Colin Fischer Read Online Free PDF Page A

Colin’s mother did most of the talking, his father asked most of the questions, and Colin spoke not at all. Instead, Colin spent the hour studying Dr. Doran’s office, subjecting everything he saw to careful scrutiny.
    In his Notebook, Colin wrote:
         Dr. Doran’s office: Clean, well-organized. Books on education and child psychology. Post-it notes stick out from some of the pages. Other bookson management and organizational politics also in evidence—paperback, dog-eared. She likes to read. On her desk, pictures of Dr. Doran with her family. One shows her smiling with a man and young boy, perhaps three years old—husband and child? This appears to be from ten years ago, although there are no further pictures of the boy. More recent photos show only Dr. Doran and the man. She does not smile in them.
    Colin spoke only nine words to Dr. Doran, and he saved them for the end of the meeting. “Dr. Doran,” Colin had said then, “I am very sorry for your loss.”
    Once again, Colin found himself doing very little talking in Dr. Doran’s presence. She was staring at him over steepled fingers, sitting back in her chair. The cell phone Mr. Gates had found was on the desk before her. Colin looked at his feet.
    “I know it wasn’t your fault,” Dr. Doran said evenly. “But I do hold you responsible for how you choose to react to things that upset you. Do you understand?”
    Colin nodded. He offered no explanation because there was none.
    “If and when something like this happens in the future, ask your teacher to excuse you from the classroom. You can come here, if you like, until you feel better.”
    Colin looked up at her. “What if my teacher says ‘no’?”
    “Your teacher will not say ‘no.’” She meant it. Colin could tell. He trusted her.
    “Let me be clear,” she continued. “If there is another incident, I’ll deal with you the same way I would deal with any other student here. Do you understand?”
    Colin nodded again.
    “You may go.”
    Colin stood, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and turned to leave. As he reached the door, he stopped and turned back toward Dr. Doran.
    “Yes?”
    He pointed at the cell phone. “Do you know whom that belongs to?”
    “Not yet. But I expect we’ll find out soon enough.”
    Colin shook his head. “No,” he disagreed, “you won’t. May I see it?”
    Dr. Doran wrinkled her nose, then held up the phone so Colin could take it. He scrolled through the received calls. “You see?” he offered. “This telephone has only received two calls, both from a restricted number.”
    She rose to get a better look. Colin paged through the options on the phone. “No missed calls, no sent calls. There are no stored contacts, and no information on the owner other than the assigned area code and number. Don’t you find that strange?”
    “It’s a new phone,” Dr. Doran observed.
    “Yes,” Colin agreed.
    He pulled a plastic sheet off of the LCD screen. “So new the owner didn’t bother to completely unpack it. However, that is not what is strange about this telephone.” He turned it over and ran his finger across the back. “Look at these scratch marks. They could only come from someone replacing a SIM card.”
    Colin reached into his backpack and produced a small screwdriver from a pocket toolkit (a curious investigator’s best friend). He used it to pry open the back of the phone. Dr. Doran leaned forward to get a better look at Colin’s impromptu forensic analysis. In spite of herself, she found this fascinating.
    A narrow cover popped free, and Colin extracted its SIM card. “This SIM card came from a pre-pay telephone, making the owner completely untraceable.”
    “So where’s the original SIM card?”
    “With the person who bought this phone.”
    “And you’re saying we can’t figure out who that was.”
    “No, I’m saying you can’t figure out who owned this phone just by looking at it.”
    Dr. Doran drummed her fingers against her desk