“But Caroline’s involvement—and Willie Burns’s—created a new level of risk for the boys: two weak links who couldn’t be counted on to keep their mouths shut. Caroline because of her mental instability and Burns because he was a junkie with a tendency to flap his gums. What if Burns found himself in a desperate situation—poor cash flow and a strong heroin jones? What if he tried to scratch up some money by blackmailing the others? To a street guy like Burns, a bunch of rich white boys with a very nasty secret would’ve seemed perfect marks. That would explain Michael Larner’s rage at Burns’s disappearance. Burns had made himself a very viable threat to Larner’s son, and now he was gone. Burns blackmailing would also explain his skipping on Boris Nemerov, even though he’d always been dependable before. Given all that, his paranoid rant about people being after him when he phoned Boris Nemerov makes perfect sense. Burns wasn’t worried about going to jail. He’d been part of a brutal murder and had gotten on the wrong side of his coparticipants.”

Milo flipped his notepad open. “Chapman and Hansen. Any first names?”

“All I read in the yearbook were initials, and I don’t remember them.”

“High school,” he said. “Oh, the glory days.”

“They were Garvey Cossack’s glory days. He lied about being class treasurer.”

“Preparing for a career in finance . . . okay, let’s go have a look at that yearbook.”

Within moments of our arrival, we’d filled out details on the other King’s Men.

At eighteen, Vance Coury, Jr. had been a good-looking, dark-haired boy with heavy, black eyebrows, a curled-lip smile that bordered on sneer, and a piercing stare. A certain type of girl would’ve thought him hot.

“Teenage lothario,” I said. Just as Janie described. “Despite what Melinda said, she wasn’t always fantasizing. Ten to one his dad owned a Jag twenty years ago.”

Like the Cossacks and Brad Larner, Coury’s out-of-class interests had been limited: auto shop monitor and the King’s Men.

L. Chapman turned out to be moon-faced Luke, a hulking, fair-haired boy with a vacant mien.

Nothing on his plate but the King’s Men.

The last boy, Nicholas Dale Hansen, was a different story. A clean-cut, button-down youth with an ever-so-serious expression, “Nick” Hansen had participated in the Junior Chamber of Commerce, Art Club, and the Boy Scouts. He’d also made honor roll for two semesters.

“The smart one in the group,” said Milo. “Wonder if he was smart enough not to be there.”

“Or the brains behind the organization.”

We got hold of the Who’s Who that had helped me locate the boys in the first place. No bios on anyone but Garvey Cossack, Jr.