A few minutes later, the phone rings. Amy, our seventy-year-old, will-never-retire administrative assistant with a twangy southern accent and a fondness for blue eyeliner, huffs, loudly organizing papers at the front desk and breathing wheezily into the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder. I can hear her gathering her keys, wire glasses falling down her nose as she digs through her purse on the table. And I know that every minute extra we keep her here she’ll be filing for overtime. “Someone’s here to see you,” she accuses from the other end of the line.

“Your guy’s in the lobby,” I tell Teddy.

He jumps up, and I flip over the next photo. Floppy blond hair, a splattering of acne across his unlined face. Pale green polo shirt. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for anymore.

The security guard is a Black man in his late fifties, hairline receding into a widow’s peak, stomach thickening a little at the middle. He’s in plain clothes—slacks and a faded blue golf shirt tucked neatly in the front—and looks around the task room, unsure.

“Take a seat,” Teddy says. He’s playing it casual, but he’s tapping his pen against the side of his leg. Whatever the guy said on the phone has piqued his interest.

“Ray Harris,” the man says to me as he sits awkwardly in the school desk Teddy indicated.

Teddy pulls around his chair so they’re facing each other.

“You work security for the university?”

“I did.” Ray nods. “Fifteen years.” His voice is rich and low, but a deep-seated weariness stretches his vowels.

“You did?” Teddy emphasizes the past tense.

“Was let go last spring.”

Teddy waits, but Ray doesn’t offer an explanation. A fly buzzes above our heads, trapped in the plastic casing around the fluorescent lights.

“And when you were employed by the university, what were your responsibilities?”

Ray settles a little in his chair. “As security guards, we worked together with campus police to secure buildings and residences. Some of that is just making sure windows are shut, doors are locked. But it also involves patrolling, looking for suspicious activity, and then reporting it to campus police.”

“And what was your experience with the Kappa Phi Omicron fraternity? Did you ever come across Jay Kemp during your rounds?”

Ray stares at his shoes.

“Jay—no, there were never any incidents concerning Jay, although I recognized him immediately in the photo on the news. He was always at their parties.”

Teddy nods and makes a note. “He was the fraternity’s social chair.”

“Right.” Ray gazes at his thumbs.

“So you didn’t come here to talk about Jay.” Teddy can’t hide the disappointment in his voice.

“No. Not directly. It’s more—something I thought you should know about Kappa Phi Omicron, the culture of the fraternity, I guess.”