Kara Wiese was perhaps more understanding than Rena. If that was Gabe, she wouldn’t care if he had drinks with his friends occasionally, but every night after work? That seemed excessive. “Are we interrupting your dinner?”

“Difficult to think about things like food. I just got home about an hour ago. We searched all day.”

“I’ve shared the notes of our initial discussion with Detective Morgan, so she’s up to speed,” A.L. said. “Since that time, is there anything that you’ve thought of to add to that or perhaps modify in any way?”

“No.”

“I wanted to show you the sign-in sheet from near the office,” he said.

Rena reached for her bag and pulled it out.

“Is that your writing?” A.L. asked, pointing to the date.

“Yes.”

“And when did you write that?”

“On Wednesday morning. When I got to work.”

“When we talked earlier, you said that the first thing you did was make coffee,” A.L. reminded her.

“I guess I did. I’m sorry. I forgot about this. It’s just something I do.”

“Okay, thank you. Now I want to focus a bit more on reasons why you might leave your classroom,” A.L. said. “Can you walk me through those again?”

“I leave the classroom to use the restroom.”

“What about for lunch? Or to get lunch for the kids?”

She shook her head. “We eat in the classroom. If we’ve brought something from home, we eat that. Otherwise, the cook delivers our lunch and the kids’ lunches at the same time.”

They were working through lunch. Rena thought that was probably illegal, but that wasn’t her issue right now. “Any other reason that you’d leave your classroom during the day?”

“I guess I’d also leave it if I got a text from the office indicating that I was needed there.”

“A text?” Rena asked.

“Yes, that’s how Alice communicates with us. She knows that we all keep our phones handy. I mean, really. Who doesn’t anymore?”

It was the perfect segue to ask her about her phone usage. “Alice never calls your phone?” Rena asked.

“No.”

“But you must get other phone calls, right?” Rena asked. “Or need to make some. What happens then?”

Kara shrugged. “I can’t speak for others but I guess I would look at the number of who was calling. If I knew it, then I might answer. If not, I’d let it roll over to voice mail.”

That was reasonable. She did the same thing. But Kara had only answered half the question. “But what about outgoing calls?”

“I... I don’t make that many outgoing calls. But if I did, like to my dentist or my doctor, I’d probably step out into the hallway quickly.”

“Are you or have you recently been attempting to secure financing to buy a house?” A.L. asked.

“What?”

A.L. repeated the question.