10th Anniversary (Women's Murder Club 10)

“I don’t know why she would lie. We never hooked up, not ever,” the kid said. “I never had those kinds of feelings about Avis, I swear.”

“You knew she was pregnant?” I said.

“Yeah, like since last week, and I didn’t tell anyone. Avis said she was having the baby for an infertile couple. I told her she was full of it, and she said, ‘Yeah, full of baby.’ And then I thought, Hey, she hasn’t called me back the past couple of days. Is she okay?”

“We have reason to believe that Avis got pregnant the regular way,” Conklin said. “If that is true, who’s your first guess for the father of her baby?”

“No idea. I didn’t even know she was with anyone,” the kid said.

Next up was Brandon Tucker, a kid with a future as a professional soccer player. He was taller than me and he had a disarmingly wicked smile. I’d seen a lot of pictures of this kid on Avis’s Facebook page.

Was he baby Richardson’s father?

After the preliminary introductions, I asked Tucker what he knew about Avis — her pregnancy, her baby, and her whereabouts over the past three days.

“Ma’am, I don’t know anything about a baby,” said Tucker. “I only heard that she was pregnant, like, a week ago. And I was, like, totally shocked. Avis is a very quiet girl. And heavy. I just thought she was bulking up.”

“So, what was she to you?” I asked. “She has you on her Facebook friends list.”

“Like that means anything. She asked to friend me. I said okay. She used to help me with my French,” he laughed. “She tutored me for exams once in a while. I paid her by the hour. For tutoring,” he said.

“You ever hook up with Avis?” Conklin asked.

The kid looked offended.

“Me? Hell, no. Not my type, dude. Not even if I was drunk — she just wasn’t my type.”

“Who was her type?” I asked.

“Larry Foster, right?”

We used the same classroom to talk to three other teens, and by this time, they all knew why we were there. Not one of those kids admitted to knowing that Avis was pregnant until a week ago, and no one knew the identity of the father of her child.

We were told repeatedly that she was a quiet girl, intelligent, not popular, not an outcast, either. She got good grades and kept to herself.

Even the girls we interviewed, when implored to help us find the baby, said they didn’t have an idea in the world.

“You believe this?” Conklin said to me when the last kid had left the room. “A school like this. Avis was nine months pregnant, and no one knew nothin’.”

“Reminds me of something I once heard,” I said to my partner. “How do you know if a teenager is lying?”

“How?” Conklin asked.

“Their lips are moving.”

Chapter 31

AVIS AND KRISTIN BEALE had been bunking in the same room for more than a year. Logically, of all the people who knew Avis, her roommate, given their daily contact, should have had the most intimate knowledge. I figured she might very well know what Avis had been thinking, doing, and planning for herself and her baby.

Kristin Beale was our best hope — and maybe our last.

Conklin knocked on the paneled door in a corridor lined with them. A voice called out, “Come innnnn.”

We did — and the smell of marijuana came out to greet us.

The dorm room was just big enough for two beds, two closets, and two desks. It looked out over the Presidio, and I could see a sliver of the bay over the tops of trees.

In front of the view was Kristin Beale.