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Delgado crossed the room to the open file drawer, where Trish held a finger on an olive green hanging file. “Right here,” she said definitely. “You can tell, this is where it would be, matching the date and the—”
“You’re sure?” Delgado asked.
“Oh, absolutely positive, not the tiniest bit of doubt, it oughta go right here, and you can see, there’s even this empty hanging file where it went? Which means it was here, and now it isn’t, and that has to mean—”
But Delgado didn’t hear what it had to mean. He was out the door before Trish could finish her sentence. He already knew what it meant.
Riley Wolfe had been here first.
Of course, he thought. Naturally he’d cover his tracks. There was no way to know how long ago—it might have been twenty years ago or yesterday. Getting in and out of this room would be child’s play for someone with Riley’s skills. He might have come during the day in one of his disguises. Just as easily, he could have gotten past the security at night. It didn’t matter how he’d done it; it was done, and there wasn’t much doubt who had done it.
And although Delgado was a little disappointed, he already knew his next move by the time he got to his car. Watertown was still small, and twenty years ago it had been smaller. That made finding some things a lot easier. A few moments with his phone and Google, and he had the address.
Delgado drove south for about a mile before he came to Watertown High School. It was the only high school in Watertown, except for a Catholic school, and Delgado chose to go with the odds and try the public school first.
His badge got him into the principal’s office very quickly, where a worried woman in a pantsuit sat behind a desk that read, “JANE CRONK, Principal.” She stood up as he entered and offered her hand. “If this is about one of our students, I’m going to have to see a whole lot of paperwork from a judge,” she said by way of welcome.
Delgado shook her hand, then sat down. “A former student,” he said. “From twenty years ago.” He hesitated, not used to volunteering anything, then added, “I’m collecting background information.”
Ms. Cronk stood a moment longer, watching him. Then she said, “Hmp,” and sat back down. “I guess that’s a little different.” She leaned back in her chair. “All right,” she said. “What can you tell me, Mr.— Do I call you ‘Agent’? We don’t get many federal agents in here, and I’m not sure of protocol.”
“Special Agent Frank Delgado,” he said. “Frank is fine.”
She gave him a brief, businesslike smile. “All right, Frank. What can you tell me about this former student?”
“Not much,” he said. “I was hoping you might have a teacher on staff who was here back then.”
“Twenty years ago? I think we have three,” she said. She ticked them off on the fingers of her left hand. “Mr. Deutsch, the industrial arts teacher, has been here twenty-seven years. Ms. Caprino, I think it’s about the same, maybe twenty-eight. She teaches English? And Mr. Berdichevsky has been here for a whopping thirty-four years.” She raised an eyebrow.
“The shop teacher first, please,” Delgado said. He thought for a moment. English sounded like a class Riley Wolfe would skip whenever he could. “What subject is Berdichevsky?”
“Algebra,” Ms. Cronk said. “And he does the chess club.”
Delgado nodded. “I’ll talk to him next.”
Ms. Cronk tilted her head to one side. “No interest in the English teacher?” she asked.
“If needed,” Delgado said.
“All right.” She pointed to her left. “Conference room down the hall there. You can use that.” She turned to lead the way. “I’ll tell Abbie to bring them in one at a time.” She paused in the doorway, hesitated, then turned around to face him. “Wo
uld you like some coffee?” she said, a little uncertainly.
“Yes. Thank you,” Delgado said. Ms. Cronk nodded and spun away.
The coffee was pretty bad. Delgado didn’t care. He sat at the conference table and sipped as Cronk’s assistant, Abbie, brought in the first teacher, Mr. Deutsch. He was a burly guy with a buzz cut and a large tattoo on his forearm. Delgado glanced at it, just long enough to recognize the eagle, globe, and anchor of the US Marines. Deutsch sat across from Delgado practically at attention as Delgado questioned him. He answered carefully after thinking over each question for several seconds. But all Delgado learned was that Deutsch had served two hitches in the Corps, mostly embassy duty. He’d never heard of anybody named Riley Wolfe and didn’t really remember any students from twenty years ago, except one kid who’d cut off a finger in the band saw.
Mr. Berdichevsky was no better. Riley had always shown remarkable planning skills, and Delgado had thought that because of that, there was a chance he’d been a chess player. But Berdichevsky had no helpful answers. Perhaps his memory was going; he showed more signs of advanced age than Deutsch had, and the broken veins around his nose indicated a heavy drinker. In any case, he was no help.
From a habit of thoroughness more than from any real hope, Delgado sent for the third teacher, the English teacher, Ms. Caprino. She came in with quiet grace and confidence, a pleasant-looking woman around fifty, with unnaturally red hair. She sat down, smiled at him, and crossed her hands on the table in front of her.
“Thank you for speaking with me, Ms. Caprino,” Delgado said.
She inclined her head. “Abbie said you were asking about a former student? One of my students?”
“I don’t know,” Delgado said. “I don’t even know his real name.”
Caprino cocked her head. “Really. Do you know his un-real name?”
