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“Did Riley have a girlfriend that you know of?” he asked her.
She pursed her lips. “I saw him with girls, but never the same one for very long.” She sighed, shook her head. “Riley was a lonely boy, I know that. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually like the bad eggs he hung around with—” She shrugged. “In any case, it’s not something I would have asked him about.”
“You mentioned ‘bad eggs’?” Delgado asked. “His friends?”
“‘Friends’—well, I don’t know if that’s the right word here. There were a couple of boys he hung out with, but . . . ,” she said. She made a face, and again, Delgado almost smiled. Even after twenty years, she looked disapproving. “They were not really good students—‘not good’ meaning socially as well as academically. But Riley was— Do you remember high school at all, Mr. Delgado?”
“Call me Frank,” he said. “I remember.”
She smiled again, a little warmer. “All right, Frank. I’m Eileen.”
He returned the smile briefly, then prompted, “High school?”
“Yes. Well, if you remember, you know that everybody has to have a clique, a group to hang out with. Like birds need a flock. If you’re a complete loner, the other birds will peck you to death—in a flock or in high school.” She raised one eyebrow at him.
“I remember,” he said again.
“So Riley hung with the bad kids because he could,” she said. “Protective coloration, I think. I mean, I can’t really believe he actually liked any of them. Aside from being pure trouble, they were— I have to be careful what I say. Um—the other boys were very limited.” She lifted an eyebrow, and Delgado nodded, understanding. “Certainly none of these ‘friends’ read Swann’s Way. Or anything else, most likely. Their only real talent was for trouble. But Riley?” She looked at him with an expression every cop sees a thousand time, the look that pleads for understanding. “He was so bright, and so . . . He wasn’t a bad kid, Frank—not really—and the books he read, I mean, he absolutely devoured everything in the library. It was just—” She sighed. “I guess it’s the old story of a good kid hanging with a bad crowd. Those other boys were . . . primitive.”
“Can you remember any names?”
“Well, I know two of them—they’re still here, in Watertown.” She gave a quick snort of wry amusement. “It’s still hard to get away from Watertown, except into the Army or prison. And these two—” She shook her head. “I will just say that I don’t think they went into the Army.” She sighed. “Anyway, Jimmy Finn works at the Kwik Lube on Washington Street. They work on my car? And Rodney Jankowski . . . Hm . . . I saw him at the county fair two years ago, we didn’t really have a lot to say, but Jimmy Finn might know how to find him. If not—he should be in the phone book. Oh! I mean, you can Google him. Phone book.” She laughed briefly. “I’m afraid I’m dating myself.”
Delgado actually smiled at last, a rare thing for him, but he liked this woman. “I remember phone books,” he said. He stood up. “Thank you, Ms. Caprino. You’ve been very helpful.”
She stood up, too. “Oh, my, you almost sound like you mean that,” she said.
“Actually,” Delgado said, “I do.”
* * *
—
Abbie, the principal’s assistant, informed Delgado that she’d been a student here and of course she remembered the music teacher’s name. “Lester Foley,” she said. “He was kind of, I don’t know. A little . . . different? But he really loved music, and he made us listen to all kinds of stuff.”
And at Delgado’s prompting, Abbie dug into a cabinet and even found a file. “Oh,” she said, glancing into the folder. “Oh well.” She took out the folded page of a newspaper. “There’s this lady, Mrs. Ashton? She comes in twice a week, like a volunteer?” Delgado nodded that he understood what “volunteer” meant, and Abbie went on. “Well, she’s been putting things into the files. Like updates? About all our old teachers and, you know, if somebody gets in the paper?” She fluttered the newspaper. “And so here, this is Mr. Foley’s, um, obituary? So . . .” She shook the paper apologetically.
“All right,” Delgado said. It was a disappointment, but not a major one. “One more thing,” he said. “If a new student came here from out of the area, would he be required to submit a transcript from his previous school?”
“Oh, yes,” Abbie said. “Absolutely. Even if he was homeschooled, there are standardized test results and so on, so the principal can determine if the new student is actually up to grade level.”
“How long are those records kept?”
She pursed her lips. “I couldn’t say exactly? But the student you were asking about—from twenty years ago? I’m pretty sure they don’t keep them that long.”
Delgado was pretty sure, too. But he was never willing to leave something at “pretty sure.” “Could you check, please?”
“Of course,” Abbie said. “Wait here? It’ll just take a minute.”
Delgado waited. The wall clock ticked loudly, and he felt the first stirrings of hunger. A gaggle of students went by in the hall. The clock ticked again, and then Abbie came back. “Like I thought,” she said, smiling like it was a triumph to be right. “Those records went missing years ago.”
“Thank you for your help,” Delgado said. He wasn’t surprised.
* * *
—
Delgado got into his car and took out his notebook. And then, for a few moments he just sat, thinking over what the English teacher had told him. There were threads, possibilities . . .
