Holly realizes she’s walking so fast that she’s almost jogging and makes herself stop. Just ahead looms the campground’s sign, a grinning Native American chief in a gaudy red, white, and blue headdress holding out what’s probably supposed to be a peace pipe. Holly wonders if the people who put it up realize how absurdly racist that is. Surely not. They probably think old Chief Smoke-Um Peace Pipe is a way to honor the Native Americans who once lived on Lake Upsala and who now live on a reservation miles from where they once hunted and fi—
“Quit it,” she whispers. She takes a moment to close her eyes and mutter a prayer. It’s the one most commonly associated with recovering alcoholics, but it’s good for lots of other things and lots of people. Including her.
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”
Her mother is dead. The terrible days of looming insolvency are past. Finders Keepers is a paying concern. The present is for finding out what happened to Bonnie Rae Dahl.
Holly opens her eyes and starts walking again. She’s almost there.
2
Thanks to her work indexing those doorstop histories, Holly knows that Kanonsionni means “longhouse” in the old Iroquois tongue, and there is indeed a longhouse in the center of the campground. Half of it is a store and half of it seems to be for group gatherings. Right now the latter part is full of boys and girls singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” while the choir director (if that’s what he is) chords along on an electric guitar. It’s not Joan Baez, but their voices rising on the afternoon air are plenty sweet. A softball game is going on. A gang of men is throwing horseshoes; a clang shivers the hot summer air and one of them shouts, “A leaner, by God!” The lake is full of swimmers and splashers. People stream in and out of the store, munching munchies and drinking sodas. Many are wearing campground souvenir tee-shirts with Big Chief Smoke-Um Peace Pipe on the front. There are few masks in evidence. Although Holly is wearing hers, she feels a burst of happiness at the sight of all this exuberant, barefaced activity. America is coming back, Covid-ready or not. That worries her, but it also gives her Holly hope.
She walks around to the shady side of the longhouse and there’s Lakeisha Stone, sitting on the bench of a picnic table whose surface is covered with incised initials. She’s wearing a light green coverup over a dark green bikini. Holly thinks she’s Bonnie’s age, give or take a year, and she looks absolutely smashing—young and vital and sexy. Holly supposes Bonnie looked the same. It would be nice to believe she still does.
“Hello,” she says. “You’re Lakeisha, aren’t you? I’m Holly Gibney.”
“Keisha, please,” the young woman says. “I bought you a Snapple. It’s the kind with sugar. I hope that’s okay.”
“Wonderful,” Holly says. “That was very thoughtful.” She takes it, screws off the cap, and sits down beside Keisha. “May I be snoopy and ask if you’re vaccinated?”
“Double. Pfizer.”
“Moderna,” Holly says. It’s the new meet-and-greet. She takes off her mask and holds it in her hand for a moment. “I feel silly wearing it out here, but I had a death in the family recently. It was Covid.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear. Someone close?”
“My mother,” Holly says, and thinks, Who bought jewelry she didn’t wear.
“That’s awful. Was she vaxxed?”
“She didn’t believe in it.”
“Girl, that’s harsh. How are you doing with it?”
“As they always say on the TV shows, it’s complicated.” Holly stuffs her mask in her pocket. “Mostly I’m concentrating on the job, which is finding Bonnie Dahl, or finding out what happened to her. I won’t keep you from your friends for long.”
“Don’t worry about it. They’re all playing softball or swimming. I’m a lousy baller and I’ve spent most of the day in the lake. Take all the time you want.” There’s an outbreak of cheering at the softball game. Keisha looks over. Someone waves at her. She waves back, then turns to Holly. “A bunch of us have gotten together here for the last three years and I was really looking forward to it. Since Bonnie disappeared…” She shrugs. “Not so much.”
“Do you really think she’s dead?”
Keisha sighs and looks at the water. When she looks back, her brown eyes—beautiful eyes—are filled with tears. “What else could it be? It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve called everyone I can think of, all our friends, and of course her mother called me. Nothing. She’s my best friend, and not a word?”
“The police have her down as a missing person.” Of course that’s not what Izzy Jaynes thinks. Or Pete Huntley.
“Of course they do,” Keisha says, and takes a drink from her own bottle of Snapple. “You know about Maleek Dutton, right?”
Holly nods.
“That’s a perfect example of how five-O operates in this town. Kid got killed for a busted taillight. You’d expect them to take a little more interest in a white girl, but no.”
That’s a minefield Holly doesn’t want to walk into. “May I record our talk?” Never call it an interview, Bill Hodges said. Cops do interviews. We just talk.
“Sure, but there’s not much I can tell you. She’s gone and it’s wrong. That’s the extent of what I know.”
Holly thinks Keisha knows more, and although she doesn’t expect any great breakthrough here, she has that Holly hope. And curiosity. She sets her phone on the scarred table and pushes record.
“I’m working for Bonnie’s mother, and I’m curious as to how they got along.”
Keisha starts to reply, then stops herself.
“Nothing you say will go back to Penny. You have my word on that. I’m just crossing t’s and dotting i’s.”
“Okay.” Keisha gazes down toward the lake, frowning, then sighs and looks back at Holly. “They didn’t get along, mostly because Penny was always looking over Bonnie’s shoulder, if you know what I mean.”
Holly knows, all right.
“Nothing Bonnie did was quite right with her mom. Bon said she hated to drive her mother anywhere because Penny would always tell her she knew a shorter way, or one with less traffic. She’d always be telling Bonnie to get over, get over, you want the lefthand lane. You feel me?”
“Yes.”
“Also, Bonnie said, Penny’d always be pumping the invisible brake on the passenger side or stiffening up if she felt like Bon was getting too close to the car in front of her. Irritating as hell. One time Bonnie got a red streak in her hair, very cute… at least I thought so… but her mother said it made her look slutty. And if she’d ever gotten a tattoo, like she talked about…”
Keisha rolls her eyes. Holly laughs. She can’t help it.
“They fought about her job at the library all the time. Penny wanted her to work at the bank where she worked. She said the pay and the benefits would be much better, and except for in-person meetings she wouldn’t have to wear a mask seven hours a day. But Bonnie liked working at the libe, and like I said, we have a good gang. Everybody friends. Except for Matt Conroy, that is. He’s the head librarian, and kind of a pill.”