The Hook

by Tim O'Mara

  ‘And this is what you do?’ Allison said. ‘Spy tech?’

  Edgar looked a little hurt by that oversimplified description. I thought that was going to shut him up. I was wrong. ‘We do a lot of security work, Allison. Businesses come to us to make sure they know what their employees are doing. You know how much manpower is wasted by workers going online, drivers lying about where they’ve been, merchandise going missing?’

  ‘I guess I don’t.’

  ‘Maybe you should do a story about that. I bet your readers have no idea, either. You could really help people out with a story on that.’

  ‘I’m going to think on that, Edgar. It’s a good idea.’

  ‘Darn straight it is.’

  For the next fifteen minutes, Edgar schooled Allison on the ins and outs of the security business, how technology could help more at airports, the seaports, and keeping track of undocumented immigrants. He used the term ‘untapped potential’ as much as any school counselor I’d ever worked with. I’d heard it all before so most of my attention was tuned to the TV above the bar, which was recapping last night’s early season baseball game and previewing tonight’s. The next thing I knew, Allison was tapping my arm.

  ‘You wanna stay for the game or go home?’

  I looked at Edgar and got the strong feeling he still wanted – needed – company. I could do that and said so to Allison.

  She slid out of the booth. ‘Well, don’t be up too late boys. It is a school night and you both have to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning.’

  Edgar and I gave polite and simultaneous smiles. Allison leaned over and kissed me. ‘Be quiet if you get in late. One of us does take their sleep seriously.’

  ‘Will do,’ I said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Back at ya, tough guy.’ Then she kissed Edgar on the cheek. ‘Be good.’

  ‘Or at least don’t get caught,’ he said. As we both watched Allison leave, he said to me, ‘That’s nice, Ray. That’s real nice.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more, Edgar.’ I finished my beer and said, ‘Let’s grab a couple of stools and watch the game.’

  FOUR

  The school bell – picture a giant-sized annoying alarm clock signaling the beginning of the Friday school day – had gone off thirty minutes ago. I had cleared the playground, monitored the door for latecomers, and made sure the hallways were empty and everyone was pretty much where they were supposed to be. By nine o’clock I had returned three emails, made two phone calls and finished my second cup of coffee. Now I was standing inside the closet that had served as MoJo’s ‘room.’

  Just as Royce had explained yesterday, three-dozen or so copies of The Great Gatsby had been moved off the shelves, revealing a small hole in the wall where MoJo apparently kept his secret stash. The hole was empty. Anything of relevance, I assumed, had been removed by the police.

  Except for a few catalogs offering hydroponics equipment, a copy of this month’s Purebred Pigeon Magazine – who knew? – an opened ream of copier paper, a stapler, and some assorted desk supplies strewn across an old wooden table, it was almost as if Maurice Joseph had never been there.

  There was a light tapping on the door. Elaine Stiles, our school counselor, was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Hey, Ray,’ she said, ‘I’m really sorry about Maurice.’

  ‘Pretty shitty for everyone. How much do the kids know?’

  ‘Just what they heard on the street and their phones. Ron wants to have an assembly last period so we can explain to the kids what happened. We also need to offer any grief counseling that we can.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m expecting some grief counselors from the DOE any minute.’

  That’s standard procedure when a school loses a staff member or student so suddenly and violently. Grief counselors were also available for catastrophes that took place outside the school, such as 9/11 or other traumatic events the kids would need help processing. Just two days ago we had had a hard lockdown drill. The kind of thing we were mandated to practice in the event of an active-shooter situation. Makes you appreciate a good old-fashioned fire drill.

  ‘I can give you a list of kids he was close to,’ I offered.

  ‘That’d be good.’ She touched my arm. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘That’s a good question, Elaine.’ I told her about Royce comparing me to Jessica Fletcher. ‘I’m starting to wonder if he has a point.’

  ‘He does not have a point, Ray.’

  ‘He kinda does, Elaine. Some people collect stamps or coins. I seem to collect crime scenes. I’m starting to feel that maybe I somehow invite violence into my life.’

  ‘You do not.’ She stepped over to hug me. ‘What you do is you put yourself out there for people in crisis. You help them make sense out of what’s going on. And as much as I think you’d like to, you can’t save everyone.’

  ‘I’m not trying to save anyone,’ I said, returning the hug. ‘If I were, I’d be doing a pretty crappy job of it.’

  ‘Crappy job of what?’

  Elaine and I broke the hug. Ron Thomas was just outside the doorway. Like most times, he had his sleeves rolled up, ready for action.

  ‘Ray’s upset about Maurice, Ron. I was just …’

  ‘I could see what you were … just. Anyway.’ He looked at Elaine while he adjusted his tie. It must have been weird for Ron to understand two of his teachers were truly fond of each other. Poor guy. It must have been so much easier on him when he was teaching Phys Ed. ‘There’re two … “grief counselors” waiting in the office for you. Why wasn’t I told they were coming?’

  Elaine explained their presence, and also that as principal, Ron should have been expecting them. He had no snarky boss answer for that.

  ‘Well, please go down and do what you need to do to prepare for the assembly, Ms Stiles. I’ll make an announcement after the final lunch that last period will be canceled and we will meet in the auditorium for a full-school assembly.’

  ‘Yes, Ron,’ she said. To me, ‘Talk later, Ray?’

  ‘Let’s see how the day goes, but yeah, I’d like that.’

  As she walked away, Ron said to me, ‘I guess you’ve seen the papers today?’

  ‘No, Ron. I haven’t had time to read the papers this morning.’ I said this knowing full well that Ron subscribed to all three local papers and made sure to read them every morning. He also, a few years back, had the bright idea of installing a large-screen HD television in his office. He told me once that he wanted to ‘keep up to date on current events.’ He was especially interested in those current events that involved rich white guys hitting a small ball great distances.

  ‘Well, we’re in all three of them and all over the local news. I told you that inviting a convicted drug abuser to the school could backfire on us.’ He let out a sigh. ‘A goddamned arrow? Really?’

  Fucking Ron. If it were up to him, he’d be principal of a talented and gifted middle school somewhere in mythical Suburbia. Such was his lot that each day he had to get up, drive an hour to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and run a school with needy kids who were darker-skinned than he was. And now, one of his staff was murdered on his rooftop and the media were on it like holy on the Pope. Life was like that sometimes.

  ‘We took a chance on a good guy, Ron.’

  ‘I took the chance, Ray. Based on your recommendation. If I’d had any idea how this would play out—’

  I raised my hand. ‘Hey, Ron. Give it a rest, will ya? There’s no way any of us had any idea what was going to happen. MoJo was worth the chance and we took it.’

  ‘MoJo,’ he repeated, not trying at all to hide his sarcasm. ‘Just the name should’ve tipped me off.’ He brushed something invisible off his shirtsleeve. ‘What are the police saying?’

  Again, like I had a secret pipeline. ‘Just what you heard on the news or read in the papers, Ron. Allie told me that this kind of killing – by arrow – is extremely rare, so the press is going to be on it for a while. It’s a story.’

  �
��Fucking reporters.’ I watched his face as he remembered what my girlfriend does for a living. ‘No offense.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I stepped out of the closet and made sure the door was locked when I closed it. ‘I’m going to swing through the halls. Unless there was something else you wanted to talk about?’

  He gave that some thought and said, ‘No, not now. Just keep your walkie on.’

  ‘It’s never off, Ron,’ I said and walked away from my boss.

  It was pushing one o’clock and I had just completed eighth-grade lunch duty. Imagine two hundred and fifty hormone-filled middle-school students all lining up for lunch in a crowded, noisy room; sitting with some amount of decorum while eating this lunch; lining up again to get rid of what they had not eaten – in many cases most of the government-subsidized food; and then sitting back down and waiting for the bell to signal lunch was now over and it was time to go to the next class. As one of three adults in the room, and the one with the whistle and walkie-talkie, it was my duty to make sure that this fifty-minute part of the day came off with no fights – food, fists, or otherwise – and that the students left the lunchroom looking pretty much as they had when they walked in. This was one of those subjects they did not cover during my master’s program. But a good friend who runs a summer camp once told me, ‘Maintain order in the dining area and you maintain order throughout the whole facility.’ I took lunch duty very seriously.

  Just as the last diner was leaving the lunchroom, my cell phone rang. It was Edgar. ‘Hey, man. What’s up?’

  ‘I just got a call from a guy who said he was a client,’ Edgar said.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘A client of Maurice Joseph.’

  I let that sink in. ‘Someone you didn’t know about?’

  ‘Never heard of him, Ray. Said he was working strictly with MoJo.’

  ‘And I guess you didn’t exactly know what to say to that?’

  ‘No, but he said that he needed to drop by.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Did he what?’

  ‘Drop by.’

  ‘No. I was able to convince him that I was too busy and told him he’d have to wait until later.’

  ‘Did you schedule an appointment with him?’

  ‘Yeah. Today at four.’

  ‘Good. So what did you want to talk to me about?’

  I could hear his deep breath. ‘Are you free today at four?’

  Oh, boy. ‘Because you don’t want to meet with him alone?’

  ‘Right.’

  I went through my mental schedule. If I left right after school and put off some paperwork, I could make that happen. Edgar lived not far from school. ‘Yeah, I can do that. Where are you meeting him, Edgar? Your apartment?’

  ‘No, Ray. I’m not going to meet him at my apartment. That would make us – me – look like an amateur.’

  ‘So …’

  ‘I told him we could meet at The LineUp.’

  ‘Because meeting at a bar would make you look more professional?’

  ‘I told him that I was busy all day with clients and would be having an early dinner at The LineUp and I could squeeze a meeting with him in then.’

  I considered that. ‘That’s pretty good, Edgar. Smart thinking.’

  ‘I saw it on an old episode of Rockford Files. I figured if it worked for Jim Rockford, it could work for me.’

  I watched those reruns, too, and seemed to remember Jim Rockford getting beat up a lot. I didn’t mention that.

  ‘So what do you want me to do at this meeting?’

  ‘I’m gonna spend the next few hours going through all of MoJo’s stuff and see if I can find out who this guy is. All I got is his name. David Henderson. I don’t want him to realize that I had no idea MoJo had a client I didn’t know about.’ He paused. ‘I guess I need you for support.’

  ‘You got me, Edgar. It may cost you a beer or two.’

  ‘Thanks, Ray. I’ll see you at four.’ Before hanging up, he quickly added, ‘And I told him you were a partner of mine.’

  Then he hung up, apparently impatient to figure out why his real partner was doing business with a client he had no idea about.

  The rest of the day went by without incident. Just the kind of buzz going through the building you’d expect on a warm Friday afternoon in April – a day after it had snowed. The assembly did not go the way Ron Thomas had planned. That is until Elaine Stiles took the microphone. If Ron had any clue the students had more respect for her than him, his immense ego protected him from that knowledge. She made sure the students knew counseling was available after school and into the next week for anyone in need. She introduced the grief counselors who’d said that they, too, would be around after school and back on Monday. That was pretty much it.

  It was just your normal assembly program a school conducts after one of the adults in the building is murdered by an arrow on the roof of the building.

  I called Allison and left a message that I’d be at The LineUp helping out Edgar and for her to give me a call about dinner. I got to The LineUp a little before four and found Edgar in a booth in the back. He had his laptop, a manila folder, his cell phone, and a pint glass of water.

  And, for the first time I could remember, maybe since the funeral service for Mr McVernon, the owner of the bar in which we sat, Edgar was wearing a jacket and tie.

  I took in the look. ‘Dressed to impress, I see.’

  ‘I’m nervous, Ray,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to expect and I don’t know what Mr Henderson’s expecting, so …’ He took a sip of water. ‘Do I look too … dorky?’

  ‘You look fine, Edgar. First time you’ve ever made me feel underdressed. I’m glad Allie’s not here to see this. She’d make me go shopping.’

  Edgar looked at his watch. ‘Henderson’s gonna be here any minute.’

  I slid into the booth across from him. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’m going to try and do most of the talking – more listening, I hope – but you know how sometimes I can’t find the right words? How I get mixed up with people?’

  ‘I’ve noticed that,’ I said. ‘From time to time.’

  ‘If you see me stumbling or something, please jump in until I get my thoughts together. You’re good at that.’

  I looked at the stuff in front of him. ‘Have you been able to figure out who this Henderson guy is and what MoJo was doing for him?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not a clue, Ray. And I’ve been looking since we spoke. There’s a lot of David Hendersons out there. I’m guessing MoJo had the info stored somewhere else. Somewhere I wouldn’t find it. Probably at home or school.’

  I could tell the thought of that – more than any other at the moment aside from MoJo’s murder – was what was bothering Edgar. He took the partnership seriously and would never hide anything from MoJo. He wasn’t capable of that type of thinking.

  ‘Mr Martinez?’

  We looked up and saw a large man in a blue suit standing above us. He had brown hair that was going gray and he was large enough – and in good enough shape – to have played football not so long ago. My second thought was that he carried himself like a cop. I pegged him for about fifty, give or take. Edgar and I stood and shook his hand. He slid into the booth next to Edgar. ‘I’m David Henderson. Thank you for seeing me so soon.’ He looked at me. ‘I know this is a horrible time for you both.’

  ‘It is,’ Edgar said. ‘Mr Henderson.’

  ‘Please,’ Henderson said. ‘Call me David. Maurice did.’

  ‘Sure,’ Edgar said. ‘David.’

  Henderson lowered his voice. ‘First of all,’ he began, ‘let me apologize for keeping you in the dark.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Edgar said. And, of course, that was true.

  ‘It was my idea,’ Henderson said, ‘for Maurice not to tell you what he was working on with me. I’m very …’ he struggled for the right word, ‘uncomfortable with the s
ituation and I’m hoping you’ll understand when I explain.’

  Edgar nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘I employed Maurice because I knew him through a friend who attends the Newer Leaves meetings. I knew he would keep things quiet and confidential. The fewer people who know about this the better. And that included you, I’m afraid. And again’ – he put his hand on his chest – ‘that’s on me. Maurice was not comfortable with the arrangement.’

  This time I nodded along with Edgar. ‘Go on,’ Edgar said.

  ‘My son is missing,’ Henderson said. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Stepson, to be exact. From my second marriage. Keeping it as quiet as possible was my wife’s idea. This is quite a sensitive subject.’

  Edgar took that in. ‘Because …’

  ‘We’ve had a hard time with Brian,’ he said. ‘My stepson. He didn’t take his mother and father’s divorce well, his grades went down terribly, and he’s disappeared a few times only to show up a week or so later with no explanation of where he’d been.’

  Edgar was quiet for a while. When he didn’t speak for ten seconds, I broke my vow of silence. ‘What did the police say?’

  Henderson looked down at the table. ‘We didn’t want the police involved. Brian’s also had a history of drug use and we were afraid if we got the police involved it would only make the situation worse.’

  I waited again for Edgar. Nothing.

  ‘How long has Brian been missing this time?’ I asked.

  ‘Eight days.’

  ‘So. You just assumed Brian would come home on his own, knowing that he may have been involved with drugs.’

  From the look on his face, I could tell Henderson – David – didn’t like that question. Maybe he thought I was judging his step-parenting abilities. I didn’t give a shit. This may have been MoJo’s client, and Edgar’s business, but something about this guy was rubbing me the wrong way – aside from the feeling that he was not telling us the complete story. Maybe if he talked long enough, he would. I just severely doubted that.