“Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“I don’t understand, though. Why would you want to talk to me?”
“Well, we were told that twenty-five years ago, you had a friend named Mallory Richardson. Do you remember her?”
Todd’s face took on a serious look.
“Mallory?” she asked. “Why are you asking about Mallory?”
“She’s come up in an investigation we’re conducting,” Ballard said. “What we would like to do is just ask you about the period when you two were friends. Is that all right?”
“Well, yeah. But you do know that Mallory’s been dead for a long time, right?”
“Yes, we know.”
“Are you saying she was murdered or something?”
“No, we’re not. Her death is not why we’re here. Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with her? Like how you knew her and what sort of girl she was?”
“Well, we became friends because we went to school together.”
“St. Vincent’s in Pasadena?”
“Yes, St. V.’s, as we called it. And we weren’t part of the popular clique. We sat at the odd-fellows table in the cafeteria and that’s how we met.”
“What was the odd-fellows table?”
“You know, for the kids who didn’t fit in. That’s what we called it. I was one of only three Black kids at the school, and the other two were boys and athletes. I was writing poetry, not playing sports, so I wasn’t like them. The odd fellows were the nerds and outcasts. Late bloomers socially.”
“I think you just described me in high school. But they called our table the losers club,” said Ballard.
“Then you get it. So that’s how I knew Mallory. But that was like twenty-five years ago. She left after tenth grade and I never saw her again. Her family moved out to the desert and we lost touch.”
“Right. So you didn’t have any contact with her the summer after tenth grade or later?”
“No, it was kind of weird. It was like she dropped off the planet. And then, like a year after that, we heard that she’d taken pills and killed herself.”
“When you say ‘we,’ who else do you mean?”
“There was another girl we were friends with.”
“Was that Emma Arciniega?”
“Yes. Sounds like you already know a lot about it.”
“Well, you write cop shows, you know how it goes. Are you still in touch with Emma?”
“On occasion. She’s got her life and I have mine.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Marriage, kids, the whole thing. For her, I mean. I’m not married.”
“What’s Emma’s last name now? Where does she live?”
“Emma Sepulveda. Like the street. She’s still in South Pas.”
“She work?”
“She’s a court stenographer at the appeals court over there.”
“And her husband?”
“Randy Sepulveda. He’s an actor. Or trying to be. That’s when I usually hear from her, when she wants me to get him cast in a show I’m working on.”
“You ever do it?”
“You do know that I’m a writer, right? Writers don’t make those kinds of choices. I’ve had to explain that to Emma many times.”
Ballard turned slightly toward Maddie and gave her a single nod. Her turn.
“What about Rodney Van Ness?” Maddie asked. “Was he one of the odd fellows?”
Todd paused for a moment to search her memory.
“Rodney — no. He was two years ahead of us — a senior,” Todd said. “Odd fellows didn’t cross lines like that. You stuck to your own grade.”
“He took Mallory to his senior prom.”
“If you two already know everything, why come here?”
“We need to know more. Did you go to the senior prom when you were in the tenth grade?”
“I never went to the senior prom, even when I was a senior. Was never asked, and the patriarchy did not allow the girls to ask the guys back then.”
There was an undertone of bitterness to that answer that could not be missed, a resentment that had not gone away even after all these years.
“How did Rodney Van Ness know Mallory if they were two grades apart?” Maddie asked.
“The older boys were always checking out the younger girls,” Todd said. “I don’t think he knew her that well when he asked her to the prom.”
“Was she excited to be asked?”
“Sure.”
“Did she tell you about the prom afterward?”
“No, she wouldn’t talk about it.”
“How come?”
“Because — as I’m sure you know because you already know things — something happened.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I just said she didn’t talk about it.”
“Did her behavior change? What was the tell?”
“The tell?”
“That something had happened at the prom.”
“I don’t know if there was a tell. She wouldn’t talk about it, that’s all. Emma and me, we thought it had just been a really bad date. There were only a few weeks left of school at that point. And then she was gone and I never heard from her again.”
“What about when she died? How did you find out about it?”
Todd thought for a moment.
“You know, I can’t remember,” she finally said. “I think maybe Emma told me. But that’s when we started to think that something really bad had happened. Maybe at the prom.”
“But you have no idea what that was?” Ballard pressed.
“Well, the obvious thing is that she’d had sex with Rodney and it was her first time and it didn’t go well. Or she’d been coerced into having sex. Or even worse. But like I said, at the time I just thought it had been a bad date. Mal gave no indication it was anything else.”
Ballard nodded but didn’t say anything, waiting for Todd to continue, but she didn’t.
“Okay,” Ballard finally said. “We have a copy of the yearbook from when you were in tenth grade. I’m hoping you can look at it and tell me if you remember who some of the people in the photos are.”
“I can try,” Todd said. “But that was like twenty-five years ago.”
“I know,” Ballard said. “I just need you to give it a try. We’re interested in identifying people in the photos from the prom. Also, I assume there were more than just the three of you at the odd-fellows table. It would be good if we could get those names as well.”
“You know, you never said exactly what this is about,” Todd said. “I mean, if Mallory wasn’t murdered, then what are you investigating? Was it rape?”
“Like I said, we’re not investigating her death,” Ballard said. “But we can’t really give more information yet. When it comes together, we will let you know.”
Ballard pulled the yearbook out of her leather bag and opened it to the double-page spread of photos taken at the prom. There was a center photo showing the prom king and queen onstage with a cutline that identified the couple, but the four other photos did not have any captions beneath them.
“We’re trying to figure out who was at the prom because we might need to speak to them,” Ballard said. “Do you remember any of these people?”
Todd gazed down at the five black-and-white photos.
“I don’t think I can — well, that’s Rodney right there,” she said.
She tapped a photo of a group of boys standing around a table where some of their dates were seated.
The individual in the photo she tapped had a beard.
“Really?” Ballard said. “I thought that was a teacher.”
“No, he had a beard then,” Todd said. “I remember that. Made him look old.”
Ballard looked at the senior photo of Rodney Van Ness again and then flipped back and forth between that and the prom picture, doing a comparison between the clean-cut and studio-styled Rodney and the bearded prom-night Rodney.