“No, not really. You two were together in high school, so it wasn’t something we talked about much. He really couldn’t talk about it without your name coming up. It was kind of awkward at the time.”
Josie gave a pained smile. Misty was right. Josie couldn’t talk about high school without talking about Ray either. So why didn’t she remember what happened to his letter jacket? “Did he ever talk about baseball?”
Misty nodded. “Oh, well, yeah. He was the starting pitcher for the state championship game in his junior year. I had to hear that story about a million times, especially after he’d had a few drinks. So almost nightly.”
Josie laughed drily. “Right. What kinds of things did he say about that time?”
Misty narrowed her eyes. “Josie, I know enough about your job by now to know that whatever it is you’re working on—whether it’s that body you found today or something else—you can’t tell me details. At least not now.” She lowered her voice and did an impression of every police officer Josie had ever seen on the news. “We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.” Then she smiled. “So just ask me what you need to ask me.”
Josie said, “But you can’t ask any follow-up questions. You can, but I can’t answer them.”
“I know that too.”
“Did Ray ever talk about his letter jacket?”
Misty rolled her eyes, but the smile on her face was full of love and longing. “His prized letter jacket that his mom sewed up after he tore the sleeve? The one with the special patch on it? The baseball on fire? For a smoking fast pitcher?”
Josie felt a lump in her throat. She still felt uncomfortable hearing stories from Misty that had been intimately shared between herself and Ray or that she had witnessed firsthand. Misty had only known him a couple of years and yet Ray had told her things that Josie had spent a lifetime experiencing alongside him. “Yes,” she croaked. “That jacket.”
“Well, the first few times I heard the story, he said he lost it.”
“Lost it?” Josie said. “Where?”
Misty raised a hand in the air. “I didn’t believe that. The way he talked about that team and that season and that last game? That jacket meant something to him. No way would he have lost it. I asked him a few times what really happened to it.”
“What did he tell you?”
Misty shook her head. “About a half dozen different things. He gave it to you. He left it in the locker room at school and it was stolen. He lent it to someone and never got it back. He put it in storage in his mom’s attic, and when he went looking for it as an adult, it was gone. He lost it in a move. You took it when you two broke up.”
Josie’s mind worked through these possibilities. Four of them she could immediately dismiss. He never would have packed it away in his mother’s attic. He would have wanted to wear it again as soon as the weather got cool. But he hadn’t, Josie realized. She hadn’t seen him wearing the jacket after junior year. He hadn’t given it to Josie nor had she taken it when they broke up. It hadn’t been lost in a move. They had moved several times after they got married, living in a series of shitty apartments before finding a house together. But Josie had never seen the jacket during any of their moves. That left the possibilities that it had been stolen or that he had loaned it to someone who hadn’t returned it. But if it had been stolen, why wouldn’t he just say that? Why make up a bunch of other excuses for what happened to the jacket? Josie had known Ray better than anyone. Or she thought she had. He had done silly things and lied about them for no other reason than because he thought Josie would be upset or disapprove.
“I take it you don’t have the jacket,” Misty said, interrupting Josie’s thoughts.
“No, I don’t have it.”
If it hadn’t been stolen, that meant Ray had loaned it to someone. But he’d still lied to Misty about the whole thing. Why? A feeling like icy fingertips trailing up her spine gave Josie a shiver. Because the person he’d loaned it to hadn’t given it back to him? Because she’d been wearing it when she died?
Misty was staring at her intently. “But you saw the jacket,” she said. “Today. After you were in the flood.”
Josie said nothing.
Misty turned and picked up a spatula, probing the cookies on the tray. One by one, she slid the spatula beneath them and transferred them into a Tupperware container.
Josie said, “I just have to get something from the garage before I get in the shower.”
She turned to walk out of the room. From behind her, came Misty’s voice. “Ray was a lot of things—good and bad. He disappointed us. People got hurt because of what he did. Because of what he didn’t do, really. He was weak. But Josie—”
Josie looked over her shoulder. They locked eyes. Misty said, “Ray would never kill anyone.”
Five
2004
Josie pulled her jacket tighter around herself. Cold seeped from the stone beneath her. The blanket Ray had brought did nothing to make their perch warmer or more comfortable. Then again, there was nowhere particularly comfortable to sit at the Stacks. That didn’t stop teenagers from Denton East High from congregating there, though. Hidden in the woods behind the high school, it was the perfect spot for them to get away from adults. Students drank, smoked, and did other things adults wouldn’t approve of at the Stacks. The place had gotten its name from the large slabs of rock that had fallen from the mountainside, forming literal stacks of flat stone. The Stacks were more crowded than Josie had ever seen them, but that was because the Denton East Blue Jays were only one win away from the Pennsylvania state baseball championship.
“We should have gotten closer to the fire,” Josie said to Ray. “I’m freezing.”
He put down his beer can and pulled his jacket off. He wrapped it around her, tugging at the lapels and drawing her closer. After planting a soft kiss on her lips, he said, “There. That better?”
Josie smiled, resting her forehead against his. “Your letter jacket? Really?”
He pulled his head back so she could see his smile. “I want it back.”
“Of course. You’ll need it back when you get your state championship patch.”
He kissed her again. “We have one more game to go.”
Josie checked her watch. “Speaking of that, it’s getting late, Ray. How many beers have you had?”
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Not many,” he answered. “But you’re right. It is getting late. We’ll get going soon, okay?” He picked up his beer and slugged down what was left of it. “One more, okay?”
Josie huddled inside his jacket, grateful for its warmth. “Just one though, okay?”
“Chill, Jo,” he said.
He hopped down from the rock where they sat and sauntered over to a group of guys from the baseball team. They gathered in a knot next to the campfire, all in their letter jackets, all laughing and carrying on, some accompanied by their girlfriends. “Quinn!” one of them said as Ray approached. He handed Ray a beer. “Let’s get messed up! What do you say?”