Without waiting for a reply, she took the mugs and went to the counter to refill them.

“The night of the murders was very normal,” she went on as she put the mugs into her coffee machine. “It was a few days after the Fourth of July. Dinner was served between five and six, and then from six to eight the kids were allowed to play outside, with the counselors supervising them. At eight, everyone returned to their bunks for the night. One counselor always had to be present, but the other could have some free time. I’d walk around the camp at night, generally checking on things. Our biggest concern was the lake, that a camper or a counselor might try to swim at night and drown. That’s why we had the lifeguards stay in the lake house, and one of them was always up and around at night. So that night I stopped by the lake house and Paul and Shawn were in there. They were playing guitar, trying to learn that song that was all the rage—‘Stairway to Heaven.’ God, they played that song endlessly. I continued around the camp doing a few spot checks on bunks, then I returned to my cabin to go over notes for the day and set up for the next. I would often be awoken during the night for some reason or other, a sick camper or kids getting upset about a snake or something, but nobody came that night. It was quiet.”

She put fresh cups of coffee in front of Stevie and David, who now had the orange cat on his lap, sniffing his face.

“And the next day?” Stevie said.

“I’d just made the wake-up announcement,” Susan said, her gaze drifting as she remembered. “I was going over the schedule, and I heard a scream. It was one of those noises—you don’t hear them often in life, thankfully—where you know something terrible has happened. I went to find the source of it. As I walked, I called Magda on the walkie. She’d heard it too and was also heading in that direction. We both got to the path that led to the theater and the archery range. It was Brandy Clark who’d screamed. I’ll never forget her face; she’d gone completely gray. She pointed, and we went up the path and saw Eric. How detailed do you want me to get?”

She fixed Stevie with a firm look. David raised his eyebrows a bit.

“As detailed as you want,” Stevie said. “It’s okay.”

“Well, this isn’t about being salacious. I give details because people should know this was brutal. Those kids died terribly. Eric had big, curly blond hair. I could see that hair of his as we walked toward him. I remember—because we didn’t know what it was precisely that we were looking at—but Magda and I slowed a bit, then we ran. He was facedown. Cold to the touch. He had a wound on the back of his head—dark, bloody, coagulated. Then we saw the stab wounds.”