Doyle moved around Larkin, close enough that Larkin got a breath of neroli and sandalwood and cardamon. He shook hands with Widalski and made the necessary, polite small talk, before turning to Larkin as a means of inviting him into the conversation.

Larkin offered Widalski a hand. “Everett Larkin, Cold Case Squad. Thank you for taking time to speak with us, ma’am. Regarding Mr. Reynold,” he prompted.

Widalski appeared to not be bothered by Larkin’s bluntness as she motioned them to follow, taking the lead as they turned down a long, empty hall lined with red lockers on the left and closed classroom doors on the right, the fluorescent lights gleaming off the tile floor. They must have been relatively close to the cafeteria, because Larkin could smell remnants of the day’s menu—chicken nuggets and what he thought might have been boiled cauliflower. It mingled with rubber erasers, bleach, and the permanent cloud of young adult odor and store-brand body sprays that were all chemical aggression and no subtleness.

“As I said to Detective Doyle on the phone,” Widalski began, “Mr. Reynold is an institution here at PS 51. He’s been teaching English since 1995. Well before my time. I’m not sure if he’ll remember Marco Garcia—by law we only maintain student records for twenty years—and of course he’s had thousands of students in that time.”

“Of course,” Doyle echoed with the perfect amount of sympathy.

Widalski looked over her shoulder at them both and added, “I went ahead and told him you’d be stopping by, just so he’d have a chance to jog his memory.”

They took a flight of stairs at the end of the hall to the second floor.

At the landing, Widalski lingered long enough to ask, “This boy was murdered in the ’90s?”

“1997,” Larkin answered. “By the time a homicide reaches my desk, all avenues of investigation have been exhausted.”

“And you’re expected to solve what other cops couldn’t?” Widalski questioned.

“I’m very good,” Larkin clarified.

Widalski’s dubious expression shifted to Doyle. “You said you’re with Forensics, though, right?”

“Yes, ma’am, the Forensic Artists Unit,” Doyle said.

“Uh-huh. And there’s a lot of crossover?”

Larkin looked up at the same moment Doyle looked down. Larkin said to Widalski, “More than you’d expect.”

That seemed good enough for Widalski, and she continued walking until about the halfway mark, where she stopped outside a door that looked like every other door and peered through the glass window. Her mouth tugged into a subtle frown before she opened it and stepped into the classroom. The commotion of a dozen different conversations, teenagers laughing, the legs of a chair slamming down on the floor after leaning too far back, all filled the quiet hallway.