Page 27 of Trapper Road

“About an hour.” She methodically walks me through the route, minute by minute. The stop at the coffee shop for drinks. Flirting with more boys out at the rusty old basketball court. Then wandering down toward the riverbank as the afternoon waned. “That’s when Juliette wanted to take us to see the Shadow Shack. I mean, we knew where it was. We just … hadn’t ever gone in there.”

“That’s the old Milam house,” Cliff says. “Been empty for about twenty years or more. Keep talking to the county about getting it condemned, you know what goes on up there, drinking and sex and drugs and parties. Nearly burned it down myself a couple of dozen times these last couple of months. Only reason I don’t is I figure maybe, just maybe, there’s still something there to find. That one little thing.”

“And there may be,” I say. “That’s a good thought. Hold on to it.”

He nods. I see the tension in the back of his neck. I turn back to Mandy. “So you went to the Shadow Shack. Were you planning to meet someone?”

“No. We just … went. Walked around outside, then went on in.” Mandy shudders. “It was gross. Some old mattresses, beer bottles everywhere. I saw a dead bird in the attic. Juliette thought it was funny. She jumped out of a closet and scared us, and Willa tripped on a beer bottle and fell. She cut her hand. I helped her clean it up, and then Juliette said she needed to run to the store for her mom. So we left.”

I let that sit because there was something about the tempo and the tension in her voice that tells me she isn’t completely honest. Not the time to press, but definitely some points to check and push later on.

I pretend to accept that version and give her an encouraging smile. “So then what path did you take out of the woods down there?”

She seems to relax just a touch. “Old footpath goes down by the garbage spot by the river where people dump refrigerators, freezers, big machinery. Big old rustbucket down there.”

I’ve seen the pictures, and of course the whole area’s been thoroughly swept a dozen times over. It’s a typical rural dump site, tetanus waiting to happen.

From the dump site, Mandy continues the story from the path back to the main county road. It’s nearly five-thirty in the narrative by then, and in the rural woods, night tends to steal in faster down at road level. “We were walking back towards town when a truck pulled off the road in front of us.”

“Can you describe what it looked like?”

She already has more than a dozen times, but always in vague terms. I’m hoping maybe time has caused something to jog loose in her memory. “Old. Kinda beat up. Lighter colored.” She blushes a little and glances down at the table. “I know it’s not that helpful. I wasn’t paying that much attention to the truck, to be honest. I was more focused on the guy inside.”

“Tell me about him.”

Her blush deepens. “He was… uh… pretty good looking. White guy around our age, maybe a year or two older. His hair was buzzed short so it was hard to tell what color it was. He was also pretty tan, looked like he spent a lot of time outside. What really stood out were his eyes — they were this super deep blue.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that Mandy would have focused in on a good looking guy to the exclusion of all else, but it’s still a little disappointing that she can’t remember anything else about the truck that could be useful. Old beat up trucks are a dime a dozen in the rural south.

“Had you seen him before?”

She shakes her head. “Never. I’d have remembered.”

“Did he say anything?”

There’s a flash of something in her eyes. “Not to Willa or me. He only had eyes for Juliette.”

“So they knew each other?”

“Yes ma’am. He called her by her name. And she smiled real wide at that.”

“Did she use his name?”

She shakes her head again. “She just told us she was going to take off with him. We asked if she could get him to give us a ride back into town in his truck, but I guess they had plans or something cause he said no.”

“Then what happened?”

“They drove off together. Headed out of town.” Her eyes get misty and her voice cracks. “That was the last I saw her.”

I notice that Patty’s eyes are also shiny with tears. She reaches out a hand to the younger girl and pulls her in for a hug.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Larson,” Mandy says into the woman’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have let her go with him alone like that, but I thought they were friends and that it would be okay.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Patty croons, running her hand up and down Mandy’s back to comfort her. “We know you loved Juliette and wouldn’t have let her get hurt.”

I give them a moment to gather themselves before asking, “Did Juliette have a boyfriend?” There wasn’t mention of one in the file.

Cliff’s the one to answer that one. “She’s not allowed to date until she’s eighteen.”