She took a long sip of her tea.

“You asked what they were like,” she said, refocusing. “Eric was sweet. Funny. A genuinely nice guy. Smart, too. A lot of people have made a big deal about the fact that he sold pot, but you have to understand . . . this was some low-level, high school, late-seventies stuff. He would have gone on to really good things if he had gotten himself together, which I think he would have. I miss them all, but I think about Eric a lot for some reason. Diane was one of my closest friends, but I can’t say I ever knew her well. Her parents owned the Dairy Duchess—it’s the diner down the street. She was tough, loved rock. Loved it. Especially Led Zeppelin. Loved going to concerts. I did too, but Diane was a real music person. She was Todd’s girlfriend, and Todd was . . . ”

Stevie saw Patty wrestling with her thoughts.

“I have a hard time reconciling this one,” she said. “Todd was not a good person, and I knew it, and I still liked him. He was the big man on campus—son of the mayor, captain of the football team. He felt like a big deal, which is ridiculous of course. At the time, though, it seemed so important. It’s so easy to get sucked in when you’re young. I should have stopped hanging out with him after Michael Penhale died, but I didn’t.”

“You think he had something to do with Michael Penhale’s death?” Stevie asked.

“Oh, he did it,” Patty said. “I’m sure of that. I was in his Jeep all the time—I knew how he drove. Fast, drunk, high. Someone saw him that night, and the police did nothing at all to investigate. And I saw the change in him after Michael Penhale died. He was always cocky, but after that he was unbearable. I could stand it because I was on the inside of the circle with him. I think I tried to tell myself it was just a terrible accident on a dark road. Todd didn’t mean to do it. I justified it in my mind by thinking that because it wasn’t intentional, it was . . . not okay, but not something that needed to be pursued? I’m not proud of any of this—I’m just telling you how it was.”

Janelle had stopped eating her cake. She was not the kind of person who could listen to a story like that and keep chowing down. Nate could multitask. Stevie was in the zone now, her mind moving through the facts.

“How did Sabrina fit into all this?” Stevie asked.

“I was never clear on why she started hanging out with us,” Patty replied. “She started sitting with us at lunch at the end of senior year. I think Diane brought her over, but I never knew why. Sabrina was kind of the queen bee of Liberty High.”

“Did you like her?”