She picked up the cat, who was circling her ankles.
“Good luck,” she said. “It would be nice if someone did solve this case. I’d like to see whatever bastard did this get everything they deserve. We all would.”
21
“LEARN ANYTHING?” DAVID ASKED AS THEY HEADED BACK TO THE CAR.
Stevie stuffed her hands into the pockets of her shorts and concentrated on the cracks in the sidewalk.
“Don’t know,” Stevie said. “I mean, on the surface it was all stuff that’s in all the articles. But there was something—I don’t know what. Something was weird.”
“Weird like she was involved?”
“No,” she said, turning toward him. “I mean, I don’t know, but I don’t think so? Something’s sticking out. There’s something about it that . . .”
Sometimes Stevie could see thoughts in her head—like little blocks, objects that arranged themselves, stuck themselves together. The words that Susan had said were moving around in a more or less orderly fashion, but one thing was trying to wriggle free. What was it . . . ?
“On another note,” David said, “you know, in September . . .”
“Huh?”
“September.”
“What about September?” she said. All the thoughts vanished into the corners of her mind, like mice scurrying away when a person turned on the light and came into the room. She frowned in annoyance.
“What?” he said. “Why are you making that face?”
“What about September? What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying that in September, it’ll be, you know, school.”
Stevie waited for clarification on this scintillating fact. She had been so close to placing her thought. Why did he have to start talking about school? School was far in the distance.
“Well,” he said, noting her irritation and responding with his infuriating smile, “you’ll be back on the mountaintop, and . . .”
Stevie turned her focus back to the street they were walking down. Sleepy, sunny Barlow Corners. Everything here was so snug in this town center. There was the library, sitting proudly on the green, with its stupid statue. There was the Sunshine Bakery and the Dairy Duchess. . . . There was the cute little store full of household novelties and gifts, like funny socks and mugs with inspirational sayings. . . . There was Dr. Penhale’s veterinary office . . . the drugstore . . . the dentist’s office, and Shawn Greenvale stepping out of the door. . . .
Shawn Greenvale.
“. . . and you’ll be busy, I don’t know, maybe murdering someone in the woods, and . . .”
David was still going on about school. Stevie grabbed his arm and tugged it.
“Up there,” she said. “That guy. The one in the blue shirt walking toward the truck. That’s Shawn Greenvale.”
“Shawn . . .”
“Sabrina Abbott’s ex-boyfriend,” Stevie said, already quickening her pace. Shawn had been on her list. Here was her moment. She race-walked along, trying not to draw attention to herself while making sure that Shawn did not get away before she caught up to him. She had to run the last half block.
“Excuse me!” She was out of breath way too quickly. Susan Marks, former phys ed teacher, would not have been impressed with her lung capacity. “Shawn?”
The man looked up at the blond, sweating girl dressed in all black who hurried up to him and was now pressing her palms into the hood of his truck and the lanky boy who followed behind her.
“My name is Stevie Bell and . . .”
“I know who you are.” His tone wasn’t warm or inviting.
“I was wondering if I could talk to you.”
“About what?” he asked.
“About what happened here. In 1978. I just spoke to Susan Marks and . . .”
He reached into his car and took the silver sun blocker off the windshield, folded it, and threw it into the back seat.
“No,” he said.
“I . . .”
“No,” he said again.
Stevie bit her top lip, silencing herself. Shawn began to get into the truck. He was going to go away, and her chance would be gone. She had to try. She maneuvered herself a bit closer to the opening of the door, so it would be harder to shut it without swiping her.
“I don’t want to bother you,” she said quickly.
“Then don’t,” Shawn said shortly. “Could you move back, please?”
Stevie stepped away. He closed the truck door and drove off. Stevie rubbed at her face, annoyed with herself. She should have waited, taken her time, gotten a proper introduction—not just run down the street yelling his name.
“I think he likes you,” David said. “It’s because you play coy.”
She groaned and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“Was he important?” David asked.
She nodded. He reached over and took her wrists, gently peeling her hands from her face.
“Live and learn,” he said. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Whatever she had been thinking about Susan was long gone, and Shawn was now up the road. She was back in the moment, with David.
“What were you saying about school?” she said.
A strange half smile spread across David’s lips.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just making conversation.”
When David dropped Stevie back at camp, the day was well underway, and it was punishingly hot. By the time she walked from the parking lot to the art pavilion, she was drenched in sweat. Janelle was holding court over a group of nine-year-olds who were filling bottles with colored sand under her watchful gaze. Stevie made her way around the room, trying to figure out how to assist, but there wasn’t much to explain about putting sand in bottles. So she planted herself at an empty table and pulled out her phone to listen to the recording she had made of the conversation with Susan. She began to jot the important points down.
- nothing special about night before
- Paul and Shawn in lake house playing Stairway to Heaven
- a scream
- ran, met Magda McMurphy (Magda and Susan married)
- gathered everyone in dining pavilion
- found three more missing
- Patty Horne knew location
- campers sent home
- went to football field on the night of the vigil, saw Patty Horne crying, saw light of the crash up the road
- doesn’t feel that it was a drug deal or the Woodsman but can’t explain why
Once she had gone over the recording, she stared at the list, unsure what to do next. She picked at a torn cuticle. “Stairway to Heaven.” She’d heard of the song, but she had no idea how it went. She sometimes tried to listen to things that would evoke the time or place of the thing she wanted to understand. Sometimes, at Ellingham, she listened to thirties music to try to get into the mindset of what it was like back when Albert and Iris had first moved to the mountain. Maybe the music would help her now. She found Led Zeppelin online, then found the song and hit play.
It started off as a plinky-plonky guitar song with a flute, gradually morphing into something more hard rocking. It had cryptic lyrics about magic staircases and laughing forests. This seemed like music for people who thought they might be wizards.