But she still didn’t take the card.
“Has something happened to Gabriel?”
“I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out. That’s why I’m here.”
Her frown deepened. She grabbed a card and a pen and scribbled on it quickly, handed it over.
“Look, I just want to talk to Mr. Kennelly if it’s at all possible. His son is…”
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed as I took the card. I glanced down at it and saw a name — Gen, and a phone number with a 302 area code on it — when I heard the office door open.
I sighed. I slipped the card into my pocket and turned to face them.
Two men. Beefy, short haircuts, ill-fitting suits that didn’t do anything to hide the muscles in their arms and shoulders. Ties that they wore like heavy collars. Their jackets were not buttoned, and they definitely wore weapons on their belts. I had no intention of finding out just what they carried. Wires snaked up into earpieces in their left ears.
I put hands up at chest level, palms out. “Gentlemen,” I said. “That’s a pretty impressive response time. I was just having a conversation with Gen here.”
“You were just leaving,” one of them said with a humorless tough-guy tone.
I’ll admit that part of me wanted to find out then and there just how tough these guys were. Could be they were both holster-sniffers; the kind of losers who had gym muscles but never had the sand to enlist and were too stupid to get into any real police force, but wanted everyone to look at them as though they had authority.
Could also be they were both fifty-dollar an hour off-duty cops and retired Army Rangers. I figured that getting my ass handed to me in front of Gen was probably a bigger loss than I was prepared to take today.
The non-verbal one reached out and grabbed me by the cuff. I snatched my arm away.
“I’m leaving, boys. No need to get handsy.”
He reached out for me again, and once more, I slipped his grip. I’d only got the one suit, after all.
“I said there’s no need to get handsy. I’m goin’.”
The non-talker — one blue eye, one brown — glanced at the other guy, who shrugged.
“We’ll walk you to the door,” the talker said.
“It’s right there. I think I can find it.” Behind me, I heard Gen snicker a little.
“The front door,” he grunted. “No more talking.”
“Fine, fine.” I turned and gave Gen a little wave. Her smile turned a bit more genuine.
They went out the door ahead of me — there were probably not too many office doors that could’ve handled the two of them abreast, much less all three of us.
As I pulled the door closed behind us, I carefully dropped the card I’d been trying to hand the receptionist onto the beige carpet. The two security guards were too busy adjusting their cuffs and looking tough to notice.
They walked me to the elevator. “You know, I’ve got a rule,” I said, “how I don’t take the elevator if I’m going less than ten flights. And these are all downhill, so what’s the harm…”
The non-talker twitched his wrist, and his hand was suddenly filled with a couple of feet worth of steel baton. “Fine, fine. We’ll take the elevator. Gonna be close quarters, though. We’re all big guys.”
The button pinged with the arrival of the car. One held open the door and the other ushered me in. I put my back against the wall.
They crowded in ahead of me.
“You guys are in shape. Where do you work out?”
Silence.
“I go to Waterfront Fitness, bit off of Pulaski down in Cecil County? Small, but it’s kind of old school, you know. Maybe you’ve got a corporate gym. Is there one on site here? That’d be a nice perk. Thinking well of their employees.”
More silence. I don’t deal well with silence when I’m anxious. I wouldn’t have categorized it as a menacing silence, though. Not yet.
“So do you work for ADI Holdings, or the building, or a contractor?”
The talker turned around to glare at me. “You trying to be clever?”
I smiled. “Just making conversation.”
He turned away, and for the last few seconds of the ride, I only had the off-kilter shoulders of their suit jackets to look at. Finally, we reached the ground floor. One got out, the other held the door. I made straight for the exit, but the tap of the knob on the end of the baton on my shoulder stopped me. He gestured toward the security desk with the baton, where the talker was already jawing at the fat desk guy. He was busy pulling out a phone, a handful of paper, and a clipboard.
Goddammit. I do not have the time to stand here and get a trespass order.
“I get what you’re doing, gents. Just don’t have the time to sit around and initial anything. I’ll be on my way.”
I turned. The baton tapped me on the shoulder again, harder this time. I spun around, grabbed the end of it.
“I’ve only got this one suit. It ain’t much, but it’s mine. You ruin it with that thing, and I’m gonna kick seventy dollars’ worth of your ass.”
“You paid seventy bucks for that? Got ripped off.” The nontalker had a flat midwestern accent now that he finally spoke. I’d been privately hoping for Eastern European.
“Maybe I did, but it’s all Penney’s had in my size. I bet if I head to the mall now I could catch the end-of-season sales on the summer-weight stuff, though, so off I go.”
I took half a step back. He snapped the baton against my arm, hard. It was supposed to be an arm-deadener, hit a nerve. But I’d seen it coming and curled my arm up, tensed the muscle. It smarted, but not anything more. I grabbed the end of the baton and wrenched it out of his hand; he was too surprised that his little move hadn’t worked to hold on to it. I tossed it lightly a few steps away.
“Fetch,” I said, then turned for the door.
The talker took a few steps after me. “You’re trespassed here. We’ve got your face on the security camera and we’ll have your license plate soon. Whatever you’re doing, leave Mr. Kennelly and ADI out of it.”
“If Mr. Kennelly is interested in where his son is, I expect I’ll hear from him,” I said. I gave the automatic door an extra push and headed out into the too-bright September morning.
Well, I thought. That could’ve gone better.
Chapter 9
By the time I was in the car and back on the road — with a triple espresso over ice, courtesy of a downtown coffee shop — I reflected on my failures. They were, as usual, legion. But I still had the receptionist’s card, and she, hopefully, had mine. There was a contact to follow up on. And all in all it seemed likely that Tom Kennelly was so insulated from whatever went on with his son that everyone assumed he wouldn’t care the kid was missing. That kind of assumption wasn’t always right.
Just because he was an asshole didn’t mean he was a malicious asshole. He might just be your average rich, uninterested dad. If I had to track him down on a golf course in Pennsylvania somewhere, I would. But for now, I thought I might as well waste a little time and head to Farrington.
I made it down to Furnace Bay in good time and circled past the place a couple of times. Ideally I’d park a long ways away and walk around it a few times, but that might just arouse suspicion at a school.
I concluded that an early lunch was hardly a bad thing. Going forth into virtuous battle with a full stomach and so on. I parked in a municipal lot and wandered the streets. I found a little sidewalk restaurant advertising a duck breast salad as its lunch special and decided I’d be remiss if I didn’t try it, but only after I’d done some figuring of the calories and macros on an app where I recorded everything I ate and every workout.
While I ate, I filed a quick report that my attempt at contact this morning had been a failure, but that further contacts might come of it. I entered Gen into the case file as “principal-
father/associate” and was about to enter the number she’d given me, but stopped short. That felt like an avenue that needed exploring in a personal way before I gave the info she’d given me to the firm.
No, not because I had designs. Not only. She had very nice eyes. I just had no way of knowing what that number was. For all I knew, she might’ve scribbled down the dad’s number.
The salad was excellent, though I had them hold the cherry-ginger dressing. The server dropped off a small basket of bread, still warm. I stared it down every time I put greenery in my mouth, but emerged victorious.
With lunch over, I still had some time. Mulling over that phone number, I looked at the card again. Impulsively, I dialed it.
Three quick rings, then a voicemail.
“You’ve reached Gen. Please leave a mess — ”
I hung up before the voicemail could really pick up. Definitely her number. Good to know.
There was nothing else but to walk around a bit, killing time. I’d have preferred to sit in the car and read but I hadn’t thought to bring a book, and I was on company time anyway. Ultimately, I distracted myself with shops selling bric-a-brac and tchotchkes they branded as antiques until I could plausibly pull up to the school.
Furnace Bay had grown up around the school and there was a school-affiliated store carrying pennants, sweaters, and prints of the primary buildings, the football stadium, the boathouse, and the tennis courts. One could get a mug, a pen, a jacket, a Christmas tree ornament, a folder, a binder, a laptop skin, or a phone case with the Farrington logo on it.
There were also stores catering to the income bracket the parents likely belong to. Lots of thin sweaters, athleisure that didn’t look ready for a workout, a yacht supply store, coffee shops. There was a marina down in the bay — it was being charitable to truly call it a bay — below the school and the town’s main streets.
I was pretty sure if I’d ever tried to pull the Belle into a slip there, a credit rating alarm would go off and they’d turn a water cannon on me.
Farrington was an impressive edifice, no doubt. Cornices and towers and cupolas, ivy climbing the walls, beautifully manicured athletic fields. Students were streaming out onto those as I drove up the winding school path. A football team in practice whites and blue helmets with a decal of a rifle-toting colonial on the side. Soccer teams, field hockey, and the poorest bastards of all, the cross-country runners. Each and every one of them, from the thinnest eighth grader who glided an inch above the ground, to the slightly heavier kid determined to use the season to effect a change in himself, was secretly miserable. I knew it. They knew it. The world knew it. Their smiles and youthful, triumphant shouting couldn’t hide the truth from me.
I’m a detective, dammit.
Chapter 10
I found the guest parking easily enough, did a quick beard, hair, and teeth check in the mirror. Popped a couple of mints, exited the car, remembered to button my suit jacket on the way up to the entrance. I pulled out my wallet so that my license was visible.
There was a call box in a prominent position by the front door. I pressed it, holding my face in front of what I presumed to be a camera lens, along with my license.
The box buzzed to life. “Who is it?”
“Jack Dixon,” I said. “Investigator with Dent-Clark. Here for a two-thirty appointment.”
The box buzzed and I heard the door unlock. I pushed my way in.
I have never liked school buildings, and I could tell right away that Farrington was not going to do anything to change that. Carpeted in what I could only describe as Institutional Beige, with fake gas-lamps on the walls. Paintings of founders and prominent alumni donors glowered at me from the walls. I glowered back before following the sign that directed me to the receptionist.
Time to finally come face to face with Amy Riordan.
I saw the desk with her nameplate on it, and my first thought, quite honestly, was that she’d called in sick and had a replacement in. The woman behind the desk was younger than me — between my age and Brock’s I’d guess — with red hair carefully pinned back in a bun. She wore a blue dress I’d hesitate to call prim given the way it fit, though there was nothing suggestive or unprofessional about the cut. It was simply the way she wore it. Subtle makeup, in tones working off the dress. Dark frame eye glasses.
“Ms. Riordan?” I managed, despite being staggered by the weight of my own misapprehension.
“Yes.” She smiled. I fought the urge to rush outside and rip some flowers out of the school’s carefully tended plots along the walk way. “Mr. Dixon?”
“The same.” I came forward with my wallet open to show my ID and license.
“You’re not…carrying a weapon by any chance?”
Only my charm. Only my smile.
“No, miss. Wouldn’t dream of it.”
She turned around a tablet and held out a stylus. Her nails were painted a shade to match the dress. I kept noticing these things. There was a great deal about Amy Riordan to notice. She had green eyes. The forearms that extended from the sleeves of her dress were toned. The jewelry she wore all matched or complimented the color of her dress.
I took the stylus and clicked to indicate that I was fulfilling the appointment, then squiggled a signature where the screen indicated. She turned the tablet back to her, took the stylus, and indicated a seat just across from her desk.
I sat. I felt far too large for the seat, as it was likely designed with mischievous children in mind. I thought about dragging a second one over for support, but then I felt Ms. Riordan’s eyes on me and decided that stoic suffering was the only course.
“Sorry I asked about a weapon, I just…you hear detective, you think…” She shrugged. It was one of the most arresting shrugs I’d ever seen.
“It’s all right, Ms. Riordan. Sometimes we do have to carry them, but I don’t like to unless I really feel like I must. Nine out of ten days, there’s just no reason.”
She smiled a little more warmly. “Amy is fine, Mr. Dixon.”
“Going to insist on Jack then.”
Stop flirting and ask her some investigative questions. Detect something.
Looked like she was about to beat me to the punch. “So, you’re looking for Gabe?”
I nodded. “His mom retained me yesterday. Did this come out of nowhere?”
She sighed. “He wasn’t a happy kid, not really. Not my place to say, I guess.”
“How so?”
She shrugged again. I focused.
“I’ve only been here since last year. As an employee, I mean. I’m a Farrington alumna, from a few years ago, and working on my master’s in secondary ed, and my state certification. The school helps pay for it,” she said, unburdening herself in the way someone who felt compelled to explain why their situation didn’t match their ambition would do, given the space. “Anyway, I knew Gabe as a younger student, a bit. He never seemed to live up to all of his potential. And this year, it just got worse,” she said, lowering her voice and looking to the door to her left, my right.
I was working hard to remember the important parts of what she was saying. I wanted to get my notebook out of my jacket pocket and start scribbling it down, but that might make her stop talking.
People will keep talking all day provided they believe you’re listening and not recording what they say.
“He wasn’t going to go out for cross-country, or so they said.”
“Well, I can hardly blame the kid for not wanting to run. Might as well go home and hit yourself in the shins for an hour, right?”
She did chuckle at that. “Mr. Dixon, I doubt you have that much trouble with a little exercise.”
My heart swelled. So might have my chest and my arms, a little less involuntarily than the heart.
“Anyway, there were colleges looking at Gabe for cross-country and track. Big universitie
s. West Virginia, UVA, Temple, to name a few.”
A kid suddenly turning sullen at age eighteen wasn’t unheard of.
Neither was it unheard of for that kind of shift to be the byproduct of a pharmaceutical habit.
“He have friends?”
Amy nodded, and looked about to say more when the office door next to us swung open.
Dr. Elijah Marks stood there. I’m reasonably sure I would’ve known who he was even if his name hadn’t been on the door or his picture not on the website. He was in three-piece summer-weight tweed, a light green, with a brilliantly-shined silver watch chain gleaming against the vest. Silver spectacles rode low on his nose, and his beard was graying and cropped close against his dark mahogany skin.
I stood up, as did Amy. “Mr. Dixon from the Clark-Dent agency.”
I took half a step forward and extended my hand. He took it. Strong grip, for an academic. He turned and waved me into his office. I followed, but not without turning around and giving Amy the most charming smile I could muster, a little twist of the mouth upward at the left corner. A faint wave.
She smiled back, stifled a giggle, and waved.
This was looking like a potentially fruitful visit no matter what I found.
Chapter 11
The walls of Dr. Marks’ office were surrounded by glass-fronted bookcases, each one full. There was a long conference table at the far end, where he waved me to a seat. A few scattered folders lay on the table.
He picked one up, settling into a chair just a few feet away from me.
“Here looking for Gabriel Kennelly, hrm?”
“Yes, sir.”
He eyed me over the folder and the curve of his glasses. “Why are you looking for Gabriel Kennelly?”
“His mother hired me, sir.”
He closed the folder and set it down, tapping one thick finger on it. “It is a great shame when we lose a student that way, dropping out. Still can’t believe it’s even legal. What’ll you do if you find him?”
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