She thought about how the detective had said this was a prime spot for kids to drink before she’d built her house here, as if she’d somehow displaced them. She wondered if the detective had been one of those kids back in the day. Could she really trust him to look out for her best interests?

7

Detective Murray dropped Maja Jensen off at the River Inn, and then wheeled his car around and headed out of town toward the O’Connor place. There was no point in waiting; it would only give the kids time to get their story straight. He knew that Trip O’Connor had something to do with this, and he was sure that he could use the threat of Trip’s previous record to get a few more names out of him.

Not for the first time that morning, Murray felt his stomach clench. He’d really blown it on Friday night. There was no other way to spin it. It was lazy police work, and he knew it, and the chief knew it. And soon the Jensens would figure it out too, when the shock over their house wore off and they started putting together the timeline.

If he’d bothered to call in an extra unit, tramp down into the woods, and check the waterfront, he could have rounded up a bunch of the partygoers then and there. He’d be in Tillman’s office right now, working on the charges instead of being bawled out by the chief and playing catch-up and cover your ass all day.

The truth was that when it came to teenagers, there were a few unspoken rules in the New Falls Police Department, and that was where Murray had gotten tripped up. It wasn’t that they got a free pass—those days were over. Parents expected, and seemed to accept, a certain amount of crackdown: tickets for speeding and underage drinking, and semi-annual roundups at parties in the woods. Parents were called and lectures were given, and once in awhile there was an actual bust for smoking pot, the records sealed and expunged when the kids turned eighteen.