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“Me, neither. I wanted to at least tell my mom, but figured it’s best to stay quiet for now. She’s not a gossip, but I think she still chats with Alice Van de Veer and Deepika Patel a lot.” Russ pauses to take another gulp of bourbon. “Do you really think this has something to do with what happened that day?”
“Maybe,” I say, which is the best answer I can give. “If it doesn’t, then it’s an awfully big coincidence.”
Russ grabs a handful of Chex Mix but makes no move to eat it. “So you think, what? That Billy saw something at the Hawthorne Institute he shouldn’t have seen, so someone there took him from your tent, killed him, and hid the body?”
“I know it sounds paranoid.”
“Extremely,” Russ adds before finally tossing back the Chex Mix.
“But it’s at least a possible reason for who took Billy.”
The lack of a suspect is one of the many things that kept the case burning in public memory. I’ve spent decades trying to think of who could have done it, always coming up empty. But now knowingwhereBilly was taken putswhenhe was taken in a scary, new light.
“Even if the police don’t think it is?” Russ takes another gulp of bourbon and swallows hard. “Ragesh was right, you know. We didn’t see anything strange that day.”
“Wedidn’t see anything,” I say. “But maybe Billy did after we left. No one knows what went on at that institute, Russ. Don’t you think that’s odd? That we live two miles from that place but have no clue what they really did there?”
Russ says nothing for a good long while after that. Not until his glass is empty. As he pours himself another round, he says, “Just be careful with that kind of thinking. I mean, I understand why you’d connect that place to what happened to Billy. But if the police don’t think they’re related, maybe that’s the truth.”
I crunch some Chex Mix and wash it down with bourbon. “Then who do you think did it? And why?”
“I still think it was the stranger in the woods. Someone who took Billy, killed him, then went far, far away from here.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little too simple?” I say.
“It’s better than your conspiracy theory.” Russ pauses, a boozy flush to his cheeks that suggests this isn’t his second bourbon of the night. “If Billy hadn’t—”
He stops himself, prompting me to say, “Disappeared.”
I cringe at the euphemism for what we now know to be true. Billy was murdered. To call it a mere disappearance doesn’t come close to the horribleness of the situation.
“Right,” Russ says. “If that hadn’t happened, do you think we’d be friends now?”
“Of course,” I say, even though it’s not entirely the truth. BeforeBilly was gone, our interactions were forced at best. I didn’t actively dislike Russ, but he wasn’t exactly fun to be around, either. Young Russ was easy to frustrate and quick to anger. At school, his playground temper tantrums had earned him the unflattering nickname Wuss.
Then again, Russ has chilled considerably since then. Far more than myself. And I’d like to think that whether or not a tragedy had befallen Billy Barringer, he and I would have found each other anyhow.
“I agree,” he says. “What about Billy? If things were different, would the two of you have stayed friends?”
I take a drink and sigh. “I doubt it.”
Even though it breaks my heart to say it, I know it’s the truth. Billy and I were too different to last beyond a few more years. It would have been one of those fleeting friendships born of loneliness and close proximity, not of a shared bond or common interests. I think about our last waking moments in that tent, how at the time it felt like we’d already turned a corner in our friendship, each of us heading in separate directions. Even more, I remember how we both tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.
Hakuna matata, dude.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss him,” I add. “Don’t you?”
“Honestly? I barely remember him.”
I take a quick glance at Russ’s drink. He’s downed half of it in the span of a minute. Still, the brusqueness of his answer is more than just the alcohol talking. A fact Russ confirms by adding, “I’m sorry if that sounds cruel. But it’s true. It was so long ago. Decades.”
“But he was your friend,” I say.
“He wasyourfriend. I was just allowed to tag along sometimes.”
I nod, guilty as charged. “I’m sorry about that. We should have included you more.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, man,” Russ says. “I’m just pointing out that you have more memories of Billy than I do. When Ithink about him, all I really remember is what happened to him. Not that I spend much time thinking about it at all. Before today, it had been a long time since Billy Barringer crossed my mind.”