“No idea, man. At any rate, he’s already gone. Took him two hours to cram all his stuff in his car and disappear.”
Richard doesn’t know what to say. Before he can think of another question to ask, he sees the guys’ eyes shift to the entryway. Richard turns.
Uncle Bruce. In jeans and a T--shirt. He looks sweaty. Like he’s been carrying heavy items.
“Just the man I was hoping might turn up,” he remarks casually. “Do you have a minute, Richard?”
Richard practically feels the other guys’ stares lasering into his back as he leaves the room with Uncle Bruce. The older man heads out of the building.
“Walk with me?” he suggests. Pleasantly enough.
Richard’s curiosity outweighs his instinct for self--preservation at this moment. He doesn’t particularly like the idea of being alone with Uncle Hard--ass. But he really wants to know what the hell is going on.
Once they’re a few hundred feet from Taylor, Uncle Bruce begins talking. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you what’s happened.”
“Actually, I’m completely in the dark,” Richard says. “The guys just told me Jordan’s leaving?”
Uncle Bruce glances at him, eyebrows raised. Assessing. He seems genuinely surprised by Richard’s surprise. “Yes,” he says. “That was my advice, and for once, he took it.”
Richard stops walking. “The investigation—”
“Was dropped,” he says abruptly. “You can’t investigate someone who is not a student. Jordan has withdrawn from MacCallum, so the claim against him no longer exists.”
“I don’t get it,” Richard says. “Why?”
The expression on Uncle Bruce’s face puzzles him. A mixture of anger and amusement. He begins walking again.
“The investigator met with Jordan yesterday. Seems some new information was brought to his attention. Something that didn’t make it into the witness statements released to Jordan and Jenny earlier this week.”
Richard feels the man’s glance as they walk, as if he’s gauging his reaction to these words. Richard concentrates on the sidewalk ahead. Wills his expression to remain neutral.
“Someone came forward and testified that they knew for a fact that Jordan had had sexual intercourse with Jenny. Since the investigator didn’t learn of this until after he presented the witness statements to Jordan and Jenny, he thought he’d do Jordan the . . . courtesy of telling him directly. Especially because this information represented a shift from everything that came before. See, until this particular witness spoke up, Dean Hunt had not been able to find a single person who had seen Jordan and Jenny together that night. Dozens of witnesses, and not one person saw Jordan so much as brush shoulders with that girl.”
Uncle Bruce bends. The sidewalk is plastered with wet leaves, like splashes of red, gold, and brown paint. He picks up a brightly colored maple leaf. As he stands there talking to Richard, he methodically separates the lamina from the veins.
“Dean Hunt was planning, he told us, to recommend a finding of ‘no sanction’ to the committee. Because he couldn’t corroborate a single thing Jenny had said. What’s more, her statement was inconsistent. She had trouble remembering where she’d been, who she was with, and how she got home. It was going to be quite a reach, he said, for a committee to find in her favor with so many holes in her story. Until now. Until this witness. Now, Dean Hunt said, he was planning to go the other way. He would recommend expulsion for Jordan.”
Uncle Bruce holds the maple leaf by its stem. It reminds Richard of an exposed skeleton. The man twirls it between his fingers, then drops it. He looks at Richard.
“It was a courtesy, you see,” he explains. “Giving Jordan the heads--up. Letting him know which way the wind was blowing so he could, while he had the chance, withdraw from MacCallum with his record clean. Before the committee expelled him for sexual misconduct and ruined his chances of getting an education, or a job for that matter, elsewhere. You know, I’m not much of a poker player. What about you?”
The question is sudden and takes Richard aback.
“Uh . . . a little Texas Hold’em. I’m not very good.”
Uncle Bruce nods. “I suspect,” he says, “that Dean Hunt is very good. Or at the very least, better than me. Because I could not tell if he was bluffing. And I wasn’t willing to bet my nephew’s future that he wasn’t. I recommended we fold, and for once in his life, Jordan listened to reason.” Uncle Bruce glances at his watch. “So we are driving out of here very soon, and you, young man, will probably never see us again.”
Richard hopes that the relief he feels is not overly apparent. “Tell Jordan I said good luck.”
Uncle Bruce doesn’t comment on whether he plans to relay that message. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Brandon Exley?” The silk in his voice has disappeared.