anonymous tips.”

Silence. “That was cowardly, wasn’t it?”

“The first one was kind of abstract, Charlie. Three dates.”

“Abstract as in useless,” he said. “No one figured it out.”

“We did,” I said. “And it led to everything else that followed. Your spelling it out on the second tip was a nice boost.”

“We couldn’t hide Marty forever and no one was getting anywhere. I knew I’d been too oblique the first time. How’d you know it was me?”

“The second time you phoned Lieutenant Sturgis’s cell directly. Only insiders have that. As in your dad. More important, that phone registers caller I.D.”

He slapped his forehead. “Oh, brilliant. Put that in the letter: Charlie has trouble with basic logic.”

“If you feel like flogging yourself, that’s fine. But the truth is you did the right thing and you were the only one at Prep who did.”

“Big deal, it was too little, too late.” He rotated a finger. “Whoopee-doo.”

“Okay,” I said. “Good luck.”

“That’s it?”

“Unless there’s something else you want to say.”