The Silent Wife (Will Trent #10) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,92
just don’t?”
Jeffrey was familiar with the paradigm. Growing up in Sylacauga, he had known that he was poor, but he hadn’t realized until his first day at Auburn what the opposite of poor really looked like.
He asked, “Is that her backpack?”
Kayleigh looked over at the kitchen. “Yeah?”
Jeffrey returned his notebook to his pocket. He walked into the kitchen. He had to step over empty yogurt cartons and popcorn bags. The backpack was good leather with the initials BC monogrammed onto the flap. He assumed it was a graduation gift, because it wasn’t the kind of thing a poor college kid would spend money on.
Jeffrey carefully laid out the contents on the small square of available counter space. Pens. Pencils. Papers. Printouts. Work assignments. The flip phone was an older model. He opened it. The battery was almost dead. There were no missed calls. The recent calls were cleared. He checked the contacts. Dad. Daryl. Deneshia.
He asked Kayleigh, “Who’s Daryl?”
“He lives off-campus?” She shrugged. “Everybody knows him? He used to go here but he dropped out two years ago because he’s, like, trying to be a professional skateboarder?”
“Does he have a last name?”
“Like, I’m sure he does, but I don’t know?”
Jeffrey recorded Daryl’s number in his spiral-bound notebook. The phone would be logged into evidence, something Lena had failed to do yesterday when she’d talked to Rebecca Caterino’s dorm mates.
He reached into the backpack again. He found a textbook on Organic Chemistry, another on textiles, a third on ethics in science. The laptop computer was a newer model, judging by the weight. He opened the clamshell. The document on screen was entitled RCATERINO-CHEM-FINAL.DOC.
He paged through the exam, which was just as tedious and pedantic as every paper he had written in college.
He looked up at Kayleigh. She was still picking at the skin on her foot.
He asked her, “Can you come over here and tell me if there’s anything missing?”
She heaved herself up from the couch. She flounced over. She looked at the textbooks and papers and she told him, “I guess no? But, her banana clip would be by the bed?”
“Banana clip?”
“It’s, like, for your hair?”
Jeffrey felt his gut instinct send up a flare. Leslie Truong had been missing a headband. Now, Beckey Caterino was missing a hair clip.
He didn’t want to lead Kayleigh. He asked, “Is it still by the bed?”
“No, because that’s the point?” She seemed confused. “Beckey couldn’t find it? And then we all looked, and we couldn’t find it? I told the lady cop this?”
There was only one lady cop on the force. “Officer Adams?”
“Yeah, I told her that Beckey’s banana clip, the one her mom gave her, wasn’t on the nightstand where she always left it and at first, Beckey was mad at me, but then she knew I didn’t take it because I wouldn’t take something that was special like that because she had already told me the story about how her mom gave it to her, like it was the very last thing she gave to her, only it was to borrow, but then her mom died so she had it to keep forever?”
Jeffrey tried to parse the run-on sentence. “You told Officer Adams that Beckey was missing her banana clip?”
“Right.”
Now it was Jeffrey’s turn to do the irritating question thing. “The clip belonged to her mother?”
“Right.”
“And Beckey always kept the clip on her nightstand?”
“Right.”
“But the morning she looked for it, the clip wasn’t there?”
“Yes.”
“Show me?”
She took him down the hallway. He ignored the pungent odor of pot and sweat and sex that permeated the rooms. No beds were made. Clothes were strewn across the floor. He saw bongs and underwear and used condoms dropped beside trash cans.
“Here.” Kayleigh had stopped just outside the bedroom at the end of the hall. “We already, like, looked? To take it to her at the hospital? But we couldn’t find it?”
Jeffrey took in the room. Beckey wasn’t tidy, but she wasn’t on the same level of disorder as her dorm mates. He saw the nightstand. Water glass. Lamp. Book of poetry pressed open so that the spine was cracked. Jeffrey resisted the temptation to close the book. He got down on his hands and knees. There was nothing under the nightstand. He looked under the bed. One sock. A bra. Fuzz and the expected detritus.
He asked Kayleigh, “Does Beckey know Leslie Truong?”
“The missing girl?” She frowned. “I don’t think so? Because, she’s, like, older? Like, about to graduate?”