Body Broker

by Daniel M Ford

  “When I find him, I’ll tell his mother where he is. I’ll try to find out what he wants. And if he’s in some kind of trouble, I’ll do what I can to help him out of it.”

  “When?”

  I nodded. “Doesn’t help to be negative, sir.”

  “All these sirs. Military man?”

  “Navy, sir.”

  “Hrm.” He smiled faintly. “Nobody’s perfect, but some are better than others.” His eyes flitted to the top shelf of a bookcase behind his desk, and I saw it: a shadowbox with a black background, red sergeant’s stripes, and several rows worth of ribbons and medals I couldn’t identify from this far away. And there, on his desk in a penholder, was a small USMC flag.

  I smiled back. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance Gabriel went and enlisted, is there?”

  “Local recruitment offices were the first calls I made, after his parents,” Dr. Marks said. “Pays to have a relationship with them, managing this many young people. Some will find their path taking them there. But none of them had seen Gabriel, or a boy matching his description.”

  I nodded. I had no reason to believe Dr. Marks hadn’t done that, but I was still going to have to check into it myself. Trust, but verify.

  “Who do you want to talk to?”

  “Well, I was told my appointment would be with the Dean of Student Life, but I wasn’t told who that was.”

  “Mr. Gunter,” Dr. Marks said. “But who do you want to talk to?”

  “If Gabriel had a roommate, him. A romantic interest, them. Close friends or teammates. A teacher he had a special relationship with. A counselor if Gabriel ever visited. Anyone you think might help.”

  Dr. Marks fixed me with a hard stare. “I count myself a good judge of people, Mr. Dixon. As far as I can tell, you’re here to help. But if I find you causing the slightest disturbance to my staff or especially my students, I will drag you out of here. By your ear if I have to. Is that clear?”

  “As a bell, sir.”

  He nodded. “Good. Mr. Gunter’s office is just down the corridor. Turn right out of here, on your left. He’s…energetic,” Dr. Marks said, in a way I could tell didn’t quite signify disapproval. But he was trying to warn me. “Tell him I’ve asked him to cooperate with you. But you do understand that the school won’t reveal anything confidential.”

  I lifted my hands, palms out. “Of course. Wouldn’t ask it.”

  Oh, I would. And Mr. Gunter might not be too terribly aware of what was or wasn’t, strictly speaking, in a legal sense, confidential.

  Dr. Marks stood, and I gathered that our interview was at an end. He extended his hand. I took it. His grip was still as strong as it had been a few minutes ago. I was less surprised, though, given the stripes in the shadowbox on the wall.

  Chapter 12

  I exited Dr. Marks’ office to the radiant smile of Amy Riordan. A lesser man might’ve been halted in his tracks. But she also had a phone squeezed between ear and shoulder, and was nodding along with the words of the person on the other end.

  Keen investigator’s insight told me it wasn’t the time to stop and flirt. I soldiered on, and found Mr. Gunter’s office with little trouble. I passed a few students in the halls. Khakis, blue or white blazers, plaid ties, the occasional plaid skirt. Plastic smiles that papered over a kid’s natural curiosity. I knew that kids had a keen sense for when something had intruded, was missing, or was different. Kids could be a wonderful source of information for the resourceful investigator.

  At the same time, I recognized that my position in the school was a bit precarious, and asking questions of a minor without some precautions taken was both a rocky and a shady road lined with thirsty litigators and vengeful judges.

  Not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to be the kind of detective who braced a child.

  So I just avoided their eyes and found myself tapping on Mr. Gunter’s door, which was cracked enough to swing open as soon as I knuckled it. A far too cheerful voice invited me in.

  Posters on the walls, a mountain with an Epictetus quote about what you would be. Another mountain, with the Aristotle quote about excellence being a habit. What looked like a custom-printed banner with, of all damned things, a Soren Kierkegaard quote, behind his desk.

  “The challenge must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.”

  He must’ve seen me looking at it, because Mr. Gunter read it aloud. I looked at him, below the banner, standing behind a desk that was probably not quite as large as Dr. Marks’, but in half the office, it looked twice the size. The desk had a huge monitor on it, a number of pictures, and a tripled deck of plastic shelves for inbox, outbox, and, I guess, wildcard. Mr. Gunter himself looked to be perhaps thirty and just full of energy. He wore a pink dress shirt tucked into blue dockers, no tie, pale gold cufflinks. His skin glowed with the ruddy tan of the habitually healthy. He was skinny, had close-cropped blond hair, and blue eyes.

  He extended his hand, his smile a gleam of brilliant pearl. I hated him a little already. His grip was not as strong as that of his boss.

  “Soren Kierkegaard,” he finished, jutting his chin — dimpled like Viggo Mortensen’s — toward the poster. “A Danish philosopher and theologian.”

  I bit back the urge to unburden everything I knew about Kierkegaard, which was mostly relegated to a dog-eared copy of Fear and Trembling I had occasionally tried to puzzle my way through since I took a class on him my second year in college.

  “You must be Jack Dixon,” he said, waving toward a chair. It was a soft-backed wraparound kind. I did not fit in it comfortably, while he leaned back in a leather executive number.

  “And you must be Mr. Gunter, Dean of Student Life.”

  “Matt,” he said, with the same smile. I felt like he was out to sell me a car I didn’t want.

  “Well, Matt. Hopefully, Dr. Marks has filled you in on what I’m here for.”

  “He mentioned it,” he said, leaning forward, indicating interest. “But let’s start fresh.”

  “Gabriel Kennelly.”

  “Yes,” Matt said. He leaned further forward and planted his elbows on the edge of his desk. Still smiling. Felt like I was being sold on the undercoat.

  “He dropped out. Seems to have disappeared. His mother has retained me to find him.”

  “Isn’t that typically a police matter?”

  “It would be if he were a minor,” I said, trying not to grind my teeth. “But as you probably know…”

  “Gabe did turn eighteen just a few days ago,” he said, leaning back once more. He lifted his left leg and let the ankle rest on his right knee. Casual. Trying to push a detailing package.

  “Yes,” I confirmed. “So it’s not really a police matter, or it wouldn’t be for a while. That’s where I come in.”

  “You’ve got experience in these kinds of things, then?”

  “I’m an investigator.”

  He simply smiled at me, blandly.

  “I’ve found people who didn’t want to be found before, yes.”

  “And what can I do for you?”

  “Give me a list of Gabriel’s closest friends, let me talk to his roommate, and so on.”

  “Well, I can’t just turn you loose on the school, Mr. Dixon.”

  “I’m well aware of that. Any questioning I do of any of your students should be done with a member of the faculty — preferably administration — present. Of course. I’d also like to talk to your counselor, if I could.”

  “Well, we have three counselors on staff.”

  “Any of them that have had contact with Gabriel, then.”

  “Right. So perhaps you could fill me in on — ”

  I am a patient man. It is among my best qualities. Perhaps my only claim to virtue. Patience is a baseline requirement to be any kind of investigator. But there’s patient, and
there’s wasting time.

  “Look, Matt. Dr. Marks told me you were to cooperate with me. I need to start speaking to some people with direct knowledge of Gabriel’s habits and state of mind and I need to do it soon. If I have to recount the status and nature of my investigation to everyone I speak with, I will never find him.”

  “Understood,” Matt said, rapping his bronzed knuckles on the surface of his desk. “Understood. A man of action. Let me get on the phone and you can start with a counselor, and I’ll have a list of students, and we’ll set you up with a meeting space.”

  He picked up his phone, quickly dialing it after referencing a faculty phone chart. I withdrew from his desk to give him some space, glancing at a rack of pamphlets on the wall. Leadership courses, scholarship programs, summer camps the school offered for year-round boarders and the like. I pretended to be engrossed while eavesdropping like hell.

  “Hey, Cindy. Who had Kennelly, Gabriel?” A pause. “Thalheim? Is he free? Okay, someone he needs to talk to. Yes. About Gabriel.” A few noncommittal noises. I read a pamphlet about the availability of polo teams in the surrounding area. I felt sorry for the horses.

  The phone slammed down and I turned back to Matt.

  “Dr. Thalheim will see you. Counseling suite is on the third floor, old wing. Elevator is…”

  I closed the pamphlet, stuck it back in the wrong space, and exited, saying, “I’ll find the stairs.”

  Chapter 13

  By the time I found the counseling suite I could feel sweat gathering on my lower back, my suit was annoying me, and I felt I wasn’t making one damn bit of progress.

  The counseling suite door was an impressive dark wood, and it led to a central office with three other office doors within. Behind the desk was the woman I presumed to be Cindy — the desk plate said “Mrs. Ringsmith.”

  The woman stationed behind was a great deal more like what I’d expected from Amy Riordan. My smile seemed to bounce off of her matronly armor.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Thalheim.”

  She pointed to the door to her left. I made directly for it.

  “He may be a minute,” she began in a voice that probably made most of the high school kids stop in their tracks. Luckily that voice hasn’t worked on me for at least a couple of years now. I knocked on the door and let myself in.

  This office exuded the kind of old money I’d expected out of the school. Green leather-backed chairs with brass accents. A desk so large it looked like it couldn’t possibly be removed from the room without taking down a wall. Dark blue carpeting, pictures of sailboats and aerial photos of the school throughout the years on the wall.

  Behind the desk was a man several years older than me, dark blond hair going a stately gray at the temples. His skin had a healthy glow. I started wondering if there was a tanning suite somewhere in this gigantic pile of a school.

  He wore a bespoke light tan suit that put my off-the-rack gray to shame, a blue shirt, cufflinks, pink and blue striped tie, matching pocket square. His face was square, cheeks a little round. A bit of a belly strained the braces he wore under his jacket. Everybody at this school dressed better than I did.

  “Mr. Dixon, I take it. He extended his hand. I nodded and took it. His hand wasn’t limp, but it was clammy. I fought the urge to wipe my hand on my pants when I sat on the green leather and wood chair across the desk that he gestured to with his free hand. A watch the size of a banquet salad plate was strapped to his wrist. The surface was a rich blue color and there were a few subdials. It positively reeked of money.

  He noticed me studying it and pulled the cuff of his shirt over top the watch.

  “Nice watch,” I muttered.

  “It ought to be,” he replied. There was an awkward pause and he went on. “So, here to talk about Gabriel Kennelly.”

  “Yes.”

  His desk was clear except for a green blotter, a couple of framed photos I couldn’t see, and a penholder with two gold pens in it. I spared a moment to wonder if they were gold, plated, or just colored that way.

  Clearly it was up to me to talk some more.

  “Did you interact with Gabriel?”

  “We divide the students up alphabetically, so I was responsible for any guidance services Gabriel would need. H through O,” he said, grinning. His teeth were bright against his skin.

  I did not like Dr. Thalheim. I wasn’t sure why. Yet. But I was pretty sure he’d supply a reason.

  “Well, what can you tell me about those interactions? Did you speak to him often?”

  “We have at least yearly check-ins with every student. I don’t have extensive notes of those meetings with Gabriel. He had his troubles, of course. Inattentive father. Pretty common around here, unfortunately.”

  “Was he making plans for the future? College? Military? Career?”

  “Well, several schools were interested in Gabriel’s career as a long-distance runner.”

  “Right. Was he excited about this?”

  “Gabriel was a close-lipped sort of boy. You know, these days children don’t like to show themselves excited about anything. I believe with time he would’ve seen the wisdom of taking one of these scholarships.”

  “In this day and age, with the costs of school, you’d figure a kid would get excited about the possibility of athletic scholarships.”

  “I don’t think the Kennellys live in the same world as working men like you and me, Mr. Dixon. I doubt the impending costs of college bothered him very much. I am certain they didn’t bother his father.”

  “Is there anything,” I said, “that would lead you to believe that Gabriel would drop out? Any hint of where he might go?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a ploy to get his father’s attention. Setting state records in distance running wasn’t doing the trick, so,” he shrugged, “maybe he decided to run a little farther.”

  For a school guidance counselor, I thought Dr. Thalheim had a pretty cavalier attitude about a student disappearing.

  “He have a significant other?”

  “I try not to pay too much attention to a student’s social life unless it is somehow impeding their success or health.”

  “You could just say you don’t know, doc.”

  My instinctive dislike of the man was starting to harden. It was going to start showing any minute now.

  “Well, then I don’t know, Mr. Dixon” Dr. Thalheim put a lot of emphasis on the mister. I was being put in my place.

  “I don’t suppose you can tell me if Gabriel had any history of diagnoses of mental illness or emotional disturbance.” I was starting to feel like the visit to the school had been a waste of time. But there were still leads to be run to ground here, if I could just get a glance at one.

  “I’m afraid that we are verging on privileged information, Mr. Dixon.” Dr. Thalheim smiled and I got another glimpse at that watch. I’m not someone who takes notice of watches, generally. But there was something about this one, the gaudiness of it, the gleam of the metal case.

  “I see. Is it possible that I could view any records with permission from his mother?”

  “I’m afraid Gabriel is no longer a minor.”

  I was being evaded. I couldn’t see why this guy had any reason to do that. Even if he truly didn’t care about the kids he was responsible for, he likely cared about the reputation of the school, and a kid dropping out and disappearing wouldn’t do it any good.

  I hoped that by this point Matt would have some students lined up for me to talk to. So I decided to cut my losses with Dr. Thalheim. I slipped a card out of the case in my pocket, scribbled my own number on the back, and slid it across his fortress of a desk.

  “Doc, if you think of anything, I could really use a lead.” Not like me to bare my soul like that, but perhaps it would move his clinical heart.

  I left his office. As I close
d the door behind me, I thought I heard the telltale click of a phone leaving its cradle.

  Chapter 14

  The next hour was spent in a student lounge, a room decorated as blandly as possible, with a couple rows of desks with study carrel and a pair of round tables in the middle. A teacher of impressive title and ancient provenance set up at a desk in the corner and promptly fell asleep and I decided he could be safely ignored. They set me up at a round table and brought in a succession of kids, one at a time. Track teammates. Junior year roommate. Kids who shared a schedule.

  I got used to the barrage of questions they had for me so that by the time I got to the fourth, I could lead off.

  “Yes, I’m really a private investigator. Yes, I used to be a cop. No, I’m not wearing a gun. No, I don’t usually carry one. No, it’s not anything like in the movies.”

  That about covered it so that I could get down to questioning them.

  The picture that emerged of Gabriel was a little muddled. Cross-country and track teammates remembered him as a gifted runner. Unusually good, unusually smooth, never got rattled, but never seemed to care too much. Didn’t always practice hard, because it seemed like he didn’t need to.

  His roommate said he was quiet, neat, didn’t hang around the dormitory much.

  They were teenagers, so many were a little sullen and a little distrustful. They had their reasons.

  One of them near the end made more of an impression than the others. Elizabeth. There were two by that name on the list, and I wasn’t sure which one I was talking to. She walked in as if it were entirely a waste of her time and sat facing me, with her eyes pointedly fixed on the wall behind me. She wore the school polo shirt with khakis. She carried a messenger bag, the strap and body of which were decorated with a profusion of enamel pins, most of which I was too old to understand. One, though, was the Rebel Alliance, red-on-black. She had blonde hair, pulled back into a plain ponytail.