I always knew Crissy’s reputation in town wasn’t stellar, but I hadn’t appreciated the extent to which parents wanted to keep her away from their own offspring. “I get the sense you weren’t Crissy’s biggest fan.”

The skin around Cheryl’s mouth tightened. “I wasn’t disappointed when they split up. She wasn’t a good influence on him.”

It was always the same old story. Crissy was brazen, licentious, out of control.

“She was wild, like I said,” Cheryl told me. “Alcohol, drugs—and all at such a young age. Getting her out of that house would have been the best thing for her.”

“It would have cemented your relationship with Brett, too.”

“I wasn’t trying to trap him, if that’s what you mean,” Cheryl huffed, and the sagging skin under her tiny chin wobbled. “Everyone says being a single mother is hard, but they don’t know the half of it. The one income, the need to parent constantly with no relief or support, all of that’s easy compared with trying to make up for what your child is missing. My husband died when Robbie was six years old. We did okay, just the two of us, but I was soft on him. I felt sorry for him, I guess, growing up without a father, so I didn’t always discipline him the way I should have. Maybe I spoiled him a little too much. When he got older he took advantage of that, even talked me into buying him his own car at sixteen. As cliché as it may sound, he needed some discipline in his life. A father figure. I thought Brett could be that for him.”

“Once he cleaned up his act, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Mrs. Copely,” I said, “Brett was seen at the St. Albans drive-in on Saturday, June 20th. That was the day before he planned to move out of Swanton. Were you at the movies that night?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? It was a long time ago.”

“I never went to the drive-in. I didn’t want to encroach on Robbie’s time with his friends. You know how easily embarrassed boys are at that age.”

I also knew that if Cheryl avoided the movies, Brett could be sure she wouldn’t be around. That made the drive-in the perfect place to deal drugs and meet up with a pretty schoolgirl. The girl from Brett’s car that I still hadn’t identified.

“The reason I ask,” I said, “is that I’ve got a witness who saw Brett there with a woman. A girl, actually, possibly in her teens. The witness saw them talking in Brett’s car during the movie. She thinks they were kissing.”

Cheryl brought a hand to her mouth. Did Brett, and the promise of what could have been, still upset her so much that she was hurt by the idea of him canoodling with an underage girl almost two decades ago? Her shock over this news could have been an act. In a town the size of Swanton, it was feasible Cheryl might have been well aware of Brett’s indiscretion. I didn’t think so, though. In that moment, in that living room, Cheryl’s pain seemed real.