Joe nodded. Although the relationship between Sheridan and April had thawed a bit, it was still contentious. April was a hard customer.
“She’s not real happy with you and Mom right now,” Sheridan said.
“Tell me about it. That was on the Internet, too?”
She nodded.
“I hate Facebook,” Joe said.
Sheridan chuckled.
Before he could ask why she’d called, Sheridan said, “So what brings you down here?”
He hesitated. The words that came to mind—mission, special assignment—sounded too fraught with intrigue. He said, “The governor asked me to help with an investigation up in the Black Hills. He could have asked over the phone, but he brought me down here instead.”
She paused and studied his face, looking for clues beyond what he’d just said.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Your mother does that.”
“It’s so we can figure out what you’re really saying,” she said breezily. “So you can’t really talk about it, huh?”
“That’s right.”
She smiled to herself for getting to the heart of it.
He asked, “Have you happened to have heard anything from Nate the last couple of months?”
“Nate?” she said, looking up, surprised. “No. Why?”
Sheridan was Nate’s apprentice falconer, and the previous year she’d started flying her first bird. The kestrel had performed as it should and reconfirmed her fascination with the sport. She’d mentioned from time to time that Nate had sent her emails and offered tips on flying the bird. They’d released the bird prior to school starting, with the hope that Sheridan could get another in the future.
“Just wondering,” Joe said.
“Does this thing you’re doing involve Nate?”
Joe shrugged. “I hope not.” But the black worm of dread that had formed in his stomach when he saw the trail-cam photo had grown over the past hour.
“If you see him, well, tell him hello from me,” she said. “Tell him he’s been a bad master falconer lately.”
Joe smiled. “I’ll tell him.”
They ate until the silence became an issue. Then Joe said, “You called me yesterday. Was it a real call or a pocket call?”
“A real call, I guess,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
“It’s okay to leave a message,” he said. “In fact, if you left a message I’d have some idea what was going on and not worry about it.”
“I know,” she said.
“So leave a message next time. What were you calling about?”
She took a deep breath and seemed to weigh her response. “It seems kind of stupid now.”
“Try me.”
“There’s this guy on my floor,” she said, and Joe immediately felt himself tense up.
“He’s a transfer student from California,” she said. “Los Angeles, according to the directory. I don’t know much about him, but he gives me a really bad vibe.”
Joe lowered his voice and said, “What kind of bad vibe? Like stalker vibe, or predator vibe, or what? Is he harassing you?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” she said, moving her hands as if erasing his implication from the air. “He hasn’t said two words to me since the semester started. He hardly talks to anyone.”
Joe pushed his plate aside and urged her on. He knew she had second thoughts about involving him by the way she hesitated with the details. He didn’t want to come on too strong so she’d back off.
“Okay,” she said. “His name is Erik Young. He’s a junior, which is weird right there. All the other kids on my floor are freshmen. Everybody else lives off-campus. When he didn’t come to the mandatory orientation at the dorm, I thought, ‘Okay, he’s been through all this stuff before, so no big deal. Maybe he’s shy.’ When I saw him in the hall, I introduced myself as the RA and he just stared at me. His eyes reminded me of falcon eyes — black and kind of dead. Do you know what I mean? Then he walked right past me as if I wasn’t there.”
“Does he speak English? Is it possible he’s an exchange student who doesn’t know the language?” Joe asked.
“That’s what I wondered at first, too. That he was just shy or not comfortable with the language. But that’s not the case. His roommate told me Erik had talked to him a little, but what he’d said weirded him out. In fact, his roommate said he was crazy and transferred out of the dorm the first week. Now Erik lives as a single in his room. All he does is play first-person shooter games on his computer. I had to knock on his door a couple of times to ask him to turn the volume down. Erik turns the sound down, but he won’t open the door or apologize or anything.”
Joe said, “First-person shooter games?”
“Yeah. If you stand outside his room, all you can hear is BLAM-BLAM-BLAM and explosions going off.”
She sighed. “You know, I’ve really tried with him. I’m not trying to be his best friend, but it just gets to me when I say hello or ask him a question and he just puts those eyes on me and moves on. He has no friends, dresses in all black, and totally keeps to himself. In fact,” she said, as her voice dropped to a whisper and she looked over Joe’s shoulder, “there he is.”
Joe instinctively started to turn in his seat, when he felt Sheridan’s hand on his.
“Don’t stare,” she said. “He’ll know we’re talking about him.”
“Gotcha.”
Instead, Joe gathered his plate and stood with his tray, looking around the room as if to locate where to deposit it.
Erik Young stood a few feet inside the entrance to the cafeteria, as if looking for a place to sit. Students flowed around him, but he was still, an island in a sea of motion. He was thin and had a pinched face with no expression. He wore a long dark coat that reminded Joe of a duster, but he was hatless. After a moment, Young backed out of the room without looking over his shoulder and nearly ran into a couple of female students who were entering. They glared at him, but he ignored them, and he continued backing away until he was gone.
Joe felt a chill run down his spine. He sat back down.
“See what I mean?” Sheridan said. “I can’t believe he just showed up like that when I was telling you about him.”
Joe said, “Have you talked to anyone?”
Sheridan nodded. “It’s kind of embarrassing, you know. But yeah, I talked to the dorm administrator and even a guy from campus police. But all I could honestly say was that the guy just made me uncomfortable. They asked what you asked — has he said or done anything to me or threatened anyone — and I had to say no. See, he hasn’t done anything. There are rules and procedures for this kind of thing, I guess. They can’t really do anything or infringe on his civil rights unless he acts out in some way. That’s what they told me.”
“Does he have a gun?” Joe asked.
She shrugged. “It’s against the rules, of course, but how would I know? The residents aren’t supposed to have guns in their rooms, but a lot of these guys are hunters. Some RAs just kind of look the other way if they know the student is, you know, normal.”
Joe sat back and looked at his daughter.
She said it first: “Let’s just say if there was a mass shooting on this campus, he would be the first guy who would come to my mind. I know that’s judgmental and not fair because I really don’t even know him. But you saw him…”
“I did,” Joe said. “Judging is fine with me. I trust your judgment and you should, too. Sheridan,” he said with emphasis, “you’ve always been judgmental. You’ve seen a lot, and it’s okay. Don’t let college make you doubt your instincts.”
“So what should I do?” she asked.
“It’s a tough one. Keep your eye on him, that’s for sure. Make sure your concerns are in writing and the administration has a record of them. That way, they can open a file of some kind. And if there is anything—anything at all—that he does or says or you suspect, you call the campus police and you call me one second later. Do you promise me you’ll do that?”