Dark Days at TAC
Page 24
* * *
Mr Luxton sat across the desk from Rex. ‘How are things with you today?’
Rex leaned back in his chair, one eye narrowing. ‘Why do you care?’
‘You’re my student, Rex and you were attacked. I’m concerned about your recent behaviour too and the company you’re keeping.’
‘So a few things have changed. Is that the reason I’m here?’
Luxton sighed, seeing that he was not going to get Rex to open up at all. ‘No, it’s not. The school received an unusual gift on Friday.’
‘Congratulations. I’m sure the school will gain a lot of benefit from it. You must be very proud.’
Mr Luxton sighed yet again and delivered him a serious frown. ‘I’m not really in the mood for jokes, Rex.’
‘Well why don’t you tell me what is was? I didn’t come here to listen to riddles.’
‘Now come on, there’s no need to get testy.’
‘Sorry. Can we cut to the chase?’
‘If that’s what you want. I received a letter from an anonymous source. This letter states that it was you that stole the camp money. The writer claims to have seen you remove the money from Mr Crummer’s desk.’
For a few seconds Rex remained silent, staring at Mr Luxton with a weird look on his face. Finally he spoke. ‘This has got to be some kind of sick joke.’
‘No joke I’m afraid. That’s what the letter said.’
‘Can I see the letter?’
‘I don’t see what that’s going to achieve.’
‘If someone is falsely accusing me of stealing those camp fees, I’d like to find out who it is.’
‘So you deny the claims laid by the letter?’
‘Of course I do! What do you think I am, an eejit?’
‘I’ll refrain from making any derogatory comments. Frankly, I find it hard to believe myself, but the letter has to be taken seriously.’
‘Well I’d certainly like to take a look at this letter.’
‘What and allow you to try to track down the writer so that you can find him or her and beat them up? I think not. If you are guilty, then the writer of this letter has the right to remain anonymous.’
‘But I’m not and they don’t. Whoever wrote that is a bloody liar and deserves to be caught out.’
‘Maybe, but it won’t be you that does the catching.’
‘Who then? Is anyone going to try and prove that letter is a phoney?’
‘I don’t know what we can do. It’s more than likely that the writer has disguised their writing. I also suspect that the manner in which it was written was done in a way to try and disguise the identity of the writer.’
‘What manner?’
‘Some of the words were deliberately misspelt.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘No one would make such ridiculous spelling errors. They were done on purpose. Like instead of signing off as “anonymous” the writer wrote “anonmoose”.’
‘A non-moose?’ Rex chuckled. But then a frown came upon his face. ‘You don’t mean a non-mouse do you?’
‘No, definitely a non-moose. I remember it quite clearly.’
The frown remained on Rex’s face. ‘Anonmoose. Hmmmmm. I’d really like to see this note.’
‘No way and that’s all there is to it.’
‘So I get to be accused of committing a crime, but don’t get to try and clear my name?’
‘There are other ways to clear your name if you are innocent. For a start can anyone vouch for where you were at the time of the theft?’
Rex paused for a moment. ‘That could be tricky.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, the fact is, I wasn’t on the school grounds at all.’
‘What? Where were you?’
‘Down at the dairy.’
‘You know the rules about leaving the school grounds without permission.’
‘Well you know the old cliché about rules.’
Mr Luxton huffed, leaned back in his seat and sent Rex a piercing glare. ‘So you have no alibi? Well, I guess that’s poetic justice in a way. You break the school rules and now you have no one to back up your story. Maybe next time you might think before you do something like that again.’
‘So where do I stand now?’
‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. From here, the matter will be in police hands. It will be up to them what happens. You are one of our chief suspects.’
‘What about Pete? I assume he’s a suspect too? Did this anonymous letter name him as the thief as well?’
‘There is already evidence pointing to the fact that Mr Cook could be involved in the theft. Fresh evidence too. I’m hoping that you will co-operate with me and tell me anything that you might already know.’
‘You mean you want me to rat on a friend.’
‘Well from what I’ve heard you two aren’t exactly buddy buddy at the moment. Anyway, turning in a guilty party is not considered ratting. It’s important that we find out who took this money. You would be doing him no favours by withholding evidence.’
‘Hey, I don’t know if he did it or not and really I don’t give a shit, but it certainly had nothing to do with me.’
‘Well, I hate to say this, but we have considered the fact that you might both be involved… in cahoots with one another, as it were. What do you say to that?’
‘Sheer fantasy.’
‘You are… or should I say were both good friends, you have both been implicated in this crime and you have been behaving unusual since the attack. You may both be involved, or it could be that one of you is covering up for the other.’
‘Or we’re both being framed, how about that?’
‘I find that hard to believe. One of you maybe, but not both.’
‘What’s the new evidence linking Pete to this crime?’
‘That’s none of your concern.’
‘Well I’m going to talk to Pete about it, so you might as well tell me.’
‘All right.’ Mr Luxton let loose another deep sigh. If it was going to shut Rex up, it couldn’t hurt to tell him a little more. ‘Another anonymous letter.’
‘By the same person?’
‘I don’t think so. Well, it could be I suppose, but it was typed up, most likely on a computer.’
‘So there are two different letters, most likely from two different people, one implicating me and one implicating Pete?’
‘That’s right. But as it happens, that isn’t all the evidence we have.’
‘Really? What else.’
‘Well, as you are probably aware, we had an anonymous tip off shortly after the theft saying that Pete was responsible. That’s why we originally questioned him and were interested in the large sum of money he had on him. Now do you still maintain that money was a loan from you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well around the same time, in fact the day of the theft, we were approached by a student who claimed to have seen you enter the room and later saw you with some envelopes and a bag.’
Rex’s left eyebrow rose. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. We even checked your locker at the time, as the student claimed to have seen you put these items into your locker.’
‘And you found nothing obviously.’
‘That’s right and we thought nothing more of it until now.’
‘I’m not going to bother asking you who the student is, because I know you won’t tell me, but is it possible that it was this student who wrote one of the notes you just got?’
‘It doesn’t seem likely, but I suppose it’s possible, but even if it was the same person, how do we know that this source is unreliable?’
‘How do you know it’s reliable?’
‘We don’t. We don’t really know anything.’
‘No hard evidence.’
‘Unfortunately no.’
‘Well what evidence you do have is leading you on the wrong track, that’s for sure. I’m innocent. One thing’s for sure,
I don’t need the money and I don’t need the attention.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I can’t help but wonder what’s being done with all this money anyway. I definitely haven’t noticed anyone splashing lots of cash around.’
‘That’s because the money has been returned.’
‘Oh, Ok. Is there anything else I should know?’ Rex glared at Mr Luxton.
‘No need for sarcasm. The fact that it’s been returned is irrelevant. The police still want to find out who took it. Frankly, I think that’s a good thing. Even though the offender returned the money, he or she has wasted a lot of our time and police time. The fact that this person or people stole it in the first place shows complete dishonesty. I’m sure that they would think nothing of committing such an act again. Who knows, maybe they’ve done this sort of thing before on a smaller scale. Perhaps the only reason it was handed back was the fact that the camp was in danger of being cancelled?’
‘So the camp’s definitely on, is it?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘Good. At least you guys are doing something right.’