Thomas Blackhorse's Arc

Chapter 5 of 17

Thomas drove home with the note against his chest and slept badly. By morning he had a plan. He could not ask around town who preserved the note. One wrong question would reach the person who buried this case eight years ago. Whoever left that gum-stuck paper had keys to an empty locker in a locked school. That meant staff access. He needed the list without asking for the list. He drove to Talltree's house before the sun cleared the roofline. The red door opened on the second knock. The old principal stood in the frame with a coffee cup and a face like closed shutters. "You didn't come," Talltree said. "I know." "He waited two hours." "I know that too." Thomas held up the folded note. He did not hand it over. "Somebody kept this in a locker at your school. A child wrote it. Someone with keys saved it. I need to know who had after-hours access eight years ago. Not from the district. From you." Talltree looked at the paper a long moment. He stepped back from the door. Inside, the house smelled of cedar and old coffee. Talltree did not sit. He went to a cabinet in the hall and pulled a slim green ledger from the bottom shelf. He set it on the kitchen table and opened it to a page marked with a rubber band. "Sign-out sheet," he said. "I kept my own. The district's got shredded in '19." Thomas ran a finger down the column. Custodial. Office. Two teachers with summer keys. And one name he did not know, listed under "volunteer, evenings," every Tuesday and Thursday the spring the Delgado girl died. Miguel Roundrock. "That's your witness," Thomas said. It was not a question. Talltree nodded once. "He came Tuesday to talk to you. He won't come again." "He had keys." "He had a mop and a broom two nights a week. He was trying to stay out of trouble. He saw someone in the hall he wasn't supposed to see." Talltree's jaw tightened. "He never told me the name. He said it once, to a woman who called herself a friend. She told him to forget it." "Juanita Casablanca." Talltree's cup stopped halfway to his mouth. "Where did you get that name." "You just gave it to me." The old man set the cup down. His hand shook once and stilled. "Then you know more than is safe." Thomas closed the ledger. He had his answer. Miguel Roundrock had kept the note. Miguel Roundrock had seen the hooded figure in the hall. And Miguel Roundrock had already told the wrong person, eight years ago, and was still alive to say so, which meant that person had a reason to keep him breathing. "Where does he live?" Thomas asked. Talltree wrote an address on the back of a receipt. "Go now. Before she hears you asked."