Hope to Die Read online

  He hesitated, obviously trying to choose his words carefully.

  I chose for him, saying, “Before you let the police-detective father of a dead kid from the violent ghetto talk with them?”

  The headmaster’s lips wormed a bit; he cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry you overheard that. I was speaking with the chairman of the trustees.”

  “About how Kraft had nothing to do with Damon’s death,” I said.

  “Y-yes,” he stammered again. “That’s right. It’s important that—”

  I leaned across the desk, said, “It’s important that you understand, sir, that the Kraft School is involved. At the very least, the Kraft School is liable for his disappearance, and if I don’t get some goddamned cooperation here, I am going to scream to the press and then sue this fine educational institution into oblivion.”

  “As I understand it, Damon was killed in Washington, DC, while on vacation,” Pelham said, his chin rising and his voice shaking. “We are in no way—”

  “No, sir,” I growled. “My boy was taken from this campus. He was supposed to have been in a jitney from school to the Albany train station. He never made it. Now, my boy was seventeen, a juvenile. It was this school’s responsibility to make sure he got on that jitney, and he did not, sir.”

  Pelham blinked. “Well, I don’t know—”

  “I do!” I shouted. “The jitney driver told the FBI he had Damon on the list, but at the last second, Damon told one of his friends that he’d gotten a ride home. I want to talk to that friend and anyone else who saw him the Friday before Easter. Now!”

  CHAPTER

  49

  PELHAM LED ME INTO the rear of the school chapel, a lofty space with a wraparound balcony. To his credit, the headmaster had arranged for counselors to be there to talk about Damon and to assure the students they were in a safe environment.

  It was a packed house, standing room only.

  The size of the turnout seemed to both surprise and alarm Pelham. But the number of kids who were openly mourning my boy touched me deeply, and I was almost overwhelmed with emotion when a few of them rose and talked about the son I did and didn’t know.

  “Damon was hilarious and smart and he’d give you the shirt off his back if you needed it,” one boy said.

  “He really listened to you,” an older girl said. “And when he said he just wanted to be friends, he was serious. He was your friend.”

  A tall kid I figured played basketball said, “He wasn’t the best player, but he was always the hardest worker. Always, and he made you want to work harder. I’ll miss that.”

  There were a lot of heads nodding when Pelham and I walked up the center aisle. I honestly don’t know how I made it. Pelham introduced me, and I saw the kids’ faces change from interest to sadness and pain.

  Fighting the ball of grief in my throat, I got some semblance of control and said, “Damon loved this school, and he loved all his friends and classmates. This place made him happy, which meant you made him happy. I’m hoping you’ll honor his memory by helping me find whoever took him and killed him.”

  A pretty brunette in the second row started weeping softly. The boy beside her, a chunky redheaded kid in a blue Patriots hoodie, hugged her.

  I said, “He was supposed to ride the jitney to the train station the Friday before vacation began. The driver said someone told him Damon had gotten a ride, but he couldn’t remember who. Did any of you tell him that? Did any of you see my son that day?”

  For several moments all I saw was confusion on the students’ faces. Then the kid in the blue hoodie raised his hand and said, “We did, sir. Sylvia and me.”

  Sylvia went hysterical, and I went numb.

  Ten minutes later, however, we were all in the headmaster’s office. Sylvia Mathers had calmed down and was sitting on the couch with her feet tucked up under her and her arms holding her knees. Looking lost and defeated, Porter Tate sat beside her.

  The boy spoke first, in a voice so low I had to sit forward to hear him.

  “It was that woman, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  “What woman?” Pelham said.

  “The one with the …”

  “With what?” I asked.

  “Dirty-blond hair and big tits,” he mumbled.

  Sylvia Mathers sent him a withering look, said, “You can be such an asshole sometimes, Porter.”

  “Hey, I didn’t—”

  “You did,” she shot back. “It’s all you and Tommy talked about on the ride, how Damon was teed up for big tits, and now he’s dead.”

  “Back up,” I said. “You saw Damon with a strange woman that morning?”

  “Yes,” Sylvia said.

  “No,” Porter said.

  Now I was totally confused. “You saw her, Sylvia, and you didn’t, Porter?”

  The boy said, “No, I saw her, but she wasn’t strange. I mean, I’d seen her before. I …” He looked at me bleakly, said, “Damon was my friend. I’m so sorry, sir. I wish I’d made him come with us. But it seemed chill. Damon was chill.”

  In fits and starts, their story came out. On the morning of Good Friday, Sylvia and Porter had left their dorms and passed Damon with his luggage. He was speaking with a woman in her mid- to late twenties. She had dirty-blond hair, wore dark sunglasses, was of medium height, and had the aforementioned large breasts, which, according to Porter, were encased in the same tight white top she’d been wearing the first time he saw her.

  “And when was that?” the headmaster asked.

  “I dunno,” Porter said. “Like, ten days before that? She and Damon were across the street at Millie’s, having coffee. I was there too, with Tommy Grant and Roger Woods. I mean, not with Damon and the lady. We were in the corner, kind of, I don’t know, watching?”

  “More like ogling, the way Tommy made it sound,” Sylvia said, disgusted.

  Porter said the woman and Damon talked for nearly twenty minutes and then left. Porter and his friends found Damon studying in his room later.

  “At first he didn’t want to talk about her,” Porter said. “But then he told us she’d taken one of his tours that day and just wanted to ask more questions about the school and all, so they had coffee. She paid.”

  The headmaster tapped a pen on a pad of paper he was using to take notes. “Did he tell you her name? There’ll be a record of her if she took a tour.”

  “Karla something,” the boy said. “I can’t remember. But Tommy would know.”

  “Why would Tommy know?” I asked.

  “Because he likes to fish and her last name was like some kind of lure.”

  Pelham looked at me, said, “I’ll find Mr. Grant when we’re finished here.”

  After I’d come down hard on him, the headmaster had turned out to be a decent enough guy, and I nodded.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  Porter looked at the floor, but Sylvia said, “Just that when I went by him, going to the jitney, I told Damon he was going to be late, and he said he’d be right there. But he caught up to Porter and said he had a ride all the way home.” She choked, said, “Damon was a great guy, Dr. Cross. He was special and I …”

  She broke down again. Porter rubbed her back, said, “They were like—”

  “No, we weren’t,” Sylvia shot at him.

  “Damon said he liked you, and you said you liked him!” Porter said. “What else is there?”

  She rocked her head back, wiped away her tears, and said, “We liked each other, and that’s what makes this so awful.”

  I reached over, patted her hand, and said, “Thank you for liking him.”

  Sylvia nodded, her lower lip quivering.

  “Dr. Cross,” Porter said. “There was, like, one other thing.”

  “Okay …”

  “The lady, Karla, she said something to Damon, and he told us, and anyway we … we all thought she was messing with his head.”

  “Just tell them,” Sylvia said.

  “I am,” he snapped. “She
told Damon to leave his window unlocked and open because she just might climb in one night, and … you know.”

  The headmaster drew his head back. “Those were Damon’s exact words?”

  “I dunno. Yeah, I think so,” Porter said. “I might be, like, paraphrasing, but go get Tommy Grant, he remembers everything that’s got to do with sex.”

  CHAPTER

  50

  TOMMY GRANT LIVED UP to his reputation. A little while later, when Pelham brought in the hoops player who’d talked about Damon in the chapel, he not only knew the name of the woman who’d taken my son but remembered exactly what Damon had said about her.

  “Her last name was Mepps, like the lure,” said Grant. “And she had a tattoo of some kind of black cat on her left arm.”

  “She did not,” Porter said.

  “She did so,” Grant shot back. “Most of it was covered, but you could see the tail for sure. And what she said to Damon was that he should keep his window unlocked and open because some day she might sneak out of the woods behind the dorm and climb in.”

  Sylvia sat up and frowned.

  “And when was this?” I asked. “Do you know when this all happened?”

  “Not, like, the exact date,” he said. “But sure.”

  “Sure what?” said the headmaster.

  “Sure I know when it happened, sir,” Grant said. “It was the day before they found Carter.”

  My memory was jogged, and I remembered talking with Damon about Carter.

  “The security guard who was killed?” I asked.

  Pelham nodded but wasn’t happy.

  “And where was Carter’s body found?”

  As if already seeing the facts a news reporter could string together into a lurid story about the school, Pelham said nothing.

  But Grant replied, “Sort of in the woods out behind North Dorm, but like far away, right, Mr. Pelham?”

  The headmaster, with an expression that said he would never be able to fathom the adolescent brain, angrily barked, “And not one of you thought to tell someone about this before now?”

  “About what?” Porter asked, puzzled.

  Sylvia rolled her eyes, said, “What Karla Mepps said about coming out of those woods on the same night Mr. Carter was killed in those woods, you boob-obsessed morons.”

  “Oh,” Grant said. “I didn’t think about that.”

  Porter shook his head. “Me neither. I just remembered she was going to come in the window and you know. Nothing about the woods.”

  Sylvia looked like she wanted to slap them both, but she just sat there glaring at them when I said, “But you all got solid looks at Karla Mepps, correct?”

  All three of Damon’s classmates nodded.

  “You’d be willing to work with a police sketch artist to help us get a sense of what she looked like?” I asked.

  Sylvia and Grant said, “Yes.”

  Porter paused, then said, “Wouldn’t a picture be better?”

  I wanted to hug him. “You have a picture of her?”

  “No,” he said. “But they’ve got a security camera at Millie’s coffee shop. It’s how Clayton Monroe got bagged for stealing and got expelled last year. Unless they erase stuff that old, it’s got to be there.”

  We tried to do it right then. Pelham got on the phone and tracked down Ward Brower, Millie Brower’s son. Brower was more than willing to help, but he was at the emergency room with his mother, who was complaining of chest pain.

  “He said he may have erased it all,” Pelham said. “But maybe not. He opens at six a.m., but he said you could come by at five thirty tomorrow, when he gets there.”

  Although I was desperate to see the woman who may have lured my son to his death, I nodded and thanked Damon’s classmates for their help.

  “Are you going to do anything for him?” Sylvia asked. “Like a memorial?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Once I’ve got the people who killed him.”

  “Like, before the end of the year?” Porter asked.

  “I’m sure hoping so,” I said.

  Pelham said, “Do you need a room, Dr. Cross? I could call the motel and see if there are vacancies, or we have beds at the infirmary you’re free to use.”

  “I’d like to stay in Damon’s room if possible.”

  The headmaster hesitated, and then said, “I can arrange that.”

  After sending the students back to their dorms, Pelham took me to North Dorm and Damon’s room on the first floor. It faced those woods Karla Mepps had spoken of, the woods where Josh Carter, the security guard, had been bludgeoned to death in the pouring rain. Several kids were looking out their doors at me, and I nodded to them as the headmaster unlocked Damon’s room.

  He handed me a key and then his business card, saying quietly, “Anything you need, you call. And I’m genuinely sorry about the way I acted and spoke earlier. The board …”

  “I understand, and thank you,” I said, and patted him on the shoulder.

  Then I took a deep breath and walked into the remains of Damon’s life.

  CHAPTER

  51

  I CLOSED THE BEDROOM door, stood there in the darkness, and breathed in through my nose. They say our sense of smell is our most primal, the one that can hit us the hardest, because it comes from the deepest part of the brain.

  Smell kicked me like a mule that night, and right in the gut. Damon’s window had been closed and locked for days. His scent permeated the place, and it was like he was suddenly right there in front of me.

  I saw him gliding down the court at a game a year ago, when he’d come off the bench and scored three straight three-pointers, looking like he could never miss. I saw him the past Christmas. He was home, laughing his goofy lovable laugh at something Nana Mama had said. Then he was sitting on the couch the day before he’d gone back to school, Ali under one of his long arms, and Jannie under the other, all of them watching one of the college bowl games.

  Was he dead? Were those memories all I was going to have of him?

  I started to shake in the darkness. Fearing that more of these vivid memories would destroy me, I flipped on the light and stood there, blinking my wet eyes.

  It was a small room for such a big boy, but it was neat and orderly, with posters of Chris Paul and Derrick Rose, the point guards who were his heroes, and others of Rihanna and the rapper Kendrick Lamar.

  Over his desk there was a calendar with Good Friday circled in red and Home! scribbled next to it. I stared at that for the longest time before going on around the room, to his dresser and small closet, the door of which was plastered with photographs of him: playing playground ball, wearing snorkel gear in Jamaica, and standing in the suit he wore to the prom.

  My hand went to my mouth and I turned toward his bed, which stretched sideways below that window Karla Mepps had threatened to climb through and …

  Was that what happened? I wondered. Was she on her way to climb in Damon’s window when the security guard saw her, maybe chased her before she beat him to death with a chunk of firewood?

  Women, in my experience, are rarely involved in something so vicious. Clubbing a man and beating his brains in is more of a guy thing. So what kind of woman did that make Karla Mepps? And what did it mean in terms of Thierry Mulch?

  I’d long believed that Mulch had at least one accomplice, and maybe more. There was too much distance and too little time for my family to have been kidnapped without, at a minimum, one other player involved. In my mind, I’d profiled the second fiddle as the kind of male toady that heinous criminals seem to attract, someone younger than Mulch but just as sick, an apprentice, even.

  A woman in that role changed everything. It suggested twisted love, an attraction between monsters.

  What would she look like? The boys who’d seen her said she was very attractive and well built. But would there be something in her body language that spoke of evil? Would I have seen something that Damon missed?

  Part of me wanted to call Sampson and Mahoney
and ask them to start running Karla Mepps through the criminal databases straightaway. But it was late on a Sunday night and there was a high probability that the name was an alias, and I was suddenly exhausted. Seeing my tortured reflection in the window glass against the inky blackness beyond, I told myself to sleep, that I would be no good to anyone if I couldn’t think straight.

  I sat on my son’s bed, kicked off my shoes, and noticed the crucifix my grandmother had bought him last Easter. It hung above the headboard. Part of me wanted to yell at the figure on the cross, to demand to know the reason for my suffering. Instead, I got down on my knees to beg Jesus for help.

  That’s when I saw the snapshot taped to the wall by his pillow.

  It was taken the day I married Bree, a portrait of me, my bride, and my family. Bree was radiant. Damon was as happy as I’d ever seen him. So were Ali, Jannie, and Nana Mama. And I looked like I’d won the Powerball.

  Once upon a time, I thought, you, Alex Cross, were the luckiest man alive.

  That broke me.

  She’s dead, I thought. They’re both dead.

  Grief welled up like a rogue wave. I got up before it could hit me fully, staggered to the switch, and turned off the light.

  I groped over to Damon’s bed, lay down on my side, curled up in a fetal position, and felt the wave hit like a tsunami. I sobbed my way into sleep.

  CHAPTER

  52

  TWO MORE? HOW WAS I going to accomplish that?

  The question tormented me as I trudged out of Damon’s dorm at 5:20 Monday morning. It was still dark out. Blustering wind blew cold rain, pelting me with stinging drops as I followed the path to my car.

  Two?

  Then I realized that this intersection of paths above Damon’s dorm was probably where Karla Mepps had intercepted him on Good Friday morning. Ignoring the fact that I was going to be wet and cold for hours, I stopped and stood there, wondering what she’d said to make him want to abandon his plans and do something as foolhardy as catch a ride with a stranger.