Page 58 of Sinful Sorrow

“Oh, well…”

He flashes a smile in challenge. Do with that information as you will, Detectives.

“So you’ve humanized Naomi Wallace,” Fletch inserts, back to work now that his personal dilemma has been placed on hold. “How so?”

The man shrugs. “It’s a new semester. I look up at hundreds of faces each day and catalog who they are. Who they’re consistently sitting with, or, alternatively, if they’re regularly alone. I notice break ups, and new relationships. Especially when I have athletes taking my class, when I know there are other, easier grades to secure. I especially make a point to look closer when a student shines. Typically, it’s easy to pick out which of those shining students are self-funded, and which are here on a scholarship. Those who work harder are archetypally relying on grants to keep them here.”

“So you insert yourself in their financial affairs?” Fletch presses. “When that is certainly not your place.”

“I don’t consider it an insertion, Detective. Merely an observation from a man who has been doing the same thing, day in, day out, for almost twenty-five years. I suppose I long ago lost my love for numbers, and instead, picked up a fondness for humanity. Often, it is lacking. But sometimes, when you look close enough, you catch it in the glimmer and hope inside a student’s eyes when you’ve handed their very first paper back and they’ve done well.”

“Naomi Wallace?”

His expression turns sad. Regretful. “Naomi Wallace shone. She worked hard, Detectives. She sat with friends in every single class, two of whom were athletes, which might imply a certain level of distraction. But not Naomi.”

“She wasn’t distracted?”

“From the moment she stepped inside my lecture hall, she was ready to learn. Head down, eyes on her own work. She asked intelligent questions and genuinely listened when I answered. When she struggled with a concept, she was the first to ask me for explanation, lest she waste time unnecessarily. I know her boyfriend and her best friend were both inside my class, Detective. But she wasn’t here to mess around the way many others are. She was on this campus for one very specific reason.”

“To learn,” Fletch concludes. “She worked hard and had a purpose.”

“Precisely.” Jene folds his arms, but brings a hand up to fuss with the thin mustache framing his top lip. “So you could consider me wildly astonished when word spread of her pregnancy.”

“You knew?” I drag my lip between my teeth, nibbling and frowning as each new morsel of information filters through my brain. “As her professor, you were aware she was expecting?”

He only shrugs. “I observe, Detective Malone. Despite her hard work in my classroom, I noticed her exhaustion. Drooping eyes. Hands on her stomach. Her boyfriend, Mason, was carrying her bags a lot. Holding her close. He was noticeably attentive always, but that attention seemed to become more conspicuous a few weeks ago. As a father of four and a grandfather to seven, it’s reasonable for me to notice these things.”

“So what else did you notice?” Fletch comes across and perches against the desk beside mine. Staring, he catalogs the professor just as intently as the professor catalogs us. “Tensions between Naomi and others? Tensions between Mason and Naomi?”

“There was tension between Naomi and her friend. This was obvious to me.”

“Which friend?” I take out my notebook and prepare to write names down. “And what tensions did you notice?”

“The best friend.” He gestures with his hand, rolling it. Waving it. Perhaps that’s how he thinks. “Kallie. The girls were often at odds.”

Stunned, I look at Fletch. “That’s interesting. Especially considering it was Kallie’s idea they go to the haunted house each year. Everyone else says they were tight.”

“And there was another girl hanging around a lot.” Jene drops his hand now. Brain time is over. “I did not know her name. She was not a student of mine.”

“Hanging around where? When? If she wasn’t your student, how did you notice her?”

“Because in every class I teach, let’s assume there are a hundred students looking down at me. Ninety-five of them are financed, accepting, and turning in work as expected. Of the five others, some are here because they’re bored and have nothing else to do. Some are looking to flirt. Others don’t trust their brand-new boyfriend or girlfriend, so they stick around to supervise. And this one…” He sets his hands on the desk beside his thighs, tapping the underside with the tips of his fingers. “She would never come in for more than a couple of minutes. She’d poke her head in the door, look around, a bit like she was ensuring Naomi’s attendance that day. Like a parental figure, ensuring their investment was acting as expected. Which,” his eyes come to me, “isn’t unheard of. Parents can be overbearing, especially in first-year classes.”

“Was this person old enough to be Naomi’s mother?” I question. “Was it Mrs. Wallace who?—”

He shakes his head, denying me even before I finish speaking. “This person was quite young. A teenager. These visits began only a few weeks ago, and rarely lasted more than a couple of minutes. She never came all the way in, never sat down, and always walked out, unhappy again.”

“Could you describe her?” I swap my notebook for my phone, sliding the screen unlocked and ignoring Minka’s texts for a moment in favor of something else. Someone else. “If we hooked you up with our sketch artist, do you think you could get us a face?”

“I’m teaching a class in,” Jene checks his watch, and goes fucking slow about it, “twenty-five minutes. I’ll speak to your artist after that.”

“Ihonestly don’t know if I like him or want to smear him on the hood of my car.” Fletch strides toward our cruiser just a few steps ahead of me, digging his hands into his pockets and taking out the keys. “He seems decent, ya know? Like he cares about his students. But in the same breath, he reminds me of a shorter, rounder Snidely Whiplash.” He stops by the car and turns back. “It’s confusing and weird.”

“I think he cares…” I read Minka’s ‘call me’ texts and prepare to hit dial against her name. “Potentially a little too much. The fact that he’s aware of which students are self-funded versus those who are here on a scholarship is a little gross. But if we take him at his word, he knows these things purely because he observes. That doesn’t make him an asshole.”

“He was paying attention to her rubbing her belly, Arch.”

“And as a father and grandfather, these are things a man might simply notice. I sure as shit know I’ll notice the first time Minka rubs her belly. Or Christabelle.” Then I widen my eyes. “Or in twenty years, when Mia does it.”

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