Fair Game - lanyon Josh. Страница 24

Long before he’d managed to get himself kicked out of Cornish, Lyle had established a high school record of fights with peers and run-ins with teachers. His overall academic scores were respectable, but it was in the area of art that he came into his own. He’d won several grants, as well as a scholarship based on his artistic ability.

His medium was sculpture. His faculty advisor was Andrew Corian. Elliot grimaced. That was an interview he wasn’t looking forward to.

Lyle was a handsome kid. Not that it was germane, but Elliot couldn’t help noticing that even in his student ID photo, Lyle was a beautiful boy.

He cross-referenced Lyle’s record with Terry Baker’s, but nothing came up. No hits. Baker lived on campus, Lyle lived with his aunt. They did not share the same major, they did not have the same faculty advisor, in fact, they didn’t have so much as a single class in common. Elliot could find nothing to link the two boys together. Gordie was black, Terry was white. Gordie was heterosexual, Terry was gay. Gordie was poor, Terry was rich.

The only connection Elliot spotted was that both boys had been ill the previous year. Terry had been hospitalized with appendicitis and Gordie had come down with mononucleosis. As connections went, it was pretty tenuous. They hadn’t been treated by the same physician or at the same hospital. Still, he’d point out that tie-in to Tucker. Tucker had the resources to cross check nurses, orderlies, health insurance clerks. You just never knew what might turn up.

Terry might have committed suicide—Elliot felt unconvinced on that score—but no way in hell had Gordie Lyle killed himself. That was one possibility Elliot had no problem ruling out. There was nothing in Lyle’s psychological profile to indicate anything but supreme confidence.

He’d spent a couple of illuminating hours the night before going through Gordie’s MacBook Pro, and in addition to an ungodly amount of porn—even for a healthy, college-aged male—there had been a mind-boggling amount of email from infatuated females. All of which Gordie, judging by his sent replies, had taken as his due.

There were a couple of emails from Gordie’s aunt and a couple of emails from professors including Andrew Corian regarding the upcoming student art show, but by far the bulk of email was from girls Gordie appeared to be juggling with the ease of long practice. What Elliot had not found was email from any lady college professor. Not that he recognized. Granted, this PSU instructor could be hiding her identity, but unless she was also deliberately changing her “voice” to sound like a nineteen-year-old girl, it was hard to believe any of those letters belonged to a mature woman. That could mean that Gordie had deleted all her emails—and all his replies to her email—but the impression Elliot had formed was that Gordie was neither discreet nor likely to be concerned with protecting the good name and reputation of anyone reckless enough to get involved with him. Either this mysterious lady professor had, thanks to some faint remaining instinct for self-preservation, stuck to using the phone or there was no mysterious lady professor.

Lyle hadn’t been one for keeping calendars, but nothing in all that email indicated he had been planning on taking a trip. In fact, the presence of his MacBook seemed to confirm the opposite.

It seemed to Elliot that all this dallying with the hearts of romantic females was a pretty good way to get yourself killed. Even so, even though Elliot had told Zahra Lyle the two cases were probably—most likely—not connected, the coincidence of two boys from the same campus going missing at roughly the same time still bothered him. As much as he wanted to dismiss the idea of a tie-in, he couldn’t quite.

He called Tucker. Tucker did not pick up. Elliot left a message asking about the ME’s report.

It was a strange day. The campus was largely in a state of shock following word of Terry Baker’s death. Students were offered the services of grief counselors and the security staff worked actively to keep the media off school grounds. The quad slowly filled with flowers and other tributes, but Elliot suspected that was less about Terry as an individual and more about a youthful response to tragedy.

Jim Feder stopped by Elliot’s office late afternoon. His eyes were red and swollen.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” he said, throwing himself into the chair in front of Elliot’s desk after Elliot invited him to sit. “You knew it from the beginning, didn’t you? That Terry was dead?”

Elliot shook his head. “No. I knew it was a possibility.” But Jim wasn’t so far off the mark. From the minute Elliot had heard the circumstances of Terry’s disappearance, his instinct had led him to fear the worst case scenario.

“I can’t believe he’d do that. Kill himself.”

“Terry never talked about suicide—even jokingly?”

“No.” Jim had no hesitation. “Never.”

If Terry hadn’t killed himself, the only other possibility was murder. Nobody accidentally tied a heavy weight around his waist, walked into a lake and shot himself. Elliot asked slowly, “Since the last time we talked, have you remembered anything that might shed light on Terry’s death?”

Feder shook his head. “No.”

Yet Feder had sought Elliot out. Why?

“You mentioned before that you thought Tom Baker might have harmed Terry. To your knowledge, did Tom ever threaten or physically attack Terry?”

“No.” Feder stared at the Gettysburg cannon paperweight on Elliot’s desk as though it were the most interesting object he’d ever seen.

“Did Terry ever mention a student by the name of Gordie Lyle?”

“Who? No.”

Someone tapped on Elliot’s open office door. He glanced up. Tucker stood in the doorway. Instantly Elliot’s heart was pounding. His chest felt tight with the enormity of his excitement. It was alarming to feel this much, to know he felt too much to safely contain it. What had happened to seventeen months of dogged burying of the past?

Tucker was doing his full on FBI agent impersonation. Not a twitch of emotion on his impassive face. He wasn’t wearing his Oakleys, but the impression was the same.

“Professor Mills?” he asked politely, formally.

“Will you excuse us?” Elliot asked Feder.

Feder didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was irked. He cast Tucker a displeased look as he scooted past him. He could have saved himself the effort. Tucker paid as much attention as he would to a toddler chasing his ball.

Shutting the door behind Feder, he approached Elliot’s desk. Elliot resisted the impulse to rise, to brace for attack. Tucker didn’t look like he was going to attack. He looked cool and professional as he took Feder’s chair. There was no sign that he even remembered their last contact, that crazy, almost desperate kiss in the chapel parking lot and the argument that had followed. Elliot, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to get it out of his mind.

“I’ve got the ME’s initial report. You want to hear it?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll summarize. Baker died following what appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot to the forehead.”

“Temple or middle of the forehead?”

“Forehead. I didn’t note the precise location of the wound.”

“How can the ME be so sure it’s self-inflicted? The kid was in the water for a week. Some of the forensic evidence is bound to be contaminated in the context of the crime scene.”

“I said ‘appears.’ You know how it works. Obviously powder burns and other physical evidence isn’t available. The evidence that is available indicates .45 caliber and before you ask, no, we still haven’t located the weapon. Toxicology tests are still pending. DNA degraded in the water.”

Elliot thought this over. “Was he clothed?”

Tucker tore his gaze from the poster of John Wayne with the slogan Life is tough; it’s tougher if you’re stupid. “Yes. And his jacket, cell phone, laptop and wallet with ID were left neatly on the bank.”