But what if it isn’t race they’re staying away from?

What if they won’t talk because they know who set the fire?

Macey wanted to pin her mother to the wall and force her to answer, but her mother was far too strong for Macey. Next to Cordelia Clare, Macey felt like a pale copy, a Xerox, whereas Mom was the real thing. She could not place demands on her mother; in this family, it worked exclusively in the other direction.

It had been more than two weeks since Venita’s murder; four weeks since Saturday Group went to paint. Macey could no longer quite picture the girl she had known only two hours. She could not remember the exact shade of yellow in the paint can. She had lost the quotes from Hamlet.

But the words of Dorothy Edna Loomis she had by heart.

After dinner, Macey pulled out the 1959 city directory page for Shell Road. Then she got the current phone book and looked up every single name. Of the forty-two names listed in 1959, three still lived on Shell Road in the same houses (including the Fents and the Maceys); one lived on Shell Road, but in a different house; three lived in town, but not on Shell. She started calling.

With the first people, she said she was Macey Clare, doing a school research project on a fire that had occurred on Shell Road in 1959, and did they remember the burning of a barn?

No.

Did they remember a Mr. Sibley, the first black teacher in the town?

No.

Did they have any suggestions for who might remember?

Aren’t you related to the Maceys who live on Shell Road? they said. Your grandparents could tell you what you need to know.

“Well, I have to use lots of sources,” she said lamely. “You know, school papers and all.”

They wished her good luck, and Macey hung up, so embarrassed she had to leave the room so the telephone didn’t laugh at her.

It was one thing to use a phone to order pizza, or find out what movie was playing, or call Grace to gossip. But phone research was like asking for a date, which she had never done, though she often rehearsed. Every night she decided to call Aus and then decided not to call Aus and then decided yes, she would call Aus after all. When she woke up, it was morning, and no phone call had taken place. What she actually wanted to do was quit high school and move in with him, and here the only time she picked up the phone was to demand a ride to a nursing home.

She dialed the second name, a family still in town but no longer on Shell Road. The man’s “Hello?” was already grumpy. He probably expected a telemarketer begging him to change phone companies. Quickly she filled the silence.