Reality Check (2010) (21 page)

An hour later there were lots of people in the barn: Sergeant Orton and some other cops; a vet; Mrs. McTeague; the headmaster of Dover Academy, whose name Cody didn't catch, and whom the sergeant addressed as "sir" the only time they spoke. That was when the headmaster asked if Bud might have been killed by a stray bullet, fired by some drunken hunter out in the night, for some reason, and Sergeant Orton said, "No, sir." He held up the shell casing. "Revolver or semiautomatic pistol's what fired this." The headmaster spread his hands as if to say
So?
"Hunters don't use handguns," the sergeant said, "drunk or not, sir."

"I simply don't want any unnecessary panic," the headmaster said. "The student body is quite shaken as it is. Rumor spreads so quickly, sergeant. Once the parents get wind of this new--" His cell phone rang, and he moved away to take the call.

The cops snapped pictures. An animal ambulance drove into the barn and the ambulance workers, plus Cody and Ike, got Bud--so heavy--onto a big stretcher, and lifted him inside. After that, Sergeant Orton took Ike into the tack room and had a long talk. Soon Cody was alone with the headmaster in the main part of the barn.

"Sorry," the headmaster said. "I don't know your name." Cody told him.
"How long have you been working for us?"
"Just started."
"Terrible," said the headmaster. "Terrible. I understand

you heard a noise and came to investigate?"
Cody nodded.
"Was it the gunshot?"
"I'm not sure."
The headmaster glanced at the empty stall, then at Cody.

"How old are you, Cody?"
"Almost seventeen."
The headmaster's eyebrows--wild and bushy, although

the rest of him was perfectly groomed--rose. "You look older." He took a deep breath. "Thank you for all your help. We'll get through this."

Cody didn't say anything. Getting through this wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to find Clea; and also now find whoever had shot Bud. At that moment Sergeant Orton poked his head out of the tack room and called, "Cody?"

The headmaster held out his hand. Cody didn't know why this was a handshaking occasion, but he did the expected.

Sergeant Orton was alone in the tack room, no sign of Ike. "Take a seat." Cody sat on a stool. The sergeant leaned against the workbench, big dark smudges under his eyes. He gave Cody a long look. "I learn more and more about your abilities all the time." Cody kept his mouth shut. "Now it turns out my mole has sharp hearing, sharp enough to hear, what? The break-in or the shot, from all the way over in that cabin, probably a quarter mile from here. Or was that just a little mole story, to protect your cover?"

Cody nodded.
"Ever think about a career in law enforcement?" "Hell, no," said Cody.
Sergeant Orton frowned, possibly insulted. "So what little

scheme brought you out here in the middle of the night? And I don't want to hear you were planning another test of Bud's memory."

The sergeant gazed right back, small red blotches appearing on his face. "You're persistent, if nothing else."
Cody didn't like that. He was tired of getting talked down to. "What does it matter, anyway, what I was doing? What matters is who shot Bud and why."
"You telling me how to do my job?"

Why shouldn't I? You're not getting it done.
Cody kept that to himself but couldn't contain his anger completely, and ended up again looking Sergeant Orton right in the eye, a look he kept up until--surprise--the sergeant dropped his gaze. Cody pressed on. "Somebody didn't want me and Bud searching for Clea." And if that was true, then whole idea of the search was a good one, might even have succeeded.

"Very goddamn persistent," said the sergeant. He seemed to think for a moment. "But I don't buy it. This looks more like sending a message."

"A message to who?" Cody said.
"Have to figure that out, won't I?" the sergeant said, his voice rising in impatience. He rubbed his eyes and went on in a more normal tone. "Meanwhile we'll get cracking on ballistics, see what kind of gun we're looking for." He pushed himself away from the workbench with a tired little sound. "Get some sleep."
Cody stayed where he was. "What's the message?"
"We'll work on that, too."
"But it has to be about Clea, right? This can't be a coincidence."
"Don't jump to conclusions," the sergeant said.

Fifteen minutes later, Cody was back in bed, as tired as he'd ever been in his life. But his eyes wouldn't stay closed. The big muscles of his back and down his legs still seemed to be feeling Bud's heavy dead weight on the stretcher. The enormous waste of such a beautiful living thing: Cody couldn't stop thinking about that. Don't jump to conclusions, Sergeant Orton had said. Did that mean they had to walk to conclusions, creep to them, inch to them? How did that make sense? Time was running out, if it hadn't run out already. Sergeant Orton had it backward: Jumping to conclusions was the only way.

Cody sat up in bed. The night was quiet again, as though nothing had happened. He rose, again got dressed, again went quietly down the stairs, again closed the door softly behind him; but this time he really didn't care whether Ike heard him or not. He took the snow shovel leaning by the door and followed the path to the barn, planning to get the flashlight, but suddenly realized he was seeing things quite well; and glanced up to see faint light in the east, like milk seeping into the night sky. Cody turned, walked past the riding ring and onto the loop trail, the shovel over his shoulder.

The sky was pale blue by the time Cody reached the Upper Mountain Crossover, the air clear and cold. He found the spot where Bud had reared up--one particular hoofprint had frozen perfectly in the snow, every detail sharp. What had spooked Bud: some memory of Clea, or the hidden presence of Sergeant Orton?

Cody started digging. He dug up the snow where the two trails met, then the snow under and around the big spruce tree where the sergeant had hidden with his snowmobile. After that he dug around all the nearby trees and up the crossover trail, working quickly, flinging snow, baring the ground, finding nothing.

"Goddamn it," he said, or maybe shouted, but the woods muffled the sound, seemed to take the fight out of it. Warm now, except for his hands and feet, Cody leaned on the shovel, sweat dripping off the tip of his nose. Bud had sensed Sergeant Orton hiding behind the tree. Cody knew he had to accept that obvious explanation. He also knew he didn't want to go back to the barn. A feeble thought came to him: Maybe in this clear early-morning light he'd spot something he--and everyone else--had missed before. He slung the shovel over his shoulder and started up the crossover trail.

Cody walked, long past the point when the warmth from shoveling had worn off. He alternated hands to keep them warm, one on the shovel, one in his pocket. Buying himself gloves, and maybe a hat? Why hadn't he done that? He laughed at himself, laughed out loud. Other than that one gloves-andhat thought, his mind was empty. He came to the warming hut without having spotted anything new, anything that didn't belong in the winter woods.

Cody entered the warming hut. Everything the same as before: potbelly woodstove, table, chairs, bench, stool, split wood in the corner, notice on the wall:

A little heat would be nice. Cody picked up a split log, opened the feed door, where last time he'd found the empty Bud Light bottle, the one he'd tossed to Townes.
Should have fired it at his fuckin' head,
Cody thought, glancing over to where the smashed glass had lain by the wall. Someone had swept it up.

Cody lit a fire. The woodstove heated up quickly. He held his hands over it, warmed them. He had a crazy thought: he and Clea in a hut like this, just the two of them; the two of them and time, not endless amounts of it, just a chance to be together.
Clea, where are you?
As he'd done so uselessly before, he took out his cell phone and dialed 11. Like all the other times, it rang and then came her voice. "Hi, this is Clea. I'm not--"

But what was that? Had he heard something else? Cody clicked off, dialed again. And again heard the ring of Clea's phone, except not just that: Somewhere, faint but near, an actual phone was ringing, a ring tone he recognized, like that of an old-fashioned phone. "Hi, this is Clea. I--"

Cody clicked off, dialed again, again heard that ring tone-- and followed the sound to the woodpile. He swept the logs aside--they flew across the hut like twigs--and there, at the bottom, lay a little red cell phone he knew well. Cody picked it up, held it carefully in both hands.

Clea had been here in the warming hut. Had she ridden Bud all this way, sometimes pretty steep and rough? Cody didn't remember any hoofprints on his first search on the crossover trail. And wait: Why was he assuming Clea's presence in the hut? Her cell phone was here: That was the only indisputable fact.

He turned the cell phone over in his hands, saw nothing unusual. Some hiker would have discovered it eventually, when the woodpile was getting low. Or maybe before that. The cell phone could have been found already, saving so much time, if only someone had been in the cabin when Cody had made one of his calls. He took a guess at her PIN, entering B-U-D; and got into her voicemail on the first try. He checked the messages.

Beep.
"Hello, Clea, it's Dad. The answer to your question is that the contents of your trust fund will be transferred to you in three stages, starting at age twenty-one. Why do you ask? Give me a call."

"Hey, it's Alex. Drop by after riding--my mom sent a care package. I think I can promise jujubes galore."
Beep.
"Pick up, goddamn it. We need to talk." That was Townes.
Beep.
"It's me. I--are you all right? You're in the paper but I just can't believe . . . Call if you--when you get this. I hope everything's . . ."
Beep.
"Clea, I'm on my way."
Beep.
Beep.
"I'm here. Let me help."
Beep.
No more messages. Cody listened to them all three times. He had the phone, the first real evidence, but somehow Clea seemed farther away than before. He walked around the warming hut, checking places already checked, trying to piece together some kind of story, a story that would explain how Clea's cell phone ended up down at the bottom of that woodpile. A crazy notion entered his mind: If he could find the answer to that question, he would also learn everything that had happened before and after, the whole chain of events. But, standing by a frost-covered window, staring at nothing, Cody got nowhere. Did he have to be so slow?
Cody gazed down at the phone; he liked the feel of it in his hand. About to listen to the messages yet once more, he was struck by another idea: photos. Clea wasn't one of those kids who snapped cell-phone photos of every little life moment, but he had a memory of her taking at least one, a picture of Junior at someone's party.
Cody went to Clea's menu, clicked on pictures. There were nine. The very first one was that party, a party that had taken place, Cody now remembered, at Dickie van Slyke's on a night his parents were out. Junior had a big grin on his face and a keg of beer on each shoulder.
Picture number 2: Bud, looking vacant.
Number 3: Clea offering Bud a sugar cube. She was laughing, looked totally happy. Cody remembered taking that one himself, but couldn't remember what he'd said to make her laugh.
Number 4: The stone gates in front of the main road leading onto the campus--Dover Academy, 1886. Sky blue, trees green, a few kids wearing shorts in the background; had Clea snapped this one the day she arrived?
Number 5: Alex, Larissa, and Townes, arms around each other and smiling; something, maybe a bit of popcorn, was caught in Alex's braces; everyone looked happy.
Number 6: Townes on his horse.
Number 7: Townes and Clea on Townes's horse, Clea behind him, arms around his waist, both of them smiling.
Number 8: Townes sitting at a bar, watching a football game on a big-screen TV. He had a cocktail glass in his hand and an intense expression on his face, maybe even anxious.
Number 9: An extreme close-up of a wrist--a man's wrist--and the base of the palm of his hand. The angle was weird, as if the picture had been taken from a strange sideways position. One other thing: There seemed to be a tattoo on the inside of the man's wrist. Cody was squinting at the screen, trying to identify the tattoo, when the battery died. Kind of amazing it had lasted this long, but Clea's phone was top of the line, with a power-saver mode feature, and also had been lying under the woodpile, closed and unused; and maybe luck was involved, too. Cody hoped so: He knew from football what luck could do--although Coach Huff hated luck, good and bad, and allowed no mention of it. Cody flipped open his own cell phone, took Sergeant Orton's card from his pocket, and called the number written on it.