Paul was waiting. She needed to stop sounding so unsure.

“Your brother,” she said. It was not a question, but Paul seemed to understand. “If that’s okay,” she added.

Paul nodded, his chin dipping toward his chest a bit.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve been talking about what happened to my brother—about everything that happened here—since I was seventeen years old. It’s been with me for most of my life. My brother died in December of 1977, about seven months before the murders. It was right before Christmas. He was in the junior high band. He played the trumpet. They were doing a special long rehearsal for a holiday concert. I was home. I was watching Starsky and Hutch downstairs and doing homework. The phone rang and I heard this . . . scream from upstairs . . .”

He stopped and looked down at his coffee for a moment.

“It was our neighbor, Mrs. Campbell, who called,” Paul said. “It happened right around the corner. He would have been home in a minute or two. Someone came around the corner and mowed him down. Mrs. Campbell heard it happen and ran out, she was with him when . . .”

He shook his head.

“He didn’t die right away. She stayed with him while the ambulance came. He died en route.”

“And people think Todd Cooper was the one who—”

“I don’t think,” he cut in. “I know Todd Cooper was the one who hit him. Everyone knows Todd Cooper was the one who hit him.”

His voice rose a bit and Patty looked up from her cake decorating. Paul cleared his throat a little. “Why don’t we step outside?” he asked. “It’s a nice morning.”

The temperature had climbed even in the short period they had been in the bakery, and Stevie felt herself immediately start to sweat.

“This is a small town,” he said as soon as they were clear of the door and any passersby. “Everybody really does know everyone. And it’s not like there are any secrets about what happened with Todd and my brother. Certainly Patty knows all about it. But it always feels best to maybe keep this conversation—well, I don’t know. It’s a reflex.”

They drifted toward the green and sat down on one of the benches by the statue.

“The town felt even smaller back then,” he said. “Everyone was in and out of everyone else’s house or yard. We all knew what everyone else was up to. I knew Todd. We were good friends. Todd drove a brown Jeep with a red stripe. He drove fast, with the music up loud. And he drove high, he drove drunk. Lots of people did back then. Todd did it a lot. I was in the car many of those times. There were near misses that we’d laugh off. That night, it wasn’t a near miss. Someone saw him. There was a girl named Dana Silverman, who was in band as well. She was walking home from the same rehearsal. She said she saw his Jeep turn the corner of Mason Road and Prospect Avenue right after the accident, and that it was going fast. She even saw the green fuzzy dice he had hanging from the rearview mirror. The next day, after the accident, Todd didn’t drive to school. He turned up in his girlfriend Diane’s car. That had never happened before.”