Page 75 of What She Saw

By the time I was seven or eight, I’d grown bored with lurking around my house. I wanted to see more. I wanted to know what was happening in the dark world outside.

My nocturnal field trips were simple at first. They began with me standing in my backyard and studying the cycles of the moon. Less light was better.

I soon was staring into the neighbors’ yards and then their windows.

Peering into another person’s world was thrilling at first. I watched Mrs. Miller refilling her coffee cup with Jack Daniel’s. I observed Mr. Sanders as he stood by the toolshed in his backyard, unzipped hispants, and grabbed himself. He pumped, moaned, and finally rested his head on the metal shed. There was Debbie Gilbert, who rose most nights around 1:00 a.m. She’d sit in her kitchen and talk on the house phone. I knew she dated Jimmy Brown, who’d been arrested for assault. I figured she was talking to him.

By the time I was ten, my neighborhood was no longer interesting. Amazing how predictable people could be. Mrs. Miller died of liver disease. Debbie talked to Jimmy until he went to jail again. And it was a wonder Mr. Sanders still had a dick after all his late-night toolshed trips.

By twelve I was riding my bike a few miles away and breaking into empty houses. Inside strangers’ homes, I felt powerful. I could take or do whatever I wanted. A few times, I grabbed loose change, a necklace, and one of two dog-shaped salt and pepper shakers.

My scavenger hunts didn’t hurt anyone. And it was odd how easy it was for me to get away with it all. All fun and games until a local girl, Sally Winston, vanished. She was ten years old. I’d been in the Winston house once. It had looked normal, but warning signs weren’t always visible.

After Sally vanished, all my nocturnal adventures felt small and stupid. Sally’s disappearance reminded me of Patty. Both had been here one moment and gone the next.

Two weeks later the cops found Sally’s half-nude body in a ravine. I’d expected them to also arrest her killer. Unlike Patty, they had a body. But the cops never found the killer.

I often rode my bike past the spot where Sally’s body had been found. I’d heard killers returned to the scene of the crime. I spent hours sitting in the shadows, watching the ravine and willing the killer to return. But if he did, I never saw him.

Her funeral attracted hundreds of weeping people dressed in black. The police had detained men with criminal records. They’d been interviewed and their DNA collected. The media covered the story for months. But there was never an arrest. All that work for nothing.

The cops had moved on to the next case. And the media found the next bright shiny crime to write about.

I hadn’t known Sally, and if she had lived, I wouldn’t have cared about her. She’d come from a happy, functioning family. But the injustice of her death landed her on Team Outcast. And I wanted to find her killer. I wanted to see him punished.

By the time I was sixteen, I was working fifty hours a week cutting grass and doing odd jobs. I saved up enough money to buy a 2002 three-speed Toyota Corolla that had a dent on the back bumper but a solid engine. My new wheels extended my hunting grounds.

But the killer never struck again in our area. He vanished.

Sally, like Patty, never received full justice.

The ghosts were circling tonight.

Later, when the sun rose, I sat at the kitchen table. I scrambled eggs while toast cooked in the ancient toaster. When the wall phone rang, I hesitated before raising the clunky receiver. “Hello.”

“It’s Grant.”

Relief now attached to the sound of his voice. “Tell me something forensic.”

“You know more about this case than anyone.”

“What about Colton’s recent visitors?”

“His attorney has seen him a few times in the last five years, but I’ll have to pull the visitors’ logs for a complete list.”

“Can you get it?”

“Sure.” And then: “The torn bloody shirt and lone sneaker found in the woods belonged to Tristan Fletcher.”

“I know.” My toast popped up. “I haven’t spoken to her father yet. He’s not returned my calls. I hope he doesn’t shoot me when I knock on his front door.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t intended to be. Not everyone is ready to be dragged down memory lane.”

“The blood was Tristan’s. There was a familial DNA match to her sister.”

“Lannie Fletcher. She lives in the DC area now. The mother passed twenty-eight years ago. Mr. Fletcher still lives in the family home.”