New England White (16 page)

Bruce sat back, taking a moment to ponder, and the nicely aged green leather chair settled with a satisfying crackle. He saw the problem that had probably caused Trevor Land a sleepless night. Nobody was saying, yet, that Kellen Zant had been killed on university property; and maybe nobody would ever say it, because there was no earthly reason to think that it was true. On the other hand, the police doubted that he had been killed where he was found. Almost certainly a bizarre robbery. So far, the school was in the clear. On the other hand, these students had seen the gold Audi on campus, or so they claimed. It struck him as odd that Trevor Land knew first, and ridiculous that he should think it important to keep it from the police, but the secretary, by his own proud admission, put the interests of the university first. Bruce saw the way it must have happened. The boys, frightened out of their wits, had gone to some powerful alum—probably a parent—who had called somebody, who in turn woke up the secretary and asked him to fix it. The story, as Trevor Land related it, was vague and implausible, and therefore might, just possibly, be true.

What had drawn their attention to the car? Trevor Land did not feel qualified to offer an opinion. Had they seen anything inside? Trevor Land, alas, possessed no basis on which to say. Had they recognized any person or persons approaching the car? Trevor Land was unable, Chief, to venture a guess. Why had they not gone to the police? There at least the secretary was able to help, in his vague, donnish way. One or two of the boys had been in trouble before, and, well, you know how it is, Chief, when young people begin to worry less about justice than about false accusations…

“We should tell the police,” said Bruce firmly. “It’s the only right thing to do.”

“Oh, no doubt, no doubt. I see that, of course.”

“I’m serious, Mr. Secretary. The boys are witnesses. Or might be.”

“Yes, well, perhaps. Except they didn’t see anything.”

“We don’t know that, sir. You don’t know that. They haven’t been interviewed.” He had almost said
interrogated.

“Think they’re lying? Protecting each other’s backsides, kind of thing?”

Carefully, carefully. “I think, sir, that sometimes, when a professional takes the time to interview a witness who is sure he hasn’t seen a thing, the witness turns out to be carrying a single tiny speck of information that can break a case wide open.”

Trevor Land massaged his fleshy chin. The tiny eyes seemed narrower than ever. “I see. Very well. Good point, Chief, good point. They may not know what they know. But we still have an interest here. The school. Can’t have another scandal, too many already in the last few years. Can’t offend the families, either. Not these families. Other hand, we don’t want to interfere with an investigation. Now, if you could help us here, if you could think of a way to balance both interests, well, Chief, that would be worth a good deal to us. Gratitude, for one thing. Mine. The school’s. The families’ too. Never know when you might need a favor. Good people to have in your debt, if you see what I mean.”

“And by help you mean…”

“Perhaps you could give the conversation a first go, Chief Vallely. See whether you might be able to winkle it out of them.”

The deal was quickly done, the plan Trevor Land had no doubt had in mind since he received the first telephone call from whoever it was who could light a fire under such a man as he. Bruce was the director of campus safety and a retired detective. He was, the secretary said, beyond reproach. He would conduct the interviews himself, no recording, nobody sitting in, and report his findings to Trevor Land, who would then, as the secretary quaintly put it, take a view. If the boys had information that should be shared with the police, well, then, Bruce would pass it along and the boys would have to take their chances. But if, on the other hand, as Trevor Land suspected, it was nothing but boyish high jinks, a drunken bit of revelry, well, then, there would be no reason for anyone to be the wiser, would there?

No reason, Bruce agreed.

And then Trevor Land did a thing he had never been known to do before, not with so lowly a minion as the director of campus safety. He waddled out from behind the smartly polished mile-wide desk, threw a pudgy arm around Bruce’s shoulders, and escorted him to the door, with lots of nods and winks and promises of greater things to come, should he conclude this matter in “a balanced and satisfactory manner.”

Riding his golf cart back to the office, Bruce thought about the condo in South Carolina that Grace on her deathbed had still been urging him to retire to. He supposed that it wouldn’t do any harm to go down and take another look. Then he reminded himself of his daughter still in college, and how much he enjoyed the membership he could now afford at the Norport Country Club, where his rehabilitated Mustang convertible was by a considerable margin the most eye-catching car in the lot. But his conscience refused to hide behind the money, and his mind refused to focus on anything other than the Apostle Paul’s warning that the real battle in this life was against principalities and powers.

CHAPTER 16

THE OCCASIONAL STUDENT

(I)

B
RUCE
V
ALLELY WAS NOT A MAN
given to introspection. He was a cautious thinker, but only about the puzzles life laid before him, never about his own motivations. So, when, on the very next morning, he conducted the first of his interviews with one of the students, he did not take the trouble to wonder whether he was being unnecessarily harsh or skeptical because of sour memories of his own Elm Harbor childhood, when young men not unlike the one whose sloppy apartment he was now visiting—in two words, white and privileged—looked down on Bruce’s father because he cut the university’s grass and trimmed the university’s hedges and weeded the university’s flower beds; or on his mother because she emptied the professors’ waste baskets and washed their blackboards and waxed their floors.

Bruce grew up with the bitter stories. How the more liberal among the students now and then muttered a quick hello to his parents if they happened to pass, eyes averted, in the hall. Not one bothered to learn their names—at least their last names. Students half his mother’s age called her “Danielle” to her face because they read it on the embroidered tag on her uniform; his father, a deacon of the church and a stern, proud man, they called “Joe.” And thought they were doing the world some good by acknowledging their servants at all.
They can’t help it,
his mother used to say.
The Lord has given them so much, naturally they forget how to be human.
But Bruce, even as a child, had thought his mother mistaken. They could help it just fine. They just didn’t want to.

Bruce Vallely had enjoyed many aspects of his year and a half as an employee of the university, the salary and benefits and status foremost among them; but, in his secret heart, felt anything but love toward most of the people with whom his job brought him into contact. At his moments of greatest stress, when his ingrained tendency to resort to hostility, anger, or threat grew most pronounced, he reminded himself of his final promise to Grace, to avoid the messes she would no longer be around to fix. The day after his meeting with Trevor Land, still more than two weeks before the call to Julia Carlyle, Bruce Vallely needed every bit of will power he possessed to keep his word, because his meeting with the first of the students the secretary had asked him to interview was…not going well.

“I don’t have to answer that question,” the young man said for the third time, or the thirtieth. He was a wispy white kid, long and thin, brown hair worn long, sporting a tee shirt calling upon the casual observer to perform a sexual act on capitalism. Bruce was not sure how that was done.

“It’s in your interest to cooperate with me,” said Bruce mildly.

“Why? Because you say so?”

“Because I’m not official. I’m not on the record. What you say to me is safe,” Bruce said, knowing it was not precisely true. Not even close.

The kid roused himself, but not much. “Well, we just saw the car. We didn’t see the guy.”

“How did you know it was the same car?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Which one of you spotted it first?”

“I don’t remember that either.”

Bruce frowned, knowing that an unhappy expression on his face struck terror into most white people he encountered. And it had a noticeable effect on skinny Nathaniel Knowland, who shrank physically away from him, scrunching deeper into the plush sofa in the living room of the young man’s apartment. Bruce was seated in a straight-backed wooden chair borrowed from the dining room set. Nate Knowland’s place was on the twelfth floor of the Rogoff Towers, the closest thing to a luxury high-rise the city possessed. A wall of windows offered a panoramic view of Elm Harbor, stretching over the university, across the park, over the blocky office buildings of downtown, all the way to the water, where, even in the foul weather, sailboats bobbed. Few students could afford to live in such a style, but Nate’s father—as Trevor Land had been at pains to remind Bruce—was among the very wealthiest alumni of the university. As a matter of fact, Cameron Knowland was what the school designated as the “Senior Trustee”—in effect, the chairman of the university.

In Bruce’s mind, that was one strike against Nathaniel Knowland right there. His dismissive hauteur was a second. Third, Bruce had simply had a bad day and was not prepared to sit still for much more nonsense. Nate Knowland was twenty-three years old, finally back for his senior year after taking time off to work in Daddy’s company.

“You don’t remember,” Bruce repeated, the disbelief plain in his voice.

“That’s right.”

“You’re a smart kid. You have to remember what happened just a few nights ago.”

Nate smirked. On the college campus, the students were royalty and the professors were divine, and Bruce Vallely, being neither, was nobody. To Nathaniel Knowland, he was just a minion. Like the man who cuts the grass. Or the woman who washes the blackboards. Bruce wondered what attitude the young man would adopt if he bumped into the current president of the university. But, given the identity of Nate’s father, the chances were they had already met.

Nathaniel Knowland said, again, “I don’t remember.”

“Friday night. The night Professor Zant was shot. It was a big night around here, Nate. How can you expect me to believe you don’t remember?”

“If I told you I don’t remember, it’s because I don’t remember.”

And Bruce decided not to take it any more.

(II)

B
RUCE
V
ALLELY WAS WELL PAID
for his work. He had obligations to his family, and to the university. He had made promises to Trevor Land. But he was still, by instinct, a cop. So he stood up suddenly, startling young Nathaniel Knowland, who had perhaps forgotten that the man with whom he was alone in the apartment was not only black but six foot five and two hundred twenty solid pounds. And had once killed a man with his bare hands.

Once that people knew of.

After ambling easily across the space between them, Bruce leaned over the sofa, close enough to the young man’s pale, frightened face to smell his unhealthy breath.

“You’re lying to me, Mr. Knowland. No, don’t argue. You’re lying. I know it and you know it. The only question we have to resolve is what exactly you’re lying about. You can tell me right now or you can tell me five minutes from now or you can tell me an hour from now, but you are undoubtedly going to tell me.”

Nate Knowland, shrinking further back, as though close contact might infect him, turned his head to the side, giving Bruce a view of one delicate pierced ear, the diamond in the stud certainly a real one. He mumbled something.

“What was that? I didn’t hear you, Nate.”

“I said I want a lawyer.”

“Tough shit.”

The bobbing head snapped straight again, the eyes wide. “I know my rights!”

“You don’t know anything about anything.” Leaning closer, letting the fury bake off his face, the heat searing Nate Knowland. Bruce had been keeping his temper for twenty-four hours, ever since his meeting with Trevor Land, and it felt good to let it out. Sorry, Grace. “You call yourself a student. Do you know where the word
student
comes from? Latin. It means someone who takes pains. Who is careful and works hard, in other words.” He used this line with pretty much every student he interrogated. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But Nathaniel Knowland did not look tough. Instead of living in the dorm with his fellows, here he was in a three-bedroom apartment. Why a student, living alone, needed so much space, when so many had so little, was a mystery to which Bruce would turn his attention on another day: probably the same day he figured out why four Carlyles needed eight thousand square feet. What he was sure of was that, in Nathaniel’s case, Daddy paid for it. And a boy like Nate would want every penny his father could lavish on him but resent his dependence at the same time. Bruce had seen that resentment before, too, in plenty of students, and even some of his classmates at the state university years earlier. Experience made him confident that the resentment, if turned inside out, could break down the young man’s resistance. So he said, carefully, taking pains:

“You see, Nate, you might be a student one day, but right now—the way you’re acting?—you’re a spoiled little rich boy whose daddy pays some flunky to hand you a parachute every time you decide to jump out of an airplane without looking. I’ve got news for you, Nate. Daddy isn’t in the room just now. It’s just you and me. Now, you said you want a lawyer. If I were still a city cop, that might make a difference. I’d have to stop questioning you until some guy in a suit worth my annual salary explained to you the most effective way to lie. Well, I’m not a city cop, Nate. I’m a university cop. That means I’m private, and your constitutional rights, as you call them, carry as much weight as the Easter Bunny. Okay?”

Nathaniel Knowland was spoiled, but he was no dummy. His voice climbed a register or two, but he made his point: “Then I have rights under the university rules. There’s a whole set of procedures you have to follow.”

Bruce nodded. “That’s right, Nate, and you can insist on your rights if you want to. You can insist on a proceeding before the Judicial Tribunal. And you know what? That will mean a formal record. No way to keep the police from finding out. We’d have an obligation to make a report.” Actually, this was a lie. The last thing Bruce wanted was Nathaniel Knowland before the tribunal, whose proceedings were secret, its transcripts sealed. “Listen to me, Nate. You’re scared. I understand that. And you don’t think you want to talk to me. I understand that, too. But, Nate, believe me, you definitely do not want to talk to the police. This town is getting ready to explode over Kellen Zant, and the police would love to get their hands on a spoiled rich white kid who withheld information about the crime. They’ll leak it to the papers, Nate, and the papers will eat you alive.”

“You can’t talk to me that way!”

“I’m only telling you what I think will happen.”

“You’re threatening me.” Almost a whine now, but some defiance underneath. Perhaps he was tougher than he looked.

“Just a prediction, Nate.” Bruce’s voice was soft. “That’s all.”

“You can’t talk to me this way! There’s a law or something! You can’t threaten me or…or coerce me.”

“Listen to me, Nate. You have to understand the way it works now. Around the campus, I’m the law. You’re the suspect.”

“Suspect!”

“Unless you start telling me something, yes.”

The young man’s eyes flew in every direction, as though he anticipated help. “I…but…it was a robbery! I read it in the papers! Why would I rob some black guy? Look at this place!”

Bruce Vallely almost smacked him. It was a near thing. The hand came up, big and dark and raw.
Some black guy:
that was the phrase that set him off. But he could almost feel Grace’s loving fingers on his wrist, returning it gently to his side. And he saw in Nathaniel Knowland’s face a new alertness, less fear now than sheer panic. Because nobody, least of all a rich and skinny white kid, wants to be alone with an angry black man.

“My father will have your job!” Nate announced, but the eyes, still wide open, and the voice, now screechy, gave him away.

“Sure. That’s why he sent you to his alma mater, to get involved in a murder.”

“I’m not involved!”

“Either you’re involved or you know who is.” Bruce went into his crouch, slipping a strong arm around Nathaniel Knowland’s skinny neck, which, at the moment, he wanted badly to wring. The long hair was greasy. The shoulders trembled. Bruce selected an avuncular tone. “Now, listen to me, Nate. You’re in very, very big trouble, you and your pals. You saw something you’re not telling me. And you did something you’re not telling me. Worse, you’re not telling the cops. They get upset about things like that. Do you know what the penalty is in this state for obstruction of justice? I’ll tell you for free, Nate, it’s not as bad as the penalty for being an accessory to murder, which is what you’re looking at right now. It doesn’t matter if you’re an accessory before the fact or after”—a lie, but never mind, to be followed at once by another—“if you have knowledge and you don’t share it, you’re still in trouble.”

Nathaniel Knowland dropped his eyes and muttered a few words, but only to himself. It was just as well, Bruce decided, that he could not understand what the young man had said, because he suspected that full knowledge of whatever imprecation the boy had mouthed would have left him very angry indeed. Maybe too angry. He said softly, “Come on, Nate, there’s never going to be a better time to tell. And if it’s just something embarrassing and not something illegal, then you’re a lot better off telling me now than telling the police later.”

“I won’t implicate anyone else,” the young man said, surprising Bruce with his pluck. “I’ll tell you what I saw. What I did. That’s all.”

“Sounds like a good place to start.”

“Not just to start. To finish. I want to make that clear. I’m not going to talk about any of my friends.”

As a city detective, Bruce used to hear this story over and over in the sweaty and dark little rooms set aside for interrogation. Sometimes he would even try a snappy comeback:
Why won’t you talk about them? They’re right down the hall, talking about you.
Sometimes the ploy worked, sometimes it didn’t, but that kind of lying always left him feeling grubby. Now the lie wouldn’t even wash. So he said: “Look, Nate. You can put any limits on your comments”—he had almost said
confession
—“that you want. I don’t have any power to coerce you to tell me what happened. I just think it’s in your interest.”

And so the boy started talking.

(III)

T
HE THING WAS
, said Nate Knowland, they were just trying to have a little fun. They were students, they were young, it was Friday night, and they would be out of here and into serious jobs soon enough. They had been studying all day, except for a little squash in the afternoon, at least for Nate, and now they were looking for something to do. One or two of them had girlfriends, but this was a guys’ night out. They were five altogether, a couple of rich kids, a couple of hangers-on to rich kids. They had a couple of beers each down at Nelson’s—