“No.” Jack’s words were clipped. “That’s not what this tells us. Take a look at his schoolwork. He has some of it over there.” Jack pointed to the desk and walked over to it. “At this age, eight, children like to be part of a group, so they either love school because this gives them what they need or they hate it if they’re being bullied. He has old homework assignments stacked on his desk.” Jack pulled out some papers. “He has A grades written on all of these.” Jack’s finger traced a paper calendar taped to the wall. “But more importantly, this is a school calendar and he’s placed circles around the events. There’s an exclamation point next to the three of them and multiple exclamation points next to the science fair and a soccer game being held in the gym. Grade three versus grade four. This tells me he liked going to school. So, he had friends there. His mother kept him isolated here, but at school, he had freedom.”

“His teachers liked him,” Val remembered. “He lashed out on his last day.”

“Something set him off.” Jack circled around. “There’s one more fact here. A little one, but like I said earlier, little ones build.”

At this point all Val could do was guess. She was failing Jack’s test miserably. “There’s no sports equipment here, and nothing is sports-themed in the room, but he’s happy about a soccer game.”

“Well spotted, Val, but that’s not it. Let’s take another look at one of the novels he was reading. The Fault in Our Stars. Eight-year-old children tend to be in a more imaginative mind frame. They like complex games and middle grade books that deal with issues common to them, that’s why it’s important that our eight-year-old has this young adult novel on his bookshelf, which makes me think he was more advanced for his years and the subject matter appealed to him. It deals with kids with cancer. Maybe he knew his mother had cancer—which meant she knew she had it—and this is why he wanted to read it—or maybe because it was highly popular with a movie and all. It’s a small fact that I don’t plan on discounting. You shouldn’t either.”

“That might be the only clue so far that points to maybe Gabrielle knowing about her cancer. Anything else I missed?”

“Let’s see, an eight-year-old is also developing cognitive ability, they’re learning to ask questions and draw conclusions. This means he has the ability to notice things, maybe things he shouldn’t have noticed, like our neighbor Ron Ballard wanting to have time alone with Mommy.”

“Do you think he’d talk about things like this with the kids at school?”