As if on cue, I heard someone coming up a set of steps from the basement. Another man, about the same age as Burgess and as neatly dressed, but heavier, and with slightly more hair, appeared at the kitchen door. He, too, gave me the kind of warm look you might reserve for someone with the IRS.
“Trey,” Walter said, “this is Mr. Cutter. Mr. Cutter, Trey Watson.”
“Hello,” I said. Trey barely nodded.
I didn’t know what Trey’s relationship to Walter was, and wasn’t about to ask. But then Walter said, “Trey and I share this house.”
“Great,” I said.
“What’s this about?” Trey asked. It was the first he’d spoken.
“Mr. Cutter hasn’t quite gotten to that yet, but I’m given to understand it involves one of my former students.”
“For Christ’s sake, Walter, get him the fuck out of here.” Trey turned on me. “He’s been through enough. What trumped-up story you here to peddle?”
I looked from Trey to Walter. “I’m afraid I don’t know what he’s talking about. I came here to ask you about a student you once had named Brett Stockwell. Do you remember him?”
“Of course,” he said cautiously.
“He was one of yours, right?”
“Yes, I remember him.”
“He committed suicide ten years ago,” I said.
“Yes, I know,” he said.
“You see?” said Trey. “He’s going to find a way to blame you for that.”
“Trey,” Walter said gently, “why don’t you give me and Mr. Cutter a minute and afterwards I’ll make us some lunch.”
“Just not tuna,” Trey said. “You made that yesterday.”
“I was thinking maybe chicken salad.”
Trey grumbled something neither of us could hear, meandered through the kitchen, disappeared into another part of the house, and then we both heard a back door open and close.
“Sorry about that,” Walter said.
“That’s okay. Brett Stockwell,” I reminded him.
“Jumped off Promise Falls. I remember. Very tragic.” Walter Burgess looked genuinely saddened.
“Brett’s mother said you were very supportive of his writing.”
“Look,” Burgess said, “we don’t get a lot of drop-in company here, Trey and I, what with both our families pretty much disowning us, so it’s quite lovely and all to have someone drop by who wants to chat, but I don’t understand what you’re doing here. Are you related to Brett? I know you’re not his father. I remember meeting his father, back at parent-teacher nights. Besides, I think he died before Brett did.”
“No, I’m not his father. I’m not a relative.”
Burgess’s eyebrows soared for a moment. “So?” he said. “A stranger, no offense, drops by, asking about a student I had more than a decade ago. I don’t get it. It’s no wonder Trey thinks you’re here to do me harm.”
I said, “I don’t mean to do you any harm whatsoever.”
“I have my reasons for being cautious.”
“Okay then,” I said. “My son, Derek, he likes to collect old computers. Tinkers with them, fixes them up. He was given an old computer that Agnes Stockwell, Brett’s mother, had tucked away in her garage. She was probably going to throw it out eventually, but when Derek expressed an interest in it, she let him take it. When he was looking through what was on the hard drive, I guess it was, he found something kind of interesting.”
Burgess leaned forward a little. He looked more than curious. He looked apprehensive. “What was that?” he asked.
“A book. A novel. There was a novel on the computer.”
“Well,” Burgess said, “that’s not all that surprising. Brett was a prolific writer. By any standard, not just that of a high school student.”
“The book, at least what I’ve read of it, it’s, well, it’s quite unique. I’m certainly no judge of its literary merits, but as a person who does read books, it strikes me as being written by someone mature beyond his years. It has a very interesting central character.”
“And you’re here,” Burgess said, “because you want to know whether the book is based on me.”
I must have done some sort of double take. I wasn’t expecting that. Surely the man sitting at this table with me had not awoken one morning to find his genitals had gone missing. It wasn’t the sort of thing I thought I could ask.
“No,” I said. “That’s not what I was wondering. What I wanted to know is, was Brett capable of something like that? Was he, as a high school student, and later, as a young college student, someone who could write a book that would possibly be publishable?”
“Well,” said Walter Burgess, “I don’t have in front of me the piece of work you say your son found on that computer. All I have to go on are the writings Brett showed me when I had him as a student, and based on those, my answer would be yes.” He paused. “He was an extraordinarily gifted young man. I never had any other student whose talents even began to approach those of Brett Stockwell’s.”
“That’s saying something,” I said. “That’s definitely saying something.” For a moment, neither of us said anything. Then I asked the question I wanted to ask. “Why did you think the book might have been about you?”
Now Burgess looked embarrassed. “I feel a bit foolish. I don’t know why I said that.”
“I think you do,” I said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.
“Brett was a very intuitive young man,” he said carefully. “Very insightful.”
I leaned back in my chair. “About you?”
“At. . times. Brett showed his stories to me for a couple of reasons, I think. First of all, I was his English teacher. I was, of all his teachers, probably the best equipped to offer him some guidance, although I don’t claim to be any writer myself. But I tried to be encouraging to students who showed promise.”
He stopped.
“And second?” I prompted.
“And I was probably the only teacher he had who was gay,” he said. “Or that he at least knew to be gay.”
“Why would that be an issue?” I asked slowly.
“Because I was someone Brett felt he could talk to. He was struggling with those kinds of issues himself.”
“Brett was gay?”
Walter Burgess nodded. “His parents didn’t know. I don’t think he’d actually come out and told anyone, aside from me. Although I think the other kids suspected it. You think everyone’s so open about it now, you think they were even a decade ago. But it’s not always that way. Certainly not where parents are concerned.”
“But he could talk to you.”
“Yes. We talked.”
I tried to keep my expression as even as possible, but Burgess was able to read my mind.
“No,” he said. “He and I did not have a relationship. It was always professional. But I did counsel him, just as many teachers find themselves counseling troubled students. Sometimes young people need to talk to an adult they’re not related to. Lots of high school girls who find themselves pregnant have told a teacher before they’ve told their parents.”
“Sure,” I said. “I remember telling my teachers stuff I never told my folks.”
The way Burgess was looking at me suggested he did not think I was being sincere. “I know what you’re thinking.” He shook his head tiredly. “You already know about me, don’t you?”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Why I left teaching. Most people, they know. It’s an open secret.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.” And I wasn’t asking. All I’d come for was some insight into Brett’s skills as a writer. This other stuff was of no concern to me. I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t Barry Duckworth. Whatever had happened in Walter Burgess’s past was none of my business.
