The Secret History - Donna Tartt [153]
“Well, she barged right in and got the show on the road,” said Charles. “Took our names. Asked a bunch of questions. Herded Bunny’s neighbors into the hall and asked them questions. Called Student Services, then Security. Security said they would send somebody over—” he lit a cigarette—“but it really wasn’t their jurisdiction, a student disappearance, and that she should call the police. Will you get me another drink?” he said, turning abruptly to Camilla.
“And they came?”
Charles, cigarette balanced between his first and middle fingers, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Yes,” he said. “Two of them. And a couple of security guards as well.”
“What did they do?”
“The security guards didn’t do anything. But the policemen were actually kind of efficient. One of them looked around the room while the other herded everybody in the hall and started asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Who’d seen him last and where, how long he’d been gone, where he might be. It all sounds pretty obvious but that was the first time anyone had even asked.”
“Did Cloke say anything?”
“Not much. It was very confused, a lot of people around, most of them dying to tell what they knew, which was nothing. No one paid any attention to me at all. This lady who’d come down from Student Services kept trying to butt in, acting very officious and saying it wasn’t a police matter, that the school would handle it. Finally one of the policemen got mad. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘what’s the matter with you people? This boy’s been missing for a solid week and nobody’s even mentioned it till now. This is serious business and if you want my two cents, I think the school may be at fault.’ Well, that really got the lady from Student Services going and then, all of a sudden, the policeman in the room came out with Bunny’s wallet.
“Everything got very quiet. There was two hundred dollars in it, and all of Bunny’s ID. The policeman who’d found it said, ‘I think we’d better contact this boy’s family.’ Everyone started whispering. The lady from Student Services got very white and said she’d go up to her office and get Bunny’s file immediately. The policeman went with her.
“By this time the hall was absolutely mobbed. They’d trickled in from outdoors and were hanging around to see what was going on. The first policeman told them to go home and mind their own business, and Cloke slid away in the confusion. Before he left, he pulled me aside and told me again not to mention that drug business.”
“I hope you waited until you were told you could leave.”
“I did. It wasn’t much longer. The policeman wanted to talk to Marion, and he told me and this Uta we could go home once he’d taken our names and stuff. That was about an hour ago.”
“Then why are you just getting back?”
“I’m coming to that. I didn’t want to run into anybody on the way home, so I cut across the back of campus, down behind the faculty offices. That was a big mistake. I hadn’t even got to the birch grove when that troublemaker from Student Services—the lady who started the fight—saw me from out the window of the Dean’s office and called for me to come in.”
“What was she doing in the Dean’s office?”
“Using the WATS line. They had Bunny’s father on the telephone—he was yelling at everybody, threatening to sue. The Dean of Studies was trying to calm him down, but Mr. Corcoran kept asking to talk to someone he knew. They’d tried to get you on another line, Henry, but you weren’t home.”
“Had he asked to talk to me?”
“Apparently. They were about to send someone up to the Lyceum for Julian, but then this lady saw me out the window. There were about a million people there—the policeman, the Dean’s secretary, four or five people from down the hall, that nutty lady who works in Records. Next door, in the admissions office, somebody was trying to get hold of the President. There were some teachers