Page 377 of Sticks and Stones
What was there to hear?
They just told them.
Was he hard of hearing?
Only, before Gene could say anything more, Harrison didn’t miss a beat.
“There’s nothing to hear. I don’t know the students, and my TA disappeared. I used one of the backup ones. I paid no notice to them.”
Stafford was curious.
“And you said they are missing?”
Gene shook his head.
“No, they’ve been found. Unfortunately, they were dead, and mostly bones. Thus, the murder part of the investigation. We’re here to talk to Harrison to see why his name has come up a few times.”
Neither man spoke.
At first.
Then, Harrison battled back to try to get into control of the situation.
“Am I under arrest?” he asked, as his soon-to-be husband was staring at him. “Because if I’m not, I’d like you to leave. You’re ruining my Sunday.”
Oh, they bet.
Someone was ruffled.
Know who wasn’t?
Stafford Townsend III.
He was watching them with steely blue eyes, and saying nothing, but the look was telling. He wasn’t happy that they were there. In fact, Gene was willing to bet he was pissed.
“No, you’re not under arrest. This is a voluntary interview, where we come to you. If you were in our interrogation room, that would be more official. We do have to ask why you’re so upset about answering us.”
The man sputtered.
“Maybe because you came onto our property, insinuated that I had something to do with the homicides, and now are questioning me like a common…person.”
Oh, they had news for him.
“Mr. Dunne,” Gene said. “You are a common person. When it comes to homicide, don’t take it personally. You’re getting incredibly upset over a simple questioning. All we wanted to know was if you could tell us anything about the disappearance of the three young men.”
When he went to open his mouth, Gene kept talking.
“You know, like you saw them talking to an unsavory commoner, or that they were acting funny—like they were drugged,” he said, fucking with the man now. There was no doubt in his mind one of the two was going to lose their temper. “Maybe you were staying after hours to grade papers, and Graham mentioned something private to you?”
He was putting his money on Harrison to lose his temper first.
“I told you that I don’t know them. Again, I have over three hundred students. To be able to identify them…,” he said, pointing at their driver’s license pictures.
Ethan and Gene kept digging.
Angry people talked.
Ethan’s notebook was on his lap, and he knew Stafford was watching them.
