“Who knows? Are they even capable of belief?”
“They talked about it openly?”
“No way,” he said. “But one time I was being my usual asocial loser self and walking near the back of the campus—right at the back, there’s a dense, kind of foresty area where no one goes, which is precisely why I do, I need peace and quiet so I can read what I want to, cut myself off from all the—anyway, I was back there. Reading Job, actually, and for the first time I heard someone else. It was T, smoking weed. Then Q joined him and he lit up. I said, Great, there goes my last refuge. I thought of leaving but didn’t want them to see my—I just didn’t want to deal with them. So I stayed, I was behind some thick bushes, it’s a place I always go, just me and the beetles, once in a while there’s a squirrel. They had no idea. I had no interest whatsoever in anything they had to say but they were close by and talking loud enough for me to hear. Then some of their clique joined them and they all started talking about it.”
“Ms. Freeman.”
“Yes. No one was exactly grieving. Mostly because they’re superficial. But in T’s case and Q’s, there was anger. ‘Ding dong the bitch is dead,’ that kind of thing. Then T started going off on Marty, blaming him for it, saying he was going to call in an anonymous tip to the police and name Marty. Everyone thought that was a great idea. Then everyone lit up and the air started stinking of weed and I wanted out of there but I waited until they were gone, then took out my cell and texted Garret and he called his grandfather and he called the Mendozas. They decided they needed to keep Marty safe until it became clear if those threats were real. Mrs. Mendoza packed up a suitcase and drove Marty to Garret’s.”
“You texted Garret first because you and he are friends.”
“I already told you: The concept of friendship is alien to me. I knew him from surfing. He surfs at County Line and I do, too, because the waves are usually good and I can just drive over the canyon from here.” Second smile of the day. “Bet you didn’t see me as a surfer. I can’t play ball worth shit and I spaz out in basketball but on a board my balance is pretty good.”
“You’re full of surprises, Charlie.”
“Going to put that in your letter?”
“Am I writing a letter?”
“Far as I’m concerned, there’s no need. The entire process is utterly absurd, not to mention corrupt and despicable. Look where it led.”
“Bad people can turn anything rotten.”
“The system’s rotten,” he said. “The haves keep getting more, the have-nots keep getting ripped off. Don’t think I’m a socialist or an anarchist—any kind of ist. Those systems inevitably sink into corruption, as well. I just work at seeing things the way they are.”
We walked some more.
I said, “What made you decide T and Q might be guilty themselves?”
“My long-term analysis of their personalities plus the anger—rage, really—that I heard in their voices when they were discussing Ms. Freeman. It all made sense, when you knew about the SAT scam.”
“Did everyone at Prep know?”
“I can’t speak for everyone, but anyone with a brain in their head had to know. T getting a 1580? Q pulling 1520? That’s about as likely as me dating a supermodel.”
“So you suspected them, but didn’t want to go to your father.”
“He’s the last person I’d go to. All he’d care about is how it impacted my application.”
“Instead you called in those anonymous tips.”
Silence. “That was cowardly, wasn’t it?”
“The first one was kind of abstract, Charlie. Three dates.”
“Abstract as in useless,” he said. “No one figured it out.”
“We did,” I said. “And it led to everything else that followed. Your spelling it out on the second tip was a nice boost.”
“We couldn’t hide Marty forever and no one was getting anywhere. I knew I’d been too oblique the first time. How’d you know it was me?”
“The second time you phoned Lieutenant Sturgis’s cell directly. Only insiders have that. As in your dad. More important, that phone registers caller I.D.”
He slapped his forehead. “Oh, brilliant. Put that in the letter: Charlie has trouble with basic logic.”
“If you feel like flogging yourself, that’s fine. But the truth is you did the right thing and you were the only one at Prep who did.”
“Big deal, it was too little, too late.” He rotated a finger. “Whoopee-doo.”
“Okay,” I said. “Good luck.”
“That’s it?”
“Unless there’s something else you want to say.”
“No, I guess not… are you going to write the letter?”
“If you want me to.”
“Can I think about that?”
“When’s the application deadline?”
“Couple of weeks.”
“Give me a day or two’s notice.”
“Okay.” Shooting out a spindly, dry hand. “Sorry if I’m being a butt. Things are just weird and all.”
The merest hint of shrink-talk would necessitate teenage sarcasm.
I said, “You’ll get over it.”
CHAPTER
42
One week later, I received an email, posted at two a.m.
dr delaware, it’s me, you probably won’t see this until tomorrow. if you still think it’s appropriate, you can do it. either way, it’s okay. thanks.
In late December, I received a follow-up, also sent during the early-morning hours:
dr delaware, it’s me. due to profound and alarming lack of judgment on the part of the yale admissions committee, i got in. i’m deferring for at least a year, going to try a seminary in ohio. there was some turmoil which was to be expected. but i’m holding fast.
Read on for an excerpt from MYSTERY,
by Jonathan Kellerman
Published by Ballantine Books
CHAPTER
1
Like a con man on the run, L.A. buried its past. Maybe that’s why no one argued when the sentence came down: The Fauborg had to die.
I live in a company town where the product is illusion. In the alternate universe ruled by sociopaths who make movies, communication means snappy dialogue, the scalpel trumps genetics, and permanence is mortal sin because it slows down the shoot.
L.A. used to have more Victorian mansions than San Francisco but L.A. called in the wrecking ball and all that handiwork gave way to thirties bungalows that yielded to fifties dingbats that were vanquished, in turn, by big-box adult dormitories with walls a toddler can put a fist through.
Preservationists try to stem the erosion but end up fighting for the likes of gas stations and ticky-tack motels. Money changes hands, zoning laws are finessed, and masterpieces like the Ambassador Hotel dissolve like wrinkles shot with Botox.
The Fauborg Hotel was no Ambassador but it did have its charm. Four somber stories of Colonial brick-face, it sat on a quiet block of Crescent Drive in Beverly Hills, wedged between a retirement home and a dry cleaner. A short walk but a psychic universe from the Eurotrash cafés of Canon Drive and the shopping frenzy on Beverly and Rodeo, the Fauborg appeared in few guidebooks but managed to boast one of the highest occupancy rates in the city.
Built in 1949 by a French Holocaust survivor, its design aped the mansions in the American movies that had transfixed Marcel Jabotinksy as a teenager. Jabotinksy’s first guests were other postwar émigrés seeking peace and quiet. That same desire for low-key serenity continued with the hotel’s clientele divided between the genteel grandparents of Eurotrash and the odd knowledgeable American willing to trade glitz and edgy and ironic for a decent night’s sleep.