Jameson stepped over to one of the empty chairs and pulled a piece of paper from a rumpled stack. “Here’s the program for the performance. All the names are in it.”
Frank took the program and put it in his pocket.
They were exactly where Jameson had said they would be, slouched around a large oak tree just outside the auditorium, two boys in white tennis outfits, and a girl in a white blouse and bright red shorts.
Frank pulled out his badge as he stepped up to them.
“You’ve all heard about Angelica Devereaux,” he said.
The three students nodded and glanced apprehensively at each other.
“Were all of you in the play with her?” Frank asked quietly.
“Yes,” the girl said.
Frank took out his notebook. “What is your name?”
“Danielle Baxter.”
Frank looked at the two boys. “And how about you?”
“Philip Jeffers,” the taller boy said.
“Aaron Shapiro,” said the other.
“There were six people in the cast,” Frank said. “Where are the other two?”
“Joanna’s in Europe for the summer,” Danielle said. “She’s spending it with her father.”
“And Stan Doyle couldn’t do the summer show,” Aaron added.
“Yeah,” Danielle said, “he had to take a summer job.” Her voice was almost mournful, as if no worse fate could be imagined.
“I’m trying to find out as much as I can about Angelica,” Frank said. “And to tell you the truth, so far I haven’t been able to come up with very much.”
Danielle nodded. “Yeah, well, she was sort of strange.”
“In what way?”
“She wasn’t friendly,” Philip said. “She wasn’t a joiner.”
“She joined this cast,” Frank noted.
“Well, that’s the only thing,” Danielle said, almost scornfully.
“She wasn’t very well liked then?” Frank said.
Aaron shrugged. “We’d probably have liked her if she’d given us half a chance,” he said defensively. “But it’s like Philip and Danielle said, she was sort of strange, and she didn’t really socialize very much.” He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think she liked us very much. The kids at Northfield, I mean.”
Philip laughed. “I mean, the way she looked, you can bet she would have been popular. Especially with the guys, right, Aaron?”
“Yes,” Aaron said. He looked at Frank. “All the guys were hitting on her.”
“Yeah, like crazy,” Danielle said. She smiled cunningly. “Even you, Philip.”
Philip bristled slightly. “That was before Tina.”
“How did she react to being hit on all the time?” Frank asked, trying to get them back on track.
Aaron faked a shiver. “Brrrrrrr. She was a cold fish.”
Philip sighed painfully. “Yeah. It was tragic, the chill she could put on you.”
Danielle laughed self-consciously.
Frank turned to her. “How did the girls feel about her?”
“Maybe a little jealous at first,” Danielle admitted with some reluctance. “I mean, the way she looked, she was a sort of threat to everybody. Philip and Aaron are right, all the boys were hitting on her. But then, when she froze them out, she just sort of disappeared in our minds.”
“Because she wasn’t a threat anymore,” Aaron said confidently. “Right, Danielle?”
“I guess so,” Danielle said. “I guess that’s the way it was.”
“Did she have any friends at the school?” Frank asked.
“Not really,” Danielle said.
“How about during the play?” Frank said. “Did she get close to anyone in the cast?”
Almost simultaneously, the three students shook their heads.
“When rehearsals were over,” Frank said, “didn’t the cast go out together?”
“Sometimes,” Aaron said, “but not Angelica.”
“Where did she go?”
“She always left by herself,” Aaron said.
“What about teachers?” Frank asked. “Was she friendly with any of them?”
“No,” Danielle said. “She didn’t really talk in class.” She looked at the two boys. “Were her grades any good?”
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I never saw her name on the honor roll,” Philip added, “so I guess they couldn’t have been that great.”
Frank could tell that the well was drying up, and that if he were going to find out anything about Angelica Devereaux, he would have to look outside the campus of Northfield Academy. Still, he decided to try one more question.
“We have reason to believe that Angelica had a boyfriend of some kind,” he said curiously. “Any idea who that might have been?”
The three faces stared back at him blankly.
“Maybe a boy from college,” Frank added. “Somebody like that.”
The blank stares remained in place.
“Okay,” Frank said wearily. “If you think of anything that might help me, give me a call.” He gave each of the students one of his cards. Then he stepped back and looked at each of them pointedly. “I know that none of you was close to Angelica,” he said, “but remember that she was young, like you, and that she had her whole life ahead of her, like you do. Now she won’t get a chance to live that life, maybe even to turn into someone you would have liked better.” He stopped, and allowed his eyes to settle on them. “I need to find out why that chance was taken from her.”
The three young faces softened somewhat, and for the first time, Frank thought he saw something other than the self-centeredness of youth in them: a little bit of sympathy, a little bit of fear.
12
It was almost noon by the time Frank reached the downtown headquarters, and the streets were already baking in the same unrelenting heat that had plagued the city for the last few days. The cool of the air-conditioned interior of the building swept over him soothingly as he entered it, and for a moment he wondered why he’d not been able to live the life of an office worker or junior executive, a calm, climate-controlled life in rooms where blood never dripped from the walls.
The elevator door opened and Caleb walked out into the lobby. “I left a note on your desk, Frank,” he said.
“What’d it say?”
“Just to let you know where I was headed.”
“Where are you going?”
“Toward Marietta. A little past the Chattahoochee.”
“What for?”
Caleb grabbed Frank’s upper arm and tugged him forward. “Come on along with me,” he said, “I’ll fill you in.” Frank had intended to go out to Karen’s to check Angelica’s room, but he let Caleb carry him along instead.
Traffic was moving briskly on the northbound side of the expressway, and before long, even the faintest outline of the city had disappeared behind them.
Caleb flung his arm out the window as he drove, and the rushing air flapped loudly in his sleeve.
“Anybody ever mention to you whether or not Angelica had a car?” he asked.
“No.”
“Turns out she did,” Caleb said. “But that’s getting a little ahead of things.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, about an hour ago, I got a call from an old hometown buddy of mine,” Caleb said. “Name’s Luther Simpson. A regular good old boy. He moved to Atlanta about the same time I did. We was both just kids. I got hooked up with the police, and Luther, well, he took a different way altogether.”
“What way was that?”
“A life of crime, you might say,” Caleb told him. “Oh, nothing big-time or really that bad. Petty stuff. A whole yellow sheet of it wouldn’t add to much. We’re talking about a little bootleggin’, maybe some gambling on the side.” He looked at Frank. “Nowadays, he’s mostly a car cutter.”
“Where does he do it?” Frank asked.