The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,71
the teachers were, let alone the students. Hammond was the only one left to ID the girl.
“Who’s the girl?” Gil asked Hammond, who had sat down at the table.
“One of Melissa’s students.”
“Her name?”
“Sandra Paine. Her father’s an ob-gyn at St. Vincent.” Hammond smiled to himself. “Dr. Paine. Would you want a guy named that to deliver your baby?”
“And how old is she?
“I guess about twelve. Sandra was showing the photos to some friends in class and Melissa took them from her.”
“What did Melissa do about it?”
“She didn’t get a chance to do anything. She was killed the same day.”
“When did she show them to you?”
“During lunch on Monday.” That would explain why his fingerprints were on the photos.
“She was killed eight hours after finding these photos. You didn’t see any connection?”
“No.”
Hammond sat very still. Gil let the silence stretch. He waited for Hammond to fill it. After a few moments, he did.
“I told Melissa I didn’t see that much wrong with this,” Hammond said as he waved his hands over the photos. “If the girl was doing it of her own free will, what’s the problem with it?”
“Is that why you got in the fight? Melissa broke up with you, didn’t she?”
“Sort of. I knew it was only a temporary breakup. She’d never actually leave me.”
“She was on her way to your place when she was killed, wasn’t she?” Gil asked.
“Yes. She was going to pick up her things. She had some sweaters here or something. She didn’t want me around when she came by.”
“You got into this fight during lunch the day she died?”
Hammond nodded.
“Do you think Melissa told anyone she was going over to your house that night?” If someone had known where she was heading, he could have been waiting for her and forced her to pull over. Or maybe have a prearranged meeting at Oñate Park?
“I doubt it,” Hammond said. “Melissa wasn’t like that. She didn’t do that typical female thing where she had to confess everything to everyone. At most, she might have told Judy.” But Judy Maes had told Gil that she didn’t know where Melissa had been going that night. Gil would have to ask her again.
“There are a couple of things bothering me, Mr. Hammond. Your fingerprints are on these photos. You seem to be the only person who knew where Melissa was going when she was killed, and you had just had a fight with her.”
“But I have an airtight alibi, don’t I, Detective?” Hammond said with a stiff smile. There was no way to break the alibi. The state police were looking into the possibility that Hammond had hired someone. They were checking his bank accounts and going over his phone records. Pollack had wanted Gil to interview Hammond again, “to shake up the Shinola in him,” in Pollack’s words.
Hammond started systemically turning the photos over, facedown. “I made the mistake of telling Melissa that I once had a crush on one of my students,” Hammond said without prompting. “I was just trying to get her to calm down, to get her to see she was overreacting. I was trying to make her see that it’s natural for teachers, especially men, to become enamored of their students after they hit puberty. There are several books on the subject. It’s all very much human nature. It can be a good thing for both parties. Attraction is a very primitive thing. Very uncontrollable.”
“You’re a sixth-grade teacher? That would make the student you had the crush on, what, eleven?”
“I never acted on it. But what’s the harm in looking? And what’s the harm in these photos if the girl was willing?”
“Mr. Hammond, this man—the man who took these photos—acted on it. Doesn’t that concern you?”
“I think it was understandable.”
“Understandable? How?”
“Officer, please. The girl looks like she’s enjoying it, so who are we to tell her it’s wrong? We don’t give young adults enough credit. They are able to make their own decisions, and I think we should let them. She made the decision to have these photos taken.”
Hammond turned the pictures back over and started touching them again, this time using his index finger to trace around the edges.
“Who took the pictures, Mr. Hammond?”
“Why don’t you ask the girl in them? Or won’t she tell you?”
Gil felt the need for brutality. He slowly started collecting the photos. He held them with the images facing the palm of his hand. He was tired of looking at them. “Who was it?” he asked quietly.