I stared at the deputy, who clicked his pen again, waiting patiently. “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I just assumed—”
In my mind, I saw the body on the flat rock: the shattered wreck of a head above the mouth, the chin and lower lip flawless, except for a sliver of gore lying across the lower front teeth.
I managed to turn to the side so I didn’t vomit on Deputy Smalls’s feet. A hand seemed to squeeze my gut like a child squeezes a balloon, and with an acid rush I emptied my stomach onto the bridge pavement. Dimly I realized that Deputy Smalls had crouched down beside me. When the retching stopped and I was able to spit, Smalls produced a handful of napkins. I feebly protested and then took them to wipe my mouth. “Sorry,” I managed.
“That’s all right,” he said. “It was an ugly thing, to see a body like that.” He stood up. “You feeling any better? I can get you some water if you like.”
I ended up walking past the ambulance and police cars and off the bridge to sit on the ground, leaning back against an oak tree and taking tiny sips of water from a bottle Smalls brought me. I spat again, trying to get rid of the taste in my mouth. After a few moments, I cleared my throat. “Do you . . . Was it an accident, you think?”
“That’s up to the county medical examiner,” Smalls said. “Right now, we’re just trying to ID the body.”
I nodded. “You guys have always been helpful.” When Smalls looked quizzically at me, I shook my head. “I—sorry, it’s . . . I went here to school, and my old roommate, Fritz Davenport, he went missing. About ten years ago.” I took a deep breath, released. “You guys did everything you could, looking for him.”
Smalls nodded. “I remember,” he said. “Lester Briggs was on that case.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard he just retired. It’s too bad. I wanted to call him up and thank him.”
“I can pass that message along, if you like,” Smalls said. “I’ll see him this weekend.”
“Please, thanks,” I said. This felt normal, having a mundane conversation with another adult, and I was afraid to end it and face what would come next. “Are you heading down to Florida?”
Smalls frowned. “Florida? No, we’re going fishing up at Sherando Lakes,” he said. He seemed about to say more, when the radio clipped to his shoulder squawked with static and a voice. He stepped away and spoke into the radio, leaving me confused. The Sherando Lakes were just a few miles away. Sheriff Townsend had told me Deputy Briggs had moved to Florida after retirement. Why had he said that? Or had I misunderstood?
Smalls returned, his face grim. “They think they’ve identified the victim, Mr. Glass. There’s a name written on the tag of his sweatshirt.” He glanced down at his open notepad. “Terence Jarrar,” he said. He looked up at me.
The news sank into me like a cold blade. “He’s one of my students,” I said. “He . . . lives in my dorm.”
“Your friend Mr. Deems just spoke with your associate head, Mr. Middleton,” Smalls was saying. “They’ve checked, and Terence Jarrar is unaccounted for—he’s not in his room or in study hall.”
“I need to get back up to school,” I heard myself saying as if from far away.
Smalls nodded. “Yessir. I’m sorry.”
PORTER WAS SITTING MOTIONLESS behind the wheel of his car, which he had turned around so it sat at the end of the bridge, facing back toward the Hill. My breath visibly crystallized in the cold night air as I walked up to the passenger-side window, tapped on it, and then opened the door. “Sorry you had to wait,” I said. Porter didn’t respond as I got in and closed the door.
“It’s Terence?” I asked.
Porter nodded, still gazing out the windshield.
“You okay?” I asked.
Porter sat still. “Yeah,” he said slowly. He rubbed his face with his hands.
We sat there for a moment, saying nothing. A patrol car’s lights pulsed red and blue in the rear window, casting a dim, hellish light on the back of Porter’s head. Without another word, Porter started the car and we drove away, leaving the lights, and the body, behind.
CHAPTER TWELVE
News of the incident spread quickly. Travis Simmons was in Atlanta at a fund-raising event, so it was Ren Middleton who called the student body together that evening in the Fine Arts Center and informed them that Terence Jarrar had died in a shooting accident by the river that afternoon. Faculty advisors and Chaplain Joyner would be available for anyone who needed them. Terence’s parents had been called and would arrive shortly, and they would need our courtesy and sympathy. Afterward, the boys, blank faced, quit the auditorium and filed slowly back toward the dorms. An hour earlier, they had been joking about girls and Thanksgiving break and the Game. Now they were like old men leaving a funeral. I’d seen the same reaction in students the day after Fritz vanished.
I had just stepped outside when Sam Hodges collared me. “We’re having a meeting in Ren’s office,” he said. His face, lit from below by the footlights lining the walkway, looked haggard, with dark shadows smudged beneath his eyes. I followed him up the brick walk toward Stilwell Hall, and the wind blew against us as we crossed the empty Lawn.
By the time we arrived, Porter was already there, slouched in a chair and looking exhausted. Next to him was James Joyner, the school chaplain, a tall, freckled redhead with watery eyes. Ren sat behind his desk, gazing out the blackened window, the overhead light gleaming off his tanned, bald head. Porter looked stricken, and a little ill, and then I remembered with a sickening lurch that he was Terence’s advisor. Sam walked over to the desk and murmured something to Ren, who sat up in his chair.
“Gentlemen,” he said, indicating with a wave and a nod that Sam and I should sit, and I sat down on a sofa by the door.
“This has been a terrible calamity,” Ren began. “It’s unbelievably hard to deal with the death of a student here. Frankly, I don’t think we’ve encountered this sort of thing since, well . . .” His voice trailed off, and he flicked a glance in my direction. Then he turned to Chaplain Joyner, who blinked as though someone had just shined a flashlight on his face.
“Well now, that would be, ah . . . yes, nearly ten years ago,” he said. “Before my time. Although it wasn’t . . . That is, there wasn’t a death. That we know of,” he finished lamely.
“This is better,” I heard myself say aloud.
Joyner frowned, as if he thought he had misheard. Sam looked astonished. Porter let out a short, single bark, a bitter ha! without mirth.
Ren’s reaction was to stare at me just long enough to be unnerving. “I don’t follow, Matthias,” he said calmly. “Better than what?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to sound . . . I’m sorry.”
Ren gave a faint smile that must have terrified boys on the receiving end of it. “Better than what?” he repeated.