Page 76 of Two Marlboros

My breath shortened. Ryan was one of the boys present at the university party, I was sure of it.

I quickly flipped through the yearbook to the end, running my eyes with an adrenaline rush that allowed me to get to the bottom in the blink of an eye. When I was done, I went back to the page containing Ryan’s photo. I pointed my finger at his picture and looked up at Church.

“That’s him.”

My boss stretched his head toward the yearbook, then turned it toward himself and observed.

“Is there anything that can make you say that with absolute certainty?”

I hesitated. I had pointed to his picture because it matched Nathan’s description, yet I was sure that, among my memories, there was a detail that could help me. I thought back to the party, to the moment when we had said goodbye to his friends, to when he had introduced me to Ryan...

...and he had squeezed my hand limply because he had a bruise on his right arm.

“I got it!”

It came out of me for no real reason, as did the torrent of words I fired off immediately afterward.

“Goldwin had a bruise on his right arm. James McCain, the postmaster, threw a paperweight at one of the robbers and hit him in the right arm.”

Both Church and Ashton barely parted their lips.

I thought a contradiction would soon come out of my boss’ mouth, but instead he remained silent. And when he did not utter a word for more than ten seconds, I knew I had hit the jackpot.

He closed his mouth again and began to nod.

“You’re right, Scottfield. This deduction could give the investigation a breakthrough. There were two robbers, though.”

I felt anger mounting. What was the need to point to everything?

“So?”

I realized that I had spoken in a somewhat testy tone.

“So, we must not leak this information, or the fact that we know about it. Arresting Goldwin now would be too risky, because there were two robbers, and we don’t have certainty that they acted alone. There may be an organization behind them, and an arrest at this time would not be the wisest move. We’ll see how soon they come out.”

Once again, I had to admit that Church’s objection was correct.

“Now, I want you to ask for the printouts of Cossner and, at this point, Goldwin. Please avoid wasting your time again this time! Go!”

We didn’t make him repeat it twice. We got up from those chairs, on which I hoped never to sit again, and left the room, letting the moss to only sting him.

“How much of an asshole is that guy, from one to ten?”

Ashton had just finished a round of phone calls requesting the printouts Church indicated. He grabbed a cardboard sheet and fanned himself, then got up to open the window.

“He certainly is enough,” I replied.

Ash sat back down; his gaze lost in chasing expletives he could only see in his head.

“He treated us like beggars. It’s not our fault they left us alone!If he had been a serial killer, you would have had two or three other people killed. Yes, and I already know one of the victims. Besides, we even identified one of the robbers, what more does he want?”

I watched him fanning himself to turn off those fiery cheeks of his, when an idea came to me.

“I was thinking about something,” I said. “In case there is a relationship of some kind between Clide and Cossner, are we sure they are not using a secondary cell phone? It’s possible that nothing emerges from the phone records, but I think we should go deeper. At the very least, before that Matthew tells us...”

Ashton laughed, and I realized that it was the first time he did that because of something I said. Unbelievable.

“We’re at Webster Hall tonight, it might be an opportunity to ask a few questions around.”

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