“I’ll be with you in just a second,” Robb says, slipping past us to confer with the brownie lady.
“Hard to believe he’s the same guy from the other day.”
Cavallo shrugs. “Life goes on.”
He rejoins us, holding on to the last remnants of the stage persona until we get to the hallway, where he sighs and hunches his shoulders, taking up his burden again.
“We can talk back in my office,” he says.
“Just so you know, you were right about the photograph. The mother’s dna was a match. Which means it really was Evey Dyer in that house. The question is, how’d she get there? And what does it have to do with Hannah’s death?”
He runs his hand over his head, raising a jagged clump of hair. “It’s all I think about.”
Pausing near the stairway, he points out one of the framed pictures on the wall. Unlike the smiling ancients, this one is abstract, random primary-colored dots swirling on a white background. He walks over, telling us to look.
“Seems like nothing at first,” he says, “but if you stare long enough, you can see the face.”
Cavallo cocks her head. “It’s Jesus.”
“Yeah.” He gives an embarrassed grin. “It’s corny, I know. Not my kind of thing, believe me. But that’s how I feel all the sudden, ever since I saw that picture in your office. Like I’ve been staring at something that doesn’t make sense, and suddenly I recognize the pattern. There turns out to be a design in it all.”
She nods and we descend the stairs. It must come easily to him by now, turning everyday things into object lessons.
“So what’s the pattern here?” I ask, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
“Have you talked to Murray? The guy I introduced you to the other day?”
“The resident dreamer?”
He pushes through the ground floor doorway, taking us back to the office wing. “I guess he’s a little corny, too, but a great guy. Not very many people would leave their high-powered corporate jobs to go to seminary and then do the kind of mission work he does.”
“So why should we be talking to him?”
“When I took the youth group there that first time, Hannah and Evey were really good about going out into the community and talking to people, inviting them to the center, that kind of thing. Hannah was being altruistic, but unfortunately Evey had other ideas.” He reaches his office door, then pauses. “No, I shouldn’t say that. It’s not fair. I don’t know what was in her mind, but afterward I found out she’d met a boy. The other kids were talking about it. After that week, she saw a lot of him. I didn’t worry too much – girls that age want boyfriends, right? But then Murray told me this guy was older, and maybe even a little bit dangerous.”
“When you’re sixteen, that’s the appeal,” Cavallo says.
In the office, Robb perches on his desk, motioning us to the couch. I gaze up at the sagging bookcases all around, hoping they don’t choose this moment to collapse.
“When I say dangerous, though, I really mean it. Like, drugs dangerous. And Mrs. Dyer got concerned, too, because of Evey’s past. She’d run away before, been on the streets awhile, and everybody was afraid of some kind of relapse, only you couldn’t say that to Evey because she was sensitive. Touchy about being judged.”
“So what happened?” I ask.
“Her mom put an end to it. There was a big fight. I remember Hannah coming to me, because she felt like she was in the middle. Anyway, after a week or two, everything seemed fine. Evey was back to normal, as normal as she ever was. But ever since I saw that picture, I’ve been thinking. Remember those youth-group girls who said Evey and James Fontaine were going to run away together? Well, I always thought there could’ve been a kernel of truth to that. Maybe it wasn’t Fontaine, though. Maybe it was this other guy, the one she’d met before.”
“Does this guy have a name?”
He shrugs. “I’m drawing a blank. That’s why you should talk to Murray. He talked to the guy a few times when he’d come into the center. Some deep conversations supposedly.”
“Why don’t we call your friend Murray now?”
Robb lights up as if the possibility never occurred to him. He goes around the desk, punching the number into the phone.
“I’ll put him on speaker.”
Murray Abernathy answers, but asks if he can call back later. “I’m with somebody.”
“I’ve got the police here, Murray. It’s really important.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “Give me a sec.” When he comes back, Murray settles into some kind of stuffed chair, the air hissing out as he applies weight. “All righty then. What’s up?”
Robb explains, then asks for the mysterious boyfriend’s name.
“His name? It was Frank.”
“Frank what?” I ask.
“Hold on,” he says. “It’ll come to me.” Another pause. “Frank was a Latino guy, in his early twenties I think, handsome and well-spoken. I was excited when he first showed up, because he was interested in all the big questions – life, the universe, the whole shebang. But I could see right off I wasn’t gonna make a convert. For him, it was like a test of wits. He always wanted to prove he knew more than I did. Frank was an autodidact, one of those guys who acts like he knows everything – and then surprises you with how much he really does know.”
“His last name?” I ask again.
“I’m trying to think of it. He had a cousin doing construction work around here. Somebody would drop him off, and he’d hang out at the center while he waited for the cousin to get off work.”
“The cousin worked construction?” Cavallo and I exchange a glance. The site across the street from where Hannah’s body was found is just one of many in the neighborhood. “Did you ever get the cousin’s name?”
“Wait a second.” He starts humming over the line, drowning out all distractions. “I got it. Frank was short for Francisco – ” He pronounces it Frahn-see-sco, reproducing the sound from memory. “Francisco… Rio? Rios? Something like that.”
“Francisco Rios?” The name is familiar. I quiz Cavallo with a raised eyebrow, but she just shrugs. “I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“I have no idea what the cousin’s name was,” Murray says. “But he’d pull his van out front and blow the horn, and Frank would drop everything and go.”
Cavallo leans forward. “You told Carter this guy was dangerous. Why was that?”
“He talked a lot of nonsense, but I started thinking maybe it wasn’t nonsense after all. Because he presented himself so well, I kind of assumed he was… normal. Like everybody else, you know? A little stuck up, but basically a decent guy. But some people in the neighborhood told me he’d offered to sell them drugs, and once he got in a fight out on the street and pulled a knife on somebody. Said he was gonna come back that night and shoot the guy. Around here, you’ve got yuppies living next door to dealers, you’ve got people walking designer dogs past muggers. Frank kind of fit the vibe, I guess, but when I heard one of those girls was running around with him, well…”
I lean over to Cavallo. “I know that name.”
She keeps asking questions and Murray keeps talking, but I tune it all out, focusing on those syllables, picturing the letters in my mind. I write them out in my notebook, underlining the words. Why is Francisco Rios so familiar?
And then it comes to me.
“Where are you going?” Cavallo asks.
But I’m off the couch and halfway through the door, leaving her to make apologies to Robb and come running after me. She catches up in the atrium – I make a point of not glancing toward the auditorium doors, where the coffin of Hannah Mayhew so recently stood – grabbing at my arm to slow me down.