No Way Home (28 page)

There was a brief silence at the other end. “I have just been informed that Cadet Ansley did not return to his quarters last night. Do you know of his whereabouts at this time?”

“Goddamnit,” Jordan exploded, and then quickly excused himself. “Colonel, did you tell him that I was there to see him?”

“No, I did not. I have not seen Cadet Ansley for several days.”

Where the hell is he? Jordan thought. This isn’t just a coincidence. How did he know I was coming?

“Mr. Hill!” the colonel demanded.

“I’m coming up there,” said Jordan. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He hung up, got ready, and checked out in record time, his mind working furiously as he drove the short distance up the road to the military academy. The Sentinel looked shabbier, less severe, in the pearly morning light. Even in the South, military schools did not enjoy the favor and prosperity they once had. Jordan parked the car and hurried up to the administration building, barely aware of the neatly uniformed boys he passed on his way. Maybe it was the old reverend, he thought. Maybe he had informed the sheriff of his and Lillie’s visit. And the sheriff had called his son and told him to hide out until Jordan was gone. It was possible. Except that Jordan couldn’t picture the reverend doing that. The old man didn’t want to get involved in the first place. Why would he call the sheriff when he could just keep quiet? It didn’t make sense.

Colonel Preavette was seated at his desk, calmly talking on the telephone when Jordan arrived, somewhat out of breath, at his door. The colonel motioned for him to come in and take a seat.

Jordan dropped down into the visitor’s chair and flexed his fingers impatiently while the colonel chatted amiably about Alumni Day with his caller. Finally he hung up and looked at Jordan.

“Well?” said Jordan.

“Apparently he has left the campus,” the colonel said evenly, betraying none of the snappish urgency of his earlier call.

Jordan stifled an expletive. “How long has he been missing?”

“According to his roommate, he did not return after mess last night. The roommate assumed that Tyler had a special pass. He claims that Tyler was greatly upset by a phone call he received yesterday afternoon. Now, as you maintain that the boy is not with you—”

“He is not with me,” Jordan said angrily. “I want to talk to this roommate.”

“I don’t think there’s any need for that,” the colonel said in a mild voice. “It’s entirely possible that Cadet Ansley has spent the night with a young lady in town. This has been known to occur. There is no cause for undue alarm.”

“What is the roommate’s name?” Jordan demanded. “Where can I find him?”

“Look here, Mr. Hill. This is a disciplinary matter for the school and the boy’s family. I regret that I involved you at all. I would not have called you except that I thought that Cadet Ansley’s unauthorized absence might be related to your visit here last night.” The colonel’s eyes looked cold and gray as oysters behind his glasses.

“Oh, it is, Colonel. You can bet your rank on that,” Jordan said sharply. “Now, I have to speak to this boy and find out who called Tyler and what this boy knows about it.”

“I cannot allow you to harass my students, sir,” the colonel said. “Is that clear? We are all concerned about the boy’s whereabouts.”

Jordan considered the colonel and knew that he must choose his words carefully. This was not a person who would respond well to threats and anger. This was a man who went by the rules, and believed in respect for authority and adherence to the law. Despite his stiffness, he struck Jordan as a good man, protective of his charges. And he was worried about Tyler, despite his bland demeanor. Why else would he be in the office on a Sunday morning? Part of him wanted to shake his fist at the old soldier, but he knew that was no way to approach the man.

“Colonel,” he said. “I completely understand your position. And I have no desire to harass this young man. But I need most desperately to find Tyler Ansley. If this boy can give me any clue…Colonel, may I take you into my confidence?”

There it was again. That curious glint in the colonel’s eye. There is really something very human about him beneath the military crust, Jordan thought.

“That might be useful,” said the colonel.

“Sir, my daughter, my only child,” said Jordan, “was recently murdered.” He let the shocking words hang in the air for a moment and take their effect. The colonel winced at the bald disclosure. Jordan nodded toward the photograph on the colonel’s desk. “I see you are a family man, sir. I’m sure you can understand what a blow this has been to me.”

Colonel Preavette nodded. “Terribly sorry,” he said grimly.

“I have reason to believe,” Jordan said carefully, “that Tyler Ansley may have information about this crime. It is vital to me that I speak to him.”

“This sounds like a matter for the police,” said the colonel.

“I agree with you,” Jordan said. “And my…wife and I have appealed repeatedly to the sheriff. But, as you know, the sheriff is Tyler’s father.”

“I see.” The controlled expression on the colonel’s face did not change, although Jordan thought he saw a tightening in his jaw. The colonel picked up the pack of Camels on his desk and shook one out. He lit the cigarette, clearly thinking over what Jordan had said. Then he sighed. “Mr. Hill, I have known Royce Ansley for years. He served under me in Korea.”

Jordan felt his hopes sinking.

“When he brought Tyler here I took him in against my better judgment, because of our old association. I could see the boy had problems. And I could sense the tension between the two of them. But I have great faith in our program here. We can really help a boy if he gives it a good effort.” The colonel took a long drag on his cigarette and stared thoughtfully at the family picture on his desk. “Sometimes, though, when a boy has a father like Royce Ansley, who represents something…the law, and is very strict— Well, it is particularly easy to shame a father like that.”

Jordan nodded but did not speak, wondering where this was leading. The colonel took another drag on his cigarette and then put it out carefully in the clean ashtray on his desk. “Very well,” he said. “I will let you speak to this boy, but I will come along with you to make sure that you do not abuse the privilege.”

“Thank you, sir.”

They walked together in silence across the campus to the door of Jackson House, the dorm where Tyler Ansley lived. The cadet at the front desk saluted the colonel, who returned the salute and nodded at him. A middle-aged couple, dressed in their Sunday best, emerged from the stairwell into the lounge, accompanied by their son, who walked stiffly between them. The mother was dabbing at her eyes with a hanky. The son saluted Colonel Preavette and his father beamed.

“Up these stairs,” said the colonel.

Their steps echoed in the iron stairwell as they climbed to the third floor. Jordan noticed that the wiry colonel took the stairs easily, despite his smoking habit. The linoleum floors of the dorm were uncarpeted and their presence seemed to fill up the hall with racket. The colonel knocked on the door of one of the rooms and then said, “Cadet Fredericks, this is Colonel Preavette. Open up.”

The door was opened immediately by a burr-headed boy with an anxious look in his eyes. “Yessir.”

“Cadet Fredericks, this is Mr. Jordan Hill.” The colonel pronounced his name Jerdan, in the old Southern way. “Mr. Hill, Cadet Fredericks.”

Jordan shook the boy’s damp hand.

“Mr. Hill has a few questions for you about Cadet Ansley, and I want you to cooperate with him and tell him whatever you can that he needs to know.”

“Yessir.”

Jordan stepped into the chilly cell of a room and made way for the colonel. The colonel shook his head. “I will be making an impromptu inspection of quarters up here.” He looked significantly at Jordan. “I’ll return for you in a few minutes.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Jordan turned his attention to the cadet, who was standing stiffly in the doorway. “It’s all right. At ease,” he said. “Why don’t you sit?”

The boy sat down gratefully on the edge of his bed and stared at him. Fredericks’s side of the room was neat and orderly. Tyler’s side was a mess. There were papers piled on his desk and clothes sticking out of the closet door. Jordan went over to Tyler’s desk chair and sat down, facing the young man. “The colonel tells me that Tyler never came back last night,” he said.

“No, that’s right.”

“Weren’t you surprised that he didn’t show up?”

The boy shrugged. “I thought he must have had a pass.”

“I heard something about a phone call?” said Jordan.

“Are you a cop?” the boy asked.

“No,” said Jordan. “I’m a…friend of the family. Was he worried about the cops?”

“I think his dad’s a sheriff.”

“He is. What about this phone call?”

“He got an urgent message to call someone. I don’t know who it was. After we got back from the drill field. I just figured it was some family emergency and he had to go home or something.”

“He didn’t tell you who called him?”

“He didn’t really tell me anything,” said Fredericks. “We didn’t talk very much. That was okay with me.”

“You don’t like him,” Jordan said.

The boy shrugged and looked closely at Jordan, as if trying to figure out whether this guy was likely to spring to Tyler’s defense. “He’s kind of weird.”

“What do you mean, weird?” Jordan asked.

“I don’t know. Just weird,” said the boy, avoiding his eyes.

He knew, all right, Jordan thought. He just wasn’t saying. “So, he never told you who called him. Or why? Or where he was going?”

The boy shook his head. “Not to me.”

“Anyone else you know that he might have confided in?” Jordan asked. “Did he have a girlfriend in town maybe? Did he ever stay out all night before?”

Fredericks snickered briefly at that.

“What’s so funny?” Jordan asked.

“Nothing,” said the boy. “He kept to himself. Most of the other guys stayed away from him. Look on his desk,” Fredericks offered. “Maybe the message is still there. About who called him.”

“A written message?” Jordan asked hopefully, swiveling around and lifting up the papers on the desk.

“Yeah,” said Fredericks. “They give them to you at the desk downstairs when you come in.”

Jordan rummaged quickly through the papers, which consisted of messy class notes, a stained take-out menu from a local barbecue place, and assorted doodlings. Jordan had the urge to settle down and read through every page, trying to find some clue about Tyler and Michele, but he knew his time was short. The colonel would be back before long. The desktop held no telephone messages. He shook the books piled haphazardly there, but no messages floated down.

Opening the desk drawer, he turned back to Fredericks. “Did he ever mention someone named Michele to you?” he asked.

“A girl?” the cadet asked. He smirked and shook his head.

Jordan peered into the desk drawer and began to rifle through it.

“He wasn’t all that interested in girls,” Fredericks said slyly.

Almost at the same moment Jordan picked up an open envelope. A photograph dropped out of it and fell to the bottom of the drawer. The photo was creased and dogeared, as if it had been held and examined many times. It was a picture of a boy, his blond head thrown back, his eyes bright and knowing, his lips curved in a satisfied smile.

Jordan took out the picture and stared at it. Grayson. He looked over at Fredericks, who rolled his eyes and shrugged again. ‘There’s another one of those taped inside his footlocker,” he said.

Jordan continued to stare at the photo. What the boy was saying was clear enough, but it didn’t make any sense.

Fredericks saw the confusion on Jordan’s face and offered, “He’d put that inside his books and pretend to be reading, but then I’d look up and see him running his finger over it, just gazing away at it. It gave me the creeps to live in the same room with him. Knowing he was like that. I was afraid he’d start getting ideas about me.”

Jordan felt dazed. Tyler and Grayson. It was possible, of course. But Michele didn’t fit into it. It didn’t make any sense. Still, he knew this boy had no reason to lie about it. No reason at all. Jordan studied the photo another moment and then slipped it into his pocket. He stood up on wobbly legs.

“Is he in trouble?” said Fredericks.

Jordan ignored the question. “You have no idea where he might have gone.”

“I guess if he found out he was in trouble, he wanted to get as far away from here as he could.”

“Yes, probably,” Jordan said distractedly.

“I didn’t mean to shock you,” Fredericks said in a friendly way. “You’d never suspect it. He looks so macho and mean.”

Jordan peered at the boy. “Do they keep a record of the messages downstairs? A log, do you think?”

Fredericks shook his head. “I don’t know. You could ask.”

Jordan nodded. “If the colonel comes back, please tell him that I’ve gone down to the lounge.”

“I will,” said Fredericks.

Jordan turned back to him. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome. I hope you find him. Just don’t bring him back here.”

Jordan looked up and down the hall but the colonel was nowhere to be seen. He clattered down the stairwell to the first-floor lounge and walked up to the cadet on duty.

The boy, recognizing him as the colonel’s guest, turned a welcoming smile on him.

With difficulty, Jordan smiled back. “I was wondering if you could help me,” he asked.

“If I can,” the cadet said brightly.

“Do you keep a written log of the phone messages that come in here for the cadets who live here?”

The boy looked at him warily but was still eager to help the colonel’s guest. “Yes. Why?”

“I need to know who called one of your cadets yesterday. The colonel suggested that I ask you.” He hated to use the colonel’s name after the man had tried to help him, but this was not a time for such scruples.

The boy looked at him expectantly.

“Yesterday. There was a message left for one of your residents—Tyler Ansley—to call someone. Can you tell me who that was?”

The boy took out the log book and began to pore over it. Jordan checked behind him to make sure the colonel had not yet entered the lounge. Then he turned his head to try to read the log as the boy examined it.