Shades of Simon Gray

by Joyce McDonald

  Her spoon made a loud clatter as she dropped it into the empty cup. She was just beginning to understand that Simon had made a mistake. He probably never intended to save this document. He’d been pouring out his heart, sharing his deepest feelings in a letter he’d never planned to send. She could imagine him clicking on the X to close the file and then accidentally clicking on YES instead of NO when asked if he wanted to save the document. So what was this letter doing in his SummerJobs folder?

  After wrestling with this question for a few minutes, the lieutenant refilled her coffee mug and checked the date on which this partial letter had been written. Then she looked to see if any other documents had been created in that file on the same day. Sure enough, another letter, one written to a computer camp in Massachusetts, was dated March fifteenth, the same day as the letter to the mysterious D.

  All this time, as she searched through files, using key words, words like project, PC, hack, and the names of Simon’s friends—a list put together after talking with his teachers and family—here was this obscure unnamed document, accidentally saved in the folder Simon happened to be in at the time he wrote it. Because he had used initials rather than names, and vague terms like mess and risk, the search-and-find mission hadn’t been successful.

  Debra read the unfinished letter several times. She wondered if somehow the “mess” Simon referred to also had to do with some of the kids on her list of his friends. The D to whom the letter was addressed might refer to Devin McCafferty. The K, to Kyle Byrnes, the other D, Danny Giannetti, perhaps. So far, she had not questioned any of the students at Bellehaven High. It had been important to keep the suspicions of the school officials under wraps to avoid alarming other potential suspects into destroying evidence.

  Debra leaned back in her chair, lifted her coffee mug, took a swallow of the now lukewarm liquid, and reread the last fragment of Simon’s letter. She was having second thoughts. She was beginning to think this might be a good time to start questioning Simon’s friends, especially the three hinted at in the letter. She was just now entertaining the idea that even if Simon Gray was the brains behind the operation, he might not be in this alone.

  KYLE WAS COMING OUT OF PRINCIPAL SCHRODER’S office as Devin came through the door. His mother, a short overweight woman in baggy slacks and a purple tunic top, was right behind him. Devin wanted to ask him what this was all about, assuming they’d been called to the office for the same reason, but Kyle brushed past her with barely a nod. Mrs. Byrnes, however, gave her a sympathetic smile and said she felt “just awful” about Simon’s accident.

  “He’s such a great kid, you know?”

  Devin avoided looking at Kyle, although she knew he was watching her. She nodded. “Yeah, he is. Great kid.” As she turned to go into Dr. Schroder’s office, she sneaked a glance at Kyle, who remained expressionless. She knew him well enough to know this was his way of saying, Play it cool. Keep your guard up.

  Principal Schroder sat behind her desk, sifting through manila folders. Devin noticed how every iron gray hair had been teased to within an inch of its life and sprayed into place. The woman could walk through a wind tunnel and not a hair would move. When Dr. Schroder found the file she wanted, she passed it over to a younger woman, a person Devin had never seen before. The woman, wearing khaki slacks and a pinstripe oxford blouse, had short dark hair, light freckles, and serious gray eyes that seemed to see right through Devin. She glanced at the contents of the folder, then nodded to Principal Schroder, who told Devin to take a seat. Principal Schroder smiled at her, but Devin didn’t feel the least bit reassured.

  In all her years of high school, she had never been in this office, a surprisingly friendly room with hanging plants, cheerful print curtains, and dozens of fascinating little objects like the clear glass paperweight sitting on the desk. Frozen in the center of the glass were a pansy and a bee.

  As she slipped into the chair in front of Dr. Schroder’s desk, Devin found she couldn’t take her eyes off that poor bee. It was scarcely a quarter inch from the flower, yet doomed never to land on it, never to drink the sweet nectar.

  “This is Lieutenant Santino, Devin,” Dr. Schroder said. “She works in the county prosecutor’s office. If you don’t mind, she has a few questions she’d like to ask you.”

  Devin’s heart plunged into the pit of her stomach like a rock hitting water. She pulled her eyes from the bee and stared at the principal as if the woman had just asked her to do a swan dive from the George Washington Bridge. Devin’s legs began to twitch, a nervous habit she had. She pressed the palms of her hands on her knees, hoping it wasn’t obvious. Fine beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip and forehead. From the corner of her eye she could see Lieutenant Santino studying her.

  Dr. Schroder leaned forward and folded her hands in front of her. “It’s school policy to have a parent present whenever a student is questioned by the authorities. But we haven’t been able to reach either of your parents.” She paused. And Devin realized she was waiting for an explanation.

  “My dad’s on the road. He’s a truck driver. Mom’s at the hospital. Gram’s not well.”

  Dr. Schroder looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry to hear that.” She lifted a pen and began tapping the end against her other hand. The gesture made Devin even more nervous.

  “The questions aren’t actually related to you, Devin. They’re about another student. You certainly aren’t in any trouble. So if you don’t have any objections, perhaps you can answer a few questions for Lieutenant Santino. But we’ll certainly understand if you decline.”

  Devin tried to swallow but found she couldn’t. “No … I mean, it’s okay,” she said, keeping her focus on Dr. Schroder.

  “I appreciate this, Devin,” Lieutenant Santino said, resting part of her backside on the corner of Dr. Schroder’s desk, one foot pressed to the floor for balance, the other dangling. She glanced down at the folder, then smiled at Devin. “I see you’re an excellent student.” She waved her hand over the open file. “These are some fine schools you’ve been accepted to.”

  It was all Devin could do just to nod. For all Dr. Schroder’s reassurances, Devin was afraid this interrogation was going to be about the stolen passwords and wished the woman would just get on with it.

  Lieutenant Santino closed the folder and put it on the desk. “How well do you know Simon Gray?”

  Devin’s legs began to twitch again. She crossed them at the ankles, pressing hard to keep them from moving. She shrugged, buying time. She decided the lieutenant probably already knew the answer to this question, knew Simon was part of their group. If Devin lied, it could make things worse. “He hangs out with us sometimes.”

  “Us?”

  “Me and some other friends.”

  “So would you say you all have things in common?”

  “Not necessarily. We’ve been hanging out since we were in middle school.”

  “Simon, too?”

  “No. I meant the others.”

  “So when did Simon start hanging out with your group?”

  There was a good chance Lieutenant Santino had already asked Kyle or maybe some of their other friends this question. Devin wondered if the police had been able to determine when Simon first began using teachers’ passwords to get into the system. If they had, they might have already figured out that the date correlated pretty closely to when he began hanging out with her and the others. But then, there had been Walter first … so maybe … “I don’t remember,” she said. “It seems like he’s always been around, sort of on the fringe.” This last part was true, to Devin’s way of thinking. She hadn’t thought about it before, but looking back, it seemed as if Simon was never all that far away from her, waiting on the sidelines.

  “Has he ever talked to you about things he’s interested in?”

  Devin dug her nails into her kneecaps. “Some people think all he cares about are computers and all that techie stuff. But they’re wrong.” She met the lieutenant’s eyes head-on. The lie
utenant’s eyebrows arched slightly. Devin was afraid she might have sounded too defensive. If Lieutenant Santino suspected Devin knew why she was questioning her, she might conclude that Devin was aware of Simon’s illegal computer activities. Or worse—was a part of them. Still, it seemed important to let the lieutenant know Simon was more than some computer nerd.

  “He’s into a lot of stuff. Old movies. Jazz. He likes going to plays at the McCarter Theatre. We saw Agamemnon there last fall.” Devin remembered how Simon, who had the same English teacher, had talked his way into getting to come along, even though the trip was for seniors. “He’s got this thing about Greek tragedy.” Devin looked away. She was talking way too much.

  “So Simon likes the theater?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, maybe it’s not what most kids are into, but Simon’s got his own interests. I mean, he actually likes Shakespeare. He tried out for a part in our school play this year. We’re doing Macbeth.” Devin pressed her lips together, aware, suddenly, that she was practically babbling, telling this person far more than she’d intended. Lieutenant Santino didn’t need to know Devin had landed the lead female role and then had blown it by not attending rehearsals.

  “And did Simon want to play Macbeth?”

  Devin tried to decide what Lieutenant Santino was looking for. Did she find that funny: a skinny, pale kid playing the role of a ruthless king? Did she think it wasn’t possible?

  “He wanted to be one of the ghosts.” Devin knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She didn’t like this woman prying into their lives.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Devin said. She told herself to calm down. What was she getting so uptight about? She leaned against the back of the chair, folded her arms across her chest, and tried to rearrange her expression into something between pleasant and noncommittal. She didn’t need to piss off the lieutenant right now.

  “Did he say why he wanted that particular part?”

  Devin thought she knew the answer to this, but didn’t see any reason to tell the lieutenant. It was none of her business. “No,” she said. She shifted uneasily in the hard chair. She was thinking about what Simon had said when she had asked him the same question, the afternoon the two of them went to Alfonso’s on Main Street for pizza after tryouts. He’d only grinned at her, a small blob of pizza sauce on his chin, and said, “Macbeth’s a haunted man. I’d rather be the one doing the haunting than the other way around, wouldn’t you?”

  Lieutenant Santino watched Devin with interest.

  “Anyway, what does it matter?” Devin told her. “He didn’t get the part.”

  After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, the lieutenant said, “So you’d say Simon Gray was a fairly interesting guy? Well-rounded. Not exactly what you kids call a geek.”

  “He’s no geek,” Devin informed her. “And yes, he is interesting. In his own way.” Devin thought she understood what Lieutenant Santino was trying to do. She was trying to make it seem as if Simon wasn’t the type of kid Devin and her friends would hang out with. That might mean they had another reason for letting him tag along—namely exploiting his computer skills. But she wasn’t about to let this woman trick her into giving anything away.

  “It says in your file that you’re thinking of majoring in psychology.”

  Devin didn’t have a clue where this was going. It wasn’t what she was expecting to hear next. And since the lieutenant’s comment wasn’t really a question, she sat tight. Waiting.

  “Do you ever use the Internet for your research?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Would you consider yourself fairly knowledgeable about computers?”

  Devin stared down at her folded arms. “I don’t know. Not really. I know how to find information, send e-mails, use it to write papers, things like that. Same as most kids in the school.”

  “Did Simon help you when you had computer problems?”

  “Yeah, he did. I was always messing up, losing files, deleting things accidentally. Sometimes my monitor would freeze up. Or I’d get these weird error messages.”

  “Did he help your other friends?”

  “You mean if their computers were giving them grief?” Devin shrugged. “I guess. I never asked him.”

  “Did he ever help you with anything else?”

  Devin felt a warm flush creeping up her neck to her face. She shot a look at Principal Schroder. “What’s this about, anyway? Is Simon in trouble or something?” The principal looked momentarily caught off guard, which was what Devin had intended. Then, before either woman could respond, Devin said, “I can see why you wanted my parents here.” She shoved her hair behind her ears and shook her head. “Simon’s a friend. What if I say something wrong, even if it’s an innocent remark? What if … Does his dad know about this little inquisition?”

  Principal Schroder’s lips parted as if she was going to say something, then snapped closed again.

  “As Dr. Schroder said, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to,” Lieutenant Santino informed her. “It’s just that Simon Gray, as you know, is in a coma. We’re trying to find out as much about the accident as possible. Putting together a personality profile based on what friends and family tell us could be useful.”

  “Useful, how?” There wasn’t a doubt in Devin’s mind what this woman was really after. She was using the accident as a cover.

  “Sometimes these cases—accidents—aren’t really accidents.”

  “Are you saying someone tried to kill Simon?”

  Lieutenant Santino left her seat on the desk and moved across the room to the window. Her back was to Devin. “Not at all.”

  “You think he ran into that tree on purpose? That’s crazy. He’d never do that.”

  “Hopefully not,” the lieutenant said. “In any case, you’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything else that may shed some light on Simon’s accident, I’d appreciate it if you’d let Dr. Schroder know.”

  As Devin was leaving Principal Schroder’s office, she heard someone call her name and looked up to see Danny sitting in the row of seats by the wall across from the secretary’s desk. His father was with him. Danny looked worried. But with Angela Beckett blatantly watching them, Devin didn’t dare so much as hint at what was to come. She only hoped Danny could keep his cool and wouldn’t let Lieutenant Santino trip him up.

  After school, as he pulled out of the school parking lot, Danny spotted two vans for a local news team cruising down Edgewood Avenue. The first thing he thought of was that they’d come to report on the story about the breach of computer security at the high school. Maybe they wanted to be right there at the scene when the police rounded up the suspects. Or whatever it was they were going to do.

  If he went home, the cops might already be waiting for him. This wouldn’t have surprised him in the least, not after the interrogation Lieutenant Santino put him through a few hours earlier. All those questions about Simon, trying to make Danny think this investigation was about the accident. He hadn’t bought any of it. He knew Lieutenant Santino was looking for something else, could tell she was waiting for him to screw up.

  And then there was Devin, coming from Dr. Schroder’s office as he waited outside with his dad. So it wasn’t just him. That much was obvious. Santino was checking out the whole group, maybe even their friends who weren’t in on “the project.”

  Instead of going home, Danny headed for the river and parked his Mustang near the boat ramp. He did his best thinking at the river. Usually when he was fishing. But he didn’t want to risk going home for his rod, even though trout season had opened a few days before and he was sorely tempted.

  The Delaware was swollen with the runoff from Wednesday’s snow and bulging with trout. It was close to overflowing its banks. Low branches, bending into the water, were being pummeled to the breaking point. The trees were black with noisy crows.

  Danny eyed them nervously. He was angry
as hell about their return, but he figured there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about it. And he sure wasn’t about to let them dictate where he could hang out. He pulled his sunglasses from his pocket, slipped them on, and sat on the ground, leaning back against a pine tree. He didn’t notice the sticky sap seeping into his shirt, although he was aware of the pungent smell.

  He was staring up at the narrow metal bridge a few hundred yards away that linked New Jersey and Pennsylvania, worrying about the cops and thinking how easy it would be to walk across the bridge into another state, when Kyle showed up.

  “I figured you’d be down here,” Kyle said. He parked himself on a flat rock near the riverbank.

  Danny squinted at him through his sunglasses and waited.

  “Santino talk to you this morning?” Kyle asked.

  “Yeah, so? She talked to Devin too.”

  “And me.”

  The crows overhead had grown silent, except for the occasional rustling of their wings. Danny had the eerie feeling they were eavesdropping. “Anybody else? I mean, was it just the three of us she questioned or some of the others in the posse?”

  “Just the three of us, as far as I can tell.”

  “Why just us three? How could she know?”

  Kyle pulled his legs up and circled them with his arms. His sneakers glinted pure white in the sunlight. Danny couldn’t figure out how anyone could keep their sneakers looking that clean. “Maybe she’ll talk to the others later,” he said. But Danny could see that Kyle didn’t really believe that.

  “That was all bullshit about Simon’s accident, right?” Danny leaned forward, feeling the pull of the sticky bark on his hair. “Trying to make us think he might have done it on purpose, running into that tree.”

  “She was trying to find out how much we know, without letting on what this investigation is really about.” Kyle picked up a flat stone and skipped it several yards along the surface of the river.