"This is my partner, Detective Brown," Hawes said.
"Nice to meetcha," Buono said. "You come back for the stuff?"
"Well, no," Hawes said. "Few questions we'd like to ask you."
Buono immediately figured they knew he was stealing supplies from the classroom closets.
"Hey, sure," he said, and tried to look innocent. He locked the door behind them, and said, "Come on over the office, we can talk there. My friend and me were playing checkers."
They walked down a yellow-tiled, locker-lined corridor. They passed a wall clock that read twenty minutes past ten. They made a left turn. More students' lockers on either wall. A bulletin board. A poster reading:
COME CHEER THE TIGERS!
Saturday, Nov. 1, 2:00 p.m.
RAUCHER FIELD
To the right of that, another poster announcing:
SEBASTIAN THE GREAT!
HALLOWEEN MAGIC!
Auditorium. 4:00 p.m.
Beneath the lettering was a black-and-white photograph of a good-looking young man wearing a top hat and bow tie, grinning into the camera.
"Okay to take that poster?" Brown asked.
"Which one?" Buono said.
"The magician."
"Sure," Buono said, and shrugged.
Brown began pulling out the tacks.
"Come in handy, we find the head," he said to Hawes, and then folded the poster and put it in his inside jacket pocket.
Buono led them further down the hall, opened a door at the end of it. A sparsely furnished room. An upright locker, green in contrast to the reds, yellows, and oranges of the lockers in the halls. Long oak table, probably requisitioned from one of the administration offices. Four straight-backed chairs around it, checker board on one end of it. Coffee pot on a hot plate on one wall of the room, clock over it. Framed picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall opposite.
"This here's my friend, Sal Pasquali," Buono said.
Pasquali was in his late sixties, early seventies, wearing brown trousers, brown shoes and socks, a pale yellow sports shirt, and a brown sweater buttoned up the front. He looked like a candy-store owner.
"These people here are detectives," Buono said, and looked at Pasquali, hoping he would understand what the look meant: Watch your onions about the chalk, and the paste, and the pencils, and the erasers, and the reams of paper.
Pasquali nodded sagely, like a Mafia don.
"Pleased to meetcha," he said.
"So," Buono said, "sit down. You want some coffee?"
"Thanks, no," Hawes said.
The detectives pulled out chairs and sat.
Buono could see Brown's gun in a shoulder holster under his jacket.
"We were just playing checkers here," Pasquali said.
"Who's winning?" Brown asked.
"Well, we don't play for money or nothing," Pasquali said.
Which meant that they did.
Brown suddenly wondered what these two old farts were hiding-"I wanted to ask whether you saw anything that happened outside there this afternoon," Hawes said.
"Why?" Buono said at once. "Is something missing?"
"No, no. Missing? What do you mean?"
"Well, what do
"I meant when the cars were being loaded."
"Oh."
"When Mr. Sebastiani was out there loading his tricks in the Citation."
"I didn't see him doing that," Buono said.
"You weren't out there after he finished the act, huh?"
"No. I didn't come on till four o'clock."
"Well, he'd have been out there around five-thirty."
"No, I didn't see him."
"Then you have no idea who might've dumped that stuff out of his car…"
"No idea at all."
"And driven off with it."
"No. Five-thirty, I was prolly down the north end of the building, starting with the classrooms there. I usually start cleaning the classrooms down the north end, it's like a routine, you know. Tradition."
"That's near the driveway, isn't it? The north end?"
"Yeah, the back of the building. But I didn't see anything out there. I mean, I
"That's right. Four to midnight."
"Like us," Brown said, and smiled.
Yeah?" Buono said. "Is that your shift? Whattya know? You hear this, Sal? They got shifts like us."
"What a coincidence," Pasquali said.
Brown still wondered what they were hiding.
"So you came on at four…" Hawes said.
"Yeah. Four to midnight. There's a man relieves me at midnight." He looked at the clock on the wall. "Be here in a few hours, well, less. But he's like just a watchman, you know."
"If you came on at four…"
"Yeah." A nod.
"Then you weren't here when the Sebastianis arrived, were you? They would've got here about a quarter after three. You weren't here then, is that right?"
"No. Sal was here."
Pasquali nodded.
"Sal works from eight to four," Buono said. "He's the
"Shifts," Pasquali said. "Like you."
"He can't stay away from the place," Buono said. "Comes back to play checkers with me every night."
"I'm a widower," Pasquali explained, and shrugged.
"Did you see the cars when they arrived?" Brown asked him. "Tan Ford Econoline, blue Citation?"
"I seen one of them out there," Pasquali said. "But not when it came in."
