1. Wednesday, October 9, 1963 (5:35 pm)

The death of a cadet was a rare, but not unprecedented, occurrence at New Jersey Military Academy. The most common cause of death over the years was car accidents, but there has also been a drowning during a summer break several years ago, and once an overweight cadet with an asthma condition had collapsed and died during a training run. However, never in the thirty-year history of the school had the Academy’s star quarterback been found dead on Jessup Quadrangle.

The Newark police were called in to investigate, and very quickly determined Teddy Haswell had committed suicide by jumping from the roof of Jessup Hall. An investigator from the Army Intelligence Service was also sent to campus, since Teddy (like all the cadets) was a member of the Army’s Junior ROTC. He concurred with the assessment of the Newark police. “Obvious suicide” he wrote in his report.

As Teddy’s roommate, Donald was given a week off from classes to recover from the trauma. Donald also was assured by the headmaster of the school, Colonel Overstreet, that he would be receiving A grades for all seven of his classes that semester, as it would be unfair to expect him to be able to concentrate on his studies after experiencing such a deep and personal loss. For Donald, that meant he would be making $700 from his father. It would be his highest paid semester ever.

Since the night Teddy’s body was found, Stanley Wong had been staying in the Academy’s infirmary, under observation by the school doctor, Dr. Jamison, for possible epilepsy. His absence from the barracks had caused rumors to circulate around the school that Stanley had seen Teddy jump and suffered a mental breakdown from the shock.

Two days later, when Stanley was released from the infirmary, word quickly spread among the cadets that Fu Manchu was back in the barracks and in fact had not gone insane. That evening, Donald went to talk to Stanley to make sure he was not planning to tell anyone about what he had seen that night in Lieutenant Drake’s office.

He went straight to Stanley’s room after football practice. Coach Mulrooney had given the team the previous day off in memory of Teddy, but with only a few days left before the big game against Westport (and given the obvious lack of an experienced starting quarterback), practice had resumed.

When Donald arrived, Stanley was sitting at his desk and barely looked up from his calculus text book. Dr. Jamison had not let him study the past two days to avoid any chance reading might trigger his possibly epileptic brain, so Stanley was catching up on two days’ worth of homework.

“Fu Manchu, we need to talk,” Donald said, coming into the room.

Without waiting for a response, Donald closed the door behind him and sat down on the end of one of the two narrow, single beds. Each room in the Academy barracks was identical, with two metal frame beds, two metal desks, two metal desk chairs and two, small metal storage lockers, all in the color gray.

“No need to talk. I gotta study now,” Stanley said, still staring at a text book page full of differential equations.

“We just need to agree on a few things first,” Donald said.

With a pained expression on his face, Stanley slowly put his pencil down in the spine of his calculus text book and looked up at Donald. Donald wanted to impress on Stanley he meant business, so he tried the tough guy squint he had copied from James Coburn.

“OK, you talk. No problem,” Stanley said.

“What do you think happened that night?” Donald asked.

“What night?”

“Don’t joke around, Fu Manchu, you know what night. The night you saw me outside Lieutenant Drake’s window.”

“I think Teddy killed himself. He jumped off the roof, right?” Stanley said.

“Yeah, but…what the hell? Who’s that?” as he was speaking, Donald suddenly had noticed a pair of legs sticking out from under the other desk across the room. From the doorway, those legs had been blocked from view by the two beds. Stanley turned his head in the same direction Donald was looking.

“That’s just Dicky” Stanley said. “He likes to study under his desk.”

Dicky Daniels, Stanley’s roommate, was famous around the school for two things. He could memorize all the numbers on a whole page of the phonebook in less than five minutes, and he had tried to wear shorts into the shower three years ago on his first day at the Academy. Naturally, the other boys in the shower that day had quickly ripped those shorts off Dicky’s very skinny body, and Donald, who was one of those other boys, had nicknamed Dicky “Shower Shorts.”

“Scram, Shower Shorts. This conversation doesn’t concern you,” Donald barked.

Without saying a word, Dicky crawled out from under his desk and quickly left the room, leaving the door open behind him. He was holding a thoroughly dog-eared, paperback copy of A Tale of Two Cities that reminded Donald how lucky it was he would never need to read that book. In fact, he had lost his copy, but it did not matter anymore since he already was guaranteed an A in English class. As soon as Dicky was out of sight, Donald got up from the bed and shut the door again.

“I just want to make sure you know nothing weird happened that night,” Donald said.

“Teddy killed himself.  That’s weird, right?”

“I mean nothing weird involving me,” Donald said, sitting back down on the end of one of the beds. “You know, just because I was outside Drake’s window and all. Believe me, I had nothing to do with anything.”

“It’s none of my business,” Stanley said.

“That’s right. It’s none of your business. So, you didn’t say anything about that to anybody, right?”

“No, it’s none of my business.”

Donald could not believe how easy this conversation was going. He had expected he might have to threaten Stanley. Perhaps stand real close so Stanley could feel how much taller Donald was than him. Donald’s father, who was also tall like Donald, had taught him that negotiation trick. But any type of intimidation seemed rather pointless now. 

“Sounds like we understand each other,” Donald said. “Nothing happened involving me, and there’s no need to say anything about me to anybody.”

“Like I said before, it’s none of my business.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Donald said, still trying to sound tough even though toughness did not seem to be required with Stanley.

Donald waited a beat to see if Stanley would repeat “none of my business” one more time, but Stanley just stared back at him silently. Donald decided three “none of my businesses” were plenty enough already to be convinced Stanley was not planning to squeal on him. He got up from the bed to leave. Before Donald had even reached the door, Stanley was focused again on his calculus text book.

“I like you,” Donald said, going out into the hall. “That’s why I always tell people Fu Manchu’s a stand-up guy.”

Next Chapter: The Librarian