The library at Gardena High was much bigger than what Hunter had expected. The ‘Yearbooks’ section was located on the second floor and the first yearbook on the shelf dated back to the class of 1948. Hunter fought the urge to leaf through it, just for curiosity’s sake, and reached for the 2009 junior-high edition, which had a light blue cover, with a black panther at its center.
Yearbook in hand, Hunter found an empty table in the library’s sitting area and quickly flipped through the pages until he got to the graduating class of 2009.
It wasn’t unusual for a school with such a high number of students, like Gardena, to have more than one class per grade. During the 2008/2009 school year, Gardena Junior High had four separate eight-grade classes – 8A, 8B, 8C and 8D. 8A had fifty-one students, 8B fifty-two, 8C fifty and 8D also fifty-two.
Since they were the graduating class, eighth-graders had more yearbook pages allocated to them than any of the other grades. There was also an entire section – almost forty pages – dedicated to either showing student life in general, or highlighting specific students and their achievements in academics, sports, school clubs, student board, etc.; but what Hunter was really interested in was the class pages. Those looked just like any other yearbook in America – plastered with small headshots of every student in the class, with their names showing under each photo – an authentic Class of 2009 ‘who’s who’.
Hunter slowly scanned through all four pages of the 8A class, where he found none of the five students that he was looking for. Still, he grabbed his cellphone and snapped a photo of each page before moving on to the 8B class.
This time there were five pages of ID-sized photos. The first four pages showed four rows with four photos each. The last six student photos were spread, unevenly, over the fifth and last page.
Hunter found Janet Lang and Troy Foster right on the first page of the 8B class. He didn’t even need to check the names to correctly identify them.
On the next page, Hunter found Pedro Bustamente’s photo. He had been an average-looking kid, with midnight-black curly hair, dark eyes, chubby cheeks and a smile that didn’t look forced, as if he had actually enjoyed having that photo taken, something that most junior-high students certainly did not.
The very first photo on the third page was of Josie Moss. Her hair was a little shorter and a shade darker than when Hunter first met her, two days ago, but he still had no problems recognizing her. Her beauty hadn’t exactly changed in thirteen years, but it had clearly matured. From that one photo alone, it was easy to see that every boy, in all four eighth-grade classes, would probably have done anything just to grab her attention.
The fifth photo on the page was of the last student in their group – Sofia Risoli. She too was an attractive girl. The fringe of her long, straight dark hair fell over enigmatic deep brown eyes, framing a delicate, heart-shaped face. The braces on her teeth took nothing away from a smile that seemed warm and friendly. Hunter wondered if her beauty had matured in the same way as Josie Moss’s.
Out of pure curiosity, Hunter browsed through all the student photos of the two remaining eighth-grade classes – C and D. When he was done, he checked his watch and quickly returned to Principal Martinez’s office to tell Brenda, the secretary, that he was ready to see the seven members of staff on the list that she’d been given by the principal. Ten minutes later, back in the library, Hunter met Mr. Barros, the head janitor.
Mr. Barros was a sixty-four-year old, tall and slender man, who’d been working at Gardena High for twenty-five years, fifteen of them as the head janitor.
Hunter showed him the five yearbook photographs – Janet, Troy, Josie, Sofia and Pedro.
The first one that Mr. Barros recognized after just a couple of blinks was Troy Foster.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said in a voice that sounded as kind as the look in his eyes. ‘I remember him. Football player, right? Wide receiver. Fast as hell and very strong. This kid was going places.’
Out of the other four, the only one that Mr. Barros was able to vaguely remember was Josie Moss, but only because she had been part of the cheerleading team.
Hunter tried asking him about Troy and Josie together, if he remembered anything else about them other than football and cheerleading, but Mr. Barros could offer nothing else. Sounding apologetic, he explained that he was an old man now and that his memory wasn’t the same, but he was also just a simple school janitor. Students walked by him while he was cleaning the hallways, the classrooms, the bathrooms, etc., but very few ever spoke to him. He told Hunter that he did his job and tried as best as he could to keep himself to himself – students’ lives were none of his business. He said that he remembered Troy and Josie because he loved sports and whenever possible, he would watch the school games – junior-high and varsity.
After Mr. Barros, Hunter met the three members of the school canteen, the school gardener and one of the security guards. The second security guard was off that day.
All five of them were able to remember Troy, the football player, but none of the others, not even Josie. Hunter tried asking them all about school bullying, fights, pranks, anything that might’ve stood out. Something that maybe Troy had been involved in, since he was the only one they all remembered, but none of them could recall anything and they all gave Hunter a very similar answer. First, they were talking about thirteen years ago, which was quite an ask for anyone’s memory. Second, in a school with about fifteen hundred students, fights, pranks, and bullying happened every day, and that was not an exaggeration. It was a fact – physically stronger students bullied the weaker ones. Sports students bullied the ones that didn’t play any sports. Girls bullied other girls because of their hair, or their clothes, or their shoes, or any of a million silly excuses to be bitchy. That was also one of the biggest reasons why students hung out in groups. If anyone came across as a loner, or an outsider, that person would be picked on.
Just as Hunter finished his short interview with the security guard, the last of the available members of staff on the list he had, his cellphone vibrated inside his jacket pocket.
‘Robert,’ Garcia said, as Hunter took the call. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’
‘You found something?’
‘Yeah, I’d say so.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Pedro Bustamente’s death wasn’t suicide.’
There was a split second pause from Hunter. ‘Is that what Detective Lee told you?’
‘No. Detective Lee is certain that it was suicide,’ Garcia replied. ‘Classic open-and-shut case, but I found something that wasn’t mentioned in the file we got this morning.’
‘Really? What?’
‘There was a handwritten suicide note… left on the sink inside the bathroom. Written in Mr. Bustamente’s handwriting. His mother confirmed it at the time.’
Hunter felt his jaw muscles tighten. ‘OK, and what did it say?’
‘Are you sitting down?’
‘Yes. What did it say?’
‘ “Through this darkness, no light will ever burn as bright as yours.” ’