"Just tell me, Lonnie."

"The e-mail came from a bank of computers at the Frost Library."

"The library," she repeated. "There must be, what, fifty computers in there?" "About that." "So we'll never figure out who sent it." Lonnie made a yes-and-no gesture with a head tilt. "We know what time it was sent. Six forty-two p.m. the day before yesterday."

"And that helps us how?"

"The students who use the computer. They need to sign in. They don't have to sign in to a particular computer-the staff did away with that two years ago, but in order to get a computer, you reserve it for the hour. So I went to the library and got the time sheets. I compared a list of students in your class with students who had signed up for a computer during the hour between six and seven p.m. the day before yesterday."

He stopped.

"And?"

"There was only one hit with a student in this class."

"Who?"

Lonnie walked over to the window. He looked down at the quad. "I'll give you a hint," he said. "Lonnie, I'm not really in the mood-" "Her nose," he said, "is brown." Lucy froze. "Sylvia Potter?" His back was still to her. "Lonnie, are you telling me that Sylvia Potter wrote that journal entry?" "Yes," he said. "That's exactly what I'm telling you."

On the way back to the office, I called Loren Muse.

"I need another favor," I said.

"Shoot."

"I need you to find out all you can about a phone number. Who owned the phone. Who the guy called. Everything." "What's the number?" I gave her the number Raya Singh had told me. "Give me ten minutes." "That's it?" "Hey, I didn't become chief investigator because I have a hot ass." "Says who?" She laughed. "I like when you're a little fresh, Cope." "Don't get used to it." I hung up. My line had been inappropriate-or was it a justifiable comeback to her "hot ass" joke? It is simplistic to criticize political correctness. The extremes make it an easy target for ridicule. But I've also seen what it's like in an office workplace when that stuff is allowed to go on. It can be intimidating and dark.

It's like those seemingly overcautious kid-safety rules nowadays. Your child has to wear a bike helmet no matter what. You have to use a special mulch in playgrounds and you can't have any jungle gym where a kid could climb too high and oh yeah, your child shouldn't walk three blocks without an escort and wait, where is your mouth guard and eye protection? And it is so easy to poke fun at that stuff and then some wiseass sends out a random e-mail saying, "Hey, we all did that and survived." But the truth is, a lot of kids didn't survive.

Kids did have a ton of freedom back then. They did not know what evil lurked in the darkness. Some of them went to sleep away camp in the days when security was lax and you let kids be kids. Some of those kids sneaked into the woods at night and were never seen again.

Lucy Gold called Sylvia Potter's room. There was no answer. Not surprising. She checked the school phone directory, but they didn't list mobile numbers. Lucy remembered seeing Sylvia using a Blackberry, so she e-mailed a brief message asking Sylvia to call her as soon as possible.

It took less than ten minutes to get a response.

"You wanted me to call, Professor Gold?"

"I did, Sylvia, thank you. Do you think you could stop by my office?" "When?" "Now, if that's possible."

Several seconds of silence, Sylvia: "My English lit class is about to start," she said. "I'm presenting my final project today. Can I come by when I'm done?" "That would be fine," Lucy said.

"I should be there in about two hours."

"Great, I'll be here."

More silence.

"Can you tell me what this is about, Professor Gold?"

"It can keep, Sylvia, don't worry about it. I'll see you after your class."

"Hey."

It was Loren Muse. I was back in the courthouse the next morning. Flair Hickory's cross would start in a few minutes. "Hey," I said. "You look like hell." "Wow, you are a trained detective." "You worried about this cross?" "Of course." "Chamique will be fine. You did a helluva job." I nodded, tried to get my head back into the game. Muse walked next to me.

"Oh," she said, "that phone number you gave me? Bad news."

I waited.

"It's a throwaway."

Meaning someone bought it with cash with a preset number of minutes on it and didn't leave a name. "I don't need to know who bought it," I said. "I just need to know what calls the phone made or received."

"Tough to do," she said. "And impossible through the normal sources. Whoever it was, he bought it online from some fly-by-night posing as another fly-by-night. It'll take me a while to track it all down and apply enough pressure to get records."

I shook my head. We entered the courtroom.

"Another thing," she said. "You heard of MVD?"

"Most Valuable Detection," I said.

"Right, biggest private-eye firm in the state. Cingle Shaker, the woman I have on the frat boys, used to work there. Rumor has it they got a no-expense-spared, seek-'n-destroy investigation going on with you." I reached the front of the courtroom. "Super." I handed her an old picture of Gil Perez.

She looked at it. "What?"

"Do we still have Farrell Lynch doing the computer work?"

"We do."

"Ask him to do an age progression on this. Age him twenty years. Tell him to give him a shaved head too."

Loren Muse was about to follow up, but something in my face stopped her. She shrugged and peeled off. I sat down. Judge Pierce came in. We all rose. And then Chamique Johnson took the stand.

Flair Hickory stood and carefully buttoned his jacket. I frowned. The last time I'd seen a powder blue suit in that shade was in a prom picture from 1978. He smiled at Chamique.

"Good morning, Miss Johnson."

Chamique looked terrified. "Morning," she managed.

Flair introduced himself as if they'd just stumbled across each other at a cocktail party. He segued into Chamiques criminal record. He was gentle but firm. She had been arrested for prostitution, correct? She had been arrested for drugs, correct? She had been accused of rolling a John and taking eighty-four dollars, correct?

I didn't object.

This was all part of my warts and all strategy. I had raised much of this during my own examination, but Flair's cross was effective. He didn't ask her yet to explain any of her testimony. He simply warmed up by sticking to facts and police records.

After twenty minutes, Flair began his cross in earnest. "You have smoked marijuana, have you not?"

Chamique said, "Yeah."

"Did you smoke any the night of your alleged attack?"

"No."

"No?" Flair put his hand on his chest as though this answer shocked him to the core. "Hmm. Did you imbibe any alcohol?" "Im-what?" "Did you drink anything alcoholic? A beer or wine maybe?" "No." "Nothing?" "Nothing." "Hmm. How about a regular drink? Maybe a soda?" I was going to object, but again my strategy was to let her handle this as much as she could. "I had some punch," Chamique said. "Punch, I see. And it was nonalcoholic?" "That's what they said." "Who?" "The guys." "Which guys?" She hesitated. "Jen7-" "Jerry Flynn?" "Yeah." "And who else?" "Huh?" "You said guys. With an s at the end. As in more than one? Jerry Flynn would constitute one guy. So who else told you that the punch you consumed-by the way, how many glasses did you have?" "I don't know." "More than one." I guess. "Please don't guess, Miss Johnson. Would you say more than one?" "Probably, yeah." "More than two?" "I don't know." "But it's possible?"

"Yeah, maybe."

"So maybe more than two. More than three?"

"I don't think so."

"But you can't be sure."

Chamique shrugged.

"You'll need to speak up."

"I don't think I had three. Probably two. Maybe not even that much." "And the only person who told you that the punch was nonalcoholic was Jerry Flynn. Is that correct?"