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There was another pause, and I was wondering just how callous and self-serving the discussion was going to get before I heard him tell Mr. Baldwin that he would call with an update in the morning. Then he hung up.
I walked across the carpet and looked into the office to see a tanned, sandy-haired man wearing a blue polo shirt, collar up. He was seated, turned away from me, facing a computer screen. I’d met the previous headmaster when Damon transferred to the school two years before, but not Charles Pelham IV, who’d taken over last September.
I rapped twice on the doorjamb, and Mr. Pelham started, pivoted in his chair, and started again when he saw me standing there.
“Y-yes?” he stammered. “Who are you?”
Sensing the headmaster wasn’t used to having a strange African American man of my size appear in his office unannounced, I said, “I’m Damon Cross’s father.”
Pelham stiffened, and then stood and came around the desk. “Mr. Cross. Dr. Cross. I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
He was a small man with tennis-player arms. I shook his strong hand without enthusiasm and said, “Thank you.”
“We can’t believe it,” he said. “I know I can’t. I … I only just heard.”
“Sure,” I said.
“Well,” the headmaster said, taking a step back. “How can I—”
“Help?” I said. “I’d like to start by talking to some of Damon’s friends, whoever might have seen him last.”
“Well,” the headmaster said uncomfortably, “I’m sure that can be arranged. I’d have to contact the parents first, of course.”
“Excuse me?”
He headed for his desk, saying, “To get their permission.”
“For what?”
“To talk to you,” Pelham said, seeming happier to have a desk between us. “This has evidently been very upsetting to many of the students and their parents, and I’d want to make sure I had their okay before I …”
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.
