“What would they say about it?” Rider asked.

“Oh, you know, like what stars came in there. People like Sean Penn and Charlie Sheen. And sometimes they talked about what guys worked there and who was cute. Nothing too interesting to me since I didn’t work there.”

“Was there any one guy in particular they talked about?”

She thought a moment before answering.

“Not really. Not that I remember. They just liked to talk about them because they were so different. They were surfers and would-be actors. Tara and Becky were Valley girls. It was like a culture clash for them.”

“Was she dating anybody from the restaurant?” Bosch asked.

“Not that I knew of. But it’s like I said, I didn’t know about the pregnancy, so there was obviously somebody in her life I didn’t know about. She kept it a secret.”

“Were you jealous of them because they worked there?” Rider asked.

“Not at all. I didn’t have to work and I was pretty happy about that.”

Rider was going somewhere so Bosch let her continue.

“What did you guys do for fun when you got together?” she asked.

“I don’t know, the usual,” Sable said. “We went shopping and to movies, stuff like that.”

“Who had cars?”

“ Tara did and so did I. Tara had a convertible. We used to go up…”

She cut it off when she came to a memory.

“What?” Rider asked.

“I just remember driving up into Limekiln Canyon a lot after school. Tara had a cooler in the trunk and her dad never noticed if she’d taken some of his beers out of the refrigerator. One time we got pulled over up there by a police car. We hid the beers under our uniform skirts. They worked perfect for that. The policeman didn’t notice.”

She smiled at the memory.

“Of course, now that I teach here I’m on the watch for that sort of thing. We still have the same uniforms.”

“What about before she started working at the restaurant?” Bosch said, drawing the interview back to Rebecca Verloren. “She was sick for a week, right after school let out. Did you visit her or talk to her then?”

“I’m sure I did. That is when they said she probably, you know, ended the pregnancy. So she wasn’t really sick. She was just recovering. But I didn’t know. I must have just thought she was sick, that’s all. I can’t really remember if we talked that week or not.”

“Did the detectives back then ask you all of these questions?”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure they did.”

“Where would a girl from Hillside Prep go if she got pregnant?” Rider asked. “Back then, I mean.”

“You mean like a clinic or a doctor?”

“Yes.”

Bailey Sable’s neck flushed. She was embarrassed by the question. She shook her head.

“I don’t know. That was as shocking really as Becky being, you know, killed. It made us all think we didn’t really know our friend. It was really sad because I realized she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me these things. You know, I still think about that when I remember things back then.”

“Did she have any boyfriends that you did know about?” Bosch asked.

“Not then. I mean, at the time. She had a boyfriend freshman year but he had moved away to Hawaii with his family. That was like the summer before. Then the whole school year I thought she was alone. You know, she didn’t go to any of the dances or the games with anybody. But I was wrong, I guess.”

“Because of the pregnancy,” Rider said.

“Well, yeah. That’s sort of obvious, isn’t it?”

“Who was the father?” Bosch asked, hoping the direct question might elicit a response with something to pursue.

But Sable shrugged.

“I have no idea, and don’t think I’ve ever stopped wondering.”

Bosch nodded. He had gotten nothing.

“The breakup with the boy who moved to Hawaii -how was that with her?” he asked.

“Well, I thought it broke her heart. She took it really hard. It was like Romeo and Juliet.”

“How so?”

“They were broken up by the parents.”

“You mean they didn’t want them going together?”

“No, his dad took a job or something in Hawaii. They had to move and it broke them up.”

Bosch nodded again. He didn’t know if any of the information they were getting was useful but he knew it was important to cast as wide a net as possible.

“Do you know where Tara Wood is these days?” he asked.

Sable shook her head.

“We had a ten-year reunion and she didn’t come. I lost touch with her. I still talk to Grace Tanaka from time to time. But she lives up in the Bay Area so I don’t see her too much.”

“Can you give us her number?”

“Sure, I have it here.”

She reached down and opened a desk drawer and pulled out her purse. While she was getting out an address book Bosch took the photo of Mackey off the desk and put it back into his pocket. When Sable read off a phone number Rider wrote it down in a small notebook.

“Five ten,” Rider said. “What is that, Oakland?”

“She lives in Hayward. She wants to live in San Francisco but it costs too much for what she makes.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a metal sculptor.”

“Her last name is still Tanaka?”

“Yes. She never married. She…”

“What?”

“She turned out to be gay.”

“Turned out?”

“Well, what I mean is, we never knew. She never told us. She moved up there and once about eight years ago I went up to visit and then I knew.”

“It was obvious?”

“Obvious.”

“Did she come to the ten-year high school reunion?”

“Yes, she was there. We had fun, but it was sort of sad, too, because people talked about Becky and how it was never solved. I think that’s probably why Tara didn’t come. She didn’t want to be reminded of what happened to Becky.”

“Well, maybe we’ll change that by the twentieth reunion,” Bosch said, immediately regretting the flippant remark. “Sorry, that wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

“Well, I hope you do change it. I think about her all the time. Always wondering who did it and why they have never been found. I look at her picture every day on the plaque when I come into school. It’s weird. I helped raise the money for that plaque when I was class president.”

“They?” Bosch asked.

“What?”

“You said they have never been found. Why did you say they?”

“I don’t know. He, she, whatever.”

Bosch nodded.

“Mrs. Sable, thanks for your time,” he said. “Would you do us a favor and not talk about this with anyone? We don’t want people being prepared for us, you know what I mean?”

“Like with me?”

“Exactly. And if you think of anything else, anything at all you want to talk about, my partner will give you a card with our numbers on it.”

“Okay.”

She seemed to be in a far-off reverie. The detectives said good-bye and left her there with the stack of papers to grade. Bosch thought she was probably remembering a time when four girls were the best of friends and the future sparkled in front of them like an ocean.

Before leaving the school they stopped by the office to see if the school had any current contact information for former student Tara Wood. Gordon Stoddard had Mrs. Atkins check but the answer was no. Bosch asked if they could borrow the 1988 yearbook to make copies of some of the photos and Stoddard gave his approval.

“I’m on my way out,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

They small-talked on the way back to the library and Stoddard gave them the yearbook, which had already been returned to the shelves. On the way out to the parking lot Stoddard stopped with them once more in front of the memorial plaque. Bosch ran his fingers over the raised letters of Becky Verloren’s name. He noticed that the edges had been worn smooth over the years by many students doing the same thing.