I hadn’t called the police about the brick, because I knew there wasn’t anything they could do about a broken window. Now, in the quiet of my house with Sammy, I wished that I had.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and texted Schmitty. After our phone call, I didn’t know where exactly we stood, but I thought he might be able to do something. I sent a quick text message about the brick. Then I asked him to send a squad past my office, as a precaution, and also past my house.
On my way to the toy room, I stopped for a bottle of beer and a glass. It was a Belgian-style beer from a microbrewery over on Michigan Avenue.
The Saison de Lis was created by the owner of Perennial Artisan Ales in honor of his daughter, and so I thought it’d be appropriate.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. I took a Preservation Hall Jazz Band record off the shelf, removed it from the sleeve, and placed it on the record player.
Music popped to life as I sat down at my worktable and poured the beer into the glass. Then I removed the framed photo of Monica from the drawer and got to work.
My hero’s little antagonists were carved and ready. The clay figurine with the top hat and his henchmen—the giant and the troll dressed as the aristocrat’s butlers—had hardened. All I needed to do was paint.
I put some butcher paper down on the desk, set the figurines on top, and removed my paints and brushes from the drawer.
As I worked, I told Monica about the books Sammy was reading and about Clement City Day School. I had made a promise to Sammy, and I intended to keep it. Clement City wasn’t the most expensive private school in Saint Louis, but it wasn’t cheap, either. The school was filled with kids whose liberal parents loved the city but hated the city’s school system. We’d fit right in.
Then I told her about Schmitty and Jimmy Poles and what Isaac Turner had seen the night that his brother had disappeared. As I finished painting the final figure and put it on the shelf to dry, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. My mind was still going.
I was missing something. I felt it. There was a small piece of information in each of the files connecting all the Lost Boys.
I went into the corner and grabbed one of the boxes off the stack. Each box was filled with copies of police records and criminal histories, the backgrounds of the kids that nobody had been looking for.
I took the top binder out and started reading.
CHAPTER SIXTY
It took another three days to go through all the files again. When it was over, I wasn’t any closer to finding the link that I was looking for. I was still sure that there was a piece of information in each file that would link the boys together, but I couldn’t find it.
I looked at my watch, then put a lid on the last remaining box. I left the toy room and went out into the kitchen. It was still early in the morning, and Sammy was finishing up her cereal, dressed and ready to go to school for the first time in over a month.
I couldn’t contain my smile. “All set.” I clapped my hands together.
“One more bite.” Sammy shoved a final spoonful of cereal in her mouth and then swallowed. “Done.” Then she picked up her bowl and spoon, took them over to the sink, and set them down. “I’m ready.”
“Then let’s go.” I checked my watch again. “Don’t want to be late on your first day.”
We hustled out at a quarter to eight, got in my car, and drove over to the Clement City Day School. It didn’t take long. The school was located just on the other side of the Tower Grove Park.
“That would’ve been easy to bike,” Sammy said as we pulled into an empty parking spot on the street.
I looked over at a huge bike rack filled with bicycles. “Maybe next time.”
The school was located in a large, redbrick building that used to be the Saint Thomas More Catholic School, but after years of dwindling enrollment, the archdiocese sold it to a real estate developer in the early 1980s.
The master plan was to convert the old school into condos, but then the condo market crashed. This seemed to surprise the investors, even though condo markets crash about every six years. Financing fell through, and the property got foreclosed. A decade later, a group of professors and artists bought the building from the city for a dollar and started Clement City Day School.
As we neared the front steps, we were greeted by my mother and the Judge. I had tried to convince them to stay home, but they insisted. I was worried that Sammy would be embarrassed by all the fuss, but she didn’t seem to mind.
Sammy walked over to them and gave each a big hug, then she turned back to me.
“You ready?” I asked.
Sammy nodded and took my hand, and then we all walked into the school together.
After dropping Sammy off at school, I met with Schmitty at the Sunshine Café on Morganford, just south of Tower Grove Park. The pastry and sandwich shop was in the middle of a rejuvenated block between a soccer bar and a Vietnamese restaurant.
I felt like I needed to make sure we were OK, and I also wanted to thank him for increasing the patrol around my office and the carriage house.
“Lots of hipsters.” Schmitty glared at the bearded man with the MacBook sitting at a table near the window and then at two young women wearing vintage clothes and sporting large, elaborate arm tattoos. Even after the morning rush, the place was pretty crowded.
“Well I like it.” I took a bite of my croissant. “Just wish there were a few more of these little strips on the north side.”
“A few more?” Schmitty snorted. “How about one of these places on the north side?”
I shook my head. “You’re just not looking hard enough.” I set my croissant down and leaned back, ready to get down to business. “I read all the criminal files again,” I said. “And I’m still not seeing anything that connects them except Jimmy Poles.”
“But Poles doesn’t connect them. Not all of them. Some of them had different probation officers.” Schmitty sat up in his chair and leaned in. “I’m telling you, Jimmy Poles isn’t the one. You have to get off it.” Then Schmitty leaned in even closer. “The chief is serious. Back off it.”
“I’m not on it, OK? I hear you loud and clear. It’s not Poles.” I took a sip of coffee, letting Schmitty absorb what I had just said and hoping he understood we were on the same page. “But if not Poles, what about the others? Have you looked at them?”
“We’ve looked at the other probation officers, security guards, even some of the lawyers, and we got nothing.”
“But we got the blue van.”
Schmitty shook his head. “Pretty weak.”
“Well you got something better for me?”
He looked away, then turned back to me, looking at me straight with a little bit of panic in his eyes. “I told you we got nothing. We’ve got nothing on anybody.”
And I believed him.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE