I was sitting on one of the benches in front of the pool house, my face turned to the sun, enjoying a momentary respite, thinking about the sudden lifting of the weight of the investigation from my shoulders, but still brooding over the endless recriminations that promised to forever haunt the youngsters who had been debased and abused by Henry Carson.
Fred Maxwell came lumbering out of the gym and was headed for the parking lot when he spotted me. He slowed, then made his way to my bench.
He stared at me questioningly. “What do you want, Buddy?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What don’t you believe?”
“Everything you said.”
“Such as?”
“How long have you been here, Fred?”
“What?”
“How many years? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?”
“Where are you headed with this, Buddy?”
“For argument’s sake, why don’t we just say twenty? You’ve been at Freedom High for twenty years. Is that a fair assumption?”
“I’m not liking this, Buddy.”
“Who cares what you like or don’t like, Fred. In the real world, what you did was despicable.”
“What did I do?”
“You looked the other way.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it? Twenty years on the job. Twenty years of day-in and day-out supervision of the Physical Education program. Twenty years of overseeing the well-being of every kid who came under your wing.”
“So?”
“In all those years was there ever a member of your staff who wined and dined the students? Who insinuated himself into their lives? Who impacted them to the point of sexual involvement?”
Maxwell lowered his eyes.
“Guy like you, who relished his role as mentor and friend to all. Many of whom still regard you as an inspiration. Everybody loves Fred Maxwell. Just like those kids at Penn State loved that child molester. Everybody loved him, too. Until the dam broke, that is.”
He looked up and glared at me. “I never touched one of those kids.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. But you looked the other way, Fred. You allowed what was going on to continue without intervention. You let them all down. Every one of them. You chose to ignore what you knew was a crime. And in the doing, you committed a crime yourself. Why?”
“I wasn’t certain.”
“Bullshit. All you had to do was open your eyes to see what was going on right in front of you. Every one of these kids was in pain. Scared to death. I can’t imagine the number of hints they must have dropped that you chose to ignore. You. Mister I’m-on-Top-of-Everything.”
He hung his head and stayed silent.
“I’ll wait twenty-four hours for you to turn yourself in.”
“What?”
“Twenty-four hours. If you haven’t done it by then, I’ll bring you down so hard you’ll bounce.”
“You can’t do that.”
I stood and faced him. “Twenty-four hours, Fred. It’s only out of respect for your good years that I’m not perp-walking you into jail right now.”
I turned away but stopped.
“If you think you can skate on this, you’re dead wrong. You can hire every attorney in Freedom. You can scream innocent all you like. But there’s no way you’ll walk. I’m going to haunt you, Fred. Think of me as your personal Javert. Accountability. That’s the price tag. And you can bet the ranch you’re going to pay it. Shame on you, Fred. Shame on you big-time.”