Bryce and Damon had decided to sleep late on Saturday morning, but in fact they were so keyed up, and there were still so many unanswered questions, that they arose after only about six hours of sleep. Even Damon was up early this morning. While Damon was fixing breakfast, Bryce turned on the television to check local news. Yes, there was a story. Bryce called Damon to listen. The announcer related the news in a breathless and excited voice, which might have been impressive except for the fact that he used that voice for everything. But he did inform his listeners that several students had been arrested the previous evening after attempting to cripple the running back Greg Lenihan, who played such a crucial role in last week’s Homecoming game. The announcer than went on to speculate about how all this would affect the game that afternoon. In all the excitement about Greg, Bryce had completely forgotten the fact that there would be another game that afternoon as well.
After breakfast, abandoning any thought of the gym, Bryce attempted to contact Officer Zoeller, but was informed that he was unavailable for the time being, and it was uncertain when he would be available.
They retreated to the SAT house, but found others there as much in the dark as they as to the current status of affairs. Still, they decided to remain there until something better came along.
While at the fraternity house, Bryce e-mailed his father, Mr. Young, and Mr. Castleman, sending along all the information he could recall about the events of the previous day, beginning with Tyler’s information. A copy of the e-mail from ‘the Leader’ was included. He placed special emphasis on Dr. Dickinson’s evaluation of the special committee established by President Rodes.
While they were simply awaiting events, Kyle Grainger and Tyler Rollins came along. They seemed to be on great terms with each other this morning.
“Tyler told me what happened to set him off yesterday, but I still want more than he can give me about this whole situation,” Kyle insisted.
“Okay. We’re just waiting around for something to happen,” Bryce said. “Have a seat, and I’ll answer any questions I can.”
And so Kyle was brought up to date, and Tyler as well. Tyler felt a great relief when Damon explicitly told him, “Without you, Greg would be in the hospital with two broken legs this morning.”
Historian Bryce then gave them his interpretation of the moniker of the author of the e-mail which set all this off. “In the middle of the twentieth century, there was a general loss of confidence in democracy and normal processes of government. A number of movements arose which stressed the importance of leadership by ‘great men’. So, Mussolini in Italy was called ‘il Duce,’ in Spain, Francisco Franco was called ‘el Caudillo,’ and in Germany Adolf Hitler was ‘der Führer.’ All these titles translate as ‘the Leader.’ Evidently, the local head of the so-called Gau sees himself in the same tradition as these earlier figures.”
That reminded them that they still did not know who the self-proclaimed Leader might be. There was a lot of speculation, but no new real information was forthcoming.
As they were lounging in the lounge, Bryce was approached by Keith Hamilton.
“When I allowed you to use my office yesterday, I did not anticipate that you would completely deplete my stock of Bourbon,” Keith complained.
“That’s my fault,” Tyler honestly owned up. “I was an emotional mess, and about to fall apart. Bryce only used it to shock me into coherence, and then sent it home with me and Kyle.”
Keith looked at Kyle, who looked guilty. “Okay, I did give Tyler another shot to send him to bye-bye land, along with his sedative. But then I was just there, keeping watch over a sleeping baby.”
Tyler made dissenting noises at the use of the term ‘baby.’
Kyle grinned at him, then continued. “So, I’m afraid I finished off the bottle,” he confessed.
“Great lot of help you would have been if anyone attempted to break into Tyler’s room,” Damon commented.
“Hey, I was just pleasantly comfortable. And I knocked off lots of evil guys on Tyler’s video games. I never did as well before,” Kyle protested.
“Keith, I was the one who knew you kept the Bourbon there for special purposes, and I’m the one who sent it back to the dorm with Tyler, so I’ll replace it,” Bryce promised.
Keith smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”
As nothing seemed to be happening, Bryce decided to carry out that promise immediately. He got Curtis to assist, as he was not yet 21. Bryce and Curtis walked down to the liquor store on the Pike, the same thoroughfare that the Homecoming parade had traversed the week before, and there Curtis made the purchase. Bryce had noticed that Keith’s was not top-of-the-line Bourbon, but what he thought of as the everyday brand, Old Forrester. He decided to be generous and reward Keith, and so replaced it with Woodford Reserve.
Back at the house, Curtis and Bryce sought out Keith, and made the presentation.
“Hey, that’s not fair,” Keith protested. “With this stuff, I won’t want to use it to doctor distressed brothers.”
“We’ll leave that to your discretion,” Curtis said, as he and Bryce left, laughing at Keith’s dilemma.
Not too much later, Kurt Bordenkircher arrived at the fraternity house. He was called over by those waiting for news.
“I spent about three hours this morning at police headquarters. Okay, so most of that was just sitting and waiting, but still I could not be somewhere else,” Kurt protested.
“What happened?” Damon asked.
“Yeah, report in,” Curtis said.
Kurt grinned and saluted the fraternity president. “Aye, aye, Sir,” he mocked. “I told the police about everything, beginning with Greg coming out two weeks ago, and the problems with the Homecoming game, and then Greg’s interview in the paper. Then I told them you,” pointing to Curtis, “were told about a threat to Greg, and so I was assigned to be his bodyguard for the evening. That’s why I was there when he was attacked.”
“So, are they going to interview everybody who was there,” Damon asked.
“Far as I know,” Kurt replied. “I’m surprised they haven’t contacted you guys already.”
“Maybe because we’re here, not at home, and they don’t have our phone numbers,” Damon suggested.
That gave Bryce an idea. He checked his e-mail. Sure enough, there was a message from the Clifton Police Department asking that he contact them as soon as possible. He showed the message to Damon, then called the number in the e-mail. As a result, he and Damon were both summoned to give evidence shortly after lunch. Evidently, there would be no afternoon football game for them.
Before that interview took place, however, Bryce received a call from John Zoeller. He was back on campus after his own extended interview with the city police. At Zoeller’s suggestion, they met over lunch, and off campus. Damon suggested the Cooper’s diner, and so it was that Bryce and Damon, and shortly after John Zoeller, showed up at the small diner on the Pike.
When Zoeller entered, still in his campus security uniform, Melissa Cooper called out from her station behind the cash register, “No free lunch!”
Zoeller laughed, and assured her he would pay for anything he ate. She seemed mollified when he joined Bryce and Damon.
Zoeller was able to give the guys some information which would help them in their own interview with the police later that afternoon. As far as he could determine, the raid on the Miller-Rollins apartment was not connected at all with the e-mail Tyler had shared with the others the previous day. That would be a great relief to Tyler, who was feeling guilty about contributing to his brother’s arrest. Zoeller reported that the city police seemed to be acting entirely on the information supplied by the school administration, namely the blog ‘Aryans Forever’ and the analysis of it by ‘Electronic Investigations’. They were very interested in finding out how to contact ‘Electronic Investigations’. That caused Bryce and Damon, who knew Hunter Matthews, to laugh. He was probably completely unaware of the events of the previous evening. The three of them returned to campus, and there split, with the guys returning to the fraternity house.
Just as Officer Zoeller left, Bryce’s phone sounded. The screen identified the caller as ‘Lenihan, G.’ Bryce answered.
“That Bryce Winslow?” the called asked.
“Yeah. You Greg Lenihan?”
“Right. I need to talk to you,” Greg said.
“I’m at the Sigma Alpha Tau house,” Bryce responded.
“And is that friend of yours, Damien, with you?” Greg asked.
“Not Damien. It’s Damon.” Bryce informed the other guy. “But, yes, he’s here.”
“Great. Let me treat both of your to lunch, then. Anywhere you want to go,” Greg proposed.
“Anywhere?” Bryce kidded.
“Yeah, anywhere,” Greg was serious.
Bryce chuckled, “That’s very generous of you, Greg, but Damon and I just had lunch at Cooper’s Café over on the Pike with Officer John Zoeller.”
“Another person I need to contact,” Greg said. “So, how about dinner at my expense then? I owe you guys big time.”
“El Rincon Latino this evening?” Bryce suggested.
“Fine. See you there about seven,” Greg agreed, and signed off.
Bryce and Damon returned to the Caldwell house, as they needed Bryce’s car to drive down to the central police station. There, they found the stairs to the carriage house apartment on the second floor festooned with yellow tape which said ‘Crime Scene, Do Not Cross’, but also noted that the tape had been broken. About that same time, they heard footsteps in the apartment over their heads. Backing out of the garage area, Bryce called the police, and reported that Barry Miller was probably in the apartment.
They waited, as per police instructions, a safe distance away from the carriage house. Within five minutes, there was a police cruiser on the site, with two uniformed policemen making their way into the carriage house. Dr. Caldwell came out.
“What’s going on now?” he asked.
“I think the police are arresting Barry Miller in the apartment there,” Bryce answered.
“It certainly has not been dull around here the past few days,” Dr. Caldwell commented.
The police officers came out with Barry between them. As he was not handcuffed, he evidently had not resisted arrest. But he did depart with the officers in their car.
Only then were Bryce and Damon able to get Bryce’s Mustang, and head down to keep their appointment with the Clifton Police Department.
The Police Department was housed in a large, nondescript structure, probably dating to the 1970s, completely efficient and completely lacking in style or taste. They asked for Lt. Brown, and were asked to take a seat and wait. It was twenty minutes before someone came to fetch them. They were led down depressing narrow corridors painted institutional green. They were introduced into a conference room, and told to take a seat, Lt. Brown would be with them ‘momentarily’. Ten minutes later, Damon commented that the Lieutenant’s idea of a moment and his diverged greatly.
But eventually a harried Lt. Brown entered, accompanied by someone in uniform introduced as Officer Taylor. Officer Taylor set about plugging in a recording device, and laying out his notebook. Evidently, he was the person who would be recording the session. After the introductions, and verifications of the guys’ identify with their student identification cards, Lt. Brown asked them to relate everything they knew concerning to the attempt to injure Greg Lenihan.
Bryce was hesitant to involve Tyler Rollins, so he tried to avoid mentioning Tyler’s role in all this, but the Lieutenant would not let him get away with that. Bryce looked the Lieutenant in the eyes, and told him he would not divulge his source as it could lead to unnecessary complications.
“Okay,” the Lieutenant said, “I get the message. Officer Taylor, turn off the recording device.”
That was done, and Taylor sat back, no longer taking notes. Satisfied with that, Bryce then informed the police of Tyler Rollins’ role in the whole affair, and his unease about getting his brother in trouble. But it was this information from Tyler which permitted the Rescue Team to get ready to defend Greg Lenihan. Lt. Brown studied his fingers for a while, then told Bryce, “We found the same message you mentioned on the computer we confiscated yesterday. I think we can leave your friend entirely out of this.”
“Thank you. I know Tyler will appreciate that a lot,” Bryce responded.
“We don’t want to break up families if we can help it,” the police officer said.
After that, Bryce and Damon were both completely forthcoming. Bryce related how Damon tackled the person about to jump on Greg, to Damon’s embarrassment, but Brown said Greg’s testimony corroborated that incident completely. Greg had been manhandled and thrown to the ground, and had a sock stuck in his mouth and attached with duct tape, but he was very much aware of what was going on.
After a few more questions, Bryce and Damon were asked to wait. Then, after a fairly short time, Officer Taylor returned with typed versions of their statements. After reading them over to assure accuracy, both Bryce and Damon signed the statements, which were notarized, and were allowed to depart with their own copies.
When they got back to the Caldwell house, they found Roland Lyle waiting for them. He said his uncle, Mark Castleman, wanted to see them. So it was back in the car, along with Roland, who directed them to his uncle’s home. This was a Saturday, after all, and Mark Castleman did not hold office hours on the weekend.
But he was all business when they met. He had been in contact with Bryce’s father after receiving Bryce’s email earlier that day. Unless it was necessary for Sterling Winslow to travel to Clifton, Mr. Castleman would be their legal representative. He asked about the police interview, and was given the copy of their statements which Bryce had insisted that they receive. He looked them over, and congratulated them on how they had stuck to the points in question, and not gone into areas which might be questionable. He chuckled, noting there was no mention of plying Tyler with Bourbon from Keith’s cache.
They reviewed the entire case, and decided that with the arrest of the Lomaxes, Campbell, and Cuttlesworth, the matter of the attack on Peter Boyington was more or less settled. After all, the e-mail from ‘the Leader’ said it would be the same persons attacking Greg as those who ‘bungled the job’ by attacking Peter instead of Josh Young. It would be necessary to introduce that matter in any court proceedings, to make the point that this was not an isolated incident, but a pattern of anti-social behavior. Peter would be brought back to testify when it reached that point.
One matter which remained unresolved was the identity of ‘the Leader.’ It was, once again, Damon who saw connections which had been missed by the others.
“Why not contact Hunter Matthews again?” he asked. “Hunter identified the source of the ‘Aryans Forever’ blog, so surely he could identify the source of that e-mail from ‘the Leader.’ It would be a lot like the incident last year.”
That required explaining to Mark Castleman about the incident last year, but he agreed to pass on to the police the identity of ‘Electronic Investigations’ with the recommendation that the same source be employed to identify the source of the e-mail from ‘the Leader’ ordering the attack on Greg Lenihan.
Things were quiet around the fraternity house, as most of the brothers were at the game until nearly five o’clock. But then it got real noisy real quick. Bryce learned that U of C was again victorious, so they were looking at a winning season. Moreover, Greg had again performed outstandingly on the field that afternoon, despite all the stress the evening before, and his police interview that morning. Asked by a media interviewer whether there were any repercussions from the attack the evening before, Greg grinned and replied, “Yeah, my lips are sore from the duct tape, so I can’t kiss all my fans.”
Shortly before seven, Bryce and Damon traveled downtown to El Rincon Latino to meet Greg for dinner. When they arrived, Isobel Sandoval thanked them.
“What for?” Damon asked.
“For meeting the football hero here. He evidently said something during his interview after the game, and we’ve been flooded with calls for reservations,” she reported, as she led them to the table where Greg was already seated.
He rose to greet them as Bryce and Damon approached. They knew who he was, of course, but never having actually been introduced, they were not known to him by sight, and so he depended on Señora Sandoval to know who his guests would be. Greg was physically larger than either Bryce or Damon, but well proportioned. He moved naturally, not like some of the athletes. And he did not find it necessary to squeeze one’s hand when shaking hands. They were off to a good start.
Naturally, Isobel Sandoval had placed Greg in the area where Mike would be their server, as she knew Bryce and Damon were his friends and liked to tease him while eating. This time when Mike appeared and launched into his set spiel, he had a broad grin on his face.
But Bryce interrupted him. “Can it, Miguel. I want you to meet Greg Lenihan. And Greg, Mike was part of the Rescue Team last night, he just was not in the area where the attack on you took place.”
Greg immediately jumped up and shook Mike’s hand. “I am grateful to all you guys. It is so great to know I have friends I did not even know about.”
Mike grinned even wider. “I am already the most unpopular server at El Rincon Latino this evening because of you,” he commented.
“Unpopular? How come?” Greg asked.
“Because you’re at my table and not that of some of the other servers,” Mike laughed.
This exchange, too, helped move the evening along on positive lines.
For the next hour and a half, Greg, Bryce, and Damon got to know each other, with frequent visits from Mike as well. They talked about many things, but mostly about the recent spate of violence which had beset the campus, first with the attack on Peter Boyington, then with that on the campus demonstrators, and finally with that on Greg the previous evening. He knew only parts of the background, essentially what most students knew from the campus newspaper and website, and general campus talk. One bit of information which might come in handy later, however, came out as they discussed the para-military organization to which Greg’s attackers belonged.
“Back during the summer, when we were just beginning training, I was approached by Peter Gruber. Do you know who he is?” Greg asked.
“We do now,” Bryce replied. “Wayne Diebold told us yesterday about him being relieved of his position as team captain because of his screwing up during Homecoming. Congratulations on being the new captain, by the way.”
Greg actually blushed at that. “I didn’t want it, but when my teammates elected me ... well, you know.”
“You deserve it, so enjoy it,” Damon recommended.
“How do you guys know Wayne?” Greg asked.
“Same floor of Clay Hall last year,” Bryce replied.
“Well, anyway, it was Pete who approached me back in the summer, and invited me to join some organization about white supremacy. But I don’t go in for that kind of shit,” Greg said.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Damon commented.
Later, Bryce said to Damon, “If this Gruber guy is in that para-military group with Lomax and his ilk, and if he hates gays enough to screw up the Homecoming game to feed his prejudices, maybe we ought to look into him a little more.”