From a public phone booth in the nearest gas station he called the number given in the lost-and-found ad. A woman answered in a heavy Spanish accent:
“This is the Jasper residence. Hello.”
“Is Ted there?”
“Just a min— No, no. No, no, no.”
There were too many no’s. “This is a friend of his from school. I just wanted to say hello.”
“He not here. Mr. Jasper not here. Mrs. Jasper not here. Nobody. Nobody home. Ted say nobody home.”
“Tell him a friend of his from Cal Poly is passing through town and wants to buy him a drink.”
There were sounds of a slight scuffle, a barely audible “Goddam you, Valencia, when are you going to learn?” Then a man’s voice:
“Who is this?”
“We were in the same lab last semester.”
“I didn’t have a lab last semester.”
“Maybe I have the wrong Jasper. Theodore?”
“Edward.”
“Wrong Jasper, obviously. Sorry. It was a natural mistake.”
“Not so natural,” Ted said. “We’re not listed in the phone book... Who is this anyway? And what do you want?”
Aragon hung up. It was a stupid error, not checking the telephone directory. But he had the notion that Ted wouldn’t have been of much help under any circumstances. He sounded like a very angry and suspicious young man.
7
It was still morning, though it felt later. The hours spent with Frieda Jasper, Mrs. Griswold and Timothy North seemed to have spread across a whole day like an oil spill, leaving black stains and the smell of tar.
He drove to Holbrook Hall for his second visit of the week. Halfway up the long steep driveway, two older students were preparing to have a picnic lunch under an enormous fig tree. A third was in the tree itself — Donny Whitfield, his fat, sunburned legs dangling like meat on a hook. He let out a yell when he saw Aragon’s car.
“Hey. Hey, wait up!”
Aragon stopped. The boy dropped out of the tree and came stumbling across the lawn. He got in the car, breathing noisily.
“Jeez, am I glad to see you.”
Aragon wished he could say the same, but everything about Donny seemed swollen — his short puffy fingers, his cheeks distended like those of a squirrel storing food for winter, his thighs bulging out of the cutoff jeans. Even his eyelids looked blistered from the heat of either tears or sun.
He said, “I forget your name.”
“Tom Aragon.”
“Listen, man, I got to split this dump. They put me on a diet, me and those two back there. All we’re allowed for lunch is lettuces and cottage cheese, rabbit food, yuck. They even locked the candy machine. How’s that for a low blow? You don’t happen to have a chocolate bar on you?”
“No.”
“Pack of Life Savers?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Screw you.”
“You told me that yesterday.”
“So? It still goes. If you help me get out of here, I bet I could help you find Cleo. I know about chicks from all my dad’s chicks. They’re the same, even a nut like Cleo. How about it, do we have a deal?”
“What happened to the kidnapping theory you had yesterday?”
“Down the drain, I figure, now that she flew the coop. A lot of my dad’s chicks did the same.” Donny removed the huge wad of chewing gum from his mouth, examined it critically and put it back in. “Look, man, I’m ready to deal. I can lay my hands on some money. You must need money or you wouldn’t be driving this hunk of rust. How about it?”
“You’re not actually a prisoner here, are you, Donny?”
“You want to know what would happen if I walked out without one of those dimwit counselors tagging along? They’d call the cops.”
“Why?”
“I’m on probation. If I stick around here, I stay out of the slammer. It was a bum rap. I don’t belong with the crazies you see in this joint. I’m not retarded either. I got an A in school once. Want to guess what in?”
“Tell me.”
“Eating,” the boy said somberly. “It was a joke, ha ha.”
“What bum rap did they pin on you, Donny?”
“That was long ago and far away, man. Anyway, my dad fixed it. He’s a great fixer, dear old dad, specially when it leaves him free to mess around with the chicks without competition from me. Maybe you think I’m not much competition, right?”
“I’m not a chick,” Aragon said. “I have to go up and see Mrs. Holbrook now. Want to come along for the ride?”
“Naw. She makes me puke.”
Waiting in the small reception room outside Mrs. Holbrook’s office, Aragon wondered what the charge against the boy had been. Donny wasn’t likely to talk, Mrs. Holbrook probably even less so, and juvenile records were often ordered sealed by the judge in the case.
Mrs. Holbrook greeted him with a neat professional smile. She did not sit down or ask him to sit down. The omissions seemed a neat professional way of informing him that she was busy and suggesting that, even if she weren’t, his presence wouldn’t be welcome. It was evident that she sensed trouble.
She said, “I gather nothing’s been heard from Cleo?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be of any further help, Mr. Aragon. I gave you all the information you asked for yesterday.”
“Perhaps not quite all, Mrs. Holbrook. I’d like to speak to Roger Lennard.”
“He hasn’t been at work most of this week.”
“That was one of the things you didn’t tell me yesterday.”
“You didn’t ask yesterday.”
“How long has he been absent from the school?”
“He called in last Wednesday morning and said he had the flu. We have to be extremely cautious, since some of our students are very susceptible to such contagions, so I told him to stay home until he felt better. He did. There’s no mystery about Mr. Lennard’s absence. I hope you’ve abandoned that silly idea of any romantic attachment between Mr. Lennard and Cleo.”
“I may have other silly ideas,” Aragon said. “How long has he worked here?”
“Since last Christmas, when one of our regular counselors left for Europe on a Fulbright scholarship.”
“Can you give me Lennard’s address and phone number?”
She opened a drawer of one of the maroon-painted filing cabinets that lined the rear wall.
“His address and phone number are still the same as these on his application form. Four hundred Hibiscus Court, Space C, telephone 682-3380. I still don’t understand why you insist on dragging Mr. Lennard into this. Roger is a conscientious young man, totally dedicated to his students. He tries to make them feel normal, human, not social outcasts.”
“Is there a picture of him in his file, Mrs. Holbrook?”
“Yes.”
“May I see it, please?”
The picture was almost as vague in detail as the description Timothy North had provided of the man with the basset. It could have been almost any dark-haired youngish man trying to look earnest on an application form for an earnest-type job.
“Do you mind if I borrow this?”
“It’s beginning to look,” Mrs. Holbrook said grimly, “as though you’re determined to discredit our school. I’ve a good notion to call Roger right this minute and let him speak for himself.”
“That would suit me fine.”
She pressed the numbers on the phone and waited a full minute before hanging up. “He’s probably asleep,” she said.
“Suppose I check that out.”
“Go ahead. You will anyway.”
“I have to, Mrs. Holbrook.”
Timothy North was still working out on his exercise machine in the small stucco bungalow. The pink sweat band around his head had turned dark with moisture. He wiped his face and hands on a towel before glancing at the picture.