Day 13

When Officer Kelly walked away, Danny was left alone for a few minutes as the paramedics kicked around talking to the police, chatting about the crime and speculating about what had happened. Danny felt very alone, until his eyes lit on Ash standing by himself looking slightly forlorn.

"Can Ash come with me?" Danny asked the paramedic he knew, whose name was Dirk, "To the hospital, I mean?"

"It's supposed to only be family," Dirk told him, casting a look at the other boy, "But for you, I can always make an exception."

"Thank you, Dirk, you're sweet," Danny gave the man the most charming smile he could dredge up in the circumstances, a ghost of his normal devastating smile but still fairly potent.

"Just come lay down on the gurney so we can strap you in for transport," Dirk told him gently, reaching out to stroke his cheek, "Bill will settle you in, and I'll go get your friend."

Danny kissed the palm of the man's hand and winked at him before moving back into the ambulance; Dirk glanced around quickly to see if anybody had noticed that little interplay, but everyone seemed quite focused on the dead body.

"I hope you don't mind," Danny said to Ash when they were alone in the back of the moving ambulance, "I know I'm asking a lot, but I was afraid of being alone."

"I don't mind," the boy replied simply.

"But you must have had plans for the rest of the day," Danny insisted on painting himself as selfish.

"Not at all," Ash smiled at him, "My mom wants me to clean my room, but I'd just as soon not."

"Did you leave your car somewhere?"

"I'm parked at the hotel, I'm sure my old bucket is safe there."

"I'll make sure someone takes you back," Danny promised, then was struck by an unconnected thought, "Why were you in the woods this morning?"

"It's a public place, isn't it?" the boy asked defensively.

"Oh, I didn't mean that," Danny assured him, "I'm glad you were there, I don't know what I would have done without you. I was just curious what brought you out so early in the morning."

"Taking pictures," Ash relaxed visibly, "I was trying to catch that kind of light you get early in the morning in woods, sort of green and clean, crisp and sort of ultrareal. I started off by the lake at dawn, trying to get the sunrise, but the trees were in the way, so I hiked up to the next trail. Want to see?"

"Wonderful composition," Danny said, focused on the LCD screen on the back of the camera as Ash scrolled through some of the pictures he'd taken, first at the lake and then in the woods. They were nicely composed, catching attractive lines within their frames, and had good color, but the screen was too small for Danny to make out much detail.

"It's just a hobby," Ash said quietly, but with a touch of pride, stowing the camera back in his bag, "I prefer painting, but it's hard to carry an easel and canvas around with you, so I take pictures and sketches, then work them into paintings when I get home."

"May I see your face?" Danny non-sequitured again, the emotional trauma and the pills making his mind disorderly and robbing him of his well-bred politeness.

"Why?" Ash was startled by the request.

"I don't know," Danny admitted, "I just wonder what you look like without the hair in your face."

"You don't like my hair?" the boy sounded crushed.

"I do, I just like seeing behind things. Inside houses, under clothes, behind curtains. Nosy, I guess."

"OK," the boy said after thinking a moment, then pushed his hair back with both hands and gazed at Danny. His face was quite pretty, heart-shaped with small delicate features; his large eyes were a beautiful bright blue, the color of oceans on a map, thickly rimmed in smudgy black eyeliner. His small cupid's-bow mouth was also painted, but in a pale flesh-tone to make it disappear into his face, leaving the eyes the only noticeable feature. His skin was stark white, with an ivory undertone, marred by a few pimples beside his mouth and along his forehead. There was something terribly vulnerable about the face, it was a face that cried out "don't hurt me"... it was no wonder the boy chose to guard it behind that curtain of hair.

"You're so pretty," Danny sighed with a smile, causing the boy to blush furiously and drop his hair back over his face, "I'm sorry, I keep saying things that I should only be thinking. Please forgive me."

"My face is insipid," the boy corrected him bitterly, "Like some stupid Nancy Keane waif."

"Nonsense," Danny replied in surprise, then tried to lighten the mood by reaching out and grasping the boy's knee, jiggling it back and forth, "I say you're quite lovely, and I have exquisite taste. I shall not be gainsaid."

Ash laughed at that, shaking his head in disbelief at the twelve-dollar words and the grandiose tone. Their conversation was interrupted by the ambulance's arrival at the small hospital in Vandervere, another state-of-the-art facility that benefited greatly from being used by the Vandervere family: if the Vanderveres weren't in residence, it would be a standard-issue employee clinic and county hospital, not a large and expensively equipped showplace that drew talented doctors, nurses, and specialists from all over the state.

Danny was of course treated with the respect and care due a head of state, called "sir" at every turn and kept informed at every step of his treatment. They gave him a set of scrubs to wear, instead of a flimsy hospital gown, and even produced a warm fuzzy bathrobe from somewhere. The doctors never talked over him, including him in their conversations, and the radiologist actually asked Danny's permission to touch his leg and position it for x-raying. There were no interminable waits for a room or a doctor or a service, Danny was hustled through the process, his wounds recleaned and redressed, his x-rays developed within minutes, and his ankle put in a padded brace and bound again.

Within thirty minutes, Danny was propped up in a bed in a private room, his ankle (which was strained rather than sprained, with a bruised ligament that would heal in a few days) propped on a towel full of ice, working his way through an immense breakfast (he hadn't eaten anything all day except an energy bar before leaving the house at dawn) that he shared with Ash.

Though Danny was still feeling dopey from the drugs and the shock, and occasionally let out little confidences and observations that he would ordinarily have kept to himself, he was feeling a good deal more lucid as he discussed art with Ash while they waited, displaying a depth of insight into the subject that surprised the other boy.

"You're different than I thought you'd be," Ash said, pulling out his big drawing pad from the depths of his messenger bag and rummaging for some pencils so he could sketch Danny.

"How did you think I'd be?" Danny wondered, slurping down a cup of diced peaches, enjoying every bite as if he'd never eaten such things before.

"I don't know," the boy shrugged as he started arranging his composition with broad strokes of a light pencil, "You're so popular, and an athlete, and rich... I guess I thought you'd be kind of self-involved and a little stupid. But you're interesting and smart and really nice. It doesn't seem quite right."

"You've described my brothers to a tee," Danny laughed, "Most of my family, in fact. I just didn't want to be like them. I can't help being a Vandervere, and I take all the popularity and privelege that comes with it; but I can choose to be nice, and to devote my intelligence to the life of the mind rather than using it to gain power over people or make more money. Not that I'd turn my nose up at power or money, mind you, those are nice, too... it's just the manner of gaining it where I have some scruples. Not many, but some. Are you drawing a picture of me?"

"You don't mind, do you?" Ash looked up from his drawing, having not really been listening as Danny spoke.

"I look such a mess," Danny objected.

"You look beautiful," Ash said simply, going back to the drawing, "I think I'll draw you as a wounded warrior, Greek or Roman or something. Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene or like that."

"Classical, neoclassical, or postmodern neoclassical?" Danny asked, trying to visualize the idea.

"I don't know, I'll see how it develops," he murmured vaguely, focused on the drawing.

"Are you feeling better?" Officer Kelly stepped into the room after knocking on the doorsill.

"Yes, thank you," Danny smiled at him.

"I have some more questions for you, if you're up for it," the officer pulled up a chair facing Danny.

"I'll try," Danny promised, "Have you found out anything about what happened to Mr. Janacek?"

"Well, yes," the officer took out his notepad and consulted some earlier pages, "It looks like the victim was not killed where you found him, we followed a trail all the way back up to the Wilderness Area, there's evidence he was killed there in one of the picnic grounds."

"Did he fall?" Danny wondered, trying to remember the landscape, whether it would be possible to get all the way down to the middle path by mere gravity; but there were so many places where a falling object would have caught and stuck, the thickness of the trees and the placement of rocks, and the intervening trails.

"No, it appears he was pushed, pulled, and in some places dragged to about ten feet uphill from where you found him, then he slid the rest of the way on his own."

"Why would someone do that?" Danny wondered.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Officer Kelly looked sharply at him.

"What do you mean?" Danny felt a thrill of fear at that question, though he couldn't say why.

"Who knew that you'd be running on that path this morning?" the policeman's voice took on a strange hardness, almost accusatory.

"Nobody," Danny tried to think of who knew his running routes, he never ran with anyone and in the last few weeks hadn't encountered anyone else on that trail early in the morning, "Mrs. Espinosa knows which way I go, she insists I tell her before I go out in case I don't come back in time, she'll know where to send people to look for me. She gets worried that I might meet a bear, or break my leg, or something. She wanted me to take my phone, but where would I put it?"

"Nobody else knows when and where you go running?" the officer seemed suspicious of that explanation.

"I don't think so," Danny frowned with concentration, "I always go alone, I haven't met anybody on the trail that early in weeks; unless Mrs. Espinosa told someone where I was going, I can't think of anyone. Why?"

"Well," Officer Kelly leaned back in his chair, "I have to wonder if someone meant for you to find that body."

"Why would you think that?"

"The only two logical reasons I can think why someone would drag and push a body for almost a quarter of a mile down all of those hills and cliffs would be to either hide the body or to hide the site of the murder. But since the tracks led very clearly back to where the man was killed, and the body was left somewhere that it would be found -- if not by you, then by someone from the hotel, before the day was out -- then those two reasons can't stand. I can't help but think the body was put where it was for a reason, and the only reason I can think of is for you to find it."

"Oh," Danny said, trying and failing to find a flaw in the argument.

"So what I have to ask you, Danny," Officer Kelly fidgeted in his chair, clearly unwilling to ask what he needed to know next, "is if you had some kind of relationship with Mr. Janacek that somebody knew about."

"Um," Danny was stuck: he couldn't admit his relationship with Mr. Janacek, not to a policeman, and not in front of Ash; and yet, he was a fundamentally honest person and had no idea of how to go about creating a lie.

"Um, what?" the officer prompted.

"He was my teacher," Danny equivocated.

"I have a cat," Officer Kelly said, seemingly out of nowhere, "His name is Groucho.
He's a hunter, he's always catching birds and mice and things. And he always brings them to me and lays them at my feet, or by the side of the bed next to my slippers."

"Oh?" Danny couldn't imagine why the policeman was suddenly talking about his cat.

"I wonder if someone was offering this kill to you, like my cat brings his kills to me."

"You think a cat killed Mr. Janacek?" Danny was confused, and the confusion was magnified by the pain-killers he was on.

"Think about what I said, Mr. Vandervere. If something occurs to you, some idea about a person related to you and Mr. Janacek who might do something like that, you should contact me right away."

"OK," Danny eyed the man askance.

"And you, Mr. Phillips?" Officer Kelly turned to face Ash, startling the boy considerably.

"And me what?" Ash stammered, having thought himself completely invisible in his dark corner behind his sketchpad.

"Was Mr. Janacek your teacher?"

"No, I have Ms. Cummings, third-period algebra."

"Did you know Mr. Janacek outside of school?"

"No," the boy blinked at him with his one visible eye, pulling the hair that covered the other.

"If you think of anything you haven't told me, something you forgot about, you'll let me know?"

"Of course," Ash whispered, taking the officer's business card and tucking it into his bag.

"Your housekeeper is here, Mr. Vandervere," Officer Kelly put out his hand to Danny, "She'll take you home. Thank you for your help."

"I wish I could help more," Danny said, shaking the man's hand and watching him walk out the door.

"Danny! Mijo!" Mrs. Espinosa burst noisily into the room, grabbing Danny's cheeks and kissing his forehead, "What happened?"

"I just fell down, Tia," Danny tried to calm her.

"This is more than a fall," she started examing his bandages with a critical eye, making sure they were on right.

"I was running and I caught my foot on a root, and so it was a pretty bad fall, but I'm OK," Danny assured her, "I skinned my shoulder and my hands, and I got a cut on my side, and I strained my ankle. But I'll be healed in a week. Honestly, I'm fine."

"And what am I hearing about a corpse?" she stood back and crossed her arms in a suspicious manner, as if Danny was trying to hide something from her.

"It was awful," Danny said, tears starting again in his eyes -- he had managed to put that horror out of his mind; even when he was talking to the policeman, he had thought of the body as an abstract idea, not the lifeless remains of a real person he knew.

"Oh, my poor mijo," Mrs. Espinosa came back at him and threw her arms around him.

"It was my teacher, Tia. Mr. Janacek, my calculus teacher," Danny sobbed into his housekeeper's shoulder.

"It's OK, baby, it's OK," she rubbed his back and rocked him gently, and from that position finally noticed Ash sitting there in the corner with his sketch pad, and challenged him with a whispered, "Who are you?"

"That's Ash, Tia," Danny said into her shoulder, "He goes to my school. He was there, too. He's been keeping me company."

"Thank you, Ash," Mrs. Espinosa beamed at the boy, "That was nice of you."

"It's nothing," Ash blushed, hiding behind his sketch-pad.

"Are you ready to go home, mijo?" Mrs. Espinosa asked Danny when he stopped crying, "I have Mr. Harrison and your SUV here, you can lay down in the back and keep your ankle up."

"Can we take Ash to his car, Tia?" Danny asked her, "He's parked at the hotel."

"Of course, mijo! Anything you want."

With Mrs. Espinosa there to escort Danny home, the doctors and nurses all came clustering around, all trying so hard to be helpful that they were getting in each other's way; they lifted him into a wheelchair and trolleyed him out to Danny's big black SUV, settling him into the back with blankets and pillows and boxes of juice. Danny was a little embarrassed by the attention, but he was gracious to everyone who helped him, thanking people by name and making eye contact and shaking hands all around.

Mrs. Espinosa sat in the back with him and had Ash sit in the front with Mr. Harrison, the chauffeur; she held his head and stroked his hair, singing Spanish lullabies; Mr. Harrison tried to have a conversation with Ash, but the boy was so shy that he replied in terse monosyllables.

"Which car is yours, sir?" Harrison asked Ash when they pulled in to the parking lot of the Lake Augusta Hotel at the end of Dam Road, which led to the resort over the dam that created Lake Augusta from the eastern end of town.

"You can let me out here," Ash said nervously.

"I am happy to take you to your car, sir," Harrison protested, slowing to a crawl in the driveway.

"It's not necessary," Ash insisted.

"As you wish, sir," the chauffeur stopped the car and popped the locks from his control panel so Ash could get out.

"Ash?" Danny called out from the back seat, as he stepped out of the car, "Will you come over tomorrow afternoon? If you're not busy?"

"If you want," the boy paused, looking at him over the back of the seat.

"Do you know how to get there?" Danny asked, smiling up at him.

"I think so," Ash answered, though still nervously.

"Just follow the Lake Road to the end. Mrs. Espinosa will expect you."

"OK," Ash paused and looked at Danny wonderingly, "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thank you so much Ash, for all your help today."

"It was nothing," the boy said again, blushing, then scuttled out of the car and around the side of the hotel in the direction of the staff parking lot.

"I wonder why he wouldn't let us take him to his car?" Danny asked Mrs. Espinosa as the car started up again and pulled back onto the Dam Road to drive around the southern shore of the lake.

"Maybe he's embarrassed by it, mijo," the housekeeper said reasonably, "maybe it's not as nice as your car."

"That's silly," Danny frowned, "I don't care about such things."

"I know you don't, sweet boy, but Ash doesn't know you as well as we do."

"I can change that, though, can't I?" Danny smiled at Mrs. Espinosa and kissed her hand.
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