“Around L.A.”

Sam appeared to be studying her face. “You don’t really strike me as an L.A. type of girl.”

She merely smiled and leaned back as the waitress served their drinks.

“So,” Fiona said as she added sweetener to her tea, “have you given any more thought to what Annie said, about maybe the killer being someone from your past?”

“I’ve thought about nothing else, but I just can’t see anyone. Unless it’s something really overt, you just don’t think about someone holding a grudge for that long. What could be that important?” He shook his head. “You know, you could look back on your childhood, your teen years. Is there someone there who’d wish you harm or who’d want to repay an old debt? Someone so unhinged that they’d kill to get even with you? I’ll bet you wouldn’t even know, couldn’t name them if you tried.”

Bet I could. In a heartbeat…

Aloud, she said, “Maybe you should consider hypnosis. Maybe something will come to you that way.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Their sandwiches came and they ate with one eye on the clock. At one forty-five, Fiona said, “We need to go.”

They made it back to the prison with three minutes to spare. By the time they went through their checkpoints and waited for George Cranshaw, the assistant warden, it was twenty past two.

“Lee’s waiting for you in the conference room,” Cranshaw told them as he led them down a short hall.

“Lee?”

“Lee Watkins, the guard you wanted to talk to.” He stopped in front of a closed door. “Right in here, folks.” He opened the door and stepped inside. “Lee, the people from the FBI are here.”

To Fiona’s eye, Lee Watkins looked to be no more than twenty years old, but she was pretty sure he had to be older than that.

“Sam DelVecchio.” Sam introduced himself without bothering to correct the assistant warden. “How are you, Lee?”

“I’m okay.” Watkins looked from Sam to Fiona and back. He was clearly not okay about being there.

“Did you need me to stay?” Cranshaw had one hand on the door handle, as if ready to flee.

“No, I don’t think so. We’ll be fine.” Fiona smiled at Watkins who looked as if he was about to bolt. She patted the young guard on the shoulder as she passed behind him, glancing down at the backpack that sat at his feet. It bulged all the way around, the contents squaring the material.

She sat directly across from him, the better to maintain eye contact with him.

“Lee, how old are you?” she asked.

He glanced at Sam before answering. “I’m twenty-six.”

“You’re young to have such a responsible position here,” she said.

“Not really.” He still appeared leery.

“How long have you worked here?”

“Seven years.”

“Seven? So you were nineteen when you started?”

He nodded.

“Have you been on the night shift all that time?”

“No, ma’am. I started out first on one of the medical wards, the afternoon shift. I didn’t get the night shift until I went on the tower.”

“Was that a promotion?” She continued to question him in a conversational tone, holding his eyes, making it difficult for him to look away without seeming evasive.

“Sort of. Well, actually, I asked for it.”

“You wanted to work at night?”

“Yes, ma’am. I wanted to go to school during the day, so I could only work at night.”

“Working a full-time job and going to school at the same time?” Fiona raised one eyebrow. “Very impressive, Lee. That’s a rough way to get an education. I admire your determination.”

“Thank you.” He seemed to relax slightly.

“Where are you going?”

“Eastern Virginia College.”

“What are you studying?”

“I want to be a history teacher.”

“Excellent. We always need good teachers. Good luck with that.” She smiled. “So, are those your books there in your backpack?” she asked.

He glanced down at his feet, then nodded.

“I guess you need to study whenever you can, right? Coffee breaks, that sort of thing?”

He nodded again, his eyes shifting to one side.

“It must be hard to keep up with all the reading.” Fiona rested her elbows on the table as if chatting with a friend. “I used to tape-record the lectures so I could listen to them later. Have you tried that?” Before he could answer, she continued, “Of course, you wouldn’t use a tape recorder. The technology is so much better these days, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” he mumbled.

“Sam, did you have any questions for Lee?” She pushed her chair back from the table.

“About the night that Kenneth Wilke was murdered out there in the field.” Sam paced off to the left.

Fiona slid her phone from her pocket, pretended to look at the screen and said, “Will you excuse me for a moment? I have to return a call…”

Sam nodded and turned back to Watkins. “You were about to say…?”

“What did you want to know?”

“I want to know what time you first noticed the car in the field,” Sam told him.

“I never saw the car.” Watkins shook his head. “I told the cops, I never saw the car, I never heard anything.”

“How is that possible? You were sitting right there, maybe a hundred feet from where the car was parked. How could you not see or hear what was going on down there?”

Watkins shrugged. “He must have not had the lights on. I don’t know.”

Fiona activated the Internet connection on her phone, and opened a search engine, and typed in the name of the college Lee Watkins said he attended. When she found what she was looking for, she closed the phone and returned to the table, where Sam was still interrogating Watkins.

She listened quietly to his questioning for a few moments, then said, “Sam, you can ask him the same questions fifty different ways, but if Lee didn’t hear or see anything, that isn’t going to change, regardless of how many times you ask.”

Sam turned to look at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

“You’re right, Agent Summers.” Sam sighed deeply. “All right, Lee. Unless you have something else to add, I suppose we’re finished here.”

“I don’t have anything else to add.” He shook his head firmly, side to side. “I don’t know anything.”

“Thanks for your time, then.” Fiona opened the door and held it for Sam. “And good luck with school.”

They checked out at the front desk and walked through the automatic doors to the visitor’s parking lot.

“Okay, so what did you find out that made further questioning unnecessary?” Sam asked as they walked toward her car.

“Eastern Virginia College video-records many of their professors’ lectures and makes them available to their students on the college website,” she told him. “So if you miss a class, or get distracted, or come in late, or whatever, you can still catch the entire lecture online. You can watch them at any time that’s convenient for you.”

“So while Watkins is sitting in the tower, he’s catching up on the day’s class work on his iPhone.”

“Sure. He had the phone in his shirt pocket. I saw it when I walked behind him. He probably has to leave the back pack in his locker, but I’ll bet no one’s ever questioned him about the phone. Can’t you just picture him sitting in his chair, maybe with his feet on the desk, the earplugs in, listening to a lecture, maybe playing certain parts over several times to make sure he’s getting it right, maybe taking notes?”

“So he isn’t lying when he says he didn’t hear or see anything in the field that night,” Sam nodded.

“Right,” Fiona agreed, “because he wasn’t looking. So at least we know he wasn’t lying.”

As they left the parking lot, she asked, “Do you want to go back the same way we came?”

“No.” Sam shook his head. “But thanks for asking.”

When they arrived back at Fiona’s, she asked, “It’s too late to go in to the office. Want to come in for a beer?”

“You must have read my mind.” Sam followed her up the front walk. “I could seriously use a beer right now.”