reminded of nothing so much as a worried schoolboy who is uncertain of his lessons.
“I feel like somehow it’s my fault,” he said. “Was there something I missed? Some sign? Did I do something wrong? I feel as if I should have seen this coming — maybe spent more time with him, or paid more attention.”
Sister Margaret peered at him over the rims of the half-glasses that were perpetually perched on her nose. “There are over two hundred students here,” she declared. “We can only do what we can do, and for the most part, we do a very good job. None of us saw this coming, and there’s no reason why we should have. We can’t know everything in each student’s heart at every moment.”
“I just feel as if I—” Brother Francis began again, but this time Sister Margaret didn’t even let him finish.
“Brother Francis, our job is to look after the children, not feel sorry for ourselves.” Her eyes fixed on Brother Francis, and he instantly felt as if he was back in parochial school and about to feel the rap of a ruler across his knuckles. “Can you put your own feelings aside long enough to talk to the rest of the boys about what’s happened?”
Brother Francis’s face burned. “Of course I can. I’ll just need a few moments to collect my thoughts.”
“Which is a very good idea for all of us,” Father Sebastian interjected before Sister Margaret could say anything else to Brother Francis. “And when we begin answering questions — not only from the police but from the students and their parents as well, I think we should keep in mind that this is not a time for trying to assign blame, either to Kip Adamson or to anyone else. Unfortunately, evil is insidious in the world we live in, and no one is immune. And often, it seems, the children are even less immune than anyone else.”
“Still, everyone makes their choices,” Sister Margaret sniffed, making no attempt to conceal her disdain for Father Sebastian’s words.
“Be that as it may,” Father Sebastian replied gently, “our job right now is to reassure our students and their parents that whatever caused Kip to attack that poor woman, it had nothing to do with St. Isaac’s. The boy had problems when he arrived — in fact, isn’t that exactly why he came here? It’s not that we failed him — we simply didn’t have enough time to succeed with him. Evil, unfortunately, cannot be overcome in an instant, and whatever evil inhabited Kip Adamson was obviously far stronger than any of us saw.”
Father Laughlin finally stirred in his chair, and looked up. “Father Sebastian is right,” he declared. “In the future, we shall all be far more vigilant.”
† † †
Patrick North and Kevin Peterson had been working together long enough that neither detective had to say a word before they entered Kip Adamson’s room at St. Isaac’s; North would do the searching while Peterson talked to the boy’s roommate. There was something about Peterson’s manner that made people want to talk to him, and North had given up trying to emulate it years ago, concentrating instead on honing his already sharp eyes and innate instinct for knowing where to look for what he was trying to find. Except, of course, for his keys, which somehow still managed to elude him at least twice a day. Now he handed them over to Peterson before he pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and began his search, which he would carry out as carefully as he did all his searches, even though the disinterest of Adamson’s friends had already told him the search was probably going to be futile. If there was anything to find, North figured Clay Matthews and Darren Bender would be a lot more nervous than they were.
“So you and Kip were roommates last year, too?” North heard Peterson ask Clay Matthews, scanning his notes as if he didn’t already have every word of them memorized.
“Yeah,” Clay said. “They stuck him with me when he first came here.”
“And you requested each other as roommates again this year?”
Clay nodded. “We got along great.”
Detective North pulled the sheets off Kip’s bed, shook them out, and then lifted up the mattress.
A copy of
“I’ll take that,” Brother Francis said, stepping forward quickly to seize the offending literature.
As Peterson shrugged sympathetically at Matthews, North turned his attention to Kip’s footlocker. It was unlocked and he flipped the top open. Inside were books and photographs, a pair of sandals, and a hockey jersey autographed on the shoulder by someone from the Chicago Blackhawks.
“Has Kip ever taken off like this before?” Detective Peterson asked. Clay shook his head. “Okay, so let’s get to the big question,” Peterson went on. “What about drugs? Adamson ever use them?”
North looked up from the footlocker to watch the boys’ reactions.
Both boys shook their heads.
“Come on,” Peterson prompted them. “Not even a little pot once in a while?”
Matthews shook his head again, this time more emphatically. “I’d know. He used to do drugs before he came here, but he didn’t anymore. He said he’d decided he’d gotten in enough trouble, and he was done with it.”
“He thought people who did drugs were stupid,” Darren Bender offered.
Peterson’s gaze shifted to Bender. “And yet he grabbed a woman from behind and slit her throat,” he said softly. “How do you suppose that fits with his decision to stay out of trouble?”
“How should we know?” Bender countered. “I don’t even get that he could do it.”
“But he did,” Peterson said, sounding every bit as puzzled as Darren Bender. “So if it wasn’t drugs, what could it have been? Can either of you think of anything that might have made Kip do such a thing?”
Darren and Clay looked at each other, and North saw nothing in either of their expressions that looked like they might be trying to hide something.
“Anything at all,” Peterson urged. “We need some help here. Can’t either of you think of anything that was different about Kip lately?”
Clay Matthews hesitated uncertainly, then: “Well…”
Both detectives’ attention instantly focused on the Matthews boy.
“Now that I think about it, Kip has been acting a little weird,” Clay said.
North’s eyes narrowed. “Weird like how?” he said sharply enough that the boy actually jumped.
“I don’t know, really,” Clay said, his voice taking on a defensive note.
“It’s okay,” Peterson soothed and North, finished with his search of the footlocker, moved on to the closet. “Just tell us whatever you can. Anything at all could help.”
Clay relaxed a little. “He was always kind of a loner, you know? Ever since he first came here. But lately he started to act kind of strange.”
“Strange how?” Peterson asked.
Matthews shrugged. “I dunno. He sort of stopped wanting to hang out with any of us — even me. And the other day, he couldn’t find a pen and he threw a regular shi—” He cut his words short, glanced guiltily toward Brother Francis, and reddened slightly. “I mean he got really mad — like throwing things! Over a lousy pen! I mean, it wasn’t even like it was some kind of good pen. Just one of those cheap ones.”
“How bad was it?” Peterson pressed. “The scene?”
“Really bad. His face was all red and he accused me of stealing his stuff. And he seemed like he just wanted to break things.” He walked over and pointed at a black mark on the wall. “See this? He threw his shoe at me. Hard, too. Over that crummy pen, which he found five minutes later on the floor next to his bed.”
“And that was unusual behavior for him?” Peterson asked.
“Definitely,” Clay replied. “Kip was a loner — he was always quiet.”
“How come you didn’t tell me that?” Darren Bender asked. “He got that way on the basketball court, too. He missed a shot, and all of a sudden he’s kicking the wall in the gym. Just because he missed a basket! I mean, it’s not like he made that many in the first place — he really sucked at basketball. I thought he was going to break his foot or something.”
North emerged from the closet. “And neither of you think he was doing drugs?” he asked as he started going through Kip’s desk. “Like steroids, maybe?”
Clay spread his hands helplessly. “I wouldn’t even know what steroids look like. And he wasn’t a jock, so why would he be doing something like that anyway?”
“Okay,” Detective North said as he finished with the desk and turned to Brother Francis. “There’s nothing
