Best Laid Plans(138)

Max switched focus. “You told police that he went camping with friends on Friday, October thirtieth. He didn’t return with the others, but you didn’t contact campus police.”

“It’s not my fault he got lost!”

“I didn’t say it was your fault.” She assessed him. He was upset, but why? “You didn’t go on the trip, did you?”

“No. I feel bad about the whole thing. I mean, if I thought I was supposed to call the police when he didn’t come back, I would have. I didn’t know the guys he went with, not well. Scott was—he was a little strange, okay? But one-on-one, he was cool, we got along. Not best friends or anything, but okay. He just hung out with different people.”

“Can you give me some names?”

“Don’t you have the police report? I’m sure they all talked to the police. He didn’t have a lot of friends.”

“Tom Keller, Arthur Cowan, Carlos Ibarra,” Max read from her notes, though she knew the names by heart. “Did he know any of them before?”

“Before what?”

“From high school, his hometown.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about you?”

“No. I didn’t like Scott’s friends. I don’t even think Scott liked them much, but they hung together.”

“What I don’t understand is why no one contacted campus police immediately. Why they waited for so long.”

He reddened. “You’re talking about me.”

“Should I be?”

“I should have called, okay? But I didn’t think about it.”

“Even after the storm Saturday night and Sunday.”

“I just— Look, I’ve felt like shit since I found out he wandered off and died on that mountain. I wish I could have changed it, but you weren’t there, you don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Then tell me.”

He wanted to talk about it. She could see it in his eyes. He was torturing himself over something.

“Look, I didn’t think. Scott was out, I had a girl in, I figured he was hanging with his friends. We’re in college. It’s not like we keep tabs on each other. He said they were going camping for the weekend. When the storm hit, I thought he and the others might have gotten stuck getting out. But I didn’t think anyone was in danger. I figured if they were in trouble, someone else would have known about it.” His knuckles were white as he gripped the table. “I didn’t know Scott had gotten lost until Monday morning when campus security came by looking for him.”

Max could see it. A nineteen-year-old boy, on his own for the first time. Probably didn’t even think Scott was his responsibility. Maybe the instinct would have developed over the year; maybe not. But one thing was certain: Ian Stanhope felt guilty about his inaction.

But did Ian’s inaction cost Scott Sheldon his life? Any more so than that of the boys he went camping with? Max didn’t see that. It was the other three who should have done something, said something, sooner.

“Do you know why the other three didn’t tell anyone on Saturday that Scott was lost? Do you know why they waited so long?”

“You’ll have to ask them.”

“Do you know where I can find them?”

“You found me.”

“Because you were Scott’s roommate.”

He shifted uncomfortably. He looked like a man, but he wasn’t, and his boyish uncertainty shone through. “I didn’t like Scott’s friends. They were all weird, like him.”

“Weird how?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not jocks?” she suggested.

“Not anything. Like, put a dozen loners together and you have a dozen loners in the same room. They weren’t like a team, or a group, or even in the same major, or what.”

“So you haven’t seen any of them in the last six months.”

“One of the guys, Tom Keller, is in my math class. But we don’t meet today. Tomorrow at ten. Pike Hall, if you want to stake it out.”

“I’m here today.”

It took him a good minute before he said, “Jess Sanchez. She was a friend of Scott’s, she’s okay. She’s the only one who seemed to be worried about Scott at the time, anyway.”

“You weren’t?”

“Look, I said Scott was weird. Honestly? I thought he’d show up Monday and be all, like, why were you so worried? I’m really sorry about everything, but I don’t know what I could have done different.”

Max considered that. If she and Karen hadn’t become close friends while they were roommates, would Max have worried if Karen was out all weekend? Probably not. She might even have been relieved to have the room to herself.

“I’ll talk to Jess,” Max said. “Where can I find her?”

“She works at the bookstore on campus. You can’t miss her. She wears all black, has a nose ring, and is tiny. She looks like a freak, but like I said, she was the most normal out of all of them.”

Ian left and Max read over the police report again.

Jess Sanchez hadn’t been one of the group that Scott went camping with and Scott’s mother hadn’t said anything about a girlfriend. Was Jess a friend or something more? Why hadn’t she contacted campus police if she was worried, as Ian implied?