“Sure, go ahead.” I moved off a little distance to give her space, and she pulled out her phone. I was sure she thought I was out of earshot, but thanks to my mother’s father, my hearing was a little better than normal.
“Hey, something’s come up, and I’m going to be a little late,” Cassie said into her phone. “Wait for me? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I still want to. I just have to take care of something first.”
She hung up, and I walked with her to a diner across the street, where I got a cup of coffee and bought her a lemonade.
“You were with Sarah the night she disappeared?”
“Yes, at practice.”
“You play an instrument?”
“Flute. She plays clarinet. We have orchestral practice once a week, and we play in the jazz band.”
“Her parents told me that she usually comes home ten or fifteen minutes after that practice is over.”
Cassie nodded. “We have calculus at eight o’clock the next morning, and Mr. Jarred is a…” she hesitated, “well, he’s strict. If you don’t have your homework, he’ll call you out in front of the whole class. And you have to be ready for practice, so Sarah always did her calc homework afterward.”
“Her mom said Sarah planned on stopping at a store on her way home. You wouldn’t happen to know what store?”
She shook her head.
“Do you know who she’s currently seeing?”
Cassie stiffened a little. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“So everyone tells me. That’s not what I asked.”
She blushed. “She’s not a slut.”
“I didn’t say she was. But I have gotten the impression that she plays the field. No biggie. Seventeen is way too young to get tied down, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” For the first time, she seemed to relax a little. “Some people don’t see things that way.”
I shrugged. “I don’t judge. My parents never married, so I had my fill of self-righteous assholes.”
Cassie gave me a quick, nervous smile. “You don’t know what it’s like in our social circles. Everyone expects you to be perfect.”
“I think I do. My grandmother is Olivia Findlay.”
The Findlay clan was one of the Ten. Of course, my grandmother was roundly ostracized for marrying my grandfather, but after his death, she was accepted back into the family, although encouraged to keep a low profile. That was long ago, and she had gained status from her business acumen and as the sister of the clan patriarch.
“James. Magitek?” If I had a nickel for every time I heard that question, phrased exactly the same way, I could have retired.
“Yeah. Believe me, I know about families, from a number of different angles. So, was Sarah nervous, upset, strange, that night? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“Not really. I’ve tried to think back since she disappeared, and I can’t think of anything.”
“Who is she seeing?”
“She has an on-again, off-again thing with Joel Nunkessor that’s currently sort of off again. It’s sort of a friends-with-benefits thing, you know? But she tends to like older guys.”
“How old?”
“You know, college guys.”
“Any names you can give me?”
She reeled off five names, three of whom she said were recent, but she knew the surnames only of two.
We talked a little longer, but she didn’t have much to add. I gave her my card and told her to call me if she remembered or heard anything that might be pertinent.
Back in my car, I pulled out my laptop and did a few searches. Nunkessor went to the most expensive school in the area, but it was forty miles south of where I sat. The two other guys I had last names for were students at Loyola. I guessed that the friend Cassie was meeting probably went to Loyola, also, though there were a couple of boys’ schools in the area. But if Sarah and Cassie were best friends, they probably shared a dating profile.
I still had a couple of hours before I was due to meet Novak at the station, so I looked up William Moncrieff’s phone and address. I called and got a servant, who told me young Mr. Moncrieff was at soccer practice. His school wasn’t that far away, so I drove over there.
Although I had gone to school in the area when I was young, I hadn’t spent much time there since my stint at boarding school. Large houses interspersed with mansions—some three hundred years old—all with manicured lawns and multi-car garages. It was very scenic and quite different than the middle-class neighborhood where Kirsten and I lived, but not as friendly and cozy.
The boys’ school young Mr. Moncrieff attended was larger than Sarah’s school, but not as exclusive, and to my eye, not as pretty. I never understood why schools looked so much like prisons. Surely a more aesthetic surrounding would better facilitate learning.
I showed my badge to get through their gate security, parked, and walked through the gardens over to the athletic field. It looked as though half of the school was out there, with different age groups practicing and dozens of adults yelling at them.
I found a coach, flashed my detective’s shield, and said, “I’m investigating the disappearance of a girl. Her mother said that Bill Moncrieff was one of her best friends. Can I take him aside and talk to him for a few minutes?” I smiled. “He’s not a suspect or anything. I’m just trying to get a picture of what the girl is like.”
And sure enough, the coach pulled Moncrieff aside for me. He was a bit imposing. I figured about six-three and two hundred twenty pounds. Good-looking kid, in spite of the two or three pimples. Even rich kids with magik had their crosses to bear.
“Hi, Sarah’s mom said that I should talk to you. I’m trying to figure out what happened to her.”
He was nervous at first, but he soon relaxed. Kids tend not to trust cops. We spoke for about fifteen minutes. He and Sarah and Cassie had been friends since kindergarten. The most important thing he said was, “I don’t think any
