I shower and shave and put on my standard work clothes—I want to look professional when I go talk to the police. When I walk into the den, Susannah is on the couch, eating dry cereal out of a bowl and watching Tom Hanks play “Chopsticks” on a floor piano in Big. Caesar, his leather jacket removed, is typing on his phone.
“I have to go in to work,” I say. “Shouldn’t be gone long.”
“Okay,” Susannah says, waving vaguely in my general direction. Caesar grunts and continues typing on his phone.
“Need anything?” I ask him.
“Coffee,” he says, continuing to type. “And a toothbrush. I forgot to pack one.”
I PULL INTO my parking space at Archer with twenty minutes or so to spare before my scheduled video appointment. Spring break began yesterday, so the school is deserted—my car looks abandoned in the empty expanse of asphalt. The sky is overcast, the cloud cover low overhead. I use my key fob to get in through the front door. The halls are dim, the overhead lights turned off, although there’s enough sunlight to see as I make my way to my classroom. I unlock my classroom door and push it open, allowing the stale air inside to escape. The overhead fluorescent lights are harsh, but although I’d prefer them off, I want Gardner to be able to see me clearly on the video connection.
Sitting at the desk in the front of my classroom, I open my laptop, log in to the video conference, and, with a click, agree to the parameters of the visitation and acknowledge that the jail officials can terminate a video at any time. Then I wait, sitting in my bright classroom, the desks empty, whiteboards cleaned, books stacked on the desk and the side tables, all waiting for students to return from break. I realize that if today goes badly—or even if it goes well—I may not return to Archer myself. That realization leaves a cold hollow in my stomach.
My laptop dings—my scheduled visitation is about to start. I sit up in my chair, wishing I had thought to bring a water bottle because now my mouth is dry. And then the open black window on my screen is replaced by a grainy video feed. There is a man in a dark V-neck T-shirt, seated in front of a white wall, facing me. His head looks like a squat rectangle, reinforced by the buzz cut. He has a long nose that looks like it might have been broken at some point. “Hey,” he says, his voice tinny in my laptop’s speaker. “You Ethan Faulkner?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re Jay? Gardner?”
The man nods, shifts in his chair. I wonder if he’s chained to the chair—the angle won’t let me see.
“So,” Gardner says, “why’d you want to talk to me?”
“You had a visitor last week,” I say. “I wanted to ask you some questions about that.”
Gardner looks blank for a moment, then smiles. It’s not pretty. “Yeah, she was hot,” he says.
“What did she want?”
He opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Who’s asking?”
“Just me.”
His eyes narrow. “Why should I talk to you?”
“Why not?” I say. “You’re bored, you’re in jail. I bet she had a good story.”
He rubs his hand over the top of his head. Not chained, then. “Why do you care?”
“She was my girlfriend. And now she’s … gone.” I stumble slightly on the last word, deciding at the last moment not to say dead. “I’m trying to find out what happened to her.”
He frowns. “Look, man, that bitch—” He stops and looks to the side. “I’m sorry, Officer,” he says to someone offscreen. “My apologies. I’ll watch my mouth.” He returns his attention to me. “Sorry. That witch was poking around, asking questions. Sticking her nose in.”
“What did she want to know?”
“Man, I don’t got to tell you a damn thing.” As if to emphasize the point, he folds his arms across his chest and leans back in his chair, a signal as clear as a door slamming shut. This isn’t going how I wanted.
“I know she asked about Sam Bridges,” I say, trying to get a reaction.
Gardner mumbles something.
“Sorry?”
He leans forward. “I said, you don’t know anything.”
“I know you and Sam did time together,” I say. “But he got out. Looks like you’re back in.”
“Man, forget this,” he says, and looks to the side again. He’s going to ask the guard to end the video and walk away.
“She knew about Donny Wharton too,” I say quickly.
That gets Gardner’s attention—his eyebrows scrunch together and he leans in toward the screen. “You know Donny?” he asks. His voice is different. It’s hard to tell through the laptop speaker, but I’m a hundred percent sure Gardner isn’t best buds with Donny. In fact, Gardner sounds worried.
“Oh, I know Donny,” I say. “And so do you. And now my girlfriend’s missing, and Sam—” I stop, as if I’ve misspoken and said too much.
Gardner’s mouth is slightly open, like a kid watching a movie. “Sam what?” he asks.
“You see the news last night, Jay?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says sarcastically. “Right after I played a round of golf and then had a dip in my Jacuzzi. No, I didn’t watch the damn news.”
“Sam’s dead,” I say.
He stares. “Say what?”
“Sam is dead,” I say. I know this is being watched, maybe even recorded, and because I’m going to be sitting down with the police later this afternoon, talking about this might be a bad idea. But I need Gardner to give me some idea of what’s going on, so I use the only thing I have—information that I hope shocks him into revealing something. “Someone stabbed him in the back,” I say. “In a monastery, Jay. That’s cold.” I pause to let that sink in, and once it does—but before he can respond—I add, “And I think you can guess who did it.”
It takes him a few seconds, but he gets there. “Whoa,” he says, holding up both hands. “I don’t know that. I mean, I
