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24

The air smells cold. I never thought of cold having a smell until I came here. I hoist the laundry bag out of my trunk. The laundromat isn’t the most glamorous place to spend the morning, but I’m meeting Stedsan at noon and don’t have a single pair of clean pants left.

Plus, I’m exhausted beyond the help of coffee. My interview with Karen had been more than five hours of tape, which had taken me until three a.m. to transcribe and send to Detective Garcia. I’d also called Karen and left a message explaining the situation and asking her to call the police.

I fill up three different washing machines and then just sit, letting the mechanical hum and the smell of soap lull me into a kind of stupor until it’s time to transfer the clothes to the dryer. The laundromat is empty. I guess other people have somewhere better to be on a Thursday morning.

Outside, a line of children waddles up the sidewalk, each stuffed into a snowsuit and holding on to a long red cord in one mittened hand. A teacher at the front of the line walks backward, murmuring encouragement. They pass in front of the window like a giant centipede.

My phone pings. Lola.

Sooooo? Champagne fountain yay or nay?

Another ping.

Your report is a week late. I start to type and then slide it back into my pocket. Another ping.

I can see you typing.

Ping.

Don’t make me come up there.

I put my phone on silent. I’m lucky to have a friend who cares about me—I know that—but sometimes I just wish she could care about me from a distance. I should never have told her I was going to Xander’s. It was fine , I type.

Fine bad?

No, it was fine. Just some other stuff going on right now.

Immediately, my phone rings.

“What kind of stuff?” Lola asks instead of hello.

I try not to sigh. Oh, just a couple of dead bodies I haven’t told you about.

“I’m at the laundromat, can we—”

“Alex, what’s going on? You never call me, text me, anything. You don’t want me to visit. And when you finally pick up, I get monosyllables like a robot. Just… tell me what’s going on.”

I waver. I’ve drawn a line between what’s happening here and my life out there—what’s left of it. I’m not sure I’m ready to blur it. But I hear the worry in her voice.

“Lola, do you remember that boy I told you about, Tommy?”

“The kid who drowned.”

I sigh and plunge in. I tell her about finding Sister Cecile’s body in the water. About Rooney digging up the bones at the dump. About Bill Campbell bribing people. About going to Rooney’s house to find out what he knew and finding his body instead. When I’m done, Lola is stunned into silence. For maybe the first time in history.

“This could be dangerous, right?” she says, finally. “You should come home. You can stay with us. Or don’t come home, go sit on a beach somewhere. Leave it to the police.”

“I can’t just leave, Lola. I signed a contract—”

“Jesus, Alex. Fuck the contract. People are dying. This is real.”

“Yeah, thanks. I found the bodies. I noticed.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

I bristle, little hot spikes of fury pushing themselves out through my skin. “No shit, Lola.”

“Is this about something else? Do you have feelings for this Xander guy?” Her voice softens, hopeful. It makes me furious.

“Jesus, Lola. I’m not staying for some guy. What’s wrong with you?”

“Would that be so bad?” she yells into the phone, so loud I have to move it away from my ear. Her anger is so sudden and blistering it shocks me.

“I just want you to do something. To live. You’re just—existing. You used to be sarcastic and funny and weird and now you’re just like—this ghost. I mean, you’re so afraid no one remembers this kid, but you won’t even say Adam’s name.”

My throat tightens, so I can’t speak. She doesn’t understand how memories lose substance when you think about them too often. A favorite pair of jeans, worn thin at the knees. How it’s safer to keep them all, good and bad, locked away. I feel itchy, like my skin is crawling with ants.

A bell jingles above the door and a woman comes inside, balancing a baby and a laundry bag. The baby’s face is covered in a dried river of snot, which it wipes on her shoulder. The woman looks too tired to notice.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Look, Alex, all I’m saying is that chasing your own happiness is not the same as giving up. And I think maybe you need to hear that.”

The baby starts to cry. Loud, long wails that turn its face purple with rage.

“I have to go,” I say again, my voice so tiny I wonder if she can hear it at all. I hang up before she can say anything else.

I feel wrung out. Lola doesn’t understand. She can’t—she’s outside this. The binder is sitting there on my desk. It’s all there. Everything I know about Coram House. I’m so close to the truth.

Tommy Underwood. Sarah Dale. Jeannette Leroy. Fred Rooney.

One by one, they’ve died and taken what they know with them. But still, I have the sense that everything I need to know is there in front of me if I could just see it.

My laundry is warm and smells of rain. I shove it back in the bag and imagine I’m taking my whole conversation with Lola, balling it up, and shoving it in there too.

After a quick trip back to the apartment to change, I head back out to meet Stedsan. The day is cold, but doesn’t have the same bite as last week. There’s a heaviness in the air that makes me think of Bev in her ominous black sweater. A big storm’s rolling in. I lock the front door and head down the steps to my car.

“January thaw, eh?”

I look around, startled. My landlord is in the driveway, leaning on a snow shovel.

“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” he says. Then he scoops up a pile of slush and nods at it like its evidence. “January thaw. Always happens this time of year. A few days of warm weather blows in and then out again. Used to give my Eileen the most awful headaches.”

“Oh,” I say. “Good to know.”

I wish him a good day and hurry to my car. Driving away, I glance in the rearview mirror and see him there, watching me as I go.

I drive to Stedsan’s house, too fast, and park in front. His walkway hasn’t been shoveled in a few days, so I wade through soupy brown slush to the front door. The mailbox is overflowing and marketing postcards litter the porch. I knock.

The door opens. “Come in, come in,” Stedsan says, and steps back so I can pass. Then he locks the door behind me.

Inside, the air is hot and dry as an oven. Sweat prickles my skin in the time it takes to unzip my coat and peel it off.

“Can I get you anything?” Stedsan asks. “Coffee?”

“No,” I say, stepping out of my boots. “Thanks.”

He coughs into his elbow. “Apologies. I’ve been under the weather.”

He does look terrible. His skin is sallow and his eyes are red and puffy.

“Sure you don’t want any coffee?”

I shake my head.

“Well, I’d like some. Go ahead in. Be there in a moment.”

He disappears in the direction of the kitchen. I notice his clothes are rumpled in the back, like he just woke up from a nap.

In the living room, I find the same subtle disarray. A stain on the coffee table drying to mud. Smudges on the sliding doors that frame the apple tree out in the garden. The way the branches are pruned to curve down makes the tree look hunched and twisted. Tortured to make the apples easier to reach.

A few minutes later, Stedsan reappears with two cups of coffee on a wooden tray. “In case you change your mind,” he says. The couch sinks beneath his weight. “Well, now, your message made this meeting sound very urgent.”

“Fred Rooney is dead.”

It just comes out. Like there’s so much building up inside me I needed a pressure release valve. Something passes across his face—not sadness, weariness maybe. He sighs deeply and looks out at his garden.

“You don’t look surprised,” I say.

“I’m not. Fred was old and sick and taking God knows what on top of that.”

“He was murdered.”

Stedsan looks at me sharply. “You’re sure?”

An image flashes into my head of Rooney’s age-spotted legs, his blue lips, the red welt on his neck. I nod.

“It could be a coincidence,” he murmurs. I can almost see the gears turning in his head, thinking of Sister Cecile, trying to make sense of it. This is as off guard as I’ll ever get him.

“Alan,” I say. “Did you know that Bill Campbell paid people off to settle the case back in 1993?”

The silence stretches out. He sips his coffee and then nods at the other cup. “It’s going cold.”

“Alan—”

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

Fury surges through me. My fingertips tingle with it. It feels good. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s called attorney-client privilege, Alex,” he says sharply. “If you haven’t forgotten, Bill Campbell was my client too. At least at the beginning.”

He places the cup carefully back on its saucer.

“And by the end, the case was such a goddamn mess that it didn’t matter anymore. It was never going to go to court. We were never going to win. Settling was the only way. The only question was how much money we could wring out of them. I didn’t see the harm in letting Bill add his money to the pot too.”

“So Bill Campbell gets to make millions off developing the property while Karen Lafayette gets a down payment for a truck.”

I expect him to meet my anger with his own—or at least with defensiveness—but he just shrugs. If anything, he looks sorry for me.

“That’s the way these things work sometimes. Bill always did play the long game. Always knew what he wanted.”

There’s a note of admiration in Stedsan’s voice that makes me sick.

“It was a different time, Alex. Everyone wanted the case to go away. Not just the church. No one wanted to think about it anymore.”

“So why bring me here? Why write this book at all? You must have known I’d find out.”

“Well, no,” he says and gives me a sad smile. “I didn’t. Based on your last book, I rather hoped you wouldn’t.”

I knew it was coming, but the sting is real. My last book. All the sloppy research and mistakes, but still a bestseller. He assumed I’d take only what I was given, wouldn’t dig any deeper. I was perfect for the job. Still, he must have known I might find details that would make him look bad. So he needed a writer desperate enough to sign the NDA.

He sighs. “I’m retiring this year. I suppose the idea of this book—of leaving a legacy—was too tempting to pass up. And I had faith in your ability to write a great story. I still do.”

If he’s trying to mollify me, it’s not working. “You failed them.”

“Ask yourself how many of them were happy to settle the case,” he says sharply. “To get what they could and have it go away. Vengeance doesn’t pay the bills.”

“How much did Bill offer them?”

“I don’t know exactly.” He holds up a hand when he sees I’m ready to interrupt. “Truly. I didn’t want to. But, from what I inferred, I’d guess a few thousand here or there. The kind of money that could be easily passed off as a helping hand. A loan that never got repaid. That kind of thing.”

I frown. That’s a long ways from the hundred thousand dollars in Fred Rooney’s bank account. “And these were onetime payments? They weren’t ongoing after the case?”

Stedsan’s brows knit together. “I assume so. What possible reason would he have had to pay them after we settled?”

“What about Fred Rooney? Did Bill pay him?”

Stedsan snorts. “Fred was never one to let a dollar out of his grasp.”

“They worked together for years. Why?”

Stedsan frowns. “You know, I’ve often wondered. Maybe Bill felt bad for him. But more likely he wanted someone around who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.”

“Alan, why did you tell me not to look into Tommy’s death?”

Alan swallows. “We could never prove anything. And Fred—he was my client too. I had to be careful about anything that hurt our case.”

His face, which had been made of stone, starts to crack. Suddenly, he looks old.

“There was no proof, Alex. No body. Nothing except a witness who couldn’t make out anyone’s faces for sure on a day nearly twenty years before. It never would have held up in court and the church was happy enough to make the whole thing go away.”

I sit there for a moment, stunned, as I realize what he’s saying. “You used Tommy’s death to negotiate the settlement.”

“I used everything at my disposal,” Stedsan snaps. Two spots of color burn in his otherwise pale face.

Tommy’s story was more useful as a bargaining chip, so that’s what he did. Bargained. That’s why he tried to steer me away from the story. The optics for his legacy aren’t great.

We sit for a moment, staring at each other. I want to scream. I want to pick up the glass paperweight off his fancy coffee table and throw it through the window. Tear the branches from the trees. I want to destroy something.

“I believed Sarah,” he says, “but the case was over. My support wouldn’t have changed anything.”

I think of her obituary. Of what Bill Campbell said. An old drunk.

“It might have changed something for her,” I say.

To that, he has nothing to say.

“And what happens if I include all this in the book?”

Stedsan smiles sadly and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

It’s all there in the contract. His final editorial approval. The consequence of breaking my silence—money I don’t have and legal problems I can’t afford. The only thing I can do is quit, which we both know I’m not going to do. Suddenly I can’t be in this house for one more second. I stand and stalk into the front hall, slam my feet into my boots.

Behind me, Stedsan clears his throat. “Do they have any theories about who killed Fred?”

Something in his tone makes me turn back to look at him sitting on the couch, legs crossed, sipping his coffee. Behind him, water drips from the icicles hanging from the roofline.

“You’re the one who’s friends with the chief of police,” I say. “Ask him.”

He sighs at me, as if I’ve disappointed him. My hand is on the doorknob, but I turn back.

“You were wrong, you know. I found Tommy’s last name. His photo in the newspaper. I’m going to find out where he was from, if he had family.”

“Good for you,” he says. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

“Don’t quote Faulkner at me,” I spit. “You shouldn’t have brought me here if you wanted it to stay past.”

I open the front door and walk into the gray winter day, leaving it wide open behind me.

Two blocks from Stedsan’s house, I have to pull over. Rage courses through me. It started out as anger at Stedsan—for lying to me about what he knows. For hiring me because he thought I’d do a shit job. For being a smug old man who thinks money and powerful friends means he can buy whatever legacy he wants. But it’s beyond that now. The anger is crushing. It’s intoxicating. I could open my veins and bleed molten lava. I lay my head against the cool of the steering wheel and will myself not to cry. Crying when you’re angry feels so pathetic.

Instead, I call Parker, without letting myself think about how I’m mad at him too. He picks up on the first ring. “Hey,” he says. He sounds wary.

“I just met with Stedsan,” I say. “He confirmed what I told you. Bill Campbell wanted the case settled. So he paid people off—including Fred Rooney. Alan knew what was going on and, on top of that, he knew Bill was trying to discredit Sarah Dale’s story. And he used it all, Parker. He used Tommy’s murder to negotiate the settlement.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end. I wonder if Parker is as stunned as I am. Or if he’s about to tell me it’s not relevant to the case. To go home and stay out of it. That might kill me.

“Does he have proof?” he asks finally.

“Not that he’s going to share, trust me.”

“That’s what a subpoena is for,” Parker says, his voice hard.

It feels good to hear my anger mirrored in his voice.

“Attorney-client privilege,” I say. “Bill was his client. They were all his clients.” I lean my head back against the seat. “But you knew this already. I—I don’t know why I’m calling.”

Except I do. I take a deep breath.

“Parker, what if Bill Campbell killed Rooney? What if Rooney had been blackmailing him all this time and that’s what the deposits were? Maybe he’d—I don’t know—he’d had enough.”

“Fred was blackmailing Bill for paying him a bribe? That’s pretty ballsy.”

I laugh. “Did you meet Fred Rooney?”

It’s exactly something he would do, and Parker knows it.

“And how does Jeannette Leroy fit into this theory?” He sounds curious.

“I don’t know,” I admit. Bill had access to the canoe, but the rest—Bill crouching in the woods, smashing Sister Cecile’s head in with a rock—without a motive, it’s hard to imagine.

“There’s something else, Alex.” His tone makes me sit up straight.

“We’re starting to get some press interest in this. Local reporters, mostly. But there have been a few calls to the station.”

“Do they know about the history—about the connection to Coram House?”

He pauses. “No.”

But I hear what he doesn’t say: not yet . My throat feels like someone is squeezing it. Time. I need more time.

“Alex, I need you to sit on this. Not forever. Just for a day or two. We’re getting the rest of the financials from Rooney’s accounts. And we’ll know more then. It will all be over soon.”

“I’m not good at sitting on things.”

“I know. That’s why I’m asking.”

I glance at the dashboard and see it’s past one o’clock. I’m supposed to be at Xander’s for ice sailing at two. “Shit,” I say.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I sigh. “I’m just— I’m late for something.”

“I should go too.”

He sounds far away, like his mind is already somewhere else. I picture his face outside the police station yesterday, so tired and worried. The glint of silver in the stubble on his chin.

“Okay,” I say. “Talk to you later, then.”

The line goes dead.

For a second, I have the disorienting feeling that I’ve traveled forward in time and I’m looking back at myself sitting in this car, feeling confused and at a dead end. This used to happen to me sometimes with Adam, at the end. Memories would play out in my mind, as if time was no longer a straight line, ever moving forward. As if I could go back and change things.

Moving into our first apartment. How we used packing crates for a table. How grown-up we’d felt buying a brand-new IKEA couch instead of one we found on the street. The apartment had a fireplace, but I didn’t think to ask whether it actually worked. It’s New York City—of course it didn’t work. But Adam went to the bodega and bought two boxes of candles to put inside it. We kept them lit all winter.

Adam was forever coming home with things he found on the street. A hat stand. A single velvet dining chair. Swollen paperbacks no one wanted to read. We used to fight about it—how he was always bringing home strays that I had to put down. But I think it actually hurt him, to see those things abandoned on the street.

After Adam got sick, he brought home a horrible painting he’d found somewhere of children trick-or-treating, their empty eyes like ghouls. He’d grinned at me and said, A dying man’s last wish . And I’d laughed and then cried while he held me. I was always too hard on him for all the places he was soft and I was not. No one appreciates gentleness until faced with its opposite.

Our wedding. The months planning, the input from our families, all wanting something different. Different chairs. A church. Their name on the invitation. A longer dress. A different flavor cake. How much I hated all of it. Until Adam took my hands, and said, No, we’re not doing any of it . How we got married in a field outside a friend’s house upstate and ignored the grumpy looks on our mothers’ faces. How our friends brought fried chicken and tortilla chips and cheap wine and we stood in the tall grass and watched the sunset turn the sky electric pink.

How few truly perfect moments we’re given in this life. And those are the ones that rip the heart from your chest later. The ones to lock away the tightest. But something has broken and now I can’t.

I take deep breaths until I’m back inside my body. How can Adam still be dead? How can I have only been here, in this place, a month? How can the murder of a boy over fifty years ago feel this vital?

Time doesn’t mean anything at all.

It’s cold enough inside the car that I can see my breath. I shiver and start the engine. January thaw, my ass. There’s still time to call Xander and cancel, but then what? Sit alone inside my apartment, going over my notes for the thousandth time, trying to think of anything that doesn’t hurt.

No. If I leave now, I can make it to Xander’s only a little late. Ice sailing. As I pull away, I wonder what half-insane version of my past self agreed to this. Do the crazy thing. Lola, if I drown, I’m blaming you. But thinking about her hurts too, so I stuff the thought away, in the box in my head, though I fear the lock is broken.