Page 32 of The Catcher
“Were you in school yesterday?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And two nights ago, where were you after school?”
“At home, where I always am. I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any hobbies. And no one gives me the time ofday in school. I just come home and sit in my room, scrolling on my phone like a loser.”
“You’re not a loser, Nicholas,” Wright said.
“Can anyone confirm you were at home the whole time?”
“Well, no, my father works in the evening.”
“And your mother?”
“They divorced, and my father got custody.”
Noah nodded and glanced at the principal. “That should be all for now. Thank you, Nicholas.”
After leaving the room, Noah asked the principal for Nicholas’ father’s address and phone number on file. He wanted to do a quick follow-up.
“Of course. You don’t think he had something to do with Landry’s death, do you?” Wright asked as he sat behind his desk and brought up the student files.
“From my experience, anything is possible. Could you give me a list of friends that Pete and Hailey were known to hang out with? I just want to understand better what was happening at that time.”
9
The investigation was in its usual state of limbo.
Noah liked to call it the calm before the storm, except the storm had already swept through the town, leaving a trail of broken hearts and questions. But with no update on the whereabouts of the Matthews girl, every passing hour was excruciating.
While waiting on the results of Nicholas’ alibi and video canvassing, they’d moved into conducting interviews with the parents and friends of both teens to get a better picture of the days leading up to their disappearance. By all accounts, they were like any other high school seniors. Pete Landry was the high school quarterback with his eyes set on getting a scholarship that would let him pursue his dream of one day joining the NFL. Hailey Matthews, his on-and-off girlfriend, had been seeing him since they were freshmen. Like most kids their age, they had a core group that surrounded them and parties they attended occasionally. Besides the typical end-of-the-world troubles thatseemed to plague teenagers and form the basis for posts seeking help on advice forums, nothing stood out as peculiar. Neither one of them had any run-ins with the law. Their record was clean. Neither was suffering from depression. Their parents were notable people in town, middle-class, hard-working, and more than willing to take polygraph tests. Their home life was as stable as anyone would hope to find in an American suburban family.
Experience, though, painted a different picture from the smiling faces that adorned most framed photos in homes. Hidden journals, secret meetups, murmured rumors at lunchtime, and even anonymous scrawling in bathroom stalls often revealed the truth. Penetrating the culture of teens was very much an art. Adults, as well-meaning as they could be, were seen as the harbingers of doom to those walking the line between kid and grown-up.
As he prepared to go out that evening, Noah knocked on Mia’s door.
“You decent?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, come in, or yes, you’re decent?”
“Dad, just come in.”
He ducked his head inside; a smirk danced on Mia’s face. He scanned the room, a routine habit to make sure no boy had just exited a window. He sniffed the air to ensure she hadn’t masked the smell of weed with perfume, a common trick in every teenager’s arsenal. “I’m heading out for dinner this evening, so I left twenty bucks on the counter for you to buy pizza.”
“Anywhere nice?” Mia asked.
“A friend’s home.”
“Would this friend be female?” She grinned.
“Maybe.” He smiled back.
“Callie?”
“No.”
