The Incident (Chase Barnes Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

office was a nursing station that was occupied by two students, one lying on a cot and another receiving some sort of medical attention from an elderly woman in cartoon scrubs. 
                  Glen Garvey was probably in his early fifties and a husky penguin of a man.  He couldn’t have been more than five- six, five- seven and weighed entirely too much for such a stout body frame to carry.  His office, like all principal’s offices, was entirely too large for one person to occupy.  The L- shaped mahogany desk and his plush leather chair made Glen Garvey look like a Lego character placed in furniture fit for a real adult. 
              Lindsey introduced us, even though I’d met him on a number of occasions, and I shook Garvey’s stumpy, marshmallow-y hand.  Pleasantries were exchanged and we sat at a small oblong conference table set at the front of the office near the door.  On the table was a wilting potted plant and two binders stacked on top of each other.  The plant was pushed off to the end of the table but the permanent dirt ring told me that the center of the table was home.  Lindsey pointed me to a chair and I sat.  The office had a strange odor but I couldn’t quite place the stench.  I think it was a cross between old Chinese food and a gym locker.  And Lindsey wondered why some of the kids in her class that she’s had over the years referred to him as Gravy rather than Garvey. 
                  I spent the first few minutes giving Garvey the rundown on my experiences as a cop and as a private investigator, most of which, of course, I embellished. 
                  “So tell me about Esteban,” I finally said to get the ball rolling.
                  “Ok, here it is.  Esteban is a twelve- year old boy.  Lives in Paterson,” Garvey began.  I took notes.
                  “Both parents home?” I asked.
                  “Yes, and then some,” Garvey said.  He continued, “Esteban’s mother works nights at the CVS in town and we’re not quite sure what the father does.  There’s also a grandmother, we think a couple of cousins and Esteban’s older and younger siblings.  It’s quite the family dynamic.”  A regular family gathering, I thought but didn’t say or write down.
                  “I’ll say,” I said just to be saying something.  Then I thought of a question.  “Why don’t you know what the father does?”
                  Garvey adjusted the cuffs on his jacket before answering.  “Well, he only lists his cell phone on the emergency contact form and has told us he works a few different jobs over the last couple of years.”
                  I was making notes on a yellow legal pad, thinking he’d purchased a bunch of burner phones.  The fact that the father even supplied the school with phone numbers at all surprised me.  The more Garvey spoke, the more my mind began to race.  I made a list of job ideas that I thought Mr. Machado might be involved in, none of which were good.  I don’t know why I thought this but based on the way Lindsey described the family dynamic to me yesterday at home and the way Garvey described the situation to me now led me to believe that the father was mixed up in something shady. 

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    ten
     
    From what little I knew of Glen Garvey up to this point I certainly knew he liked to talk.  I suddenly grew more compassionate for Lindsey when she’d come home from her Monday afternoon meetings completely drained.  She’d always said that Garvey wore her out more than the kids themselves.  Over the years she’d taught herself to take what the kids- and Garvey- had said with a grain of salt- a whole shaker of salt for that matter.  Lindsey simply chalked it up to kids craving the attention they didn’t receive at home.
                  “Tell me more