On Tuesday, Jarod taught one English poetry class in the morning and then was mysteriously gone the rest of the day. On Wednesday morning I went to see my father and came back rather furious—somewhat unreasonably, but who is ever reasonable when they’re angry? I drove straight to school, knowing Jarod would be there after his Dickens and Donne classes. Lunch was over, so I went in the back door of Clauser Hall and up to his office, but no one was there, nor in my father’s. There was, however, an unusual amount of noise coming from the quad. I pulled aside the curtain from the window in my father’s office that overlooked the small quad and looked out.

            Students were milling around the opposite side of the quad. They seemed to be grouped around a central figure, a tall, dark-haired one who was doing something with a cylindrical structure. Was that—? He was not—

            I twitched the curtain closed, locked the office, and ran down the stairs. The smell of caramelized sugar met me outside. As I pushed my way through laughing, talking, sticky students, Jarod gave me a bright grin. Beside him Young John—I mean David Rothmayer—was pouring pink sugar into the hot, spinning silver drum. Jarod took a long paper cone and stuck it into the drum, twisting it, and as if by magic it collected a cloud of pink cotton candy. He handed it to me. How could you stay angry over fresh cotton candy?

            “You did not go and buy a cotton candy maker yesterday!”

            “You’re right. I rented it.” He handed a cone to a student. “Look at them! They’re transported back to their childhoods. Circuses.”

            “Fairs. You get cotton candy at fairs, too. That’s where I first had it. How did you know how to make it? I suppose that’s a stupid question.”

            “I had a demonstration from the man I rented it from.”

            Young John shouted at me, “I’ve never made cotton candy before!”

            “It’s always good to learn something new,” I shouted back. Someone had set up a boombox nearby, and it was suddenly difficult to hear anything. “I hope you like parties, Jarod! It looks like you’ve started one.”

            “There are worse things to start parties with than cotton candy!”

            “Oh, no.”

            “What?”

            “The Patriarch is coming. The school’s not making money off this, so it can’t be good for business.”

            The large, benevolent form of Mr. Leland was making its way through the crowd, smiling at the students eating their cotton candy. He stopped in front of Jarod.

            “Interesting thing you’ve got going here, Clennam.”

            “I certainly hope so!”

            “This is a fire hazard, you know.”

            “Actually, it’s not, sir. I’ve had it thoroughly researched.”

            “Ah, good for you. That’s a good job, Clennam. I’m afraid it’s illegal to distribute food here without a license.”

            “Actually, sir, as I’m not making money off it, it doesn’t violate any small-business laws, and the apparatus itself is perfectly legal to operate without a license.”

            “Well, good. That’s a relief. Wouldn’t what the FDA cracking down on us, would we?”

            “No, sir, we wouldn’t. Here you go.”

            He thrust a cone at him with a smile, and as Mr. Leland found himself the recipient of what he was protesting, he found it expedient to stop protesting. He took a bite instead and smiled.

            “I haven’t had this stuff in years.”

            “Takes you back to a more innocent time, doesn’t it?” Jarod smiled.

            The bell rang before Mr. Leland could answer. Students scattered, a few reaching out for the last cones Jarod was handing out.

            “Next time you really should get permission, Clennam,” Mr. Leland said before drifting away across the quad.

            “I’ll bear that in mind,” Jarod called after him.

            “Yeah, right you will,” I said quietly. “You’re not the sort of person to ask permission for anything you do, are you?”

            His eyes narrowed. “No, I’m not. Not anymore. Jan!” He gathered up the last of the cotton candy in the drum onto a cone and ran across the quad to Jan Bezic, late to her class as usual. I met him halfway as he came back toward the cooling cotton candy maker and stopped him, waving my cotton candy in his face.

            “I have a bone to pick with you, Jarod!”

            “A—what? That’s cotton candy on a cone, not a bone.”

            “Would you stop with the bewilderment over normal, everyday expressions for a minute? You went to see my father yesterday, didn’t you, Jarod Nicholas?”

            He folded his arms and looked down at me from his height.

            “You pretended like you were an investigator from the police department, and you called yourself Jarod Nicholas. My father described you completely, but I already knew it was you when he told me the name you gave him. What game are you playing here?”

            “Monopoly,” Jarod said. “I’m trying to win the ‘Get out of jail free’ card.”

            “How about the ‘Go straight to jail for impersonating a police officer, do not pass Go, do not collect $200’ card?”

            “I will not be going to jail. Believe me. I’m all about staying out of the place. Amy, listen to me. Your father is afraid for your safety if he tells you what he knows. The only person he was going to tell was someone who already knew enough that it wouldn’t hurt him to know more, and it had to be someone with authority to do something about it and not get hurt by it. He’s afraid of what he knows. He’s already seen it hurt too many people.”

            “Did he tell you?”

            “Yes. Did you tell him about me?”

            “No, I didn’t. I didn’t want him to worry about me. Now, tell me what he told you!”

            “Not now. Young John is getting curious about our extended conversation, and anyway, I need his help.”

            He and David, who, like the Young John of Little Dorrit, seemed to have lost his animosity and become magnanimous, packed away the cotton candy things and put them in his car. Then he explained what he needed help with, leaning against the blue Mustang, which Dave admired immensely.

            “Amy, the police checked out your basement and attic, didn’t they?”

            “Completely. They still haven’t found where Tim was killed. He was just dumped by the river, but he wasn’t killed there.”

            “And they decided it wasn’t at your house. It’s one of their still-open lines of investigation. They looked into basement areas of school and concluded he wasn’t killed here, either. Now they’re interrogating your father and examining all his financial records to see if he has a summer home, hunting cabin, warehouse, storage shed, or anywhere else he might have done it.”

            “Gosh!” Young John said. “Where do you think he did it?” He glanced at me quickly. “The real murderer, I mean.”

            Jarod answered, “I think he—we’ll say he for convenience—I think he did it on campus. I don’t believe he would have been foolish enough to do it in his own home, if he planned to frame Professor Doran. I looked around in all the basement areas and agreed with the police that they’re clean, so I need your expertise, Dave. Your father is the head of maintenance, right?”

            “Yeah, pretty much all my life.”

            “So you know the buildings well. As a child you probably played games and explored them all?”

            “Yeah, I did. Got in trouble sometimes for it, too.”

            “These are old buildings. Do you know of any hidden or forgotten-about rooms, anything boarded up that everyone would have forgotten about?”

            His eyes widened. “Yeah! I do! I forgot about that! It’s in the Bailey Building.”

            Jarod grabbed a flashlight out of his car. “Show me.”

            We followed Dave down into the basement of the Bailey Building, which housed the Sciences and Mathematics Departments. Dave was having way too much fun in his new role, peering around corners and waving us after him as he sprinted down corridors. Jarod and I shared a grin.

            A lot of stuff was stored in the basement of the Bailey Building, little-used science equipment, locked chemical storage cabinets, neatly labeled boxes. Dave led us to the far wall of one ill-lighted room. Boxes were stacked up against it.

            “They have all these boxes here now, but it used to be a lot of old equipment. I was hiding down here once so I didn’t have to do my chores, and I knocked something over, and it went through some old boards in the wall. Scared me out of my wits, but it was a neat hiding place. We can move these old boxes—”

            “Wait,” Jarod said. He played his flashlight around. “The dust has been disturbed. These boxes have been moved recently. Would he have been so foolish as to leave fingerprints? Probably not, but don’t touch anything, just in case. Dave, where do they keep latex gloves around here?”

            “I’ll get some! Just don’t go in there while I’m gone.”

            Jarod grinned at me. “He’s enjoying this.”

            “He’s a good kid.”

            Dave came back with a box. Jarod handed out gloves; Dave took joy in pulling his on with his best imitation of a police investigator on TV. We moved the boxes carefully along the same paths they had been moved before, and Dave and I followed gingerly in Jarod’s footsteps as he ducked into the darkness behind them, barely more than a cramped little hole.

            “Stand there,” he said. “Don’t move, and don’t touch anything.” He shone the flashlight around. “This was nothing more than a closet under some stairs, but they remodeled the building thirty or forty years ago.” His light fell on something. A chair against the wall. He examined the floor for footprints in the dust and found something that made his mouth go grimly flat. Avoiding whatever it was, he went over to the chair and examined it completely, picked up something on the floor under it. “Duct tape. And—look at this.” He held up a tiny bottle. “Cyclamenaline.” He put it carefully back down.

            “And what are the marks you found on the floor?” Dave asked.

            “Heel marks, from a body being dragged. The murderer took him around the upper body and dragged him out, walking backward. Tim was a tall young man. It was a fairly powerful person, not likely to be a woman, though it doesn’t rule that out completely. And this part of the building is very convenient to the faculty parking lot. So he held him down here for about twenty-four hours. He probably lured him down here late one night with promises of more money, knocked him on the head (the autopsy report mentions a minor blunt-weapon trauma on his head), duct taped him to the chair (the report also mentions duct tape residue on his skin), and waited for him to wake up.”

            “Oh, don’t!” I cried and pushed past Dave out of the tiny room.

            They followed me out, concerned.

            “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t like Tim, but he was so young—and someone just kidnapped him—and left him in there in fear and pain while he went about his everyday Friday activities—teaching or doing paperwork—while all along Tim was down here, probably trying to scream to get help—and no one ever came— Can you imagine the last thing you ever see is the person who’s killing you?”

            “Yes,” Jarod said quietly.

            We stared at him.

            “I can imagine it. I’m sorry. You didn’t need to see this. Help me put the boxes back, and we’ll go.”

            As we were walking through the maze of basement rooms, Jarod stopped at one of the chemical cupboards. He eyed the lock speculatively for a moment and then went on. Dave and I gave each other a puzzled glance.

            Outside Jarod said, “Thank you for your help, Dave.”

            “Anytime. So are you really a private detective or an undercover cop or something?”

            “Or something,” Jarod smiled. “This stays between us, you understand?”

            “I promise, as long as you let me help when you bust the case open.”

            “It’s a deal.” They shook hands on it, and Jarod laughed as Dave went away. “Too many cop shows. I like your Young John, Little Dorrit.”

            “He’s not my Young John,” I muttered. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

            He put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you going to be alright?”

            “Yes.”

            The walk in the cool autumn air did me good. As I was coming back, I remembered that Jarod hadn’t told me what my father told him. Figuring he would probably be in his office or my father’s, I went in a side door of Clauser Hall and tried my father’s office first. The door was unlocked. As I pushed it open, I saw Jarod by the windows looking down into the quad, pulling aside the curtain a little, his head against the window sill. He was on his mobile phone again.

            “I’ve decided I really can thank you for a few things, Sydney. You might have stolen my life, but at least you developed my talents.” He gave a short, hard laugh. “Thanks to you I can now go into a room where a murder took place and watch the murderer doing his dirty work. That’s quite an exchange for a stolen childhood, isn’t it? It’s helping me now. It’s helping me help the innocent, instead of hurting them like it used to. I don’t know that I would have been able to use it like this if you hadn’t taught me to. It’s strange, isn’t it? That when someone does something evil, it can be turned into good. I wonder why that is.”

            Yes, obviously I was destined to inadvertently eavesdrop on all of Jarod’s phone conversations. I quietly retreated. Sydney. What was up with this Sydney? Jarod held bitterness toward him; I could hear it in his voice. Bitterness for his stolen childhood. His orphanage, or whatever it was, had put his extraordinary brain to work instead of letting him be a child, and Sydney was the one who had trained him. But Jarod couldn’t just leave his past behind. He kept calling Sydney. There was more in his voice than bitterness. What was it? A need to be connected? A man all alone in the world, trying to find his biological family, kept calling the man who had raised him, reaching out. That was natural, I supposed. You’ve got to have someone. Childhood influences are very strong. Look at Arthur Clennam. He kept trying to reach out to the woman who had raised him without an ounce of kindness.

            Mrs. Clennam had raised Arthur, her husband’s illegitimate child, as her own child, having taken him by force from his real mother, and he never knew she was not his mother. She raised him in punitive coldness, forcing him to atone for his parents’ sins. She told Little Dorrit later, with not the slightest remorse for her blighting of Arthur’s childhood, “I kept over him as a child, in the days of his first remembrance, my restraining and correcting hand. I was stern with him, knowing that the transgressions of the parents are visited on their offspring, and that there was an angry mark upon him at his birth. I have sat with him and his father, seeing the weakness of his father yearning to unbend him; and forcing it back, that the child might work out his release in bondage and hardship. I have seen him, with his mother’s face, looking up at him in awe from his little books, and trying to soften me with his mother’s ways that hardened me.” And about Arthur she said, “He never loved me, but he always respected me and ordered himself dutifully to me. He does to this hour. With an empty place in his heart that he has never known the meaning of, he has turned away from me and gone his separate road; but even that he has done considerately and with deference.” Did Jarod love Sydney? I thought perhaps he might, unlike Arthur. Less deference, more love, all for someone who had stolen his childhood. Was I missing something?

            I went slowly back to my father’s office after about ten minutes of walking around and thinking. This time it was locked and unoccupied. But Jarod had left his phone on the windowsill. I found it when I went to close the curtain he had left open a crack.

            I don’t know why I did it, but I found my thumb pressing redial. In a moment a man’s voice answered, accented, familiar.

            “This is Sydney.”

            “Sydney?”

            “Yes?”

            A thousand questions flew through my head to ask. Instead I found myself asking, “Are you Mrs. Clennam?” Are you Mrs. Clennam? What kind of a question is that? I said quickly, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up.

            Sydney stood staring at his telephone. He was still staring at it when Miss Parker came in.

            “What’s wrong, Sydney? Your telephone bite you again?”

            “Oh, hello, Miss Parker,” he said absently. “Do you know anyone named Mrs. Clennam?”

            “No, I don’t. Why?”

            “It’s not important. Just a wrong number.”

            Miss Parker took the phone from his hand and hung it up. “Jarod has called you twice in less than a week, Syd, and you’ve gotten nothing form him but idle chitchat.”

            “Not idle, Parker. Nothing Jarod does is idle. I did not raise him to be idle. We know he’s working on a murder investigation. Since he was asking about children with parents in prison, it makes me wonder if he’s trying to clear another innocent person.”

            “But there are no breadcrumbs, Sydney! We’ve already checked into murders involving places where they sell cotton candy, and nothing.”

            “Patience, Parker. Patience.”

            Clennam, he thought when Miss Parker had stormed out. Are there ever really any wrong numbers at the Centre?