Stillman looked on while Chris continued. "Matt and I stayed late after school the night before. Matt wanted to go talk to Mr. Mueller some questions about this project he was working on." Chris sighed and shook his head. "The door was closed and blind on it was down, but we could see a bit under it. Mr. Mueller was in there with this girl, and they were..." Chris shifted uncomfortably.
"Matt was shock, so I dragged him out of there. I just wanted to forget what I saw. I thought Matt did too at first, until the next morning..."
("The Boys of Summer" - Don Henley)
Chris and Matt rushed around the corner of the school and looked around to make sure no one else was near.
"Look, I thought we agreed last night we weren't gonna tell anyone about this!" Chris hissed, trying to catch his breath.
"You can't ask me to do that!" said Matt.
"Why not? We don't know her." Matt looked uncomfortable while Chris continued. "We don't know what was going on. Maybe she wanted to."
"He's a teacher! That's just sick!" Matt said with disbelief. "I can't believe I looked up to him."
"Look," said Chris, calming down. "Me and Justine had a plan, all right? We're gonna be at Harvard next year, and I don't want to risk screwing everything up by getting in the middle of something like this."
"Chris..." Matt started, sympathetically.
"Matt, please." Chris put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm begging you, man. I don't wanna get in involved in this. I just want to get on with my life, you know?"
Matt looked down for a moment, then back up at him, with a look of disappointment and sighed.
Chris look back at him until he turned to see Justine walking towards them, smiling.
"Hey!" Justine said, cheerfully. "What are you guys up to?"
Chris looked at Matt anxiously until Matt answered.
"Nothing much." Matt said evenly with a slightly forced smile.
Chris let out a sigh of relief as the three of them walked back to the front of the school...
"So you tried to talk Matt out of telling anyone." Stillman said.
Chris nodded. "I was freaked out what might happen if we told anyone. I thought I convinced him, but maybe not."
"And you never told anyone what you saw?" Stillman asked.
Chris shook his head, solemnly.
"Even after Matt disappeared?"
Chris hung his head. "All I cared about was sticking to the plan. Guess that makes me a pretty lousy friend."
Scotty and Vera looked around the study in Russ Mueller's home, it was plastered with so many framed awards and certificates, they almost couldn't tell what color the walls were. To Scotty, however, it just looked like the home of the world's biggest narcist.
"It's a real shame about Matt." Mueller said, evenly. "One of the brightest students I ever had. Really smart kid."
Scotty gave a condescending smile. "Maybe too smart for his own good."
"Excuse me?" Mueller asked.
The smile didn't waver. "Matt found out what you were doin' to that girl."
"Then winds up at the bottom of the river." added Vera.
Mueller remained eerily calm. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Really? Cause we checked your history." Vera went on. "Seems you transferred to Matt's school after a little incident with your last job, a student accusing you of assaulting her."
Mueller shook his head slowly. "Those accusations were made by a troubled and confused young girl who, I might add, recanted her entire story soon after."
"Guess you're just real unlucky." Vera sneered. "All these false accusations following you around."
"I had nothing to do with that boy's death, and I can prove it." Mueller pointed to a framed newspaper clipping on the wall, the picture showing Mueller's younger self proudly holding up a plaque, surrounded by several other people. "The night he disappeared, I was at a ceremony, being named Teacher of the Year. I went there straight from work and didn't leave until well after midnight."
Scotty glared at Mueller while he continued. "As for that other matter, when you work with kids, they can lash out sometimes, say things they don't mean, things that aren't true. But up until the day I retired, they were all I cared about." He gave Scotty a condescending smile of his own. "Sometimes I had to be a little... creative in how I helped some of them, but I can honestly say, in thirty years of teaching, I have no regrets."
"You sick son of a bitch." Scotty advanced menacingly at Mueller.
"Scotty." Vera said, causing him to stop.
Mueller looked at Scotty and Vera. "I think that's all I have to say to you gentlemen, at least without a lawyer present, so I'll bid you both a good day."
Vera started to walk out but Scotty paused a moment. "Don't start thinkin' we're done with you, Russ." Scotty said, more even-tempered though he said Mueller's first name with more than a small dose of contempt. "You're gonna see me again, real soon."
Back at the precinct, Jeffries shook his head. "Checked out Mueller's alibi. Rock solid."
"Doesn't change what he was doin' to those girls, and God knows how many others." Scotty snorted. "Teacher of the Year."
"Chris saw what Mueller was doing too." Kat said. "Maybe we can get him to testify."
"Chris has a history of gettin' squirrely when he sees trouble." Vera said. "Not exactly a guy I'd be eager to put on the stand."
Stillman, who'd been standing over them, turned to see Lilly get up from her desk, the yearbook still open, and walk over.
"Boss," she said, uneasily. "You got a minute?"
"Yeah, sure." Stillman said, escorting her over to his office, ignoring the curious looks from the others.
"Lil," Stillman said with a concerned look once the door was closed. "Mueller didn't ever--"
"No." Lilly said, calmly. "No, I never even had him as a teacher." She shook her head. "Probably dodged a bullet there."
"Then what is it?"
"It's something about Matt, something I remembered. I wasn't sure if it was something worth talking about, but that Friday, I talked to him. He had something on his mind..."
("Someday" - Glass Tiger)
Just out of the last class of the day, Lilly was walking by a large book shelf in the library when she noticed Matt sitting on the floor in a corner, his eyes fixed on the dog tag he was holding.
"Matt?" She asked as she approached him.
Slightly startled, Matt looked up at her. "Oh, hey, Lilly."
"You all right?" She asked, concerned.
Matt paused for a moment, then nodded. "I was just thinking about something."
"What?" She asked, sitting down next to him.
Matt looking down, appearing to remember something, then looked back at her. "You got a sister, right?"
Lilly nodded.
"She ever get in trouble?"
Lilly rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah."
"But you still look out for her, right? I mean, she's your sister."
"Sure."
Matt nodded and looked down.
"Why are you asking?"
Matt looked back at her and shook his head. "I just thinking about stuff, like what I wanna do when I finish school." He gave her a slight smile. "What do you wanna do?"
Lilly smiled back. "I'm not sure. I think something where I could help people, make a difference in their lives."
Matt nodded. "I'd like something like that too. Something where I can find things out, you know, like a journalist or something."
"Yeah?" Lilly asked, amused.
"My dad says my mom was like that and that I got it from her. I'm always trying to learn things. If something's wrong, I wanna find out about it, try and make it right." He gave a nervous laugh and a wistful look passed over his face. "Not everyone likes that. Some people think I should mind my own business."
"I don't think that." She said, putting her hand over his. "I think that's kinda brave."
Matt looked at her intently with a smile for a moment before leaning in closer. Lilly did as well, closing her eyes, until their lips met.
The kiss was a brief one, but time seemed to stand still. When they finally pulled back, Lilly couldn't help but laugh at the amazed expression on Matt's face.
"You're right." Matt said, suddenly sounding more confident, as he stood up. "I gotta go find her. I gotta talk to her."
"Talk to who?" Lilly asked as Matt helped her up. "Matt, what's going on?"
Matt chuckled and rolled his eyes. "It's a long story. I'll tell you at the drive-in tonight."
Lilly nodded and Matt rushed off, leaving her standing there with a smile...
"That was the last I saw him." Lilly said, her gaze somewhere far away.
"Matt was asking about your sister, about looking out for her." Stillman said, thoughtfully.
"Probably thinking about his own sister," Lilly said solemnly. "But looking out for her from what?"
Stillman frowned in thought. "He said if something was wrong he wanted to make it right. We know he found out what Mueller was up to."
"But what does that have to do with her?" Lilly asked, suddenly looking up at him as something occurred to her. "Unless..."
"Carrie was the girl he saw Mueller with." Stillman finished, coming to the same conclusion.
"And he went to let her know he was going to tell what happened," added Lilly.
"She wasn't interested in getting to know him." Stillman said. "Him interfering in her life like that's probably the last thing she wanted."
"Maybe she decided there was only one way to get him to back off," Lilly sighed. "We'd better have another talk with her."
Stillman paused while Lilly headed out of the office. She was almost at the door when he spoke up. "No. Not you, Lil."
"Boss?" She looked back at him, confused.
"I'm glad you told me about this, but how long did you wait before you did?" His voice was calm but she could see the disapproval on his face.
"I wasn't hiding anything. I just wasn't sure about talking about it."
Stillman sighed. "Look, working cold jobs, it's not too often we get a victim we actually knew."
"What are you saying?" Lilly asked uneasily.
"I'm saying I think you got a little too much history with this case to be objective." He looked at her intently. "I'm taking you off this one."
Lilly's eyes widened. "Boss..." she started to protest.
"Discussion's over." He said quietly, cutting her off. Without another word, he walked out, leaving her standing there in disbelief.