What Janie Saw(12)
Still, he wished she’d read the whole thing, memorized every picture.
“What I’m most sorry about,” Janie admitted, “was not paying attention to the numbers on the license plate. He’d included them, but I did no more than glance at the numbers because they were so tiny.”
“Could you distinguish the sex of the occupants?”
“They were tiny stick figures but with details.”
Still, they could label the occupants—Derek and Brittney were in the back, Chad was driving and Chris was the front-seat passenger.
“I know you’ve said that nothing happened in class, but I still want to hear about the last week. All the events leading up to you reading the art book. Don’t leave anything out.”
Her sister returned.
Janie glanced at Brittney’s photo again, then showed it to Katie. To Rafe, she said, “I’m assisting with two classes this semester. Both art. In the late afternoons, if I get an appointment, I work in the Writing Tutoring center. I’m pretty good with English, and it’s extra money.”
“And she’s taking classes at the University of Arizona as well as being employed at Bridget’s,” Katie threw in.
“My Monday/Wednesday class starts at six. I didn’t have a student appointment yesterday,” Janie continued. “So last night, I got there right on time.”
Rafe noticed a sudden blink of her eyes, a quickening, slightly out of sync. She’d either just told a lie or she’d left something out.
Janie regained her composure, smoothed back her unruly strawberry-blond hair, and went on, “I’d earlier set up the stations and put handouts on the back table. So, when I got there, the students were signing in and already starting to work on their major projects.”
“What was Derek working on?”
“It’s a medieval battle scene. Very detailed. He’s done two others so far. All pretty much the same focus. Lots of blood, battle, destruction.”
“You say you got there right on time. Is being on time important?”
She hesitated before answering, “Yes, for both me and the students. I take points from students who are late. If they’re more than twenty minutes late, I count them absent.”
Rafe nodded. So, Miss Janie Vincent was a free spirit who also liked rules. “Seems to me that someone as concerned about punctuality as you are would arrive to class early, just in case a student needed to talk to you, or something.”
Her lips pursed together before she said, “I used to get there early, but then...”
“Then?”
She looked him right in the eye. “Then Derek Chaney started arriving early, too. At first, it wasn’t so bad. He asked questions because he claimed he also wanted to paint murals. I gave him some books to read. He kept them a while, then returned them.”
“And this behavior caused you to stop arriving to class early?” Rafe had to give her credit. She was a master lip purser, but she didn’t squirm at all.
“Look,” Janie said, giving him a haughty glare that reminded him of his own college days and how a professor could reduce him to age twelve without blinking. Few, however, had made him want to achieve more than a pass in the class. And none had been as pretty as Janie Vincent. “I don’t want anything I say here to slant the investigation. I—”