Before She Disappeared

CHAPTER 21

Mr. Riddenscail is Livia’s AutoCAD teacher at Boston Polytech. A tall white guy, he has a lanky build and an absent-minded expression. He’s dressed casually in worn jeans, a thin T-shirt topped by work flannel, and battered boots. A spoon and a fork protrude from the top of his right boot, but he doesn’t appear to notice. He moves across the room, dodging workstations with quick efficiency born of practice, as he leads us to the front. He doesn’t seem all that concerned to have a police detective and associate appear in his classroom during lunch hour. A very been-there-done-that sort of dude.

“Yes, I know Livia Samdi.” He nods as he reaches his desk, pulls open a drawer, and takes out a metal lunchbox that looks straight out of the 1950s.

“Did she make a plastic pumpkin in the course of your class?” Lotham asks him, his gold badge clearly on display.

“Sure. That’s a traditional fall assignment.”

“How would you describe her?”

“Good student. Solid. But I have a feeling that’s not why you are asking these questions.”

“When did you last see her?”

“January. I reported her absence to the administration, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No judgment here,” Lotham says, which is great because I’m full of judgment. How did you not worry about her? How did you not reach out in any way possible to this teenager who clearly needed you? Having seen firsthand the conditions of Livia’s house, the dealings of her family . . .

“Describe her as a student.” Lotham again.

Riddenscail pauses in the act of unwrapping his sandwich, obediently considering the matter. “Umm, she had natural aptitude for picturing things in an X-Y-Z plane. Can’t say the same for too many of my kids.”

“But was she a good student?”

“Excellent. But also quiet. She wasn’t one to speak up, or help out her fellow classmates. I’d describe her as a sleeper student.”

I raise my hand, unable to help myself: classroom, conditioned response. “What does that mean?”

Mr. Riddenscail turns toward me. “She had a natural aptitude but she existed in her own self-contained bubble. She knew what she knew, did what she did, then moved on.”

Detective Lotham: “How adept was she?”

“Oh, I would describe her as one of my best students.” Mr. Riddenscail hesitates. “Look, I work with a lot of at-risk kids. For many of them, discovering the right trade represents their ticket out. Meaning once they find the right fit, they go all in. Bond with me, work with their classmates, log extra hours. These kids . . . You wouldn’t believe the talent. Give them the opportunity and man oh man! Livia Samdi, on the other hand . . . I tried to engage her on multiple occasions, give her special assignments to build her confidence. But in the end, she wasn’t taking the bait. And yeah, I was concerned by that.”

Detective Lotham: “She ever talk about her family?”

Mr. Riddenscail shakes his head.

Me: “What about friends?”

“Couldn’t give you a single name. She was a loner. At least in my class.”

“Did she stay after school?” Lotham again. “Spend extra time in your class?”

“I’d pushed her to enter a SkillsUSA technical drafting competition in the spring, which required preparation. So yes, she often logged time here after school. I’d say several days a week. At least, you know, till she went missing.”

My turn: “Did you ever see anyone waiting for her? Or maybe she brought a friend with her to your classroom while she worked?”

Mr. Riddenscail gives us both a look. “Never.”

“Tell us about this competition,” Lotham orders.

“Livia’s specialty was designing plastic molds for the manufacturing of thermoplastic materials. Basically, using 3D printing to help create replacement parts. Think of it this way. In various manufacturing processes, say your average laptop computer, dozens of the component parts are plastic. The ability to design the right part, or create a mold for the ongoing manufacturing of such parts, is highly valuable. Livia had a mind for such things. She could naturally picture what made something work. Better yet, she could see how each piece worked within the whole. From there, it was easy enough for her to design the necessary part, or on a great day, design a whole new setup that dramatically improved the operational whole. Like I said. She’s crazy talented.”

“Can you show us an example of her projects?” Lotham asks.

I nod vigorously, because so far, I can’t picture any of this. Then again, science was never my strong suit.

“Didn’t she use one of your computers?” I add.

“Sure, but you’re talking last year. I don’t have her work saved on the computers anymore. Then again”—Mr. Riddenscail taps his nose thoughtfully—“I didn’t clean out her drawer. That should still have some of her drawings, not to mention smaller samples of her work.”

Lunch forgotten, he leads the way over to a huge metal cabinet. The doors open to reveal a series of shallow drawers. Bending all the way down, Riddenscail pulls out several large sheets of design paper, followed by what appear to be several plastic thingamajigs.

Lotham takes the drawings. I explore the thingamajigs. A cube that has movable sides, a series of spirals that spin here, spin there. The items are fashioned from plain white plastic and rough to the touch, clearly prototypes of something. But the fact that I can work the cube and play with the spirals is fascinating to me.

“She was fifteen?” I ask incredulously, because this is way beyond me as a functional adult, let alone the drunk teen I used to be.

“Ah yes, Livia’s specially designed fidget gadgets. The pumpkin assignment for her was fun, but hardly a challenge. Most kids spent a week on it, whereas Livia designed her jack-o’-lantern in a single day, then designed two of those with the time left over. Several of her fellow students expressed interest, but like I said, she wasn’t one to share.”

Because I just can’t help myself, I raise my hand again. Clearly Livia had mad skills. Which meant she also had a way out of her impoverished, drug-dealing, crime-ridden family life. Her education combined with her natural ability—the sky should’ve been the limit. So what went wrong? Why wasn’t she still at school, perfecting more pumpkins and fidget doohickeys and manufacturing molds while preparing to launch the next great exciting chapter of her life?

And how did it involve Angelique?

“This was easy for her?” I ask, holding up the fidget gadgets. “As in, totally natural?”

“Absolutely.”

“And she could make plastic molds? For manufacturing, something like that?”

“Sure. Rudimentary ones, but she was only going to get better. Especially given her gift for total system overview—how one part related to the next. That kind of process perspective I can’t teach; you get it or you don’t.”

Beside me, Lotham nods. “She ever play around with, I don’t know . . . plastic stamps of images, flowers, U.S. Treasury symbols, whatever.”

Mr. Riddenscail taps his nose again. “Umm, no.”

“But she had the ability. Could’ve even been working on some side projects at home?”

“Ability, yes. Side projects, no. Whatever work Livia did was performed here. The design software is licensed; the kids can’t access it on their own computers. Let alone, for any of these products”—he nods toward the plastic chunks in my hand—“you need a 3D printer. Again, not the kind of thing Livia would have at home.”

“And you knew every project your kids worked on?” Lotham presses, while I stare at the spirals in my hand and digest this latest statement.

“3D printing isn’t cheap. Of course I monitor it. Have you seen our school budget? Plus, my job is to review my students’ drawings over and over again. You only want to print when you’re absolutely ready. Otherwise it wastes time and materials. Have you seen a 3D printer, Detective?”

Lotham shakes his head. Without another word, Mr. Riddenscail turns and leads us to a side door in the classroom, which opens to a smaller room dominated by a large, fully enclosed glass box with all sorts of mechanical parts in the middle. It looks to weigh a ton and cost a fortune, which I guess goes to Mr. Riddenscail’s point that it’s not the sort of thing any teenager is going to have at home.

“This is the uPrint,” he says.

“Can’t you print a plastic gun?” I ask, because thinking of Livia’s family and my own recent encounter with them, this strikes me as a highly valued commodity.

“Can you fashion a plastic gun? Yes. Do we do that here? No.” Mr. Riddenscail sounds firm on the subject.

“But it would be highly valuable,” I press. “Particularly in this neighborhood.”

“No.”

Lotham raises a brow at the reply, causing Mr. Riddenscail to elaborate: “Most plastic guns are good for a single shot. And given the lack of rifling on the barrel, it has to be up close and personal. Now, if you needed to sneak a gun through security—either at an airport, courthouse, for a Jason Bourne kind of deal, okay. But I know my kids’ lives, and no gangbanger wants a small, single-shot pistol. They want firepower. The bigger, the better. Nothing made here is going to be impressive enough for their needs. Plus most of the drug dealers out there, just because they can pull the trigger, doesn’t mean they can aim. Hence their love of automatic rifles. Plastic guns are a finesse tool. Around here”—Mr. Riddenscail shrugs—“that’s not what’s needed.”

Lotham nods shortly. It does make a crazy kind of sense but also leads us back to where we started. Livia had a talent, involving complex design and this enormous 3D printer. Which translates to what?

Plastic molds to assist in counterfeiting money? Except that’s only a tiny step of a highly involved and elaborate process. Let alone what kind of European counterfeiting ring is going to recruit a fifteen-year-old girl from inner-city Boston?

And yet, Angelique had counterfeit hundreds while also having a relationship—intimate or otherwise—with Livia. Angelique disappeared, and three months later Livia went missing. The girls were connected. The money was connected, which made it stand to reason that all of this—Livia’s skills, Angelique’s ambitions—also had to be connected.

Except how?

“Are there other teachers or classes Livia mentioned?” Lotham asks now.

A shrug. “You can check with Mrs. Jones, the school guidance counselor. She might know more.”

Lotham nods. He’d mentioned talking to a school counselor earlier this morning, so I’m guessing he’s already covered those bases.

“Anyone seem rattled or particularly bothered when Livia stopped coming to school?” I speak up.

Mr. Riddenscail shakes his head. “Which is a shame. She was a good kid. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

There doesn’t seem to be much more to say or do. Lotham shakes the teacher’s hand. I follow suit. Then we’re once more in the hallway.

“Where does this leave us?” I grumble out loud.

Lotham frowns, purses his lips. “I don’t know,” he says at last.

“Livia’s and Angelique’s disappearances have to be related.”

“I don’t believe in that big a coincidence,” Lotham agrees.

“The cash in Angelique’s lamp, the burner phones. The girls were up to something that put them in contact with fake currency while helping them earn real dough. Something that clearly got them in trouble. Leading to Angelique’s disappearance, then Livia’s. Except why the vanishing act three months apart? Help us, Angelique’s note said. Meaning they’re together now? And in even more danger eleven months later? Held against their will? By whom? How . . .”

Suddenly, I stop walking. I grab Lotham’s hand. “The footage. Angelique’s last day of school. All the cameras that don’t show Angelique exiting the school or walking down the street.”

Lotham regards me quizzically.

“You didn’t know about Livia then. You watched all those video frames looking for Angelique. This whole case, back then, was about one missing girl. One disappearance. But knowing what we know now . . .”

Lotham comes to a dead halt as well. “We gotta watch those tapes again.”

I smile. “We should absolutely do that,” I say, with just the barest emphasis on we.

He doesn’t deny me. Together, we rush out the door.