“So, no complaints or other students who lingered?”
“Not that I noticed.”
She would have noticed.
Katie fidgeted in her chair, but Rafe’s attention was on Janie as she stood up and perused his office, stopping to count the softball trophies, smiling at his Baxter the Bobcat keepsakes and studying his photos. Many were of him and his family. His dad had been the sheriff, and his grandpa before that. The photo in the center of the shelf was an enlarged baby picture, the kind taken at the hospital immediately after a birth. Rafe kept it there to remind him. Some of the other photos were of him and his men, or people about town. One showed him holding a fishing rod and a ten-pound bass. She didn’t wince at the mess on his desk—a bit messier since she’d rearranged things—although her eyes lingered on his Bible.
He liked her attention to details. She had an artist’s eye. It made his job easier. “How many times did Derek miss class?” he asked her.
“Four. He’d used the limit. I can’t tell you the dates without the roster, though.”
Rafe opened a new window on his computer, punched in a code, and again stared at Derek Chaney’s rap sheet. Derek had been arrested driving a stolen car at the end of November. Rafe quickly checked, but neither a Chris nor a Chad had been with him. The judge had given Derek another chance.
Derek should have been in jail, not college.
Maybe if the judge had to knock on the door of Lee and Sandy Travis, instead of Rafe, and tell them that their daughter’s car had been found in Adobe Hills Community College’s parking lot but not their daughter, maybe then the judge would have been less lenient.
Rafe still called the Travises every two to three days to tell them that there was no news.
Today, his call would be different. He’d have to mention that a student at Adobe Hills Community College had come forward with evidence—a wee stretch of the truth—and that he was meeting with all involved for details.
He wouldn’t say anything yet about the nineteen-year-old who had turned in an art book detailing their daughter’s murder.
Or that the nineteen-year-old was dead.
He leaned forward, intent, thinking. “The names in the art book were Chad and Chris. Throughout the semester, did Derek mention those names in any other context?”
Janie didn’t hesitate. “No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t. I haven’t taught or tutored any Chads. As for Chris... I’m the lab assistant for two classes on Monday/Wednesday. There’s a Chris in my first one, but she’s female. I have two boys named Chris in my second class, Derek’s class. But I never saw them with Derek, and Chris is a very common name.”
“And you didn’t have Brittney as a student?”
“No.”
“And you’d never seen her around campus?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Was this the first time Derek mentioned Brittney in his book?”
“He usually doesn’t draw modern people, so I’ve never had cause to ask him who he was drawing.”
Rafe looked at Brittney’s flyer again. Everyone—her parents, her high-school guidance counselor, her teachers—all said Brittney was an easy kid, well-liked and with lots of friends. She’d been a senior in high school and already taking college classes, thanks to dual enrollment.