“I’d sell my soul to sit courtside at a Knicks game,” Barnes told Sully. “Think he has any connections at the Garden?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’s plenty connected,” she said, and she was right. It didn’t take much detective work to link the landlord to organized crime, but they’d quickly dismissed any suspicion that Julia’s death had anything to do with that.
They’re focusing their attention on identifying other possible suspects, starting with her inner circle. Her ex-boyfriend and her friends all seemed genuinely distraught and none had any motive that Sully and Stockton could uncover.
“Who would hurt my baby?” her mother sobbed this morning.
Sully shook her head sorrowfully, not yet willing to disclose that her daughter may have fallen victim to a predator who might very well have been a total stranger.
“We’re going to find out who did this,” she promised the Sextons after guiding them through the morgue nightmare. “We’ll do everything we can to bring this person to justice. I promise.”
She knew it was little comfort to grieving parents about to bury their only child, but it was all she had to offer.
Driving home after work on Tuesday afternoon, Rowan is focused on the prospect of tomorrow’s field trip.
All the permission slips are in, thank goodness, and her students aren’t the only ones looking forward to getting away from the daily classroom routine. Weary of teaching antsy kids about decimals and photosynthesis, she’s hoping a break will help them get back down to business on Thursday in preparation for Friday’s math and science unit tests.
On an even brighter note, visiting the historical society at this time of year always gets Rowan into the Christmas spirit. This year, she’s been especially lacking in that department.
The director and curator, Ora Abrams, plays classical holiday music on a Victrola during her guided tours through rooms decked out to depict Christmas in bygone eras. And she serves cutout cookies and hot chocolate afterward.
Rowan remembers speculating as a child that it must be made from some secret recipe that’s been handed down for generations, because it tasted so much better than ordinary cocoa. Naturally, Noreen burst her bubble, reporting that it came from a mix. It wasn’t until years later that Rowan realized she was right. But when you’re a child, anything—-even powdered cocoa—-tastes extra--special on a weekday morning when you’re supposed to be in school.
As she pulls up in front of the mailbox, she remembers belatedly that she meant to stop in town and pick up a few boxes of Christmas cards . . .
Oh, and that she forgot to sneak tomorrow’s Secret Santa gift into the library aide’s mail slot in the office before she left school today. She won’t have much time in the morning before wrangling the kids and chaperones onto the buses to the historical society.
She glances down at her own Secret Santa gift from this morning. She pinned the red snowflake to her gray winter coat, and two teachers stopped her to compliment her on it before she left the building.
One of them was Louise Flax, the music teacher, one of three -people whom she suspected might have been the giver. “That’s so unique! Where did you get it?”
“My Secret Santa.”
“Well, your Santa has great taste,” Louise said, either cleverly covering her own tracks or ruling herself out.
As she opens the mailbox, Rowan makes a mental note to leave extra--early tomorrow morning in order to deliver Marlena’s gift before the field trip.
The thought is curtailed the moment she spots a package inside the box, sitting on top of the stack of letters.
Just like last week.
Again, she tells herself that it must be something she ordered and forgot about.
Except you haven’t ordered anything lately. And you lied to Jake about Cyber Monday shopping, remember?
You lied to Jake about a lot of things.