CHAPTER 28

Pusser didn’t give me much of a choice, so I left.

But on the way home, I stopped by the high school, picked up a stack of yearbooks and a list of staff who had worked during the years Walker and Bannock were in school. I needed something, anything, to keep my brain from flashing images of Doogan lying there. It was like being on a retrieval mission, where “Do your damned job!” became the mantra as you ignored the bile-inducing images assaulting you. Right now, I was allowed to do only one job: find the Walker/Bannock connection.

I spent the rest of the day researching, starting with the teachers. It’d been seventeen years, so many of them had moved on, a few had passed on, but a couple were still around. I made the calls, set up interviews.

We decided to start with Mrs. Handie, English teacher, retired.

Parks and I knocked on her door the next morning, at nine o’clock.

A woman with big orange hair held back by bright barrettes answered the door and blinked twice at my dog. She hesitated, then invited us inside, served us sweaty glasses of sweet tea and butter cookies on doily-covered plates before settling into a pale blue recliner.

She regarded me with black marker eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “I hope the tea’s not too sweet. It’s hard to know how much sugar to add.”

My glass had a lip stain on the rim, sticky burnt orange with a little shimmer. I turned it and pretended to sip from the other side. “Perfect,” I said, my eyes settling on Wilco, who stood alert and hyperfocused on a cat sitting on the end table: long cream-colored fur and piercing blue eyes. Exquisite, except for the fact that it was dead and stuffed.

Mrs. Handie caught Wilco and me gawking. “Isn’t she a beauty?” Gnarled-knuckled hands stroked the cat’s fur. “Such a good girl, too.”

Parks coughed and set down her glass. “I believe Deputy Callahan told you that we wanted to ask you a few questions about your former students Chance Walker and Reed Bannock.”

“Yes. I remember those two boys.” She continued to stroke the cat, her eyes sparkling with admiration, then she looked at my dog with disdain. “Princess doesn’t much care for dogs.”

Parks shot me a “What the hell?” look. I cleared my throat, bent forward, tapped Wilco, and motioned for him to sit down. “How long did you teach English at McCreary High?”

“Twenty-nine years. And just senior English.” She squinted at Parks. “Do I remember you, honey?”

Parks squirmed. “No, ma’am. I didn’t take senior English.”

I cut back in. “And you remember Chance Walker and Reed Bannock?”

“Yes. I already told you that.” She sipped her tea, and the glass came away rim kissed, with its own pair of shimmering burnt-orange lips.

“Do you know if the two boys knew each other?”

She put her tea glass down and sank back in the recliner with a couple rapid blinks. “Yes, they knew each other. They were both in my class.”

“They were in the same class? I don’t understand. Bannock was a couple years ahead of Walker in school.”

“My summer remedial course. That’s what we called it back then, remedial. It was a multigrade class. Summer school operated differently. If there weren’t enough students for multiple classes, we combined them.”

“Did they hang out together after class?”

Mrs. Handie stared, her gaze empty and distant, the right side of her face twitching. Twitch, twitch, twitch . . . She bolted upright, jerked around, looked at the cat, then turned back and zeroed in on Wilco. “Princess doesn’t like you.”

Wilco looked up at the woman’s sudden movement and cocked an ear and whimpered a little.

Parks rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. “Mrs. Handie, were Walker and Bannock friends?”

Mrs. Handie stood. “Yes. I would say so. They were pranksters. Always causing trouble. Boys will be boys, you know.” She tugged at her blouse, red polyester stretched tight over a sagging bosom, her eyes never leaving Wilco. “It would be best if you and your dog could go now. In fact, I insist. It’s time for Princess’s nap.”