The hot afternoon sun had turned the sky to a gray haze stew. In a nearby park, trees undulated and bowed restlessly in the fitful breeze, the silky shoosh of their leaves sounding like distant applause from an outdoor amphitheater. As I waited at a red light, I could almost smell the rain on the verge of dropping from the clouds.
Who would have ratted Knudsen out? And why?
You can run from the past, but it always catches up with you. Had someone from Knudsen's past caught up with him? Ryan Bledsoe might know, but he was in Ocean City by now.
I could think of people I hated in high school—if I really gave it some thought. I could hardly remember most of them now. If someone from Knudsen's past had it in for him, he must have done something dreadful—something a person would remember fifteen or twenty years later.
The light changed. Instead of going straight to I-95, however, I asked the first passerby I saw the way to Dundalk High School.
I pulled into the school's lot and parked next to the low, flat building. Strolling the quiet, locker-lined halls, I flashed back to a time when a place like this was my universe—a place where cliques ruled and some scowling academic was either threatening to fail you or put a black mark on your permanent record.
I got good grades and never had a smudge, as far as I knew, on that much-storied record, but the high school experience was a far from satisfactory one for me. My memory was of social circles—jocks, scholars, nerds, freaks. Then there was that special group—the ruling elite. The ones who ran for student council or edited the yearbook. The ones who always had the right clothes or just seemed to have a special aura. I was at the other end of the social spectrum—one of the kids so far out of the loop, we didn't merit a special category. I wondered where they were now, those kids who peaked in high school. Probably fat, alcoholic, and either unhappily married or miserably alone—at least, I wanted to think so.
No one was behind the counter in the administrative office. A desk on the other side had a nameplate reading, Ida Wilkie, but Ida herself was not present. Then a petite, middle-aged woman appeared with several files on one arm. The woman had a broad, florid face, pert nose, and short hair, just a trifle too dark and monochromatic to be her real color. She beamed at me, as if glad for the interruption.
"Can I help you?" she said, setting the files on her desk.
"I hope so. My name's Sam McRae. I'm an attorney, representing someone in a case involving two guys who were students here. I don't know if you would know them. It was over fifteen years ago."
"I was here."
"The names are Gregory Knudsen and Bruce Schaeffer."
"Oh." Her eyes widened and the shadow of some emotion I couldn't identify crossed her face.
"You recognize the names?"
"Yes, I do. And you're a lawyer, you said? What did you say this was about?"
"Gregory Knudsen was murdered a few weeks ago. Just this morning, Bruce Schaeffer was also found dead."
She looked grim. "Murdered?"
"It looks like suicide, but I have my doubts."
"Who are you representing?"
"The person accused of Knudsen's murder."
Ida didn't say anything. She didn't look quite as happy to talk to me.
"My client is innocent. I have a witness who can establish that. She was set up, possibly by someone those guys knew in high school. That person may have killed both of them."
"Why would it be another student from this school?"
"I'm not sure. I know that Greg Knudsen left Maryland about fifteen years ago and came back recently. And from what I understand, Knudsen and Schaeffer were troublemakers in high school."
Ida lifted an eyebrow. "I can't talk about their disciplinary records, you know."
"I'm not as interested in that as in finding out who their enemies were."
"Oh, they had plenty."
"Can you remember who? It's been a long time, and I realize you probably aren't that close to the students."
"You'd be surprised." She gave me a wry smile. "They talk to me sometimes. Especially the troubled ones, who end up in there." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, toward what I assumed was the principal's office. "Seems like we're getting more of those."
"You'd remember stuff from fifteen years ago?"
She tapped her temple with an index finger. "I remember everything. My friends say I have total recall. I don't know. But I remember lots of things, and I've been here thirty-five years. Can you believe it?"
I peered at her. I realized she must be quite a bit older than she looked, maybe her late sixties. "Well, no, actually. You don't look a day over forty—forty-five —tops."
She burst out laughing. "You're so sweet." She gave the word so that nasal Baltimore sound—sohww.
"Can you remember anyone in particular? An enemy or even a friend they might have double-crossed or something?"
One side of Ida's mouth quirked up, forming a parentheses mark on her cheek. "They were quite a pair. Frequent visitors here. Like I said, plenty of people had reason to dislike them."
"I spoke to someone who attended school around the same time. Ryan Bledsoe."
"Mmm-hmm."
"He told me they were expelled after a chemistry lab fire."
"I can't talk—"
"I know you can't talk about their records. Can you confirm a rumor? Was someone killed in that fire?"
She looked at me.
"Ryan Bledsoe told me they were expelled, and said there was a rumor that someone died in the fire. Is this true?"
She continued to look at me, her expression thoughtful. "No. But you're on the right track."
It took a moment for me to realize what she was saying. "Someone was hurt?"
She nodded.
"Badly?"
She nodded again.
"A student?"
More nodding. It felt like a game of twenty questions.
"What happened to the student?"
"She dropped out of school. Don't know what happened after that."
A girl, I thought. "I don't suppose you'd remember her name?"
Ida smiled. "I figured you might get around to that."
"Do you remember?"
"The mother sued the school. The case settled. The school board wanted to keep it quiet. Legally, I don't think anything prevents me from talking about it, but I've been, um, encouraged not to, in the interests of this person's privacy."
Or the school board's interest in sweeping the matter under the rug, I thought. "So you can't reveal the name?"
"I'd prefer not to."
"Even if this injured student might have killed two people?"
She didn't say anything.
I tried another tack. "This fire—it happened when Knudsen and Schaeffer were juniors?"
"Yes," she said, throwing aside all bureaucratic pretense of not discussing the matter.
"The student—also a junior?"
"Uh huh."
"I was wondering—do you have copies of the yearbooks for that time?"
Ida smiled. "Yes, in the library. I can get them for you." She fished a key ring from a drawer.
I tried to calculate which years I'd want. "I'd be interested in—"
"I think I know which ones." She left the office. She returned a few minutes later with two yearbooks, which she set on a round table in the corner. One would have been from the guys' junior year, the other from the year after.
I sat at the table. If my theory didn't pan out, this could take a while, and it would be tedious. I could check the junior class pictures in the earlier yearbook against the senior photos in the later yearbook and narrow the suspects down to a manageable set of names.
But I already had a theory about who it was. A girl with a Baltimore accent.
"Thanks," I said to Ida. I opened the book and went right to the J's in the junior class photos.
Ida stood and watched. Finally, she said, "You might try the Ts," and walked away.
φ φ φ
Despite the different name,I recognized her. Just to be sure, I checked the senior photos for the following year. As I expected, Rhonda Timson wasn't among them. Somewhere along the line, she must have married or changed her name. She was younger, thinner, and free of facial scars, but it was Rhonda Jacobi.