“Oh my god,” Nate said in a low voice. “I gotta get in my tree.”

July 11, 1978

6:00 p.m.

NOTHING HAPPENED IN BARLOW CORNERS. OR, NOTHING WAS SUPPOSED to happen in Barlow Corners. It was the kind of place where things were always okay—not great or terribly exciting, but okay. There was a gentle hum of boredom that teenagers hated and adults came to love.

You could get everything you required on the main strip along Beechnut Street and Maple Avenue. There was the Ben Franklin five-and-dime and Unity Hardware for all your basic household needs. The Dairy Duchess, the local diner owned by the McClure family, was good for a quick bite or a family meal. Anderson’s Grocery and Deli provided day-to-day food items. For your bigger weekly shop, there was the A&P grocery two miles down the road. There was even a nod to the younger crowd in the form of a boutique called Zork’s, where the teenagers bought their T-shirts, posters, and lava lamps.

On a fine summer night like this one, most of the town would stroll along with an ice cream or a Popsicle, the kids would ride their bikes, and there would be horseshoes on the green. But it was not a normal summer night. When faced with a tragedy of this proportion, the residents of Barlow Corners did the only thing they could think to do—they threw a town-wide potluck picnic.

Four days after the murders, every business in the town closed at three in the afternoon. Large folding tables came out from the fire department hall and the church basement and the high school events supply closet. These were set up on the town’s main green space—the square next to the library. The citizens of Barlow Corners came together under the blue twilight and the long green shadows of an early summer evening with their folding garden chairs, lawn blankets, and coolers.

Everyone brought something for the picnic tables. Indeed, people seemed to be trying to outdo themselves by bringing more than one dish. Tupperware of every size clustered on the tables, heaped with potato salads and coleslaws. Multiple families brought along their grills, and an assembly line was created to distribute hot dogs and hamburgers. There was much fussing over the arrangements of the condiments and the rolls and salads. Did someone have an extension cord to plug in this electric covered dish of baked beans? Was there a way of keeping the bees out of the relish? On the dessert tables things were stacked two deep: peach and blueberry and strawberry pies, lemon bars, Jell-O molds, banana pudding with Nilla Wafers, fruit salad, angel food and chocolate cakes. As everyone placed their food down, they had a look in their eye, a look that said that every item was an offering, thanks to have been spared. The angel of death had visited Barlow Corners again, and again gone past their door.