The man paused for a moment, considering it. ‘OK.’ He nodded.
‘Great, I’ll be right back, Mr . . .?’
‘Turner.’ The man extended his hand. ‘Ryan Turner.’
Garcia knocked on the door numbered 3C for a whole minute without a response. Roosevelt Memorial Park was literally across the road from Gardena Senior High. With the description of Mr. Davis Principal Kennedy had given him, it didn’t take long for Garcia to find the kind-looking man in his late sixties sitting alone on a stone bench in front of a very peaceful rose garden. He wore a flop-brim hat that reminded Garcia of his grandfather. His wrinkled lips were moving, murmuring something only he could hear.
‘Mr. Davis?’ Garcia asked, coming up to the bench.
The old man looked up, startled at hearing his name. He saw Garcia towering over him and squinted as if looking directly into the sun, searching the thousands of faces in his memory for a match.
‘My name’s Carlos Garcia.’
The squinting intensified. The old man’s memory now searching for the name.
‘You don’t know me,’ Garcia said, displaying his badge and ending the old man’s struggle to remember. ‘I’m a detective with the LAPD.’ For the moment he thought it was better not to mention he was with Homicide Special. Those two words together tend to make most regular citizens nervous.
‘Is there a problem?’ Mr. Davis asked in a frail and worried voice. ‘Has there been an accident in the school?’ The concern in his eyes was touching.
Garcia smiled gently and told him that there was no need for alarm. He explained the reason for his surprise visit but was careful not to mention that Amanda Reilly had been murdered.
‘Principal Kennedy said you could allow me access to the storage rooms and maybe even help me look through the pictures.’
‘I’d love to help if I can.’ The old man nodded before forcing his tired body to stand up. His gaze went back to the rose garden, and he raised a liver-spotted hand in a half wave. ‘Goodbye, Bella. I’ll be back in two days.’
The large rose garden at the Roosevelt Memorial Park is where cremated remains are scattered. In a respectful gesture, Garcia nodded at it as if also saying goodbye.
The storage rooms were at the end of the long, dimly lit, brick-walled basement corridor of the main building in Gardena Senior High. The cobwebs and the heavy stale smell were a clear indication that not many people ventured down here.
Mr. Davis unlocked the door of the main storage room and pushed it open. ‘Most of the old photograph boxes are stored in here,’ he said, flicking on the light switch.
They stood at the entrance of a large room cluttered with old desks and chairs, disused gym equipment and hundreds of cardboard boxes stacked on wooden shelves that covered three of the four walls. Dust was everywhere, and the corridor’s stale smell had intensified five-fold inside the room. The light bulbs that hung from the ceiling on thin wires were old and dim.
Garcia coughed a couple of times and waved his hand in front of his face like a fan, but that just circulated the dust even more. ‘Jesus!’ he said as his eyes scanned the disheartening number of boxes. ‘Where do we start?’
Mr. Davis gave him an encouraging smile. ‘It’s not so bad. I spent many of my free days in these rooms, trying to organize what we have.’
Garcia arched an eyebrow.
‘I hate not having anything to do.’ He started moving around the many broken, old-fashioned wooden desks. ‘It’s a way of keeping busy.’ He shrugged.
The damp and cold room made Garcia’s fingers hurt, and he rubbed the scars on the palms of his hands for a few seconds.
‘What year are we looking for?’ Mr. Davis asked, approaching the boxes stacked on the east wall.
‘She dropped out of school in ’85.’
Mr. Davis’s eyes scanned the boxes in front of him. ‘It should be right at that end.’ He pointed to the opposite wall.
It didn’t take Garcia long to find four large boxes marked ‘1985’. ‘Here we go.’ He pulled them out of the shelves and placed them on the floor. From his pocket he retrieved a photograph of Amanda Reilly they’d gotten from Tania Riggs. ‘This is the only picture I have of Amanda. It was taken just a year ago. Let’s hope she hasn’t changed much.’
The old man took it from Garcia’s hand and studied it for a few seconds. ‘She does look familiar,’ he said, nodding at the picture.
There must’ve been over two thousand photographs inside the four boxes. Individual ones, group pictures, whole classes together, students having fun and goofing around, playing sports, studying and eating lunch. Some were clearly posed and some captured the students naturally – laughing, angry, crying. Garcia and Mr. Davis started the lengthy process of going through them and trying to identify someone they’d never really met. The school janitor would stop every once in a while as flashes of memory came back to him and he’d tell Garcia a quick story concerning the students in the picture. They’d been flipping through photographs for hours when Mr. Davis stopped and squinted at one, bringing it up closer to his face.
‘Let me see that picture you have of this Amanda girl again,’ he said, extending his hand.
Garcia handed him the photo and waited impatiently.
‘Here she is,’ M r. Davis said with a pleased smile after just a few seconds. He handed Garcia both photos. The picture in question was of a group of four girls dressed in what looked to be expensive, designer clothes. All of them in full makeup. Two of them were laughing, one had an amused look on her face and the last one was sideways, looking down. They were standing by one of the school’s basketball courts where several kids were bouncing a ball behind them. Garcia didn’t have to ask. She had certainly changed, but there was no doubt the second girl from the left was Amanda Reilly. They were all stunning in their own right, but Amanda certainly stood out. She was drop-dead gorgeous. A light wind was blowing her shoulder-length blond hair away from her face. She was one of the girls who were laughing, and even frozen in time her laughter seemed contagious.
‘I remember that group of girls,’ Mr. Davis said with a melancholic grin. ‘They were always together, and all the boys—’ he shook his head and the grin widened as he remembered ‘—they were crazy for them. But these girls, they didn’t wanna know.’
‘What do you mean? Didn’t they have boyfriends?’
‘Oh yeah, but if my memory serves me right, they weren’t boys from this school. They were older, I think.’
‘Do you remember any of these girls’ names?’
Mr. Davis laughed. ‘My memory is good, detective, but not that good.’
Garcia nodded and returned his attention to the picture. ‘No way,’ he murmured after a few seconds, squinting at the photograph.
‘What? Something the matter?’ Mr. Davis asked, craning his neck.
‘Do you have a magnifying glass or something like that?’ Garcia asked without taking his eyes off the picture.
The old man smiled and pulled an old-fashioned Swiss army knife from his belt. It contained everything, from pliers to a screwdriver, a bottle opener and a small magnifying lens. ‘I knew this would come in handy someday.’ He handed it to Garcia, who quickly brought it to his eye, scrutinizing the picture for what seemed like an eternity. His mouth went dry.
‘I’ll be goddamned.’
They drove down Yukon Avenue and turned left into Artesia Boulevard. Darnell Douglas was at the wheel. Ryan Turner sat comfortably in the passenger’s seat, his eyes studying the car’s interior.
‘It feels like a very smooth ride,’ Ryan said casually.
‘Oh, it is. This is a V8, 6.2-liter engine as smooth as aged whiskey.’ Darnell’s eyes stole a peek at Ryan. ‘Do you drink, Ryan?’
‘I occasionally enjoy a good whiskey, yeah.’
‘Oh, you’ll enjoy this more, believe me.’
‘I’m sure.’
Darnell knew it was time to play the cool salesman. ‘I’ll tell you what, Ryan.’ He pulled over to the side of the road. ‘I’m not supposed to do this, because we haven’t properly filled in a form back at the office, but you need to drive this puppy to really get a feel for it.’
Ryan’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
The ‘nice salesman who breaks the rules’ routine always worked for Darnell. It was a buddy-bonding thing. Give and take trust.
‘We can hook onto San Diego Freeway and you can let it rip for a while.’
‘You sure?’ Ryan looked uncertain.
‘Yeah, why not? You look like a pretty decent and responsible guy. I think I can trust you.’
Ryan held Darnell’s gaze for a few seconds.
‘Seriously, if this car doesn’t blow your mind, no car will.’
‘OK.’ Ryan nodded before unlocking the passenger’s door and walking the longest way around, buying himself a few seconds.
‘
This one’s in the bag
,’ Darnell thought.
‘So what do you do, Ryan?’ he asked as Ryan took his seat behind the wheel.
‘I’m a doctor.’ He buckled up.
‘Wow.’
‘I’m an anesthetist.’
‘Ooh.’ Darnell shook his whole body in a shiver.
‘Something wrong?’
Darnell made a bitter face. ‘I really don’t like needles, you know? They freak the fuck out of me.’
Ryan’s hand wrapped around the syringe in his pocket and he smiled.
‘Yeah . . .’ He stared into Darnell’s eyes. His voice guttural. ‘I already knew that.’
They say that when it comes to danger and fear, human beings are just like any other animal. We can sense it. Some primitive instinct inside alerts us. And something inside Darnell was screaming for him to get the hell out of that car.
Ryan pressed the central locking button and smiled. ‘Guess what?’ he whispered. ‘I know what scares you to death.’
In Compton High, Hunter got his hands on a 1985 students’ yearbook – Father Fabian’s graduating year. He also managed to dig up some of his old report cards and records. The young priest had been suspended seven times during his junior year. The interesting fact was that all seven suspensions had been requested by the same teacher – Mrs. Patricia Reed, who taught algebra 2, the priest’s weakest subject, according to his grades. Teachers tend to remember their worst students better than their best ones. If anybody would remember Brett Stewart Nichols, Patricia Reed would, Hunter was certain of that.
The day was sliding from pale blue to dark night when Hunter walked into his office. Garcia had arrived only a couple of minutes before him and was standing in front of the picture board, attentively studying one of the photos. He turned and faced Hunter.
‘You won’t believe what I found.’ Excitement coated his words as he wiggled a six by twelve photo in his hand.
Hunter arched an eyebrow and took a few steps towards his partner.
‘I got this from an old storage room in Gardena High.’ He handed Hunter the photo.
‘Storage room?’
Garcia quickly summarized his day at Gardena High before stabbing at the picture with his index finger. ‘Second girl from the left.’
Hunter studied the girl Garcia had indicated. It didn’t take him long. ‘Amanda Reilly,’ he said confidently.
‘That’s right.’ Garcia retrieved an old-fashioned, Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass from his desk and handed it to Hunter. ‘But that’s not all. Take a look at the last girl on the right, the one who has a sort of amused look on her face.’
Hunter analyzed the picture once again, this time for a while longer. There was nothing peculiar about the girl, and he was about to ask Garcia ‘What about her?’ when he saw it and stopped.
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘Looks familiar?’ Garcia said, arching his eyebrows.
Hunter turned to the picture board and unpinned the woman’s photo they’d found on the fireplace inside the Malibu mansion. The one with the number two written on the back. He brought it back to his desk and sat it next to the schoolgirls’ photo. His eyes jumped from one picture to the other several times before he looked at Garcia. ‘It’s her.’
Garcia nodded slowly. ‘That’s what I thought, but I didn’t have that photo with me.’ He pointed to the woman’s picture on Hunter’s desk. ‘I needed to come back here to confirm it. Now I’m positive. They went to the same school, Robert. Amanda and the alleged second victim hung out together.’
‘What’s her name? Who is she?’
‘That, I still don’t know.’
‘Did you get a yearbook?’
Garcia told him about the stolen yearbooks and the burned down printer. ‘The school might have a graduating picture, but I’m not sure. As I said, I needed to first confirm my suspicion, and by the time I got out of the storage room everyone was gone. Today was the last day for the faculty. The school is closed for the holidays.’ Garcia returned to his desk. ‘If they have a graduating picture and it hasn’t been stolen, it will probably be in the library.’
‘Won’t this Mr. Davis have the keys?’
‘Probably, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Their library is massive. I would’ve ended up just wasting time. We need the librarian or someone who works there, and as of today they’re all on vacation.’