Текст книги "Fair Game "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Chapter Eleven

“I heard on the news about that white boy,” Zahra Lyle said. “Maybe now someone will listen to me.”

Elliot had phoned Ms. Lyle after Tucker left him off at the chapel parking lot. After he watched Tucker drive over to the crime scene across the meadow, Elliot had returned to his office at Hanby Hall where he’d found a note from the head of maintenance reminding him to put his trash out in the hall each night. He popped a couple of painkillers, cancelled his massage appointment and instead phoned his physical therapist. After setting an appointment with Augie for five o’clock, he’d given Gordie Lyle’s aunt another try. To his surprise, she had been willing to meet with him.

“Did your nephew know Terry Baker?”

Zahra shook her head. “No. He wasn’t Gordie’s whoadie. No way.”

The Lyle home was located in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma, an entirely different zip code from the Baker residence—both geographically and culturally. Once the central part of Tacoma had been the province of drug lords and gang bangers, but its citizens had successfully teamed up with the police and other community organizations. Slowly but surely, they were reclaiming their neighborhood. Or so the feel good real estate brochures read.

The Lyles lived in a small refurbished home with a handkerchief-sized front yard and a badly dented Volkswagen on blocks in the driveway. Inside and out, the house was scrupulously neat.

“Gordie is an art student, is that right? He transferred in from Cornish after some problems there?”

Her face hardened. “That wasn’t Gordie’s fault. Those boys were jealous of him and that teacher was a cracker racist.”

Elliot let that go. He’d investigated a couple of color of law cases in his time at the Bureau and he was well aware that bias was a two-way street. “Why were the boys jealous of him?”

“Gordie was popular with a lot of girls. A lot of white girls. It wasn’t anything serious, he’s…” Zahra seemed to struggle for a moment with all that Gordie was. It was obvious to Elliot that she adored her nephew, to the extent that whatever problems he might have were inevitably someone else’s fault.

“I see. So Gordie was kind of a ladies’ man?”

Gordie’s aunt seemed torn between pride and defensiveness. “Maybe. A bit.” A reminiscent smile touched her mouth. “Even when he was a little boy, he had the mojo.”

“You raised him on your own?” Zahra didn’t look much older than himself. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, and the few photographs on the wall gave no indication of a husband or domestic partner.

“Since he was ten years old.” Her chin jutted pugnaciously, and Elliot abandoned that line of questioning. She was an attractive woman. Dark hair tightly and elegantly braided and a trim z-shaped body: big breasts, tiny waist, plump bottom. But he was forming the opinion that, with the exception of her nephew, Zahra had a slightly antagonistic attitude toward men. She was talking to him, but she clearly resented every minute of it.

“What about the hassle with one of his instructors? What was the problem there?”

“I told you. That man was a racist. He’s the one who should have been kicked out of that school, not Gordie.”

“What happened?”

She went into a long, convoluted explanation of what had happened. The gist, as far as Elliot could make out, was that Gordie had not liked the grade his project had been given.

“So Gordie accused this professor of being a racist and the professor threatened to have him expelled?”

Zahra nodded fiercely.

“And Gordie responded by saying he was going to have his homies whack the guy?”

She burst out, “He’s only a boy. It was only talk. Gordie doesn’t know any people like that. He never hung around that street scum. He was angry and flapping his mouth.”

“Sure,” Elliot said. “I understand. How’s he getting along at PSU?”

She settled reluctantly, her dark eyes still blazing with the desire to do battle in Gordie’s defense. “Good. They like him at PSU. His teachers like him.”

Elliot smiled. “I guess so. You hinted on TV that Gordie was romantically involved with one of his professors?”

Zahra blinked. Her expression grew wary. “So?”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

“Gordie said so.”

“Did he give the name of this professor?”

“No.” She tugged absently on her earring. “She called here a couple of times trying to find him, and when I asked him, he started laughing about this lady professor. He never said who she was.”

“And she didn’t leave a name?”

“She wouldn’t, would she?”

Probably not, if she had any brains. But if she had any brains, she wouldn’t be involved with a student.

“Did Gordie give you—or were you able to pick up any hint—about her? Do you know for sure that she was one of Gordie’s professors?”

“Do you think that honky bitch had something to do with this?”

Honky? Seriously? “So she was white? How old did she sound?”

Zahra shrugged. “She sounded all prim and proper. I don’t know. Those women over there all sound alike.”

“How often did they meet? Where did they meet?”

Zahra was shaking her head, looking more and more harassed.

“Okay, let me ask you this—has this woman called since Gordie disappeared?”

“Yes. Twice.” She added quickly, “She could be doing that to throw suspicion off her.”

“But you don’t know who she is, so why would she need to throw suspicion off?” Elliot studied her curiously. “Did Gordie ever indicate this woman might be dangerous?”

“No.” Zahra made a contemptuous sound. “Gordie can take care of himself.”

“But yet you seem sure that something has happened to him.”

“He wouldn’t stay away from home. He knows I worry. And he wouldn’t take a chance on getting kicked out of school again. Something happened to him.”

Elliot continued to question Zahra about Gordie’s friends and associates. He asked about Gordie’s classes, how he spent his free time and everything else he could think of.

In the end, he had to tell her, “I appreciate how concerned you are, but I don’t think there’s a real connection between these two cases.”

“I knew it! You don’t care about Gordie. You don’t care about anyone who isn’t lilywhite inside and out.”

“I’m not saying I don’t think you have cause for concern,” Elliot said, giving way to exasperation. “I’m saying that, at least on the surface, I can’t see what connection there is between these two boys. They don’t seem to have had anything in common. That’s good news for you, Ms. Lyle, because Terry’s dead. It looks like he killed himself, but if he didn’t, then the last thing you would want is his death to be connected to Gordie’s disappearance.”

She stared at him unblinking for several seconds. “Does that mean you don’t care about what happened to Gordie?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that.”

“You’re going to try and find out what happened to him?” she challenged.

“I can try…” Even as the words left his mouth, Elliot could feel the ground giving way beneath him. What was he doing? He wasn’t a PI, for God’s sake and he sure as hell wasn’t an FBI agent. He was a history professor.

Whether he liked it or not.

Maybe that was the point. Anne had been right. As much as he enjoyed teaching, he had loved law enforcement. He had loved believing that he was making a difference in the world, setting right a few wrongs. He had genuinely wanted to help the Bakers and Terry and it was painful to have failed. Maybe he could redeem himself with Gordie Lyle. Looking at it that way, maybe this was an unforeseen break. Terry’s death made his own continued involvement in any investigation problematic. He could agree to help Zahra Lyle and still stay within the letter of what Charlotte had asked of him, thereby justifying his inquiry.

“I’ll do what I can,” he conceded.

Some of the angry defensiveness left Zahra’s face. “Gordie’s special. Really special. You ask any of his teachers.”

“I know,” Elliot said. He asked to see Gordie’s room and Zahra led him to the back of the house. Whereas Terry Baker’s bedroom had been transformed into an anonymous guestroom about five minutes after he’d packed for college, Gordie was still inhabiting what looked like a shrine to his boyhood. There were Michael Jackson posters on the wall and children’s books on the shelves. It seemed clear to Elliot that Gordie did not spend a lot of time in this room—and probably not this house.

“Does he have a laptop?”

“It’s in the desk. He doesn’t use it a lot.”

Elliot found the Apple MacBook in a desk drawer. “Is it all right if I borrow this?”

Zahra hesitated. Nodded.

*  *  *

After leaving Zahra Lyle’s, Elliot headed over to the orthopedic clinic over on South Union Avenue.

“No harm done,” Augie assured him after a brief but thorough examination of Elliot’s knee. He gently manipulated the joint. “How’s it feel now?”

“Better. Fine.”

Augie smiled faintly. “I’m sure it hurts plenty, but it should be okay by tomorrow. Take a couple of painkillers tonight if you can’t sleep.”

“That’s a habit I’m trying to break.”

“No shame in admitting you hurt sometimes,” Augie said easily.

Elliot nodded, unconvinced. He studied his knee. It had healed well, but you’d never know it to look at the patchwork of pink and white scars. He wasn’t particularly vain, but he’d always taken his good looks and fitness for granted. Finding himself disabled and out of the job he loved had been the hardest part, but once in a while he caught an unexpected look at his leg and it was always perturbing. Maybe some of the damage would fade in time, but he wasn’t going to be wearing shorts anytime soon, that was for sure. And the idea of getting naked with someone? It would have to be someone he trusted a lot. It was hard to remember the last time he’d trusted anyone that much.

*  *  *

I remember the way it went down. I’m not the only one who made mistakes.

The long, mournful harmonica wail of a train whistle drifted in the night, interrupting Elliot’s bleak thoughts.

He was sitting in his car at the Steilacoom landing listening, preoccupied, to the passing trains and watching the slow twinkling approach of the ferry lights. The bulky ship’s prow cut the waves in shining halves. He was thinking about Tucker, about that confusing, shattering kiss in the PSU parking lot.

At least it was a relief to know it wasn’t just him. That Tucker also still felt that bewildering, frustrating mélange of emotions. That’s how it had been from the first. From the first time Elliot had looked across the crowded briefing room, not long after Tucker had transferred in from the Los Angeles field office, the attraction had been instant and mutual. As had been their awareness of that attraction.

Elliot could remember that first meeting as though it were last week instead of nearly two years before. Nothing romantic about it, really. They were both trained to pick up physical cues of body language and eye contact. And yet, recalling the way Tucker’s gaze had held his—the slightly dilated pupils, the faint flush on his hard cheekbones, the absent way he’d rubbed the edge of his thumb against his stern lower lip…even now Elliot felt the power of that tingling memory. No surprise that by the end of Tucker’s first week in Seattle, they’d landed in bed together.

Eleven weeks. And the whole time Elliot had wondered what the hell he was doing. He’d never felt anything like it. Never craved anyone like he craved Tucker. He’d known it couldn’t last. They were both ambitious. Both focused on their careers. They were too different. He should have expected—

Elliot’s phone rang. He looked at the number flashing up on the screen. Roland.

He refused to acknowledge the glimmer of disappointment as he accepted the call. “Hi, Dad.”

“You all right, son?” Roland’s voice sounded funny, gruff.

“Me? Sure.” Elliot thought rapidly. “You’ve heard about Terry.”

“Pauline called.”

“Really,” Elliot said flatly. What the hell was Pauline Baker doing calling Roland on the night she discovered her son was dead?

Or was he being unfair? After all, Pauline had gone to Roland for help in the beginning. Maybe it made sense that he was one of the first people she shared the dreadful news with.

Roland said in that same awkward manner, “I’m sorry, Elliot. If I’d realized Tom would be such an asshole, I’d never have gotten you involved. You’re sure you’re all right?”

He was talking about the wrestling match in the Baker kitchen, worrying that his good old homophobic buddy had roughed his son up. Elliot had practically forgotten about it, once Augie had reassured him he hadn’t done any serious injury to his knee. The kiss in Tucker’s car had effectively overshadowed previous events.

“It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine. Baker was going for Tucker. I happened to get in the way.”

“Even so, I should have realized—” His father’s voice changed, sharpened. “Tucker? You mean that bastard who was supposed to be your friend in the FBI? Is he the one in charge of Terry’s case?”

Precisely how doped up had Elliot been those first months after getting shot? Apparently he’d spilled his guts to anyone who would listen.

He said uncomfortably, “Yeah, it’s a small world, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s all water under the bridge. Speaking of which, the ferry is docking. I’m going to have to go, Dad. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.”

He hung up as Roland hit his stride, ranting about how it wasn’t a surprise there had been no progress in the case with that bully boy brownshirt tramping his big fascist feet over both the evidence and people’s fee—

Chapter Twelve

Elliot was reviewing a fellow history professor’s paper on the Battle of Shiloh when Steven stopped by late Tuesday morning.

“Hey, man. Are you free for lunch?”

Elliot smiled in greeting, setting aside the papers. “What are you doing here?”

“Job interview.”

“What job?”

“Adjunct professor. If I get the position I’ll be teaching true crime writing online.”

“What about the book?”

“It’s only a part-time position. I’ll still have plenty of time to work on the book. So…lunch?”

“Sure. Just let me finish up here. It’ll take about five minutes.”

Steven sat in front of Elliot’s desk, lifted a book off his desk and flipped through it while Elliot continued to work.

“What’s that dude’s problem?”

“Hmm?” Elliot glanced up out of his preoccupation with Brigadier General Lew Wallace’s lost division.

“That maintenance guy.”

“What about him?”

“Have you been leaving stink bombs in your trash can? You should have seen the look he just gave you when he walked by.”

“Oh. I keep forgetting to leave my trash out. I guess it offends his sense of order.” Realizing he wasn’t going to get any more work done until Steven had gone, Elliot put the research paper aside. “Let’s get out of here. Grab something to eat.”

They lunched at a small café not far from the college. Elliot patiently dodged Steven’s questions about Terry Baker while they ate their sandwiches and drank their coffee. Then Steven said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, provided it has nothing to do with Terry Baker and Gordie Lyle.”

Steven seemed to consider his words. “Did you ever regret killing the dude who shot you?”

“That’s an odd question,” Elliot said finally.

Steven looked apologetic, but he was still waiting for an answer.

“The truth? No.”

“Not a flicker? I mean, yes, you were injured and you lost your job, but he’s dead. Did you even consider merely wounding him?”

Elliot set his sandwich on his plate and pushed the plate aside. “Ira Kane shot and killed two people in that courthouse. No, it didn’t occur to me to wound him. For one thing, he nearly blew my leg off. For another, we’re not trained to wound.”

“Hey.” Steven put his hands up as though in surrender. “Just asking.”

*  *  *

Gordie Lyle might have been a number of things, but there was no question he was gifted. Reading through the kid’s cumulative record folder on Tuesday, Elliot quickly formed a picture of a young man with a lot of talent and a very bad temper.

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.”

“Defensive wounds?”

“None apparent.”

“How long was he in the lake?”

“No more than a week.” Tucker’s eyes met Elliot’s. “We’re handing it off to Tacoma PD. This isn’t a federal case.”

“You sound pretty sure about that.”

“Regardless of what the Lyle kid’s aunt believes, I don’t see a connection between Baker’s death and her nephew’s disappearance. Can you give me any reason to think otherwise?”

Tucker was right. There wasn’t enough to justify involvement by the feds, yet Elliot heard himself say stubbornly, “I think this kid would have left a note.”

“I don’t. He went to lengths to make sure his body wasn’t discovered. Most people don’t leave notes, you know that.” Tucker seemed to be studying the titles on the bookshelf behind Elliot.

True. Men were more likely to leave notes than women, but less than a quarter of suicides left notes at all.

“Point. But that’s another thing. The whole chaining himself to an anvil business. Who does that? It’s stagy. It’s…fake.”

Tucker hadn’t stopped looking around since he sat down. What clues did he imagine he was going to find in this ordinary academic cubbyhole? Or was he just doing his best to avoid Elliot’s gaze?

“Look, we’ve both seen enough weird shit to know that disturbed people do bizarre things.”

“Yeah, but this is…This doesn’t make sense. There are simpler ways to get the same results. And where was the kid for three weeks? That strikes me as taking a long time to make up your mind to kill yourself. Do we have any intel on that? Where did he go when he left campus that night? Where did he find an anvil? For that matter, where did he get a gun?”

Tucker eyed him dispassionately.

“We both know Daddy-o is correct. It’s not that hard to get hold of a gun if you know where to look. The rest of it…that’s for the Tacoma PD to determine.”

“I think you’re wrong, Tucker.”

“So what’s new there?”

Elliot blinked, sat back in his chair. “So that’s it? Case closed?”

Tucker’s face could have been carved from rock. “That’s it.”

“Then I guess I’ll…see you around.”

Tucker gave a tight smile. “Yeah?” His big hands closed on the arm of the chair and he rose in a quick, lithe move. “See you around then.”

*  *  *

It should have made his day. No more Tucker Lance to piss him off with autocratic orders to butt out of his investigation. Instead, annoyingly, Elliot felt almost…disappointed. Of course part of that was the simple fact that without Tucker, Elliot no longer had instant access to law enforcement files and resources. He was a college professor, not a PI. What was his justification for asking to see police files? General nosiness? A genetically programmed streak of do-gooder? He wasn’t use to having to go through the same channels as civilians.

But there was another part of him that felt let down. Kind of like declaring war and nobody showing up. He’d been all psyched up to do battle with Tucker and now Tucker had retreated from the field. It took the fun out of victory.

Charlotte Oppenheimer phoned to indicate her thanks for his help and her relief that the investigation could be laid to rest.

“Gordie Lyle is still missing,” Elliot pointed out.

“There can’t be any connection. Gordie will show up when he’s ready.” Charlotte sounded like her old self, confident and relaxed. “Will we see you Thursday at the opening of the annual Art Students Show?”

“Not this Thursday.” Thursdays were his night to dine with his dad. These little rituals provided the glue that held his new life together.

“Not to worry. It runs through the end of the semester.” As Charlotte continued in that light, social vein, Elliot began to understand why Zahra Lyle felt that her concerns were being blown off. Not that Charlotte wasn’t in the right, merely that she was determined not to consider any other possibility.

There were always other possibilities. Elliot didn’t particularly like Zahra. She was abrasive and rude and a not-so-borderline racist. Her nephew, talented or not, read like an arrogant, egotistical prick. And yet, Elliot couldn’t let it go. He felt sure that Zahra’s instinct was correct—something had happened to Gordie—and Gordie, prick or not, was as deserving of concern and care as Terry had been. Maybe Roland’s views had rubbed off on him more than Elliot liked to admit, but Elliot couldn’t leave it alone.

He made a note of Andrew Corian’s office hours and stopped by to see him when his own afternoon lecture was concluded. As usual, Corian was holding court. Two girls lounged in his office, hanging on his every word. One wore a red velvet jacket and looked like a Victorian consumptive: long dark curls, pale skin, hollow-eyes. The other looked like a cheerful human pincushion. Elliot had never seen so many rings and ornamental safety pins in one face.

“Mills,” Corian greeted him cheerfully. “The way the suits have been circling, I expected the IRS to have towed you away for tax evasion by now.”

The lank-haired beauty snorted, exchanging looks with the pierced acolyte.

“I was hoping for a word in private,” Elliot said.

“Of course.” Corian said to the students, “Off to class, my lovelies.”

The girls unfolded and departed. Elliot closed the door behind them.

“I wanted to ask you about a student of yours. Gordie Lyle.”

“Sit down, Mills. I don’t like to be towered over.”

Since Corian had a few inches on just about everyone, that was almost amusing. Elliot took the chair across from Corian’s desk. It put him on eye level with the nude torso of a woman. He tried to avoid staring at the nipple pointing his way.

“Why are you asking about Gordie?” Corian frowned, his expression for once completely serious.

“He’s been missing since last Monday. One week. His aunt is naturally worried.”

Corian grimaced. “Has it occurred to you that Gordie has good reason to disappear?”

“What do you mean?”

Corian shrugged. “If you’ve met Zahra Lyle, I’m sure you’ve observed that she’s the classic domineering female. Living at home was not conducive to Gordie’s creative spirit.”

“You’re suggesting Gordie left home for the sake of his art?”

Corian shrugged. “If he took my advice, he did.”

“You advised the boy to run away?”

“The boy is over twenty-one. He’s a man, an autonomous adult, Mills. If he chose to leave home, that’s hardly running away.”

“Fair enough, although disappearing without a word, skipping class and leaving his aunt to wonder where he is for a week sounds pretty immature to me. Why do you think he’d choose to split now of all times?”