Looking at a sullen, disinterested sixteen-year-old Regan Haines was like looking at myself twenty years ago. His insolence was plainly visible in his expression and by the way he slouched in his chair looking at his nails as if we weren’t in the room with him. Others might’ve been put out by his behavior, but not me. At his age, I was angry at the world because my older brother, my hero, had been a victim of a convenience store robbery gone bad. I grew angrier and angrier with every day that his killer wasn’t caught. I can honestly say that I don’t know what would’ve happened to me had my football coach not given me a good shake when I needed it most. I transferred my emotion to the sport I loved most and then later into my education so I could be the best cop I could be. I didn’t know Regan’s reason for his attitude, but I was willing to bet it was from more than just boredom.
While his interview answers consisted of shrugs, the student who walked in after him was completely opposite. Lily Watson came into the office shaking like a Chihuahua. She took one look at Adrian and me then burst into tears.
“I did it!” She held out her hands in front of her like she expected us to cuff her.
Her confession took us off guard. She would’ve been the last person I suspected with her sweater set, pearls, and gray slacks. She looked like she was going to a church luncheon, not high school. I reminded myself that looks were often deceiving and my skills in that department were a bit rusty. I mean, a seventy-year-old woman got the drop on me and scrambled my brains. I once judged Josh as feminine because he had extra sway in his hips and wore vibrant clothes.
“You’reconfessing to putting the drugs in the locker next to yours, Lily?” Superintendent Sampson’s voice was as doubtful as my initial reaction to her confession.
“Drugs? What?” Lily sounded as confused as the rest of us.
“What exactly are you confessing to?” Sampson spoke slowly, enunciating every word carefully.
“Well, not that,” Lily answered. She began fiddling with her pearl necklace and chewing on her lower lip. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Had she been living under a rock? Josh heard about it before I arrived on the scene, yet a student didn’t know it was going on in her own building.
Superintendent Sampson asked, “How could you not know?”
“Um… you see…”
“Lily!” The superintendent’s loud, harsh voice was enough to scare me into a confession.
“I played hooky yesterday, ma’am. I stayed up too late watching Netflix the night before instead of studying for the biology exam. It counts for thirty percent of my grade and I just couldn’t take the chance I’d fail it.” Lily began to cry again. “My mom doesn’t know I missed school yesterday. I called in and pretended to be her when I left a message on the student absentee voicemail box.”
Superintendent Sampson let out a frustrated breath before she said, “We’ll deal with that later. These detectives are here to ask you questions about the locker between you and Regan Haines.”
“Oh.”
“Lily, have you seen anyone accessing that locker? Students or faculty?” Adrian asked.
“No, sir.”
“What about anyone selling drugs in the school?” I asked her.
“I’m not very social. I only care about getting good enough grades to get a scholarship so I can get the hell out of here.” She raised her chin and looked at the superintendent. “I’ll gladly take whatever punishment you deem necessary for my actions yesterday, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t put that in my transcripts. I’ve had an exemplary record thus far.”
“I’ll consider it,” Sampson said. Lily’s plea must’ve struck a chord because she sounded less like a battle ax and more like a human.
The staff interviews were a lot less eventful and not nearly as entertaining. Each faculty member seemed to be shocked about the drugs, had no idea who was involved, and couldn’t believe that any student had connections to someone who could move that volume of drugs around. I thought the morning was a complete bust until the final two minutes of the last interview with the geometry teacher.
“But you know,” Doug Baxter said, almost as a second thought. “There was a band concert the night before the bust so the whole town had access to the building. And if the office was unlocked, then anyone who’s gone to school here in the last twenty-five years knows where the school secretary keeps spare keys in her desk.”
I looked over at Adrian who fell into that category. “Middle drawer on the right-hand side,” he answered without being asked.
“Great! The whole damn town is a suspect,” I told Adrian when we were on our way back to the police station.
“Including the secretary. She’s about Wanda Honeycutt’s age.” Adrian didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice when he brought up the name of the woman who clobbered me.
“I don’t know why you’re so damn smug,” I told him. “She hit you too.”
“Yeah, but not as hard.” Adrian laughed for a minute and then said, “Probably because you went all bad cop on her while I was nice.”
“Fuck you, Adrian.” My ire only made him laugh harder. I was glad I could give him something to laugh about after a morning of interviews that gave us more questions and suspects than what we started with. “Just for that, you get to tell Cap that we’ve got nothing to go on.”
It was my turn to laugh at Adrian’s misery, even more so when he returned from his solo trip to the captain’s office with his tail between his legs. “I was going to name my firstborn child after you, but you can fucking forget it now. I thought Gabriel or Gabriella Goode sounded like sweet names for a baby, but not anymore.”
I suspected that Adrian was just teasing me, but just the thought that I could possibly mean that much to him moved me more than I could say. Adrian had become more than just a partner to me, he was my best friend and my brother. “Nah, Sally Ann likes Josh better and we all know who the boss is in your home. You’ll be having a Josh or a Josephine.”
Adrian chuckled good-naturedly and I was glad to see the sting of the captain’s bite didn’t linger. “What do you have planned for tonight? Big date?”
