“I know it takes time to do a full report, and I truly appreciate you getting the preliminary one to us early. Seriously, that was great. But what I’m asking now is—could the prints have been faked? Is there any way for you totestif they were faked?”
Jericho already knew the answer to both questions; he wasn’t a total rookie. But he didn’t want to come across like some big-city big shot trying to teach the locals how to do their job. So he waited quietly, and finally the fingerprint tech said, “Yes. Itispossible to fake fingerprints. That’s usually something we expect to see in technological applications, though—identity theft or that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, I know it’s a long shot, but I’d like your expert opinion on it all the same. Like, is thereanythingweird about the prints? Or, I don’t know, could you do a test, see if there were any traces of synthetics on the source material, or—you know what to look for, obviously. But if there was anything like that, it would be great to hear about it.”
“It would be?” The tech sounded genuinely confused. “Usually the police aren’t hoping for ways to weaken their own evidence.”
“Well, I didn’t mean ‘great’ like that’s what I want. I just meant it would be better to hear about it now than at trial, you know?”
“Yeah, okay,” the tech said cautiously. “I’ll see what I can find. Okay?”
“I’d appreciate it. Thanks.”
Jericho set the phone down. One job down, but quite a few more to go.
The next task took him out of the office. He hadn’t been inside the elementary school since his own days attending; on a couple of occasions he’d been called to deal with Elijah’s nonsense, but he’d always managed to sort things out off-property or in the parking lot. Now, though, he was going in. It was still a week or so until school started, but there were cars on the gravel in front of the building; some of the staff, at least, were at work.
He took a deep breath, pulled open the front doors, and headed for the office. When he arrived, the woman behind the desk was far too familiar. “Mrs. Andarov?”
She looked up, squinted, and then accused, “Jericho Crewe.”
Damn, the woman had seemed old when Jericho had been a student, but maybe that had just been a child’s perception. Now, though, twenty years later, she was absolutely ancient. Why did she still have a job?Howdid she still have a job? And how the hell had she recognized him?
“Mrs. Andarov. Wow. It’s good to see you.”
“Because you have such fond memories of your visits to the office?” she asked dryly. Her accent remained strong, and he idly remembered the gossip about her being a Soviet spy. “I heard you were back in town. I was a little surprised to hear your profession, I admit.”
“Yeah, you’re not the only one. I guess back in those days I was just searching for some structure, you know? I needed discipline to give me a sense of my place in the universe.”
“Don’t get sassy with me, Jericho.”
“Sorry.” He hadn’t thought she’d catch the sarcasm.
“Are you here about Elijah or about Nicolette?”
“Uh, neither, actually. Unless I need to be? Are they okay?”
She raised an eyebrow, making it obvious thatokaywas a relative term. “School is out, so I am unaware of any crises. But if you’re not here for them—”
“Wait. You’re right, I’m not here for them. But, off the record—” He tried his best panty-dropping smile and was rewarded with an impatient grimace. “Uh, off the record,arethey okay? And even further off the record—was there a time when they weren’t?”
“I think you need to be more precise in your questioning.”
Jesus. She might be old, but she sure hadn’t softened over the years. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but have you had any reason to expect that they were being . . . abused? That things were difficult at home?”
“They were living with your father. Is that not enough reason for us to suspect abuse?”
Jericho wasn’t sure he’d ever been made to feel so personally guilty for his father’s failings. It was as if Mrs. Andarov had tapped right into his self-recriminations and decided they were completely accurate. “Other than that? Did you ever see anything concrete?”
She frowned. “Why are you asking?”
“I just want to know what I’m dealing with. I’m trying to take a more active role in their lives, but that would be easier if I knew what they were up against. What their past was like.”
“You should pay less attention to their past, and convince them to concentrate on their future.”
Jericho didn’t have the patience for this, but he forced himself to smile. “That’s great advice. Thank you.” And maybe it was time to move on. “Actually, I’m here for a different reason. I’m looking for a previous address for a couple of your students—Miranda and Alisha Wooderson. They would have transferred in sometime in the fall, as I understand it. Can you tell me where they came from?” Because Keith Wooderson had said it was none of Jericho’s business, and there was something about that refusal that had made Jericho’s instincts kick in. Maybe he was just being a bully, trying to enforce authority he didn’t have. Or maybe there was a dodgy vibe about Wooderson. Damn, he needed to be careful, because he was reallyhopingthere was something dodgy about Wooderson, and that sort of predisposition wasn’t going to produce good police work.
Luckily, Mrs. Andarov seemed unconcerned with Jericho’s inner turmoil and willing to cooperate. “Such nice girls,” she said as she stood up and headed for a long filing cabinet along the back of the room. “A little quiet, but that’s a nice change from all the rowdiness.”
