I beckoned to a passing student. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find the library?”

She was a good-sized girl, built like an athlete with a sturdy set of bones. Her dark hair was straight and sleek, pulled into a complicated knot at the nape of her neck. When she smiled, her braces gleamed. “Sure. I’m headed in that direction anyway.”

“Thanks.”

We walked the length of the corridor and turned right. She left me in the hall outside the library while she continued to her next class.

The room I entered must have been the mansion’s original library. Shelves of books extended from floor to ceiling on all four walls with a movable platform ladder resting against a brass rail. The panes in the leaded-glass windows were marked by imperfections, lending a shimmering effect to all the outside views. Two groups of students sat in dark green leather chairs arranged around refectory tables. The students were quiet and there wasn’t much activity except for the turning of pages and the scribbling of pens.

The librarian was seated at a desk under one of the windows. The name plaque in front of her read LORI CAVALLERO, HEAD LIBRARIAN. She looked up at me expectantly. She set her pen aside, got up, and crossed the room, walking on the balls of her feet to minimize the sound. She appeared to be in her late forties, her dark hair a long, careless tumble around her face. Her mouth was bracketed with deep lines and a faint frowning V was sketched between her eyes. She wore a long brown knit dress over boots, her sleeves pushed up to her elbows.

“Are you Ms. Cavallero?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“I’m Kinsey,” I said with a smile to match hers. “I was wondering if I might take a peek at the 1967 yearbook. I’m trying to track down an old friend.”

“Of course. We keep the yearbooks in the other room. You want to follow me?”

“Great,” I said. I couldn’t believe another closely held conviction was taking a hit. Now it turned out the faculty and staff were as nice as the kids. What was Sutton’s problem?

She moved to a door on our left and ushered me into the room. “This was Albert Climping’s study,” she said. She gave me a moment to appreciate the room and its furnishings. The study was smaller than the library and beautifully proportioned, with a spiral staircase taking up one corner. I counted twenty built-in file drawers, each labeled with old-fashioned cursive on white cards slipped into brass frames. I could see wide, shallow drawers that I imagined held maps or documents intended to be stored flat. A massive desk took up the center of the room, resting on an Oriental carpet in muted browns and blues. A big stone fireplace with an impressive carved mantel was centered in the wall across from the door. On the far wall there was a second carved wooden door, probably leading to the hall beyond. The remaining wall was paneled in mahogany. The oil portraits that hung in the open spaces between bookshelves were darkened with age and suggested successive generations of severe Christian gentlemen and their long-suffering mates.