Hector sat across the desk, looking morose and unhappy. His jeans and jean jacket were streaked with dirt. His shoulder length black hair was tangled, with fragments of leaves in it.
The principal said, "You really did it today. They say you started the fight."
"He started it, the tall white kid. Called me a dago. I decked him." His dark eyes stared at Ralph without flinching.
"You knocked him out. He's at the ER with a possible concussion."
"You get one of the girls in here privately and she will tell you what really happened."
"I believed you the first time, but the system will be coming down hard. I don't think I can run much interference, even though you are one of my best students. You're eighteen, so they'll be after you as an adult."
"They can't do much. My dad's dead, my mom's in prison. The foster home folks can't be tagged with anything."
Ralph looked at Hector, admiring the grit, the determination to get even with the bigoted whites who tried to bully him. One by one, he had picked them off, leaving a trail of broken noses, cracked fingers and bloody shins. He was tall, with muscles to show for the hours he spent in the gym.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll be gone by morning. You don't want to know anything more than that when the cops come looking for me. I've been reading those police novels."
They stared at each other. Hector pulled a small folded up piece of paper from his back pocket. "Maybe you would do me a favor and see this gets to Beth, but not for a day or two. It's ok for you to unfold to see."
In small, precise cursive, it said, "Love you. I'll be back."
"Not leaving a trail are you?"
"I figured it might come to this. I've been preparing. You know that phrase about the backcountry, 'Leave no trace?' That's me."
Hector started to stand but Ralph said, "Sit for a minute." He pressed a button on his phone and said, "Come in and close the door behind you."
Sharon walked over to his desk, but Ralph said, "Sit in his lap." She stared at him but it was the end of the day, so she did it. "Pull your blouse out of your skirt and unhook your bra."
"Hector, you've been admiring those tits since Sharon arrived. Kiss them and love them a little. It's a going away present from Sharon and me."
It took Hector a few seconds to realize this was for real. After that, his dark fingers were busy exploring the blond's gorgeous tits. She leaned over, "Kiss them and then kiss me."
Hector knew this was a tease, but a nice tease. He stood with her in his arms and prolonged the kiss. He whispered in her ear, "Thanks, you are a wonderful teacher."
As he reached the end of the corridor, he heard her warbling cry of passion. Principals had the best perks, he thought.
The police detective was at Ralph's office before nine. "I'd like to talk to Hector Nunez about yesterday."
Ralph pressed a button and Linda, his morning shift assistant, said "Yes, sir."
"Please send someone to bring Hector to my office." He gestured to the officer to sit. He told him that the school's anti-bullying program was having trouble getting off the ground. The detective said, "The Whitmors and their lawyer don't see it that way. They're after felony assault and civil damages."
Ralph was going to respond when the intercom opened up and Linda reported that Hector was not in class and no one had seen him this morning.
The detective rose and said, "I hate to put out an arrest warrant for him. Any idea where he might have ducked out to?"
Ralph allowed as how the foster parents probably knew as much as anyone.
As the detective left, the principal didn't wish him luck.
Linda closed the door and kissed him on the cheek. "Sharon told me Hector got a going away present last night."
"He deserved it, poor bastard. Schedule a meeting of the steering committee of that group we have on bullying, will you? I need to light a fire or two."
The foster parents told police that Hector had been to the house before they came home from work, and cleaned out most of the stuff in his room. No note, no sign of where he was going.
Hector hadn't shown up at the pizza delivery job, either, but the truck he drove every evening was missing. The police thought the truck would be easy to trace until the owner told them the colored signs on the doors peeled off easily. After that, it looked like a lot of other tired, dirty vans on the highway.
The chief of detectives called a meeting at four-thirty. "We just had a call from the sheriff in Creekside, saying the pizza truck is sitting in front of his grocery store, with the key in the ignition, a full tank of gas, and a one word note on the dash that says, "Sorry."
The detectives sat there waiting for the boss to say something. Creekside was a village in the foothills about a hundred miles away, population three hundred, if that. Surrounded by ranches and a lot of public land. "Kirk," the boss said, "did you tell me the principal didn't seem sympathetic to the Whitmors?"
"He didn't say much, but he seemed inclined in that direction. I did hear a black kid in the hall say he was glad that Danny Whitmor finally got what he deserved."
"So we have a schoolyard fight to sort out, which means a lot of he said, she said. Then we have one of the fighters, with no family and no money we know of, has stolen a truck but left it filled with gas and an apology note, and disappeared into foothill trees a hundred miles from here."
"That's about it, boss."
Turning to his most junior detective, a tough Irishman recently promoted from patrol, he said, "Shamus, I want you to pursue this case aggressively. I want a written note to the file every day for the next seven days documenting the intensity of your investigation. Since the budget is tight, you are to conduct the investigation from your desk. I'll talk to the DA about fending off the warrant requests from the Whitmor's lawyer. Clear case of insufficient evidence. By the way, that dope trail involving the stripper from Vegas is really hot. The Chief wants results by the weekend."
Shamus responded, "Yes sir, I'll get right on it. Oh sir, the staff room is buzzing with a story that the stripper has skipped, but her twin sister is filling in at the club. Last night she had a wardrobe malfunction and her bra fell off and all the tips went on the floor. Two drunks got up there to help and... well, the rest of the story is x-rated."
The chief paused and smiled. "Shamus, you ever read any Damon Runyon?"
"Yes, sir. Hard to miss for an Irish cop originally from New York."
"Shamus, I want a two thousand word report on this twin sister stripper situation for the Chief by the end of day tomorrow. I want the main characters in this story, shady or not, identified. I want you to find printable words to describe some of the interesting activities going on. Do you have that, Shamus?"
Addressing the room, he said, "Now go on home to your spouses, partners or whatever, and enjoy the evening. Some days are better than others."
Hector wasn't so sure about that. He was dug into the side of a bank at the bottom of a ravine about three miles uphill from Creekside. It was cold and he was more than damp, and he didn't dare make a fire. Under the parka, he had on everything he owned in the way of outdoor clothing. He was wondering about his bright idea when three deer came up the creek to drink. They saw him but he didn't move and they trotted back into the brush.
Several months ago, Beth told him her very independent sister had kicked her abusive husband out of the cabin they had on ranchland her parents owned. The parents obligingly hired a lawyer to deal with the divorce, but Diane decided to stay with her horses and the cattle. Their father's shouting about single women alone in the wilderness didn't work. She told her dad to be careful approaching the ranch house because she took target practice almost every day. He gave up and left her alone. Her mom was a city girl who didn't understand any of this and just smiled a lot.
It entered Hector's mind during the last few weeks, as things got worse in school, that if he could get to Diane's place undetected, she might allow him to stay.
He sat there in the cold and dark and cursed himself for trying a stupid wiseass stunt. But he couldn't go back to Creekside, because the cops must have spotted the truck by now. He couldn't show up on a highway trying to hitch, they were sure to capture him that way. No, he had a week's worth of emergency food and he had better get his butt up the mountain in the morning. According to the topo he had, and his GPS, the Simonson ranch was ten miles generally northeast and up another fifteen hundred feet. If he was lucky, he might find her late today.
While Hector was toughing it in the woods, other forces were at work. The more Shamus Kelly looked into what he now called "the Whitmor affair," the madder he got. His partner, Marie Topolino, came over to his desk. No one was around, so she grabbed his curly hair and pulled. He was used to this torture and wrapped his arm around her where he got the best tickle territory.
"Oh, Shamus, no." She let go and doubled over. They were both divorced, like a lot of cops, and wary about a second time around. But she was cute and he was funny, and they got along well. He took her out the other night and they even danced. She was developing feelings, and wondered how long it would take for him to bed her. This had the usual complications. He had teenagers at home. She lived with her widowed mom, who needed help.
He whispered in her ear, "You are hot stuff, and even a good cop, for an Italian. I want to get to know you better."
She was cuffing his head, but not very hard, when the Chief of Detectives, Brian O'Malley, walked in. "I should never have put you two together. Can't the Irish and the Italians stop fighting for one minute?"
"Sir, I want you to know we were just discussing my homework paper for the Chief. Marie has some special insights into the motivations of women that take up stripping. She was demonstrating what a stripper is likely to do if you try to stiff her on a lap dance tip."
"Enough already. Whitmor's lawyer is after me, claiming police incompetence. Wants to talk to the chief."
Shamus smiled. "I had an interesting conversation with the school board's lawyer yesterday. Turns out Danny Whitmor is known as a notorious bully and leader of what the lawyer called a pack of schoolyard thugs. Has two suspensions for fighting in his record. The school board guy knows the Whitmor's lawyer and suggested we have him in and see how much of the background he wants to come out."
Brian smiled and asked, "Any news on the kid?"
"Nothing. Went into thin air, as they say. He's tough and he's smart. Was headed for valedictorian."
Hector was stiff as a board when first light came. He filtered water into two bottles and fished out another energy bar. Didn't take long to warm as he climbed. His thoughts were dark and angry. The DEA had framed mom after his dad was shot by a rogue drug dealer. Searched the house and found his father's secret stash. Jury didn't like the government's case, but the evidence was clear. She got a year and a day. Just enough to lose her license permanently. He was thinking about how the two of them were going to put things back together when the deer trail he was following came up to a cattle fence, which ran along the edge of the forest. In the distance was a cabin with a thin column of smoke rising.
If I am going to do this kind of thing, I need binoculars, he said to himself. There was no sign of activity, but he needed to stay hidden. She could easily use her rifle on him. But he had a thought. If I approach straight across the big pasture, looking as harmless as possible, maybe she won't shoot.
She came out on the porch when he was two hundred yards away. A mean looking rifle was cradled in her arm. When he got to fifty yards, she said, "Stop there. Strangers aren't welcome here. You are trespassing." She had on a man's ranch clothes, including a worn Stetson, and looked tough.
"I need to talk to you. Your sister is a friend of mine."
That got her attention. "I don't believe you. Why aren't you in school? What are you doing walking out of the forest up here?"
"It's complicated but I can explain."
"Sit there on the log and tell me why you are here." She looked grim.
"I decked a white kid who was trying to bully me and he cracked his head on the way down. I had to make myself scarce. Even the principal encouraged me to get lost. I remembered that Beth told me you were here."
"Does she know you decided to come here?"
"No. I didn't want to put her in the position of lying to protect me."
