The Homecoming Page 24

There was no sign of Rolling having been abducted, and no one reported seeing anything unusual. They did question one suspect at length, a man with a criminal background that included statutory rape, who a witness said had been talking with Rolling a few days earlier. The man had an alibi, though, which seemed to correspond with the time Rivers went missing. Although the boy’s body never turned up, it was ultimately presumed that he’d drowned. The “Hooch,” as locals called it, was a big body of water that ran for 430 miles. The police had dragged sections of the river between Buford Dam and Peachtree Creek, but found nothing. Still, the search team said the boy’s body could easily have snagged on one of the many underwater trees lurking in the water’s murky depths.

  In one of the reports, an investigator had noted: Some big catfish and largemouth bass in that stretch where the body probably ended up. The unsaid conclusion was that Rolling had likely fed the fish he was hoping to catch.

  “I’ve included the up-to-date contacts for you,” said Mary Beth.

  “Great job,” said Cheever. “You’re worth your weight in gold.”

  “I’ll settle for doughnuts,” she said.

  All through elementary and middle school, Victoria Amberger had resisted shortening her name to Vicky. It was only as a freshman at TPA that she began encouraging others to call her Vicky. She hoped the nickname would put her in good stead with the Y-Girls.

  Normally Tiffany wouldn’t have given Vicky the time of day, as she was chunkier and shorter than the usual Y-Girl. But as it happened, Vicky had the same sixth-period biology class that Stella did.

  Before the start of school, Tiffany invited Vicky to join her at a nearby park, saying they needed to meet in private.

  “Your hair looks great,” said Tiffany, touching the smaller girl’s blonde locks. “Is that a new style?”

  “I had it layered more,” Vicky said, delighted to know that Tiffany had taken notice of her before.

  “It’s really you,” said Tiffany. “We’re going to have to find you the right boyfriend to go with the hairdo.”

  A smile overtook most of Vicky’s face.

  “You know who I think would be perfect for you? Do you know Andrew Brady? He and Lily broke up. We’re having a party Saturday, and I know he’s coming. If you can make it to the party, I’ll personally play matchmaker.”

  “That sounds great,” said Vicky.

  Tiffany nodded encouragingly. Andrew was a hunk, but dumb as a rock. That’s why he was taking freshman biology again.

  “Do you have any classes with Andrew?” asked Tiffany.

  Vicky nodded. “We have sixth-period biology with Mr. Rommel.”

  Tiffany furrowed her eyebrows. “Isn’t that the class where something strange happened yesterday?”

  Halfway through her second-period class, Stella was summoned to Mr. Harnett’s office. Harnett was the assistant principal of the school. Because he was the “enforcer” at TPA and because of his temper, students referred to him as “Mr. Hornet.”

  As Stella was shown into his office, Mr. Harnett got to his feet and extended his hand in introduction. Then he directed her to the one open chair in his office. “Please take a seat,” he said.

  Already seated were Dr. Rommel and a blonde girl Stella recognized from class.

  “I’m conducting an inquiry into what happened in yesterday afternoon’s biology class,” said Mr. Harnett. “Dr. Rommel reported a strange incident involving a frog. He suspected you were involved in what he describes as a ‘spectacle.’ Since he came to me, I have been trying to find out what occurred. I told Dr. Rommel that I would be talking to you today, as well as questioning other students from your biology class. I was assisted in my investigation by a student who came to me of her own volition to report what you’d done.”

  Harnett turned to that student and said, “Why don’t you tell us what you saw, Vicky?”

  Keeping her head down, not meeting any eyes, Vicky said, “Before I went into our biology class, I saw Stella looking into her purse. I just happened to come up alongside her, which gave me a perfect vantage point.”

  “And what did you see?” asked Mr. Harnett.

  “There was a frog in Stella’s purse. It was alive.”

  “And how are you so sure of this?”

  “I heard it croak. That’s when Stella shushed it, and then closed her purse.”

  “Thank you, Vicky,” said Mr. Harnett. He turned to Stella and said, “What do you have to say about this?”

  “I did not bring a frog to class,” said Stella.

  Mr. Harnett’s white skin reddened. He tapped his fingertips together and scowled. “I can guarantee you one thing, Stella, which is that lying will compound your problems.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “Let’s look at the situation, shall we?” he said. “You and each of your classmates had a preserved frog specimen set out on a tray on your desk. These specimen frogs are chemically preserved. They are as dead as a proverbial doornail. But when you left class, your preserved specimen was no longer on your desk. Instead, a frog began hopping around the classroom. I suppose you want me to believe it’s a coincidence that a living frog was spotted in your purse just before the start of class.”

  The assistant principal scowled at her, but not as fiercely as Dr. Rommel did. Rommel had been teaching at the school for a quarter of a century. During that time he’d ruled by intimidation. That had all changed overnight. Today the students weren’t calling him Dr. Rommel. They were calling him Commandant Commando Rommel. It was this girl’s fault. Revenge would be his.

  “You might as well admit your guilt,” said Dr. Rommel. “There’s a witness.”

  “I am not guilty of what you say,” said Stella.

  “You sound like a lawyer,” the teacher said, then added with a sneer, “or a politician. Vicky has no reason to make up a story.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Stella.

  She tried to meet Vicky’s eyes, but the girl didn’t engage with her.

  “What I am sure of is that you’re a troublemaker,” said the teacher.

  The assistant principal held up a hand to Dr. Rommel and said, “I am the one conducting this interview.” Then he turned to Stella and said, “I’m going to ask you to write up your account of what occurred in biology class yesterday. When you finish, I will review your statement. I encourage you to be truthful. If you admit fault and apologize, I will have more latitude to go easy on you. To quote from Proverbs: ‘A gentle answer turns away wrath.’”

  “I can’t apologize for something I didn’t do,” said Stella.

  “That’s your choice. I am not going to tell you what you should write or what you should say. But unless other compelling evidence comes forward, I’ll have to suspend you for the rest of the week.”

  “That’s not even a slap on the wrist,” protested Dr. Rommel. “That’s a vacation.”

  Cheever called Eleanor Pierce. He was hoping to schedule a time to talk to Stella about LeRon Rivers that afternoon, but she cut him off.

  “I’m on my way to the high school,” she said, sounding flustered. “Stella is being suspended.”

  “For doing what?”

  “The assistant principal says she let a frog loose in biology class and was a disruptive influence.”

  Cheever couldn’t imagine Stella acting like some juvenile delinquent. He knew Duncan was out of town, and didn’t like how overwrought Eleanor sounded.

  “Sounds like Stella could use a character witness,” he said. “How about I meet up with you at the high school?”

  “That would be too much of an inconvenience . . .”

  “It’s not a bother. Let’s meet in front of the school in half an hour.”

  “You’re a godsend.”

  When Cheever and Eleanor were shown in to the assistant principal’s office, the cop couldn’t help but remember those occasions in high school when he’d been singled out for misbehavior. In retrospect, what he’d done didn’t seem so terrible—there
had been a food fight his sophomore year, and two years later he’d organized senior ditch day—but even so, he recalled that getting called to the administrative offices had been a nerve-racking experience. Of course Cheever wasn’t worried so much about what the school would dole out in the way of punishment; it was his father’s retribution he feared. His dad hadn’t been a spare-the-rod kind of parent.

  When Eleanor introduced the detective to the assistant principal, Cheever could see the administrator’s surprised face.

  “I’m a friend of the family,” Cheever explained, “and was invited to sit in on this proceeding.”

  Cheever didn’t try and hide his wink to Stella, who was clearly glad to see him. That made the assistant principal’s face even redder.

  “It’s not really a proceeding,” said Harnett. “The administration of TPA has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to certain violations or disruptions. It’s because of that, I am suspending Stella.”

  “Where’s Stella’s accuser?” asked Cheever.

  “The witness,” Harnett said, “has returned to class.”

  “Did you interview her?” asked the cop.

  “I took down her statement, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” said Cheever. “From what I understand, you’re taking the word of one student over another.”

  “There was also a teacher involved. It was out of concern for that teacher that Vicky—the witness—came forward. After hearing what Vicky had to say, I was satisfied with her story and confident that it explained what subsequently occurred in the classroom.”

  “What happened?” asked Cheever, looking to Stella for an explanation. But Harnett answered before she could.

  “The witness saw Stella looking inside her purse right before class,” he said. “That’s when she heard a croaking sound, and saw the frog in Stella’s purse.”

  “There was no frog in my purse,” said Stella. “And there was no croaking. There couldn’t have been croaking.”

  The assistant principal covered up a yawn. They’d gone over this before. He opened his mouth to speak, but Cheever spoke first. Something Stella had said intrigued him.

  “What did you mean when you said there couldn’t have been croaking?”

  “Only male frogs make those kinds of sounds,” said Stella.

  “And?” said Cheever.

  “The frog I was supposed to dissect was female.”

  “How do you know this?” asked Cheever.

  “When I was doing my virtual dissection of a frog, I learned that one way of distinguishing female frogs from male frogs is by the relative size of their eyes and ear circles. My frog’s ear circles were smaller than its eyes; it was female.”

  “Were all the frogs being dissected in your class female?” asked Cheever.

  Stella thought about this and finally said, “I’m pretty sure they were.”

  “And female frogs don’t croak?”

  Stella nodded.

  Cheever turned to Harnett. “You need to determine if all the frogs being dissected in Stella’s class were female. And you need to see if the jailbreak frog made any croaking sounds during its great escape. I’m sure there are videos of the event. And finally, I want to talk to Stella’s accuser, who supposedly saw and heard the frog in her purse.”

  “You will not be talking with one of our students,” said the assistant principal, “unless her parents agree to it.”

  “You need to follow school procedures, of course,” said Cheever, “but might I suggest before calling the parents that you talk to your witness and tell her an SDPD detective would like to question her. My guess is that will send her running for the hills.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Cheever proved to be psychic. When Vicky Amberger heard a policeman wanted to talk to her, she suddenly came down with blue flu. She reported to the school nurse, told her she wasn’t feeling well, and asked to go home. Before leaving for the day, Vicky changed her statement, saying she was no longer sure she had either seen or heard a frog in Stella’s purse.

  Given Vicky’s change of heart, Mr. Harnett told Stella she would not be suspended and not subject to any discipline “at this time.”

  He declared sternly, “The frog situation has still not been resolved to my satisfaction, and I will continue my investigation into it.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Detective Cheever with a straight face. “If you need any help, just give me a call.”

  Hornet flushed red, quickly scratched out a late pass for Stella, then brusquely dismissed everyone. Once Cheever, Stella, and Eleanor were outside the administrative offices, they began to talk among themselves. For having prevailed, Stella looked and acted rather somber.

  “I don’t know why that girl made up a story,” said Eleanor. “Do you have any idea why she would have done that, Stella?”

  With downcast eyes, Stella said, “I’d rather not talk about it now, Mom.”

  Cheever didn’t think he’d ever seen Stella look and sound quite so pensive. Eleanor also seemed to recognize the sadness in her daughter. She hugged Stella and whispered, “I love you. And I’m sorry if others haven’t been welcoming to you.”

  “It’s okay, Mom.”

  “I know you have to get back to class,” Cheever said. “Can we talk after school?”

  “That’s fine,” said Stella.

  “I want to discuss LeRon Rivers,” he said. “We got a bingo on a boy your age who went missing near the Chattahoochee River in Georgia at around the same time you did.”

  Stella didn’t react other than to nod. Cheever had thought his news might have the effect of cheering her up; after all, she had mentioned that the boy in question had a “water name” and that he was dark skinned. But being right didn’t seem to bring Stella any satisfaction. Cheever realized it had to be disheartening to never be believed.

  “I’ll see you around four o’clock,” he said.

  Stella nodded, offered Cheever and her mother a muttered, “Bye,” and then walked off.

  From inside the sedan, Scarecrow carried out a conversation with the Guardian of the Gates. Somewhere above the Guardian, Scarecrow was sure, was the Wizard. He wondered if the Wizard had all the answers to the Stella Pierce situation.

  “Any indication we’re on Jinnicky’s radar?” asked Scarecrow.

  Jinnicky the Red Jinn was the code for the Chinese. There had been one or two peeps from Operations that the name Jinnicky wasn’t exactly politically correct, but to date it hadn’t been replaced. Scarecrow had been warned to watch out for any indication that “Jinnicky” was on the scene. By controlling Dorothy, they would keep her from attracting the interest of Chinese intelligence.

  “From our end we haven’t seen anything to indicate that Jinnicky is interested in Dorothy,” said the Guardian. “But Sir Hocus has been making inquiries in a number of sensitive areas.”

  That wasn’t good, thought Scarecrow. Sir Hocus was Congressman Pierce.

  “He’s not the only one digging,” said Scarecrow. “Colonel Plum has been active. It wasn’t enough for him to be told about the niece in her uncle’s Airstream, nor was he satisfied that an eyewitness made a positive ID on Dorothy. His continued digging unearthed LeRon Rivers.”

  “Unearthed,” mused the Guardian, seeming to enjoy the implications of the word. Then he added, “The solution to pollution is dilution.”

  “What’s that mean?” asked Scarecrow.

  “We’ll come up with more and more angles for Colonel Plum to work. And all those angles will lead him to dead ends. We’ll also try and forestall Sir Hocus. Let’s just hope the flags he’s raising don’t alert Jinnicky. In the meantime, continue doing what you’re doing.”

  “Dorothy knows she’s not in Kansas anymore,” Scarecrow said. “What she did with the frog tells me she is beginning to come into her own.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” said the Guardian. “But I could just as easily say that gravity is reas
serting itself on our Dorothy. Doubts are now weighing her down. This afternoon you will hear me conversing with her. I am confident our talk will weigh her down further. Dorothy’s universe is about to shrink when I tell her that her time in Oz was just a dream.”

  “There’s no place like home,” said Scarecrow.

  Stella’s phone started ringing just moments after she sat down in the passenger seat of Michael’s car. Her phone display didn’t reveal the caller. It read: No Caller ID. Stella answered it anyway.

  “Good afternoon, Stella.”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name doesn’t matter, as we have never been formally introduced. But since I have been closely monitoring you for these last seven years, I feel that I know you very well. What I am about to tell you, I am sure on some level you already know. Your first impulse will be to disregard everything I say. But the more you consider my words, the more you will realize that they make sense.

  “There was no spaceship. There was no journey with the Travelers. That was something that others wanted you to believe. That was something they needed you to believe.”

  “You’re saying I imagined the last seven years?”

  “No,” he said. “You have been one of the pioneers in what is known as the transhuman evolution. The word transhuman was coined by Julian Huxley. Ironically, Julian was the brother of Aldous, who wrote Brave New World, a book that despaired of the future of our species. Transhumanism is the next stage in what Homo sapiens can become. Huxley envisioned using technology to overcome the limitations of our bodies and brains. He predicted that future. Others are working to make it a reality.”

  “Are you one of those others?” she asked.

  “I represent an interested party who realizes the great potential benefits of the transhuman evolution. At the same time, we are aware of its dangers should certain foreign powers get their hands on these technological breakthroughs.

  “Our hope is that you’ll cooperate with us so as to fulfill your potential, as well as the potential of humanity. We know about the special hardware that was inserted into your cerebral cortex. Without it, mindspeak wouldn’t have been possible. Essentially, you were hardwired to download and upload information.”