Staring down at what looks to be report cards, I ask, “What are we looking at?”
“These are from last year.” He points to the first page. “Fall term. Midterm grades.” I look at the page he’s referring to and read through her list of classes. She was enrolled in Math 140, Biology 201, Art History 280, and English 228.
I’m not sure which courses the numbers represent, but as I’m about to pull my phone out to check, Finch has beat me to it. Reading from his own phone, he says, “Math 140 is Algebra.”
“Okay.”
“Biology 201.” He pauses. “Intro to Environmental Issues.”
“Art History 280 is pretty self-explanatory,” I say.
Finch nods. “English 228 is….” He nods after a beat. “Got it. Survey of American Lit since 1865.”
Now that we know the courses, I look at her midterm grades. She had A’s in both her art history and biology classes. In math, a C-. But the midterm grade for English? “She had an F in the American lit class.”
“Yep, an F,” repeats Dan. “Now look at this.” He pulls out the second sheet. “Her final grades for fall.”
“Wow. She really turned it around in English,” Finch says with a nod.
I look at the sheet. Finch may be right. She got her shit together and raised her grade from an F to an A. It can happen.
“Uh-huh,” Dan mumbles. “Check this out.” He grabs the third sheet. “Her spring schedule.”
I read through the list and see a sociology class, two education classes, a gym class, and another English course.
Before I can ask a question, Dan says, “I looked it up. English 362 was taught by the same professor as the English class she nearly flunked in the fall.”
I look at Dan, then down at the papers. “And?”
“Well, if that were me,” Finch says, pointing at her spring schedule, “and I struggled or had to work extra hard to pass the last English class, I don’t think I’d take another one. At the very least, I’d take it with another professor.”
“Do we have the grades for spring?”
Dan shakes his head. “Not in this stuff.”
“Was there anything from her apartment?”
“We weren’t looking for that,” Finch says, stepping away from the table.
“We can try the registrar’s office,” Dan suggests as Finch grabs one of the boxes of papers from Kara’s apartment and sets it in front of me. He does the same two more times until we each have a box to sort through.
“Probably need a subpoena,” I mumble, reaching into the box to take a stack of papers. “Let’s look through these and go from there.”
With each of us sorting through her papers in silence, I can’t help getting the feeling Dan was right and we’re on to something.
After about forty minutes and two cups of terrible Ames PD coffee, Finch announces, “Got it.”
Dan and I move in until we’re looking over Finch’s shoulder as he points. “Spring midterms.”
Again, she does okay in her other classes, getting As and Bs, but English, another F.
“Did you find the final grades?” I ask Finch.
“Yep.” He slaps down the second page. “She ended up with an A in English 362: Studies in 19th-Century American Lit.”
We stare at the pages for several minutes. My mind is whirring.
“I’m still not sure why this is significant,” Finch says. It’s a good question.
