“What do you think happened?” she asked.

“It was so chaotic,” he said. “The police were in way over their heads. Everything was botched from the jump. First they said it was something to do with drugs, but no one was going to murder four people over a bag of grass at a summer camp—and then, on top of it all, leave the grass there. So then they started talking about the serial killer. That was the big angle, and I guess most people thought that must have been what happened, but that’s fallen apart with time as well. So what do I think?”

He looked up and around at his town for a moment.

“There was too much wrong in our town,” he said. “I knew it. I’d experienced it. I don’t believe in curses. I’m not superstitious or anything like that. I just mean that ours was the kind of town where bad things could happen and everything could remain under the surface. Something about it always felt . . . personal. Local. Something about finding that spot in the woods, being there at the right time, something about the timing of it all.”

He crumpled his empty coffee cup.

“Hope that helps,” he said. “Honestly, I think too much time has passed. I don’t think we’ll ever know. Good luck anyway. I hope you get to enjoy camp at least.”

He smiled and left Stevie alone with her thoughts, sitting in the shadow of John Barlow and his horse.

17

AS STEVIE LEFT TOWN AND HEADED BACK TO THE CAMP, SHE HAD A thought. She swerved and looped down one of the side streets.

It maybe was tempting fate to visit the spot where someone had been struck down on a bicycle on a bicycle—especially when you were uncertain about your skills on said bicycle. But Stevie had never been one to take the prudent course. She looked up directions to the site on her phone. It was a nondescript corner—a four-way stop lined with low suburban houses. There were no sidewalks here, just lawn all the way up to the street. It was placid and tree-lined, and there was nothing to mark the spot where Michael Penhale had fallen on that December night. But it was easy to see how such an accident could have happened. At night, it would be dark here. There were no streetlights now that she could see, which meant there were probably none then either. A car barreling along, not stopping, or clipping the edge . . .

She leaned on the handlebars, looking carefully at the traffic around her.

As she rode back, she came up on the sharp curve that turned down the road toward the local high school. This was where Patty said Greg Dempsey had crashed his motorcycle in the week after the accident. It was easy to see how he had done it. The turn was sharp, heavily bordered by a wall of trees and rock. If you didn’t make it, you’d go right into it, as he had done. It was a death turn. It certainly seemed like others had made the same mistake, because there were remnants of old memorials—a decrepit cross, half-buried by tall grass, and a teddy bear coming apart from age and exposure.