Dead air.
Fifteen minutes later the phone rang again.
“You free?” Slidell asked.
“I could be.”
“Pick you up in ten.”
“Where are we going?”
“Kannapolis.”
Ethel Bradford taught junior and senior chemistry at A. L. Brown High School from 1987 until her retirement in 2004. She still lived in the house she’d purchased upon landing that job.
Save for the blasting AC and angry air whistling in and out of Slidell’s nose, the drive from Charlotte to Kannapolis passed in silence. Skinny alternated between drumming agitated fingers and gripping the wheel so tightly I thought he might crush it.
Though the temperature inside the Taurus was subarctic, the space was ripe with odors. Old Whoppers and fries. Cold coffee. The bamboo mat on which Skinny parked his ample backside.
Slidell himself. The man reeked of cigarette smoke, drugstore cologne, and garments long overdue for hamper or dry cleaner.
I was bordering on queasiness and hypothermia when Slidell pulled to the curb in front of a small brick bungalow with green shutters and trim. Hydrangeas bordered the foundation. Potted geraniums lined brick steps leading to the front porch.
“Is she expecting us?” I asked.
“Eeyuh.”
Pushing off the seat back with an elbow, Slidell hauled himself from behind the wheel. I followed him up the walk.
The inner door swung open before Slidell’s thumb hit the bell.
I’d formed a mental image, perhaps based on my own high school chemistry teacher. Ethel Bradford was younger than I expected, probably just a hair north of sixty-five, slim, with boy-cut auburn hair. Her pale blue eyes looked enormous behind thick round glasses.
Slidell made introductions and held his badge to the screen. Without studying it, Bradford stepped back and opened the outer door. I noted that she hadn’t dressed up for our visit. She wore khaki shorts, a checked cotton blouse, and was barefoot.
Bradford led us down a hall lined with framed travel photos, then through an arched opening to the right. The living room had linen drapes and a tan Oushak rug overlying a gleaming oak floor. The brick fireplace was painted white to match the woodwork and flanking bookcases.
“Please.” Bradford gestured at a leather sofa.
Slidell took one end. I took the other. Bradford sat in an armchair on the far side of a steamer trunk doing duty as a coffee table.
Before Slidell could begin, Bradford started asking questions.
“Have you found Cindi?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Is she dead?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Has new information emerged?”
“No, ma’am. We’d just like to ask a few questions.”
“Just seems odd, that’s all. After so much time.” Bradford twisted sideways and tucked her bare feet up under her bum.
“Yes, ma’am. So you do remember Cindi Gamble?”
“Of course I do. She was an excellent student. There were far too few of those. I also knew her through STEM.”
“STEM?” Slidell pulled a spiral pad from his pocket, flipped pages with a spitted thumb, and clicked a pen to readiness.
“The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Club. Cindi was a member. I was faculty adviser.”
“You remember when she went missing?”
Slidell got a withering look from behind the Harry Potter lenses.
“I assume you were questioned at the time,” he said.
“Briefly. The police lost interest because I couldn’t really tell them much.” Using one finger, Bradford shot her glasses up the bridge of her nose. They immediately dropped back into the groove in which they’d been resting.
“What did you tell them?”
“Cindi stopped coming to school.”
“That’s it?”
