Deputy Briggs gave a little nod and stepped forward, immediately in charge of the situation. “Just a few questions, Matthias,” he said.
As Deputy Briggs pulled out a worn, black clasp notebook from his hip pocket, I noticed that Mr. Hodges wasn’t going anywhere, but any relief I may have felt at that was engulfed by what was happening. Fritz is gone, I thought. He’s missing, vanished. Lost.
SUICIDE WAS THE PREVAILING theory by lunch the next day. No one said this directly to me—I found that I was surrounded by an invisible bubble that caused people to keep their distance and lower their voices when they saw me. I didn’t need to hear what they were saying. I was thinking the same thing.
After Deputy Briggs had questioned me, it had been pretty clear he didn’t think I knew anything about where Fritz might be. I just told him about that afternoon by the lions, downplaying my argument with Fritz, and then recounted what I’d done that evening. Briggs wrote down everything I said and then departed, leaving Mr. Hodges behind. Mr. Hodges sat with me awhile, not saying much of anything, just sitting at Fritz’s desk and jiggling his foot. He said I could stay with him and his wife in their house if I wanted. I thanked him and said I’d be fine where I was. We didn’t say much after that. The dorm began to settle down—some last-minute toothbrushing and toilet flushing, some muffled footsteps from upstairs, and then quiet. A moth batted itself against the window screen. Water gurgled in the pipes. Mr. Hodges looked up at that. “These old dorms,” he said, gazing at the ceiling. “Full of quirks, plumbing older than Versailles. But they’ll never fall down.” At that he stood. “He’ll be all right, Matthias,” he said. “Fritz is a smart boy. He isn’t reckless.”
I nodded, not wanting to risk another crying fit like earlier. I stood up, too. “Thanks, Mr. Hodges,” I said.
He shrugged. “Haven’t done much of anything,” he said. “But if you like, I’d be happy to call your parents for you, let them know what’s going on.”
I hesitated and then shook my head. “No, thank you,” I said. “I don’t want them to worry.” But the thought of my parents made me feel safer—I could talk to them later if I needed to. I thought of Mr. Davenport, Fritz’s dad, driving through the dark right then, knowing that his son was missing, and I shivered.
Mr. Hodges shook my hand on the way out, clapped me on the shoulder, and told me to get some rest. I spent the night staring at the bottom of Fritz’s bunk, holding his Saint Christopher medal in my hand as I tried to fall asleep. I must have dozed off sometime before dawn, because suddenly I was aware that the light outside the windows had gone a milky blue and that there was a dog nearby, giving a single sharp yelp. It was a search-and-rescue dog.
I skipped breakfast and went to first-period class, AP English. Mr. Conkle seemed surprised to see me, as did the rest of my classmates, but everyone politely ignored me as Mr. Conkle had us analyze, or “unpack,” as he called it, Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” Usually this was the kind of thing I excelled at, even enjoyed, taking a poem apart and examining it line by line. This included looking at the words the poet had chosen, the meter, the figurative language, the clever turns and descriptions and insights. But I was in no mood for schoolwork, and all I could think about was how the father in the poem was dying and how Fritz might be dying or dead somewhere. After English, I headed to my room and lay on my bed. No one came to tell me to go to class, so I stayed and dozed until lunch, when hunger drove me to the dining hall and I learned of my newfound powers of attracting the attention of everyone within a fifty-yard radius like some twisted sort of magnet.
When I walked back into my room, I stopped so abruptly, I nearly stumbled into my recliner. Fritz’s father was sitting on my bed.
His tie was loosened and his shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows, though his hands dangled between his knees, as if he had been prepared to dive into some difficult task only to find that he was incapable of doing anything. His eyes, round with sleeplessness and disbelief, seemed to bore a hole straight through me.
“Mr. Davenport,” I stammered. I placed a hand on the nearest chair, needing to grip something solid.
He nodded absently and then wet his lips with his tongue. I realized, for the first time, that Fritz looked very little like his father, but he had the same habit of wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. That realization seemed absurdly tragic, and I stood mute before it.
When Mr. Davenport spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Matthias,” he said, and then dryly swallowed. “Do you know where he is?”
“Sir,” I began. “I—I am so sorry that Fritz . . .” I stopped, confused as to how to end that sentence.
Mr. Davenport supplied the ending for me. “He’s missing, Matthias. My son is missing. His mother is at home right now, crying. I had to call my brother to come over.” He paused, shook his head as if he didn’t approve, and started again. “They tell me you may be the last person who spoke to him. I need to know what he said.”
I couldn’t seem to concentrate—his eyes were absorbing everything. “Sir?”
“What did my son say, Matthias? You saw him, down by the school entrance, yesterday afternoon. What did he say to you?” Another pause. “What did you say to him?”
I willed myself not to stare at my pillow, under which lay Fritz’s medal. Mr. Davenport was sitting right next to it. I wasn’t sure that I could pretend surprise if he found it. And then he would wonder why I hadn’t told him or anyone else about the medal, why I had kept it secret. I wasn’t even sure myself, except that Fritz had placed it under my pillow for a reason—why, I didn’t know, but to give it to someone else, even Fritz’s father, when Fritz had given it specifically to me, seemed wrong, another kind of betrayal.
“Matthias?” Mr. Davenport’s tone was sharper now, impatient.
“I . . .” I hesitated, trying to think of how much to say, and that did it. He was off the bed and up in my face. His speed and ferocity so completely unnerved me that I was left gaping.
“Where is he?” he shouted. His anger was volcanic. I had never seen an adult so furious. His face filled my vision. I could count the pores in his nose, see the silver hairs in the black, uneven stubble around his jaw. His eyes were enormous and blazed with rage. “Where is my son?”