His next stop, ex-chief Harry Wallaby.

Harry Wallaby was a rotund little man with the sharpest eyes Denville had ever seen. He was a cabinetmaker these days, spending his retirement in a little shop sandwiched between a tire store and a small bead factory. He was fond of saying he worked just enough hours to keep him out of his wife’s hair and himself out of trouble.

Denville had gone to school with Harry’s youngest son, who now lived in Scranton. He’d had many a spaghetti dinner at Harry’s kitchen table, listening to the police scanner, which was always on, to Mrs. Wallaby’s dismay. The amenities over, Denville got down to business. “Tell me everything you can remember about the accident out at the pond. Any little thing that maybe didn’t sit right with you. You were a good cop, everyone said so. I’m thinking there was stuff that maybe didn’t get into the papers or was never talked about. Help me, Mr. Wallaby. Cady’s back in town in case you haven’t heard. I know it’s late in the game, but my dad always said it’s never too late to right a wrong. Her grandmother told me about those three years she suffered. Somebody should have to acknowledge or pay for what happened to her.”

“It was all in the paper, Larry. We didn’t hold anything back. Cyrus now, he was like a wild man at first. His wife, now, she was a different story. She never once asked about the girl. ’Course she’d just lost her son, so maybe that’s understandable. Cyrus backed off early on and let his wife do all the talking. She’s the one who said Cady killed her son. Hell, the woman said a lot of stuff, none of which could be backed up. Her son was an out-and-out bully. The worst kind. We tried to tell her that, but she didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to laugh when I saw those angels she had carved over his tombstone. She goes out there every week, never misses. Cyrus now, he never goes. How I know this is because John Bishop, the caretaker, told me.

“Now if you’re asking me if I had any private theories, well, son, I had a whole bagful back then. I always figured those kids were there that day. I don’t mean just Jeff and young Cady. There was the foil from a roll of camera film that was fresh. Forensics told us that. We were dealing with ten-year-olds, and you can go just so far.

“The parents were up in arms. They wouldn’t allow us to question the kids after the initial go-round. They were in the park, and that was that. Those twins stood right there and lied with the straightest faces I’ve ever seen. My gut said they were lying, but gut feelings don’t hold up in an investigation. Pete Danson, now, he was different. That boy did his damnedest not to cry. He was really shook up, but he stuck by his story. His old man was a drunk, and you know how they get. His mother, well, poor soul, she was orbiting Mars or something around that time. I tried talking to him on the Q.T., but he didn’t budge from his story. Hell, the kid had enough on his plate without me digging at him. Boomer Ward got shipped off to some relatives that summer. This is just a gut feeling again, but I always thought it was Boomer that called the police that day. My deputy thought it was Danson. I know it was one or the other, and not the Hollister boy.”