10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club 10)

The girl’s sharpest memories were utterly useless. Fake French accent. Dark sedan. Aluminum lamp. Red bottle with a sippy straw. Green plastic poncho that had never had contact with the perps. Everything led to nothing.

I understood why Avis had blocked more traumatic memories.

But her continued lack of interest in the baby stunned me. It didn’t matter that she didn’t care. I cared.

I would find that baby boy or die trying.

“Do you know where your baby is?”

“No.”

“Have you been honest with me?”

“Yes. I swear,” Avis said.

My bullshit meter went on the blink. I couldn’t tell if she was lying or not. But there was another entire line of inquiry we hadn’t yet pursued.

“Who is the baby’s father?” I asked.

Chapter 29

BRIGHTON ACADEMY is in the Presidio Heights area, tucked away, nearly hidden behind trees and a neighborhood of sleepy, Victorian-lined streets. It was a surprise to turn a corner and see four handsome stone buildings set in a square around a compact campus of clipped lawns punctuated with carved boxwood cones and hedges.

High-school kids played field hockey and tennis, and others were grouped on benches or lying under trees in the quad.

The whole place smelled green. Greenback green.

Like Hogwarts for the really, truly rich.

Conklin and I checked in at the Administration Office, where we met with Dean Hanover, a big man wearing a pink shirt and polka-dot bow tie under his blue blazer.

We told him about our investigation into the possible kidnapping of Avis Richardson and the disappearance of her child. Hanover was sweating on a cool day, and I knew why. The dean had a big problem.

“This goes beyond nightmare,” Hanover said to me. “That poor kid. And, of course, her parents are going to sue us to the walls.”

I got the dean’s in loco parentis permission to interview Avis’s boyfriend, E. Lawrence Foster, as well as my short list of Avis’s six best friends.

“Tell me about these kids,” I said.

“Foster is an average kid, friendly. Parents own a magazine in New York. He’s got a lot of friends, but I confess I don’t know much about his relationship with Avis.”

Hanover gave us one-paragraph bios on the other kids: all children of wealthy parents who lived in other states or other countries. Avis’s roommate, Kristin Beale, was no exception. Her parents were in the military, stationed overseas.

We left the sweaty dean, headed out through the stone-arch entrance to the Administration Office, and took one of the shrub-lined paths toward the main hall.

“You want to be the good cop for a change?” Rich asked me.

“I would if I could,” I told him.

Chapter 30

WE FOUND LARRY FOSTER in the high-tech chemistry lab in the southernmost wing of the school. He was as the dean had described him: a friendly, good-looking tenth-grader from the East Coast. He was neatly dressed in the school uniform — blazer, necktie, gray pants, and state-of-the-art cross-trainers.

We invited Larry into an empty classroom and seated ourselves at desks. I sent up a prayer that this teenage boy would know something that would lead us to his son.

“You think I’m the father? I’m not,” Larry Foster said. His sleepy gray eyes opened wide. His lower lip quivered. “Avis and I are friends. That’s all.”

“Friends, huh,” said Conklin. “Avis said you were closer than that. Why would she lie?”