Marty said.
âIâm assuming that means she wasnât one of your faves,â Joanna said.
These kids already knew Debra Highsmith was dead. There was no point in Joannaâs trying to maintain otherwise, so she didnât bother.
âEarlier this year she suspended me for ten days for no reason,â Marty Pembroke grumbled. âIf my father hadnât appealed to the school board, I wouldnât have been able to make up the work and might not have been able to graduate with my class.â
âWell, boo-hoo-hoo,â Joanna said, making zero effort to tone down the sarcasm. âYou claim she suspended you for no reason? Really?â
âIt was all because some jerk put a can of beer in my locker. The beer wasnât even mine. It was one of my friendsâ idea of a joke. She blew it all out of proportion.â
âExcuse me,â Joanna pointed out, âbut being a minor in possession of alcohol is against the law.â She passed the phone back to him. âSaying you were suspended for no reason isnât exactly being fair to Ms. Highsmith. It turns out there was a reason for your suspensionâand a valid one at that. As for having a beer at school? That certainly compounds an already difficult issue. Did you mention to Ms. Highsmith that you thought someone else had put it there?â
âNo,â Marty said. âWhat do you think I am, some kind of snitch?â
âThere you are,â Joanna said agreeably. âYou didnât rat out your pals, and youâre the one who got suspended. Fair enough. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Still, does a ten-day suspension warrant being glad someone is dead?â
âAll we were doing here was talking, and just because I said it doesnât mean I meant it,â Marty muttered. âBesides, all any of us know about what happened is what we saw in the pictureâjust her body lying there.â
The intervening conversation had given Joanna a chance to get a grip on herself. It didnât matter whose Facebook site had the photo on it; Joanna knew the origin of the original. It had to have come from either the killer or Jenny. Unfortunately, between those two options, Jennifer Ann Brady as the source of the photo seemed the more likely, although Joanna wasnât aware that her daughter even had a Facebook page.
âTell me about Facebook,â she said. âWhere is that photo posted? Whose account?â
âWe donât have to tell you that,â Marty Pembroke replied. âIsnât that like freedom of speech or something?â
âIf you wonât tell her, I will,â Dena said. Obviously Martyâs reluctance to be a snitch didnât extend to Dena. âItâs Anne Marie Mayfieldâs page. Sheâs the one who posted it. She didnât like Ms. Highsmith, either. Neither did I.â
âWhat was your beef with her?â Joanna asked.
âShe sent us both home to change clothes,â Dena replied. âShe said Anne Marieâs skirt was too short, and my neckline was too low. Itâs like she turned into the fashion police or something. She probably would have been happier if weâd all had to wear uniforms to school.â
âSounds to me like she was doing her job,â Joanna said.
The four kids in the booth, exchanging a set of disparaging looks, remained duly unimpressed.
With the conversation seemingly at an end, Joanna pulled out a pen and a notebook that she opened to a fresh page. âIâll need your names and phone numbers,â she said.
Dena had struck Joanna as being the weakest link, so she handed the writing equipment to her. Without a word, she wrote down the required information and passed it along. Since Dena had complied without objection, so did everyone else.
When they finished and handed the pen and notebook back, Joanna stood up and returned her chair to the other table. Then she reached into