“It seems one of his fans from his teaching days struck it big in technology up in Silicon Valley. There’s a hefty endowment riding on the success of the case.”

Lamar nodded. “Good luck to you, then.”

“You don’t harbor much hope?”

“Nothing would make me happier than a solve. The damn thing was always a thorn in my side. There seemed to be no reason for it other than bad luck. You know as well as I do…you see homicides and each one of them is ugly. But some…drug dealers, hookers, thieves, gang-bangers…now no one deserves to die by violence. But if you’re gonna put yourself in harm’s way, shit happens. But this guy…nothing I dug up indicated that he was anything else except Joe Model Citizen.”

“How deep did you manage to dig?”

“We didn’t get any interference if that’s what you mean.” Lamar thought about the question. “We started with the wife and when we hit a wall, we branched out to friends, coworkers, students, and community people. There was an insurance policy, but at that point, the widow hadn’t bought herself a new car or a flashy diamond ring. There was money in a college fund for her boys. She also took a job.”

“What kind of work?”

“I think the school hired her as a secretary or a teacher and used his seniority so she could keep the benefits.” He finished off his beer. “We scoured through Little’s desk, his files, his old floppy disks and the computer, his credit cards, his phone records, his bank account. When I tell you nothing was awry, I mean it.”

Decker nodded, although something struck him as odd. “I spoke to the widow. She married very well.”

Lamar took a moment to digest that. “Good for her.”

“She also told me that she had gone into debt, hiring a private detective named Phil Shriner, trying to get a lead on the case.”

“Hmm…” Lamar crushed his beer can. “Did she get anywhere?”

“Nothing that she wanted to tell me about. But when you checked out her account, she was solvent.”

“She must have gone into debt after I retired.”

“So you don’t know anything about the private detective?”

“Didn’t even know he had a name until you told it to me. Have you checked him out?”

“I have someone going down that avenue,” Decker told him. “Right after you retired and I came on, one of my first assignments was dealing with a murder of a coed at Central West Valley High.”

“Central West…” Lamar wiped his mouth on his hand. “Cheryl Diggs, was it?”

“Exactly. Her boyfriend at the time was a guy named Christopher Whitman. He’s now Christopher Donatti.”

“Whitman…” He looked confused. “Why does that name sound familiar?”