Page 131 of Nobody's Fool

She laughs at that and pulls up to yet another gray edifice.

“Here we are. Just go through the doors.”

I get buzzed in by yet another security guard. They make me walk through a metal detector, which seems more for show than anything else. Why now? Why didn’t you do that back at the gate? A woman meets me on the other side of the detector with a smile and a handshake.

“Hello, my name is Kate Boyd. I’m a facilitator at the Solemani. Caroline is waiting for you in the solarium. I’ll show you the way.”

Kate Boyd’s heels clack and echo in the empty corridor. Interesting. The place feels very much like a convent, all silent and stone, and yet Ms. Boyd chooses to wear heels that she has to know will echo inthis corridor like a gunshot. Why? Why not wear something with a soft sole?

Caroline Burkett is already standing when I enter the room. She’s talking to a man I recognize as Christopher Swain. We never met before, Mr. Swain and I, but I know that he is yet another victim of the Burketts’ evil. I’m sad to see that a year later, Swain is still here. When he sees me, Swain takes both of Caroline’s hands in his. He looks at her and nods. She nods back. Then he turns, stares at me for a few long moments, and leaves without another word.

I expect Caroline to look as I’ve seen her before—mousy, reedy, frail, blinking a lot as though she’s about to be slapped. But she’s not any of that today. It’s a different Caroline Burkett. Her posture is straight. Her eyes are steady. I wonder whether this place has been good for her or if it is just that this is the first time I’ve seen her out of the presence of her mother.

“I’ll leave you two,” Kate Boyd says, “if that’s okay with you, Caroline.”

“It is,” she says.

“I’ll be nearby just in case. Just call if you want me to come back in.”

“Thank you, Kate,” Caroline says.

We both stand there as the heel clack fades away. Caroline wears a black turtleneck and matching pants. No jewelry. Very little makeup. Again this is a different woman than the one I saw when I would visit Farnwood.

Caroline says, “You’re here about Victoria.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know she’d been murdered until today. They don’t allow us to watch the news in here. No phones, no internet, no social media.”

“Sounds nice,” I say, and I try a smile.

Caroline returns it. “It is, yes.”

The solarium looked like a recent addition that’s trying to fit in but not quite working. The roof is domed. The plants look too green—Iwonder whether they are fake. There are two leather chairs in the center of the room. Caroline invites me to sit. I do. She takes the other chair.

“What do you want to know, Mr. Kierce?”

I always carry one of those detective pads with me. Sometimes I use it, not because I won’t remember—I always remember the important stuff—but for effect. For some people, it relaxes them. For others, it makes them wary. Right now, I leave the pad and pen in my pocket and dive right in.

“When was the last time you saw Victoria?” I ask.

There is no hesitation in Caroline’s reply: “December thirty-first, 1999.”

“The day she went missing?”

“Missing,” Caroline repeats, and then tilts her head. “I thought Victoria was kidnapped.”

“She probably was,” I say.

“Probably?”

“There were a lot of blanks in her memory,” I say, but I don’t like the fact that suddenly I’m the one answering the questions. “You two were close friends, correct?”

“Yes. In high school.”

“In fact,” I continue, “I’m told that you two were the ones who arranged the New Year’s party at McCabe’s Pub.”

“That’s true.”