“So you wouldn’t know if she had relatives she let use her house,” I said. “The way Hiram Bass let Jasper use his house.”

Sandie shrugged.

“Sorry,” she said. “I only really know Jasper because of Karen. He was a couple of grades ahead of me in school, you know.”

I nodded.

“I should be getting back to the office,” Sandie said, picking up her tray. “Just in case Nadine calls or sticks her head in. You can’t imagine how nasty she’s been. As my gran always said, a person’s true character comes out in hard times, and Nadine’s true character is just plain mean.”

“Good luck,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

“And you’ll let me know if you hear anything from Karen?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You’re a good friend to her,” Sandie said. “You just let me know if there’s anything I can do.” She gave me a quick hug before dashing out the door.

I went back to puzzling over the identity of the im-poster in the goatee.

“A few grades ahead of Sandie,” I repeated. “Aha!”

I bussed our table and headed back to my car.

Next stop, the Caerphilly County Library.

Like the rest of the town, the Caerphilly County Library was on a slow, summer schedule. Only a few people lounged over books in the reading section, and they looked as if they were mainly there for the air conditioning. Unfortunately, Ms. Ellie, my favorite librarian, was on a hiking vacation in the Andes and not due back until Labor Day, which meant I was on my own when it came to unearthing local information.

In the reference section, I found what I was looking for—yearbooks from Caerphilly High School, at least fifty volumes lined up neatly on a top shelf.

I’d estimated Mr. Goatee’s age at twenty-five, which would mean he’d graduated around seven years ago. If he graduated. Just to be on the safe side, I started with the books from ten years back and moved forward from there.

Sure enough, there he was. Frederick (“Freddy”) Hamilton—so he must be a relative of Aubrey’s. He’d graduated nine years ago. Apart from the marching band in his freshman year and woodworking club in his senior year, he didn’t have any extracurricular activities, which made him a bit of an oddball. He looked a lot younger in his senior photo, and a lot more presentable, too—probably because he hadn’t yet grown the unfortunate goatee.

I flipped over a few more pages and found the other name I’d been halfway looking for. Jasper Walker, also looking very young in a coat and tie, and without the scraggly ponytail.

Jasper had a slightly better roster of extracurricular activities—computer club all four years, track and field in his freshman and sophomore years, and the woodworking club for his junior and senior years.

Which meant, in a school as small as Caerphilly High, that Freddy Hamilton must have known Jasper.

Of course, he hadn’t denied knowing him. Just hadn’t made a big deal about knowing him. Going to high school together, and being in a club together didn’t mean they were friends.