would have shot forward, twitching nervously. Unfortunately I wasn’t a puppy dog, though certainly as cute, and did my human best to zero in on the sound.
I turned a corner and came to a bathroom. A girl’s bathroom.
A janitor’s cart was parked out front, filled with cleaners and rags and brooms. Draped over a broom handle was a sweat-stained Anaheim Angel’s baseball cap. The whistler was whistling something I did not recognize, although it sounded sort of mournful. Something you might hear on death row, perhaps.
White light issued from that most hallowed of places: the girl’s bathroom, where periods were discovered, cigarettes smoked and boys gossiped about. At least hallowed to the minds and considerable imaginations of high school boys.
I rapped loudly on the open door.
The whistling stopped. A man’s head jerked around the corner of one of the stalls, eyes wide with alarm, as if he had been caught doing something. Whatever it was he was doing, I didn’t want to know. He was Hispanic, dark complexion, wide brown eyes. Perhaps forty-five. His forehead glistened with sweat.
“Hi,” I said, ever the friendly stranger.
He said nothing. His sewn-on name badge said Mario.
“Do you speak English, Mario?”
He nodded. I held up my badge proclaiming me as an official visitor. He relaxed a little. I stepped into the bathroom and he flinched. I handed him one of my cards, holding it before him, until he finally tore his gaze off me and took the card. He looked at it carefully.
“Nice picture, huh?” I said. I turned my head to the right and gave him the same smile that was on the card.
“You…you a private detective?” he said in strangled English.
“The very best this side of the Mississippi. Just don’t tell my pop that. He hates competition.”
He looked at me expressionlessly.
“Never mind,” I said. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
He shrugged, which was the correct response if my question was taken literally. I dunno, his shrug seemed to say, can you ask me a question?
“Much work to do,” he said.
“I bet.”
I reached inside my pocket and gave him a hundred dollar bill. He took it without realizing what he was reaching for. Then he shook his head vigorously and tried to give it back.
“Keep it,” I said.
“No, senor.”
He thrust it back into my pocket. Sometimes money talks, sometimes it doesn’t. I asked, “Were you here on the night Amanda Peterson was murdered?”
He blinked up at me. Whether or not he understood I didn’t know.
I forged bravely ahead. “On the night Amanda Peterson was murdered, could you verify whether or not Derrick Booker was in the school’s weight room?”
He said nothing. Sweat had broken out on his brow. He was looking increasingly troubled. “Please, senor. I know nothing.” His voice was pleading, filled with panic.
I studied him, watching his agitated body movements, and on a hunch I asked, “Has someone else been here to speak with you?” I asked. “An older man, perhaps? Gray hair, an earring.” I gestured to my ear. “A golden hoop?”
He was gasping for breath. “Please, senor. He scare my family.”
Bingo. I walked over to him and took my card from his trembling hands and placed it carefully in his overall’s pocket at his chest.
“I’m going to take care of him, Mario. I promise.”
He said nothing. We stared at each other. His eyes were wide and white.
The hitman had come to see him. Warned him to shut up. Threatened his family. No wonder Mario was terrified.
“It’s going to be alright, Mario. No one’s going to hurt you or your family.”
He said nothing more.
I left the way I had come.
31.
The day was bright and there was a chill to the air, but that did not stop eighty-three percent of the female college students at UCI from wearing tiny shorts and cut-off T-shirts that revealed many pierced belly buttons.
I had already tried one of the classrooms, using the schedule Cindy had faxed me, but I did not see a single young lady who looked like the framed picture on the Peterson’s mantle.
Now I was standing outside a classroom in the Humanities building. I was on the seventh floor and had a great shot of what the students here called Middle Earth, a beautiful central park located within the campus.
One of the problems I was running into were that many of the girls could have been A. Peterson. Hell, most of them were cute with dark hair.
“Excuse me,” said a voice behind me.
I turned away from the window. I saw that the class across the hall had just let out, and I had already missed a few faces. Damn. But standing in front of me was clearly A. Peterson. Cute face, cute button nose. But the cuteness ended there. Everything else about the girl was anything but cute.
“Miss Peterson?”
She nodded, frowning. “Are you the private investigator that came to see my mom?”
She looked haunted. No. She was haunted. Her pale eyes were empty, troubled and suspicious. A heavy backpack weighed her down, and she was hunched forward to support some of the weight. Her arms were crossed in front of her, her hands holding her bony shoulders. Her hair was dyed pitch black, skin pale and milky. She had a nose, tongue and brow ring. Had she decided to wear make-up, she would have been able to cover the dark rings around her eyes.
“How did you know me?” I asked.
“My mom described you. She called me last night. Said a tall muscular man with a full head of blond hair and a tattoo of a black horse on his forearm had come to see her about Amanda.” Her voice was soft and wispy. I strained to listen to her.
“And I fit the description?”
She looked at my crossed arms. The black horse, shooting steam from its nostrils, was clear on my left forearm.
“Plus,” she said, “You’re packing heat.”
She pointed to the bulge under my left armpit. I was leaning against the wall in such a way that the bulge was evident to those who knew where to look.
“You would make a hell of an investigator,” I said.
“Investigative journalism is my major.”
“I couldn’t think of a more fitting job,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Annette,” she said.
“Ah,” I said.
“And you found my classroom, so you’re not so bad yourself.” She might have grinned, but she had probably forgotten how.
“Glad I have your vote of confidence.”
“I assume you’re here to talk with me about my sister?”
“Yes,” I said. “That and more. Is there somewhere we can have privacy?”
