What Janie Saw. Pamela Tracy

out.

      Janie regained her composure, smoothed back her unruly strawberry-blond hair, and went on, “I’d earlier set up the stations and put handouts on the back table. So, when I got there, the students were signing in and already starting to work on their major projects.”

      “What was Derek working on?”

      “It’s a medieval battle scene. Very detailed. He’s done two others so far. All pretty much the same focus. Lots of blood, battle, destruction.”

      “You say you got there right on time. Is being on time important?”

      She hesitated before answering, “Yes, for both me and the students. I take points from students who are late. If they’re more than twenty minutes late, I count them absent.”

      Rafe nodded. So, Miss Janie Vincent was a free spirit who also liked rules. “Seems to me that someone as concerned about punctuality as you are would arrive to class early, just in case a student needed to talk to you, or something.”

      Her lips pursed together before she said, “I used to get there early, but then...”

      “Then?”

      She looked him right in the eye. “Then Derek Chaney started arriving early, too. At first, it wasn’t so bad. He asked questions because he claimed he also wanted to paint murals. I gave him some books to read. He kept them a while, then returned them.”

      “And this behavior caused you to stop arriving to class early?” Rafe had to give her credit. She was a master lip purser, but she didn’t squirm at all.

      “Look,” Janie said, giving him a haughty glare that reminded him of his own college days and how a professor could reduce him to age twelve without blinking. Few, however, had made him want to achieve more than a pass in the class. And none had been as pretty as Janie Vincent. “I don’t want anything I say here to slant the investigation. I—”

      “Slant the investigation?” Rafe sat up. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean if I tell you this guy creeped me out, had anger issues, you might believe I’d already condemned him. I can answer impartially, and—”

      “Janie,” Rafe said carefully, “right now, we can only label Derek as a person of interest, that’s all. His art book and drawings are probably just the work of a young adult crying for attention.”

      She gave a slight shake of her head. She hadn’t given her opinion on fact versus fiction earlier, but she clearly had an opinion now.

      Not fiction.

      He agreed but couldn’t let on to that.

      “Innocent until proven guilty,” was a double-edged sword. In Rafe’s profession, his job was to decode, visualize, analyze and interpret. Years ago, a cop’s perspective—his intuition—had counted for something. Today, because of politics, Rafe didn’t dare share what he thought. It could later be used against him in a court of law.

      Plus, Jane Q. Public—especially in the case of a missing or wayward child—wanted optimism.

      “Do you want to know how many people have come forward with information about the disappearance of Brittney Travis? Hundreds. And all of them turned out to be dead ends.”

      “How many of the hundreds attended the same college?” Katie jumped in.

      “More than you’d believe.” Rafe leaned forward. “We investigate all leads, and certainly, we hope this one will take us closer to the truth, but chances are it won’t. Chances are you have the misfortune of reading some misguided young man’s work of fantasy.”

      “I know fantasy when I read it,” Janie muttered. “Derek draws fantasy and his writing was nothing like his usual drawings.”

      She had him there. And, he figured, by the end of the interview she’d get him a few more times if he wasn’t careful.

      “Did you tell Professor Reynolds that he creeped you out?”

      “Yes.” Janie filled him in on some of the suggestions Patricia had made for dealing with a difficult student—like one who invaded personal space, who believed in staring as a way to intimidate, and who got argumentative when given constructive criticisms. She explained how ineffective those suggestions had been and finished with, “Derek left during the break Wednesday, a week ago, and didn’t return.”

      “Any idea why he left?” Rafael prodded.

      She grimaced. “No idea. Patricia had me clean and put away his supplies.”

      “How about the people he sat by? Did any of them leave, too?”

      “The students all have their own stations. Pretty much their own worlds. The station to his left is empty. The station to his right is a reentry adult. She ignores him. I’ve heard her mutter a few times about teenagers with attitudes.”

      “So you weren’t the only person he creeped out?”

      “Attitude came off of him in waves.”

      “Since you were scared to be in the room alone with him before class started, what did you do after class?”

      She hesitated but didn’t purse her lips. Too bad, he somewhat enjoyed watching her expressions of angst. And she had perfect lips. “Derek was the first one out the door. I don’t think the other students even thought twice about what he did after class ended.”

      “So, no complaints or other students who lingered?”

      “Not that I noticed.”

      She would have noticed.

      Katie fidgeted in her chair, but Rafe’s attention was on Janie as she stood up and perused his office, stopping to count the softball trophies, smiling at his Baxter the Bobcat keepsakes and studying his photos. Many were of him and his family. His dad had been the sheriff, and his grandpa before that. The photo in the center of the shelf was an enlarged baby picture, the kind taken at the hospital immediately after a birth. Rafe kept it there to remind him. Some of the other photos were of him and his men, or people about town. One showed him holding a fishing rod and a ten-pound bass. She didn’t wince at the mess on his desk—a bit messier since she’d rearranged things—although her eyes lingered on his Bible.

      He liked her attention to details. She had an artist’s eye. It made his job easier. “How many times did Derek miss class?” he asked her.

      “Four. He’d used the limit. I can’t tell you the dates without the roster, though.”

      Rafe opened a new window on his computer, punched in a code, and again stared at Derek Chaney’s rap sheet. Derek had been arrested driving a stolen car at the end of November. Rafe quickly checked, but neither a Chris nor a Chad had been with him. The judge had given Derek another chance.

      Derek should have been in jail, not college.

      Maybe if the judge had to knock on the door of Lee and Sandy Travis, instead of Rafe, and tell them that their daughter’s car had been found in Adobe Hills Community College’s parking lot but not their daughter, maybe then the judge would have been less lenient.

      Rafe still called the Travises every two to three days to tell them that there was no news.

      Today, his call would be different. He’d have to mention that a student at Adobe Hills Community College had come forward with evidence—a wee stretch of the truth—and that he was meeting with all involved for details.

      He wouldn’t say anything yet about the nineteen-year-old who had turned in an art book detailing their daughter’s murder.

      Or that the nineteen-year-old was dead.

      He leaned forward, intent, thinking. “The names in the art book were Chad and Chris. Throughout the semester, did Derek mention those names in any other context?”

      Janie didn’t hesitate. “No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.