Quentin thumbed through the slim stack of pages, reading sections from them into the voice recorder. An essay about the Great Depression, and its influence on the American family (Which would you rather have, Mrs. Brixton—enough money to eat, or parents who truly love you?) Another, titled the “Arab/Israeli Conflict.” (This happens so often, I think, but maybe you can explain why: people living side by side, but not bothering to understand each other.) Another one was called “The Death Penalty in America.” And when he read the last sentence, his breath caught in his throat. “Mrs. Brixton,” Quentin said, “have you ever met anyone who deserved to be killed?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m quoting April.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right. ‘The Death Penalty.’”

“Did you ever meet with her about these papers? Did you ever . . . I don’t know . . . suggest therapy?”

She gave him a weary smile. “You didn’t send children to therapy back then,” she said. “Not unless they had real problems.”

He leveled his eyes at her.

“I know, I know.” She sighed heavily, the breath draining out of her until she seemed even smaller. “I didn’t think of her as a child with problems,” she said. “The April I knew was sweet and caring. And so very alone.”

“Even after she started seeing Gabriel LeRoy?”

“More so.”

“Really?”

“He wasn’t good for her. She knew it. He was needy and demanding. He wanted to marry her and she . . . she asked my advice about breaking up with him. She asked me how she should do it.”

“When?”

“Just before he took her away.” Her voice quavered. “I . . . I suggested she simply blame it on her stepfather. Tell Gabriel that he said she was too young to go steady.”

Quentin’s eyes widened. “You think he kidnapped her?”

“I know he did.”

“But the police reports . . . The one from the prom night murders. It says—”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about what the police reports say.” She took another long, wheezing breath. Her whole body was trembling now. Quentin worried she might collapse. “Pardon my French.”

“Can I get you anything? A glass of water? I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She shook her head, her body calming, slowing. “That poor girl,” she said. “All she wanted to do was grow up and have a baby.”

Quentin nodded, slowly. There was nothing he could say to that. Except maybe . . . “I hope she realized at some point, how much you cared about her.”

“I hope so too, Quentin.”

Quentin started to slip the papers back into the Bankers Box when he noticed something at the bottom of it—a postcard, addressed to Mrs. Brixton, not at her home but at the school. He took it out.

Edith said, “Oh, that shouldn’t be in there.”