“The so-called military boyfriend,” Argo said.

  “Yes. I take it you’ve seen his photos. He appealed to me greatly, as I suppose he would most men in my position. I didn’t only admire his looks, though they were considerably tempting, but also his charm and bravery. He told me he was deployed overseas, far from everyone and everything he found comforting. I took that to mean he wanted me to fill that emotional void for him. I was only too happy to do it.”

  Argo tapped his pen on the notebook. “Soon the requests for money began.”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, my courageous young man encountered one calamity after another. Medical emergencies, lack of life-preserving supplies, and so on.”

  “Don’t forget the customs box, filled with looted treasure,” Darian added. He had to hide his distaste. As much as Chet tried to make his experience sound like a lover’s betrayal, good old-fashioned greed had informed at least one part of the swindle.

  “I’m sorry to say I fell for his ridiculous tale, yes.” Chet hung his head. “Thinking back on it now, I can only marvel at my naiveté, to use the most charitable word I can come up with. In my defense, I will say that his manipulation was skillful to the point of surgical precision.”

  Privately, Darian doubted that. He suspected the appeals were more carnal than Chet was willing to admit.

  “Computer scammers often use scripts,” Argo said when Chet’s voice trailed off in embarrassment. “They’re available online for those who know where to look. You’re not the first fish who got hooked with some crazy tale about frozen bank accounts and foreign officials expecting bribes.” He tapped his pen impatiently. “All right, so we have a sense of what happened next. You kept sending this guy money, thinking he would use some of it to come and visit you the next time he had leave.”

  “Which, incidentally, I was expected to pay for as well,” Chet grumbled. “But yes, Sheriff. The long and short of it is that within a few months, I was almost completely broke. I’d emptied my bank account, borrowed against my next few paychecks from Birchwood, and even sold some of my rare books to finance this fellow’s military exploits. Worse still, I told Osmond I no longer wanted to see him. I fully expected my new lover to return to the States and move in with me, you see. Even though Osmond and I never had a physical relationship, I could hardly include both of them in our weekend nature walks and other outings. I feared such meetings would be…awkward.”

  “I’m sure it would have been,” Argo agreed. “But as it turned out, you had nothing to worry about, did you?”

  “Correct. I didn’t. As time went on, I began to suspect I’d been duped. Bamboozled. Swindled…and made an utter fool of to boot. I’m a research librarian, Sheriff, and I’d like to say a good one. How could I fail to conduct even the most rudimentary research on this man and his outrageous stories? Better late than never, I suppose…but when I found out the truth, I was devastated. Physically ill. Called in sick from the library for the first time in almost thirty years.”

  He glanced at Rory, who nodded in confirmation. “It’s true. I can vouch for him, and library records will reflect his absences, too.”

  “We’ll double-check all that. So let’s move ahead to the evening of the crash. Where were you going?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Chet wrinkled his delicate nose. “I was heading directly for the river at full speed. I felt I had no choice, really. My heart was broken. My savings were gone. Osmond would most likely never speak to me again, and for legitimate reasons. While assisting one of the Birchwood teachers with some environmental research for her class, I saw a photo of the river on a website, swelling up with the spring runoff and overflowing its banks. The current had reached five times its usual strength, I read. The temperature was cold enough to induce instant hypothermia. This would be perfect, I thought. Quick, easily accomplished, and relatively clean. No way to prove it was suicide, so there would be no issue as far as my life insurance payout. I would simply drive my car into the water, open the door, and let nature claim me. Only…when the time came, I realized I wasn’t quite as brave as I imagined. In short, I couldn’t go through with it.”

  “So how did the car end up in the water?” Darian asked.

  “I was almost to the edge when I changed my mind and tried to back up. The rain and the mud presented a more serious obstacle than I had anticipated, though. I couldn’t stop the car’s forward motion. I tried braking, turning the wheel, and hitting the gas in reverse. In the end, I had to jump out and save myself. The car, alas, toppled over.” Again he paused to wipe his eyes. “Ironic, isn’t it? I’d lost everything else but the car. When my rent fell into sufficient arrears, it would have become my home. Just like that, it was gone too.”

  “So where does Rory come in?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’d visited Rory’s house a number of times over the years—all the usual staff wine and cheese dos. He lived in a wooded area where traffic was minimal. Thanks to all those nature walks I’d gone on with Osmond, I knew a shortcut from the river to his backyard.”

  “The same path the bears take,” Rory again attempted to lighten the mood, but again no one responded. “You remember, Darian. I told you about the bears while we were looking for Matthias. Later I wanted to kick myself because I was afraid you’d figure it out. People always say too much when they’re feeling guilty. But thankfully, you didn’t make the connection.”

  Darian did remember. At the time, the remark meant nothing. He grimaced and avoided Argo’s gaze.

  “You’re saying you walked to Rory’s house?” Argo asked. Chet nodded.

  “I told him I’d crashed my car and was worried about getting into trouble. He begged me to call you then and there, but I convinced him I needed some time to calm my nerves and swore him to secrecy. Somehow, that turned into a couple of days.” He looked at Rory with teary eyes. “I hope you won’t blame him for anything I’ve done. I took advantage of his friendship.”

  Argo made a few notations in his book. “I’ll need to verify all that, of course. We’ll have to visit your house, Rory.”

  “Of course,” Rory agreed at once. “You can see the guest room where Chet stayed. I swung by the store and bought him some clothes, a toothbrush, and sweats to sleep in. Everything is right where he left it.”

  “Did Rory and I commit a crime?”

  Argo scowled. “I’m not going to sugar-coat this. You’ll most likely be cited with leaving the scene of an accident, Chet.”

  “Very well. It’s no more than I deserve. I’ll probably lose my job at Birchwood, too. I deserve that, too.”

  “You should talk to Jeanette,” Darian encouraged him. “She’s not heartless. And she’s been really worried about you. Tell her exactly what happened. Petition the school for a leave so you can get some psychological counseling.”

  Chet brightened a little. “True. I do suspect I was having a sort of psychotic break. Jeanette and I have had a few differences of opinion, but we always maintained a mutual respect. Maybe all my years of service will count for something in my hour of need, after all.”

  “There’s one other thing we need to establish,” Argo said, “and that’s an alibi for you when Vaughan Benedict took the same path as your car and plummeted off that ledge to his death. Rory’s in the clear, because he was with Darian during the search and then afterward at Jake and Patricia Woodley’s restaurant. But what about you, Chet? Can you prove you didn’t go back to the riverbank, maybe to meet Osmond Krell? Could you have encountered Vaughan Benedict there?”

  “Osmond was present when the death took place?” Chet’s eyes widened.

  Argo nodded. “He discovered the body while he was searching for yours—or so he claims, anyway.”

  “Oh, poor Osmond. I want to talk to him—apologize for my ridiculous behavior. But I have no reason to think he’ll ever speak to me again. He must hate me for what I put him through, and who could blame him? Rejecting him for a deceitful internet phantom was bad enough. Now he has this dreadful memory to live with!”

  “Once again, can you prove where you were while Rory took part in the grid search for Matthias Cole?” Argo began tapping his pen again.

  Chet thought for a moment. “Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I believe I can. I was at Rory’s house, and I logged into his computer. The time stamps and web histories will prove that, since he wasn’t home at the time.”

  “Please don’t tell me you were logging back onto those dating sites,” Darian said with a groan.

  “Certainly not!” Chet sputtered. “I’ve learned my lesson where those sorts of activities are concerned. I assure you, I was doing nothing untoward. Merely watching a few…documentaries and assorted videos online. I also began writing an account of my accident and all that happened subsequently, in case I ever needed it for insurance or other official purposes. You should be able to verify my presence at the keyboard easily.”

  “We’ll do that. Just one last thing—do you have any idea who the real face behind those military photos might be? Did you identify the person who conned you out of all that money?”

  “Alas, no. Once I began my research into that topic—too little, too late, as I mentioned before—I determined that the vast majority of online criminals live overseas. That is why they are so seldom caught or prosecuted. I assume my scammer was no different.”

  His face scrunched up as though he were fighting back tears, and Rory patted his arm. “It’s all right,” he soothed. “You’re probably right that there’s nothing Argo can do about them. Better to forget and move on. Your friends will help you start over. Even Osmond Krell will understand. I’m sure of it.”

  Chet sniffled. “I doubt that.”

  “You might be surprised,” Darian said.

  Chapter 15

  Chet emerged from his reunion with Osmond Krell more misty-eyed than ever. Even Argo, who escorted him to the interview room and back, seemed to be struggling to keep a stone face. He had been forced to wait in the office with Rory until the visit was over, but he assumed Argo would fill him in on the details later.

  “I don’t deserve a man like him,” Chet muttered, patting his eyes with a tissue he snagged from a box on Argo’s desk. “He was more understanding than I would have been under the same circumstances.”

  “Told you,” said Rory.

  “You’ve all been such dear friends to me during this unfortunate sequence of events. I never imagined Osmond would be willing to overlook the despicable way I treated him. I must do my best not to screw up our second chance.”

  “Staying off computer chats would be a good start,” Argo said dryly as he sank back into his office chair. “Steering clear of the river is an even better idea.”

  “You’ll let poor Osmond out soon, I hope? I have no money for his bail, for obvious reasons, but I’m sure I can persuade you he had nothing to do with that man’s death.”

  “Maybe, or maybe not, but that isn’t why he’s back there. He’s in for an assault on Matthias Cole, not to mention obstructing an investigation.”

  “Osmond is a law-abiding man with deep ties to the community. Surely his exemplary record merits a release on his own recognizance?”

  Argo sighed. “I’ll think about it. Beyond that, I can’t make any promises.”

  “Fair enough. I suppose I have no right to ask you for any favors, considering all the inconvenience my ill-advised actions caused you. And you, too, of course, Darian. I can’t even imagine how I’ll begin to apologize to our colleagues at Birchwood.”

  “I can’t deny it’s going to take some diplomacy—maybe even groveling,” Darian told him. “All things considered, though, it wasn’t the staff who fared the worst. The boys were confined to their dorms for over twenty-four hours. Judging by how antsy they get in class after only an hour, they must have been close to going crazy.”

  “The Birchwood boys?” For the first time since Darian had known him, Chet bared his teeth in an awkward smile and then actually tittered. “Oh, honestly, Darian. I keep forgetting how new you are to our little community. Campus lockdowns have never been a problem for our students, especially not the athletic ones. Don’t you know how easy it is for them to shimmy down the fire escapes after dark? It’s as much a school tradition as the disciplinary lockdowns themselves.”

  “Really?” Darian asked, surprised.

  “Oh, yes. We experienced quite a scandal during one of my first years at the school. That was decades ago, I’m sorry to say, but I remember it so clearly. The headmaster at the time ordered some sort of lockdown when a rumor went around about someone dealing an illicit substance in the dorms. Well, one of the upperclassman and his friends sneaked out of the dorm via the fire escape and drove into town where their…er…supplier lived. It would have gone off without a hitch, but it turns out they’d blundered into a sting operation. Birchwood covered the incident up, and no criminal charges ever resulted, but we heard plenty of juicy details on campus, believe me.”

  “No kidding,” Rory said, amazed. “But the school must have closed off the fire escapes after that.”

  “Hardly. Safety regulations, you know. From what I hear around the library, it’s still the preferred method of circumventing Jeanette’s more draconian orders. The old saying is right—the more things change, the more they stay the same. That goes double for Birchwood.”

  Rory motioned toward the door. “Come on, Chet. The most difficult part of this is over. Let’s get you home so you can show your landlady you’re still alive. Sheriff Sullivan can contact you there if he has any further questions, right?”

  “I will have some,” Argo told them. “Count on that, along with a citation or two as well. But for now, you’re free to go back to your own place and stay there. And I wasn’t kidding when I said you should stay off the computer.”

  “Trust me, I’ve come to my senses. Thank you again for your understanding and professionalism, Sheriff. And let me repeat that I’ll gladly answer to any charges you feel are appropriate to my disgraceful behavior—especially if you’ll offer Osmond the same kindness.”

  “This isn’t a zero-sum game, Chet. In fact, it isn’t a game at all.”

  “Quite right, quite right. A man died, and we mustn’t forget that. But I’m convinced he was the victim of a tragic accident and nothing more.”

  “Why don’t we leave them to figure things out, Chet,” Rory suggested. Darian sensed he was eager to wrap up his involvement in Chet’s little drama, and probably even more eager to move him out of the guestroom.

  “He might be right, you know,” Argo said after they’d gone. “Maybe Vaughan did step wrong and fall down that embankment. But I still think he got a ride with Krell. And the fact that Krell is lying about it makes me want to charge him with something. I just don’t know if I could make it stick. And if he didn’t actually push him, I don’t know that I’d want to.”

  “That story Chet told about the fire escape…do you remember what Matthias told us? He used the same method to slip out of the infirmary? That was why he couldn’t take his laptop with him.”

  “I remember. So he was telling the truth about that part, at least. We’ve got to find that laptop. It’s in the dorm somewhere. I’ll have to send a complete search team in. Tear the place apart from the baseboards to the rafters.”

  “Jeanette won’t like it,” Darian observed. “Now that we’ve found Matthias, she’ll probably say you should focus on him and let her handle the fallout.”

  “Giving in to her would definitely make my life easier. I’m just not quite ready to do that.”

  Darian nodded, glad Argo was still willing to give Matthias the benefit of the doubt. A lot of cops would be content to pin the whole thing on him and spare Birchwood, along with its influential patrons, a good deal of embarrassment and legal entanglements.

  “So what happened when you brought Chet and Krell together? I’m assuming they poured their hearts out to each other, but did you see any telltale body language that suggested it was all an act? That they’d actually been in contact since the accident?”

  “If we could establish that, we’d definitely have more of a framework to hang a case on. But I didn’t sense either one of them hiding anything. And neither alluded to Vaughan or Matthias in any way—not even in the kind of lame code I sometimes catch suspects using when they think I’m not paying attention. Nope, I’m stuck in quicksand and sinking fast with this one. Either things rolled out exactly the way they both claim, meaning Krell was just being a good citizen who turned up in the right spot at the right time twice, or both of them are Oscar-worthy actors who rehearsed the scene ahead of time.”

  “That does seem a little hard to believe, though we can’t discount it completely.” Darian sighed. “Crazy, isn’t it? We started off in a modernized reboot of Oliver Twist, and now we’re drifting into Nicholas Nickleby. If only we could prove one of our suspects was a Charles Dickens scholar…but I guess that’s why society trusts cops to solve crimes and not English teachers.”

  “Well, English teachers have their uses. Never hurts to look at the situation from a different point of view, even if it turns out to be the wrong one.”

  “Hang on a minute. Maybe I did take a wrong turn with that Oliver Twist thing, though not in the way you might think. Argo, I get it now. I see how it all fits together.”

  “What?”

  “And acting does come into the whole thing. We need to call Jeanette back.”

  “Sheriff’s department!” Argo banged on the door forcefully enough that the sound echoed down the dorm’s long hallway. “Time to search your room again! Jordan, open up or we’re coming in!”

  “Like hell you are!” Jordan shouted from inside the room. “I know what you’re trying to do! And I’m not letting you break in here so you can plant evidence and frame Matthias or me!”