What Janie Saw. Pamela Tracy
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They left the property and hit the main road.
“You did a good job with the CopLink photos today. I’ve given the names of the three students you picked out to the Adobe Hills police. Chief Summerside’s gonna go pick up the fourth, our local boy,” Rafe shared.
“I wish I could have done more. And I’m still not sure if the people I identified are just people I’ve seen at school or here at the zoo. Except for Tommy. You know him?”
Yes, Rafe knew Thomas Skinley. He’d been in and out of trouble for the last five years.
“How often does he come to the zoo, and are you sure you never saw him at school?” Rafe asked, trying not to show how disturbed he was by the name.
“No, not at school. He’s come to the zoo more than a few times with his sister. As I told your officer, Amanda Skinley is in my Monday/Wednesday class, Derek’s class.”
The dots were beginning to connect. Amanda was Tommy’s sister. Rafe could feel the case turning, gaining ground, starting to move forward. If he didn’t lose focus, if he asked the right questions, maybe they’d find Brittney.
“Was Amanda in class last night?”
“Yes, she never misses. She’s taking advantage of a dual-enrollment program that allows high-school seniors to take college courses for credit.”
Amanda Skinley was a bright girl, born deaf, who rarely made waves and basically avoided the criminal path her brother had taken. Still, she might know something.
“In class last night, did anyone ask about Derek? Did Amanda ask about him?”
“Amanda didn’t say anything, but she rarely contributes much. She depends on her interpreters. She did seem out of sorts yesterday, though.”
“Go on.”
“Truthfully, until after class, when I opened his art book, there wasn’t much to tell. We had our break, right at seven-thirty. Class dismissed at nine. I went to the student union to go over their art books and comment on their progress.”
“Something you did after every class?” he asked.
“No, Patricia and I usually do it together in her office. Last night was the first time I went through the books by myself.”
“And up to Wednesday night, Derek was turning in only what you expected.”
“Yes. I don’t know why I kept reading. His words made me feel like I wasn’t safe, like I needed to hide, like someone was watching me.”
Rafe knew what it was that had prompted her to continue: morbid curiosity. It was the same pull that urged civilians to slow down when they drove by an accident. Derek’s life had been a train wreck, and right now, unless Rafe missed his guess, Janie was more or less one more victim tied to the track.
They made it five miles before Rafe got a call from Nathan canceling their meeting and rescheduling it for tomorrow. Seemed Nathan was dealing with a multivehicle collision on Interstate Ten where a tractor-trailer had spilled enough cocaine to imitate a snowstorm.
After hanging up, Rafe hit the steering wheel. Not very professional, but a heck of a lot tamer than what he really wanted to do. “I need something concrete to tell Brittney’s parents,” he muttered as he pulled into a convenience-store parking lot and turned the car around.
Janie just stared out the window. Rafe couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but after Nathan’s cancellation, she had visibly relaxed. “The fact that we’re not meeting Nathan today,” Rafe reminded her, “doesn’t mean that Derek or his art book is going away. It’s a delay, not a cancellation.”
“I’m well aware of that.” Janie gave him a haughty look. “It’s just that everything’s happening so fast. I need some time to think.”
Some of his annoyance lessened. He knew he was being unreasonable. Missing persons cases did that to him. And, truly, Rafe understood what she was feeling. It was like a horrible roller-coaster ride, one you’d not meant to get on and one that had no end in sight. The police world was like that. You had to solve a case in twenty-four hours or the odds of solving it decreased by more than half.
A good officer held on to that roller-coaster car and rode it until the tracks collapsed and the park closed.
A great officer knew that at some point you had to exit the roller coaster, step back, watch what others were doing on the ride and then, in just a matter of moments, get back on.
Janie seemed more like the Ferris-wheel kind of girl. The roller coaster? Not so much. She’d probably want to paint the cars.
And look beautiful doing it.
He shook his head, trying to clear the wayward thoughts that were taking his mind off the case. He couldn’t afford the distraction. And she was distracting. From the elegant way she held her chin, so stubborn, to the way she crossed her long legs. Again he wondered why he’d not called her for a second date. A date didn’t mean committing to eternity. Maybe they’d have found common ground and built, if not a relationship, then a friendship.
“Tell me,” Rafe said, bringing himself back to the case, “did Derek share his drawings or writing in class? Is it possible that he showed it to another student?”
She took a moment; her face scrunched in concentration.
“No, I don’t think he showed it to anyone. Amanda’s the only one who ever showed any interest in his drawings. I doubt any of the other students even glimpsed the one he turned in last Wednesday,” Janie said. “It was a new art book. It only had those six pages altogether.”
“What do you mean, it was new?”
“All semester he’s been handing in an art book. It was full of ideas, projects and such. This time he gave me a brand-new one. I thought maybe he’d misplaced the one he’d been working on previously...” Her words tapered off as Rafe pulled off the road and swung the vehicle around again. This time he didn’t wait for a spot on the side of the road, he just did a U-turn, scaring up dirt and revving the engine.
“Hey!” She slid slightly toward him, her left hand reaching out to gain balance. It brushed against his knee. Rafe barely noticed—he knew when a lead was handed to him.
It took only a moment to get Derek Chaney’s parents’ address from the system.
“We’re heading to Adobe Hills,” he told Janie. “You’d recognize the previous art book. Maybe he added something to it, something we need to see! If we can get Derek’s parents’ permission, maybe we’ll have some new information within the hour.”
He was of two minds about taking Janie along. He hated involving a civilian. On the other hand, she knew what the art book looked like and could save him a lot of time.
Next, Rafe phoned Nathan to get his go-ahead. After all, they’d be on the other man’s turf. No luck there; Williamson’s number went right to voice mail. The deputy who answered the main number took a message and promised Nathan would return the call. Rafe neglected to tell the deputy exactly what was going on or why the call was necessary. The second call he made was to Derek’s parents. More luck there. They were eager to talk to anyone who might shed light on why their son had died. After hanging up, Rafe quickly called his office and got someone to do a background check on the Chaneys.
Janie seemed confused. “Don’t we need a search warrant to go through Derek’s stuff?”
“Not if the person in control of the property gives us permission to search.”
She checked her watch. “It’s two o’clock. I usually don’t help on Thursday night, but an instructor asked if I’d come in. You should take me back to BAA so I can get my own car.”
After returning Janie to where she lived and seeing her safely to her vehicle, Rafe spent the whole drive, nearly an hour, checking to make sure she was still behind him, and getting the dirt on Derek’s