"She had a reputation for being nasty."
"You've said all along that the killer must have known her."
His phone started ringing, and he slid it out of his pocket. The thing was pathetic, the pieces held together with Scotch tape. "Hello?"
Faith picked up one of the yearbooks and thumbed through it so she wasn't standing there doing nothing. She glanced up once at Will, trying to read his expression as he listened to the call. Impassive as usual.
"Thank you," he said, then ended the call. "Bernard's fingerprints don't match the thumbprint on the letter."
Faith held the yearbook to her chest. It felt heavy in her hands. "So his accomplice handled the threatening notes."
"Why send the notes? Why show their hand?"
Faith shrugged. "Could be they were trying to scare away Adam so Emma would be alone in the house." She contradicted herself. "In that case, why didn't Kayla just drive Emma to the house? It had to be that they weren't getting along."
Will opened the Westfield yearbook from last year and flipped through the pages. "We need to go back to the beginning. There's a second man out there." He traced his finger across the rows of student photographs. "Bernard's not the kind of guy who gets his hands dirty."
"My friend at Tech said he would probably have news today," Faith told him, hoping she wouldn't have to be more specific about the vial of gray powder she had asked Victor to have tested. Will might have been okay speaking freely around Charlie Reed, but Faith didn't know the man well enough to trust him with her career.
Will said, "Go to Tech. See if there are any results." He found Kayla Alexander's class picture and tore out the page from the yearbook. He handed it to Faith. "While you're there, ask Tommy Albertson if he's ever seen this girl hanging around either Adam or Gabe Cohen. Ask everybody in the dorm if you have to." He flipped to another page and found Bernard's faculty photograph. He tore it out, saying, "Show this one, too."
Faith took the photographs.
Will opened another yearbook, searching for his own copies of the photos. "I'm going to go to the Copy Right and do the same."
Faith looked at the bedside clock. "You said the next ransom call is supposed to come at four?"
Carefully, he tore out the right pages. "The killer is probably with Emma right now, getting the second proof of life."
Faith put the yearbook on the bed. She started to walk away, but stopped, knowing something was different. She fanned out the yearbooks, finding the three that did not belong. They were thicker, their colors not as vibrant. "Why does Bernard have yearbooks from Crim?" Faith asked. The Alonzo A. Crim High School was located in Reynoldstown, a transitional area in east Atlanta. It was probably one of the seedier schools in the system.
Will told her, "At least we know where Bernard taught before he moved to Westfield."
Faith was silent as she thumbed through the pages. She had never been one to believe in fate or spirits or angels sitting on your shoulder, but she had long trusted what she thought of as her cop's instinct. Carefully, she skimmed the index in the back for Evan Bernard's name. She found his photo in the faculty section, but he also sponsored the newspaper staff.
Faith found the appropriate page for the staff photo. The kids were in the usual silly poses. Some of them wearing fedoras that had "press" tags sticking out of them. Some had pencils to their mouths or were eyeballing the camera over folded newspapers. A pretty young blonde stood out, not because she wasn't hamming for the camera, but because she stood very close to a much younger-looking Evan Bernard. The photo was black and white, but Faith could imagine the color of her strawberry blond hair, the freckles scattered across her nose.
She told Will, "That's Mary Clark."
ACCORDING TO A very angry Olivia McFaden, within half an hour of Evan Bernard's arrest, Mary Clark had abandoned her classroom. The teacher had simply taken her purse out of the desk, told her students to read the next section in their textbooks, then left the building.
Faith found the woman easily enough. Mary's beat-up Honda Civic was parked outside her family's home on Waddell Street in Grant Park. People took good care of their homes here, but it was nothing like the richer climes of Ansley Park, where professionally manicured lawns and expensive gray-water reclamation tanks made sure the lawns stayed green, flowers kept blooming, all through the summer. Trashcans lined the road, and Faith had to idle the Mini while the garbage truck slowly made its way up the hill, emptying the cans and crawling along to the next house.
Grant Park was a family-friendly neighborhood that managed to be barely affordable while still being in the city limits of Atlanta. Trees arched overhead and fresh paint gleamed in the afternoon sun. The houses were a mixed variety, some shotgun style, some Victorian. All of them had seen a whirlwind of remodeling and renovation during the housing boom, only to find all their paper equity gone when the boom went to a bust.
Still, a handful of houses had been passed by in the race for bigger and better-single-story cottages popped up here and there, neighboring homes looming two and three stories above them. Mary Clark's house was one of these poor cousins. From the outside, Faith guessed the house probably had two bedrooms and one bathroom. Nothing about the house overtly pointed to disrepair, but there was a certain air of neglect to the place.
Faith walked up the stone steps. A large two-toddler stroller of the type used for runners seemed to be taking up permanent space on the front porch. Toys were scattered about. The porch swing looked weathered from its place on the ground. The hardware and chains rusted in a pile beside it. Faith gathered someone had started the weekend project with great intentions but never followed through. The front door was painted a high gloss black, the window curtained on the other side. There was no doorbell. She raised her hand to knock just as the door opened.
A short, bearded man stood in the doorway. He had a small child on either hip, each in various states of oblivious happiness at the prospect of a stranger at the door. "Yes?"
"I'm Detective Faith Mitchell with the-"
"It's okay, Tim," a distant voice called. "Let her in."
Tim didn't seem to want to comply, but he stepped back, letting Faith come into the house. "She's in the kitchen."
"Thank you."
Tim seemed to want to say something more to her-a warning, perhaps?-but he kept his mouth closed as he left the house with the twins. The door clicked shut behind him.
Faith glanced around the room, not knowing whether she was expected to stay here or to find the kitchen. The Clarks had chosen a post-college eclectic style for the living room, mixing brand-new pieces with old. A ratty couch sat in front of an ancient-looking television set. The leather recliner was modern and fashionable, but for faint scratches on the legs that showed signs of a recent visit from a cat. Toys were scattered all over the place; it was as if FAO Schwarz had fired off a bunker-buster from their New York headquarters.
A quick glance into the open doorway of what must have been the master bedroom showed even more toys. Even at fifteen, Faith had known not to let Jeremy have every room of the house. It was no wonder parents looked exhausted all of the time. There was no space in their homes that belonged completely to them.
"Hello?" Mary called.
Faith followed the voice, walking down a long hallway that led to the back of the house. Mary Clark was standing at the sink, her back to the window. She held a cup of coffee in her hand. Her strawberry blond hair was down around her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a large, ill-fitting T-shirt that must have belonged to her husband. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed.
Faith said, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Do I have a choice?"