“He’s a good kid. He has trouble focusing sometimes, and some of the older kids occasionally like to make fun of him for not having a father, but it’s nothing serious.”
“Any friends?” I said, and the headmaster rattled off three names for Fletcher to write down. “How about anyone strange hanging around the school?”
“Not that’s been reported to me.”
“What can you tell us about Ms Wair?” I asked. Obviously, the distraught mother wasn’t a suspect, but I wanted to build as broad a profile as possible for the case.
Finnegan shrugged. “We’ve only interacted a couple of times. Our teachers deal more with the parents face to face. She’s a nice woman, a bit hard to pin down. She always seems a bit sad, even when she’s smiling.”
“Does she ever mention Finn’s father?”
“No. I gather he took off before Finn was old enough to start school. I get the feeling he’s a rather taboo subject in their household. Finn certainly never mentions him.” Finnegan spread his hands across the desk in a kind of ‘what can you do’ gesture and smiled apologetically.
“Do you mind if we take a look around? Maybe talk to a few of Finn’s teachers?” I would do all those things even if Finnegan did, in fact, mind, but it was always good to make sure people were on your side, especially at the beginning of an investigation.
“Of course.” The headmaster nodded. “Ms Redding should be in her classroom, and I believe Finn’s homeroom teacher, Mr MacTaberd, is still around as well.”
“Thanks,” I said then glanced at Fletcher to see if she had any other questions before we left. She inclined her head towards the door, tucking her little notebook into the pocket of her blazer.
We saw ourselves out of the office. I left my card with the secretary, just in case, and Fletcher got the numbers and addresses for Finn’s couple of friends, giving the woman behind the desk a wide grin and a thank you. Then we wound our way through the hallways to speak with Ms Redding first.
Her door was open, so I stepped right inside, scuffing my foot on the ground to announce myself. Ms Redding looked up from her papers, startled by our entry, but when we showed her our badges and explained why we were there, her face smoothed back out.
“You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary that afternoon?” I asked once the preliminaries were out of the way. The brightly coloured posters on the wall caught the eye, and I kept having to drag my gaze back to Ms Redding as she spoke.
“Unfortunately, no. I assumed he had left for his music class like he does every week.”
Fletcher opened her notebook once more. “Where is that exactly? Who teaches it?”
“It’s in the basement of St. Stephen’s Church. I think the teacher’s name is Lena Taggert.” Ms Redding’s face crumbled as if it were a low stone wall suddenly hit by a runaway truck. “It’s all my fault. If I’d been paying closer attention, maybe I would have seen something or been able to stop it. That poor boy’s been kidnapped, and it’s all my fault. I’m a terrible teacher.” She buried her face in her hands as a sob cut off the rest of her words.
I shared a look with Fletcher then slowly reached across the desk to lay my hand on her arm. “You’re not a terrible teacher. I doubt there was anything you could have done. Sometimes bad things happen, but you can’t get bogged down on what might have been. You have to focus on what you can do now.”
Ms Redding sniffled but emerged from behind her hands. “Do you really mean it?”
“Yes. And Finn will be back before you know it.” I glanced over at Fletcher. “Right, Fletcher?”
“Right. I just transferred up here, but when I arrived, they said MacBain is the best, so the case is in good hands,” Fletcher promised, elbowing me in the side.
“Besides, we don’t know for sure that he was kidnapped. Maybe he just wandered off and got lost.” I doubted that. In today’s age of phones and the Internet, it was growing harder and harder to get well and truly lost.
Ms Redding managed a smile, and Fletcher and I left her to her grading, quietly shutting the door behind us. The hallway was sparsely decorated. There was a corkboard proclaiming an upcoming concert and the week’s updates, but otherwise, the walls were left to the bland, tan brick and the classroom doors.
Fletcher bumped into me with her shoulder as we walked, headed for Mr MacTaberd’s room. “Funny guy, inspirational speaker. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Make a cheese toastie,” I said grimly.
“Are you serious?” Fletcher raised one eyebrow in judgement, but her smile undermined the expression. “That’s basically the easiest meal in the world.”
“I know, I know. I can cook plenty of other things, but I always burn my cheese toasties to a crisp. I don’t know what it is.” I shrugged. It was my curse. It was truly unfortunate because I also loved cheese toasties.
“What about a ham and cheese toastie?”
I had to pause for a moment because I had honestly never thought of that. “Huh, never tried to make one. Maybe it would work.”
Fletcher laughed, the sound echoing down the empty school corridor, and I smiled back at her. She reminded me a little of Reilly, my former partner, though his wit usually had a more insulting edge to it.
We caught Mr MacTaberd just as he was locking up his classroom. The sides of his head were buzzed, the tight curls stiff on top, and his dark skin was stark against the starched white collar of his shirt, his tie loosened for the end of the
