“That’s certainly an interesting development,” Carly says.
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I’ve just finished briefing her and Lindzi about everything that’s happened in Sturgis since the infamous roundtable meeting. Well, almost everything. “Which part?” I ask, because even leaving out my conversation with a drunken Tripp, we’ve covered a lot of ground, between Colin Jeffries, the Gunnar Fox video, the vandalism of Mr. Larkin’s portrait and Ms. Kelso’s flyers, and my visit to Mr. Solomon’s.
“ ‘That son of a bitch got what he deserved,’ ” Carly says thoughtfully, tapping her pen on her notepad. We’re in one of the smaller Motive conference rooms, Peacock, which is my favorite because it has cushiony armchairs for seating. She gives me a wry smile. “Not to say that the rest of your update hasn’t been full of surprises. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say. I was a little wary of telling Carly that I’d been hit by Colin, or had had a shotgun aimed at me, because in my experience, that’s the kind of thing that makes authority figures want to lock you away for all
eternity. But Carly and Lindzi took everything in stride, like it’s all just another day at work. And I suppose for them it probably is.
“Good.” Carly leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers beneath her chin. “And you say Mr. Solomon had never made that kind of statement before?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” I say. “But Tripp says he’s kind of senile, so maybe he was confused.”
“Entirely possible,” Carly agrees. Her eyes gleam. “You don’t suppose Mr. Solomon could have done it, do you?”
“Done what?” It takes a few seconds for what she means to sink in. “Killed Mr. Larkin? Oh my God, no. No way.”
“That was a very quick denial,” Carly says. “Why?” “Because he’s a sweet old man!” I say.
“Who pulled a gun on you,” she points out. “He thought we were trespassing.”
“Still. It’s quite the overreaction.”
“How could he kill someone like Mr. Larkin, though?” I ask. “Mr.
Solomon was old and frail even back then.”
Lindzi speaks up. “It wouldn’t have taken all that much strength, actually. The murder weapon is less heavy than you might expect.”
I blink at her. “It is? How do you know?”
“Because we got evidence photos from the Sturgis Police yesterday.” My jaw drops as Lindzi adds, “Sorry. I would’ve told you straightaway, but your update was way too interesting. Have a look.” She taps a few keys on her laptop and spins it toward me. Before I have time to prepare myself, there it is—the jagged, blood-soaked rock that ended Mr. Larkin’s life. The first thing that strikes me is that Lindzi is right; it’s not nearly as big as I imagined. I pictured a boulder, almost, something of such significant mass that nobody could survive being hit by it. But in reality, it’s only about twice the size of my hand.
“There were no fingerprints except for Shane’s, so the killer was probably wearing gloves,” Lindzi says. “Not surprising, since the temperature was barely forty that day.”
She enlarges the photo, one finger tracing the edge of the rock on- screen. “William Larkin was struck in the back of the head,” she says. “Right at the base of his skull. Kind of like a rabbit punch in boxing, which is banned because it’s so deadly.” Bile threatens to rise in my throat then, and I have to swallow a few times to force it down as Lindzi keeps talking. “The person who did this might have been skilled, or they might have made a lucky shot. Well, an unlucky shot, obviously, for William, who either was unaware that anyone was behind him or was in the process of walking away from them. Whatever happened, the blow that killed William wasn’t self- defense.”
“Lindzi,” Carly says in a forbidding tone. “You can’t deliver a monologue like that without warning. Brynn is positively green.”
Lindzi looks up with a chagrined grimace as she catches sight of my face. “Sorry. I get carried away sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” I say, tugging at my bracelet. But I want to stop looking at the rock, so I add, “What else do you have?” Then I wish I’d kept quiet, because I’m suddenly terrified that she’ll show me pictures of Mr. Larkin’s body.
Instead she pulls up a photo of a thin silver chain. “The police wouldn’t share everything. But there’s this. William Larkin was wearing it when he died—well, not wearing it, exactly, because it seems to have broken when he was struck. But it was inside his shirt.”
“Really?” I ask, squinting at the screen. “I’ve never seen that before. I wouldn’t have taken him for a jewelry kind of guy.” There’s a thumbnail photo on Lindzi’s desktop of a man who’s too small to see clearly, and I ask, “Who’s that?”
“Your principal,” Lindzi says, enlarging what turns out to be a Sturgis Times article. “Or your head of school, I guess. That’s what they call them in private schools, right?”
“Sometimes, yeah,” I say.
The picture is of Grizz in the Saint Ambrose school office, beaming as he holds up a large turquoise envelope covered with stickers. The headline reads, Weekend Car Wash Pushes Saint Ambrose Fundraising Efforts Over
the Top. “And the mysterious money envelope,” Lindzi says. “The class-trip money that was stolen was in a smaller Saint Ambrose envelope, and then that plus the donor list was put inside the turquoise envelope and kept in the school office.” She smiles wryly. “Not very secure, especially after that photo op. Anyway, police found the Saint Ambrose envelope in Charlotte Holbrook’s locker, but not the turquoise envelope.”
“I’ve seen that before,” I say, frowning at Lindzi’s screen. “The article?” she asks.
“No, the envelope.”
“At school, probably, right?” Lindzi says.
“I don’t think so,” I say slowly. “Well, maybe, but…it feels out of context.”
“Out of context how?” Carly pounces, like my answer is of profound importance. And then I feel foolish, because I honestly have no idea.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Maybe I just didn’t realize what it was for.”
“Well, it was never found after it went missing,” Carly says. “Although all the money was accounted for in the smaller envelope found in Charlotte’s locker.” She taps her pen again, thoughtful. “You said Charlotte claimed she didn’t know how it got there, right?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Did you believe her?”
“I mean…yeah,” I say slowly, casting back to my eighth-grade mindset. “Everybody did. For one thing, she didn’t need it. But even if Charlotte had been some kind of kleptomaniac back then, I don’t know why she would have kept the money sitting around in her locker. It had been missing for more than two weeks before Mr. Larkin died, so she would have had plenty of time to put it someplace else.”
“Any repercussions for her at all?” Carly asks.
“No,” I say. “Grizz—Mr. Griswell, I mean—wouldn’t even let me report on it for the school paper. He said we all needed to heal.”
Carly snorts as Lindzi asks, “What was the timing? Mr. Larkin was killed, and they found the money the next day?”
“Two days later,” I say.
“How would someone have gotten Charlotte’s locker combination?” Lindzi asks.
“They wouldn’t need it,” I say. “They could’ve just slipped the envelope inside—our lockers have big vents in front. We used to use them to leave notes for one another.” That became a sore point for me after the gym class incident, when Katie Christo started dropping off mocking notes about my alleged crush on Tripp. Trippstalker, she wrote on one, drawing a heart-eyes cartoon version of me staring at Tripp.
Tripp, who’s been avoiding me all week at school, and hasn’t answered any of my How are you feeling? texts. Tripp, who never unconsciously touched his finger and thumb together at Charlotte’s party Saturday night, which means he was telling the truth.
I needed you to hate me.
Why? Because you’d suddenly decided to hate me back then?
No, Brynn. I didn’t hate you back then. And I don’t hate you now. Not even a little bit.
“So if it wasn’t Charlotte, who do you think took the money?” Carly asks. “And why would they frame her?”
“What?” I blink, and give myself a little shake to bring my mind back.
Focus, Brynn. “I’m not sure.”
Carly turns to Lindzi. “It’ll be interesting, when we get to the interview stage, to hear what the police theories were about that theft. And whether they think there’s any connection to William Larkin’s murder.”
Lindzi nods, eyes on her phone. “Here’s something else that’s interesting.” She holds it up. “I just heard from the public relations department at the Sturgis Police Foundation. The Delgado Properties donation was made on April 30, 2018. So about a month after the money went missing, and eighteen days after William Larkin died.”
“Convenient timing,” Carly says. “And that’s the only year they ever donated?”
“Yup,” Lindzi says.
Carly’s gaze sharpens. “Those kids know more than they’re saying.”
My stomach gives an uncomfortable twist. I’m sure she’s right, and for a second I’m equally sure I don’t want to know the truth. Part of me is stubbornly clinging to the eighth-grade image of my heroic classmates, leading police to Mr. Larkin so the wheels of justice could start to turn. Except, of course, they never really did.
“Have you gotten any tips yet about Mr. Larkin?” I ask. “From the website?”
“We had a few technical difficulties, so his section just went up yesterday,” Lindzi says. “So far it’s nothing but junk, which isn’t unusual. Once it’s been live for a week or so, we should start getting higher-quality information.”
“All right.” Carly checks the slim Rolex on her wrist. “This has been a good discussion, but I need to break. It’s almost time for me to get on the phone and do battle with Ramon.”
“About Mr. Larkin?” I ask.
She gives a rueful chuckle. “About everything. Listen, Brynn. I appreciate all you’ve shared to date, but please be sure to keep your distance from Richard Solomon. I don’t like what I heard today.”
I nod, and after she leaves, Lindzi says, “Brynn, you can finish up working in here if you want. Nobody has it booked for the rest of the day, and I noticed the Pit was kind of crowded.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“I’ll share the photo file with you too,” she says, gathering her laptop to her chest. “I promise there’s nothing more gory than the rock in there.”
I spend my final hour at Motive putting the finishing touches on Lindzi’s female serial killer spreadsheet. The roundtable for that story is coming up next week, and Lindzi’s been cramming like it’s a final exam so she doesn’t get caught off guard by another unexpected Ramon d’Arturo appearance. It’s past five o’clock when I finish, and I take my phone out to check for texts.
My group chat with Izzy and Olivia has gotten a little quiet recently, but it’s not dead yet. I answer that first, giving my input on Izzy’s latest boyfriend drama (His mom does like you, that’s just her face) and Olivia’s
semiannual question about getting bangs (DO NOT). I have a bunch of notifications from Mason, who spent most of Charlotte’s party hanging out with Geoff and is now overanalyzing every syllable of their conversation. Nadia wants to make plans to study for an upcoming math test, and Ellie sent a clip of her playing “Despacito” on the flute that’s so good, all I can do is send back a string of applause GIFs.
Nothing from Tripp.
It’s not as bad as I thought, being back in Sturgis, except for the part where Tripp Talbot is as big a thorn in my side now as he was at the end of eighth grade. When we’re talking, he annoys me. But when we’re not talking, that’s somehow worse.
My laptop is still open, and before I finish packing up, I navigate to the main Motive drive and open the William Larkin folder. Lindzi was true to her word; she gave me permissions to access a subfolder labeled Photos/Images. I take pictures of everything in the file with my phone, then click on the Sturgis Cable Access video I played during my short-lived roundtable presentation. “I enjoyed working at the Eliot School. But Saint Ambrose is something special,” Mr. Larkin says on-screen.
I pause the video, open Google, and type in Eliot School. The web address pops up, leading me to an aerial shot of a redbrick campus in Providence, Rhode Island, surrounded by vibrant fall foliage. I click on About Us and read the mission statement and the at-a-glance section before pulling up a biography for the head of school. The first sentence reads, Jonathan Bartley-Reed has served as head of the Eliot School since July 1, 2013.
There’s a phone number at the bottom, and I lift my phone to dial it. I’m not expecting an answer, since it’s past five o’clock, but someone picks up on the second ring. “Jonathan Bartley-Reed’s office,” a woman says.
“Oh, hi.” I’m stumped for a beat, but recover. “Is Mr. Bartley-Reed available?”
“I’m sorry, he’s left for the day. Can I take a message?”
“Yes. Could you tell him that Brynn Gallagher from”—where should I say that I’m from? Motive? No, probably not—“Saint Ambrose School in
Sturgis, Massachusetts, wanted to speak with him?”
“Of course, Ms. Gallagher. And what is this in regard to?” “A former employee.”
“Very well. Could I get your number?” I recite it, and she says, “I’ll ask him to return your call at his earliest convenience. Have a lovely evening.”
“Thanks, you too,” I say, and hang up.
I stare at the paused video on my laptop screen. Mr. Larkin is perched at the edge of his classroom desk, just like he used to do every time he’d give me a pep talk in eighth grade. When life hands you lemons, make lemon cake.
“I’m trying,” I say to the empty room.
