He could feel a bit of jagged anger, the feeling that he wanted to punch someone, creeping over him—the alcohol was leaving his body, and the sobering reality was too much for him. He went back in, dropped some ice cubes into the glass, and filled it to the top with whiskey. Then he pulled out the other three Polaroids and set this one next to it. Four, all in a row, in order. Bill, Loyal, Ross, and now his. Why leave this picture now? Was it a threat? Why not just wait and kill him, as they had done the others? He wondered if there would be another Polaroid taken after he was actually killed. A two-for-one-special Polaroid deal. And then who would get the very last picture?
He read the writing printed on each one, thinking that maybe it told some story. Something he hadn’t noticed before. Bill’s said The church does not exonerate all Sins. It was written in dark ink. Black. Careful letters. The first S in Sins was capitalized, giving it more importance and meaning. He tapped his head. This first photo was meant to let the others know that Bill’s death wasn’t an accident—someone knew their secret. And what they’d done was unforgivable. Loyal’s read Destiny calls us, bound by Loyalty. All things that spring eternal can never be crushed. Was this to let them know that the killer was aware Ava existed? He took a long gulp of whiskey. Ross’s photograph said Ave Maria, Joseph too. There was no ambiguity in that one. They all knew who Joseph was. The killer was laying out the sequence of horrible events that had taken place that night. That message was only for him; the others had been killed off by that time.
But now this last picture. Two other woes are yet to come. Maybe what he’d said to Marie had been right. Maybe whoever was after him was after her too. He needed to get out of here, lie low for a bit. When it was safe, he’d finish things with Ava and disappear for good.
The Jameson had oozed back into his bloodstream, making him stumble trying to get up from the chair. He steadied himself before he hit the ground. Just then there was a knock on the door. He stared at it without moving. Maybe whoever had broken in before had circled back. If so, he was trapped. There was no other way out.
He lifted the edge of the curtain and peered onto his front patio. Without the glaring light, he could only see the thick outline of a woman standing at his front door, flashlight in hand.
He heaved a sigh of relief and flung the door open. Mrs. Engles was in her bathrobe, arms folded tight across her ample body.
“I’m glad you’re in, Mr. Jones—” Her voice was heavy and raspy.
He shook his head. “That’s not my name.” It was the name of the previous tenant, and she insisted on calling him that no matter how many times he’d corrected her. “What’s wrong?”
She flashed the light in his eyes. “I’ve been in my bed all night. Sick with the flu.” She hacked a few times to make her point. “Came down to get a cup of tea and wait for my sister to bring me soup. And my light’s out. Almost broke my neck.”
“So what happened? To your light?”
“No idea. But I heard noise over here, thought you had company. Maybe you could change my bulb?”
He looked over his shoulder into the empty living room. “I don’t have any company unless you count my Jameson.”
He half expected her to ask who Jameson was. But she didn’t. “It’s a two-man job. Your friend left?”
He stepped back. “What friend? Someone was here?”
She moved the flashlight, shining it at his door. “I heard ’em. Thought it was Becky, so I looked out.”
He rubbed his eyes. He wanted to smack her. “Who was it?”
“A woman. Tall, dark hair. Didn’t hear nothing more, so I thought she went inside with you.”
She took a step backward and he heard cracking under her shoe. “Glass,” he said, pointing to the ground. The flashlight jerked up to the light fixture. The remnants of the shattered bulb shimmered in the light.
“Let me see that.” He took the light from her hand and shined it around the small patio area. A rock, twice the size of a softball, lay near her doorway. “Your bulb didn’t burn out. It was smashed.”
Her face twisted up and she went into a coughing fit. “Well, that does it. Vandals around here now. I’m calling the police.”
“This woman had dark hair? What was she wearing?”
She shook her head. “Black dress or a skirt, maybe. Something dark. That’s all I saw, Mr. Jones. That and her going to your door.”
“That’s not my name.” He shut the door in her face. He stood with his back to it for a few minutes, just breathing. Marie. It had to be. And she’d taken a picture of his front door.
First she’d agreed to help him, now she was threatening him with that camera. And how exactly did she have the camera? Unless she’d been the killer all along? The thought made him turn around and double lock his door.
CHAPTER 23
Russell was staring at me, an odd look on his face. The stack of Polaroids was in his hand. He’d flipped through them several times, looking for anything that might provide a clue as to who’d taken them. Or when.
“A frickin’ oak tree? What are the odds the photograph you saw was taken with the same camera as these? They’re both in black and white and both really grainy.” He shook them. “Do they even make film for a camera that old?”
I shrugged. “That’s a Google question. No camera or film in any of the boxes, though.”
“The problem is that these pictures don’t give any clue as to when they were taken. Fifties. Sixties. Or even later. Trees don’t change over decades.” He surveyed the mess in the room. “Do you remember an old Polaroid camera? From when you were little? At Claire’s or Anais’s?”
I stood up and started putting some of the albums back in the boxes. “Russell, there are a million Polaroid cameras in the world. Just because the photo of the Owenses’ house happens to be a Polaroid—”
“And black and white? Both were this exact size?” He held up the little rectangular picture. “It’s an odd coincidence—”
I smiled. “I think that’s what a coincidence is. Odd happenings that coincide.”
“The other thing?” He ignored me. “My niece has a new Polaroid—”
“Polaroid stopped making them. It’s Fuji, I think, that’s making the instant cameras now.”
“Whatever. But they’re all the rage now, apparently, and the photographs are different. Different size. More rectangular.”
“All the rage?”
He ignored my teasing. “If these were taken with the same camera as the murder photo, it means that that photograph you found was taken by someone in your family, maybe. Someone who had access to the camera that took these. Claire? Anais? Marie?”
I snorted. “Yes, little Grand-Mère Anais with an ancient Polaroid camera around her wrist, murdering her way across the Eastern Seaboard with a box of old film in her back pocket.”
“Joke all you want. Maybe she’s like Madame Defarge in that Dickens novel, except instead of knitting she’s taking pictures.”
I threw a packet of envelopes at him. “I’m surprised you read A Tale of Two Cities.”
He chuckled. “CliffsNotes. I hate Dickens.”
“Getting back to what you were saying about my grandfather? And Loyal?”
Russell took his eyes off the pictures in his hand. “Yeah, I think they knew each other. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Like they went to school together or something. They were born only months apart.”
I smiled. Russell was so intent, so diligent and analytical, that I felt like I was presenting him with the answer to cold fusion when I put a picture of Ross Saunders and two other boys dressed in Catholic-school uniforms into his hand. “Voilà, Detective Bowers.” I’d kept any images of the fourth, puggish-looking boy to myself.
His entire face exploded. Like a kid in front of the tree, Christmas morning. “This is it. This is it. This is the connection I’ve spent hours trying to put together. I knew it.” He jumped up and hugged me. I felt his gun pressing into my hip bone. “Why’d
you just let me sit here for the past half hour, Ava?” He let me go.
“It was a surprise for you. Interesting, huh? Schoolmates.”
“Ross, Loyal, and who’s the third boy?”
I peered at the face. “Claire would’ve known, maybe.”
“Loyal and wife get killed. A photo is taken, and someone writes a message on it that references you. You were seventeen when the murders happened, right?” I nodded. “Where were you living then?”
“February of 2010, we’d just moved to Willow Grove, outside of Philly. Maybe two months earlier or something. Why?”
Russell was riveted on the Polaroids. “Hmmm. What was Saunders involved in?”
I scowled. “What makes you think this was my grandfather’s fault? Your ideas are spiraling.”
“That’s how this works. Ideas come, some are good, some bad. See what sticks and makes sense. And we keep going till we get a lead.”
“Well. I’d rather work by starting with the practical, like finding the school, getting the names—”
“The yearbook? Was there a yearbook in this stuff?” He turned and scanned the books and papers scattered across the floor. “And I wonder where that third boy is. It’d be great to talk to him.”
I felt my heart twinge a little. Russell was seated on an ottoman, his knees pressed together, the photographs balanced in his lap. My mystery was swallowing him up. I could see it happening by inches. I studied his face, his eyes. It had been a while since I’d been attracted to anyone. Or let myself be attracted to anyone. I’d had a boyfriend, Paul, at McGill. A nice French Canadian boy who lived in Saint-Jérôme, not far from Montreal. He was funny and serious at the same time. Goal oriented, future oriented. We’d visit his parents or go to Lake Placid or Quebec City on the weekends. Sometimes, when it was freezing out, we’d just get food, stay in the dorm, and study all weekend. He’d call them study-ins. He was a year ahead of me, accepted into medical school at UCLA. And he had it all planned: that I’d apply to graduate school there the following year, we’d get an apartment together. But I couldn’t do it.
This feeling of necessary isolation, of When things get too familiar it’s time to move on, had been instilled in me by Claire. When the walls closed in, I had the instinct to bolt. Paul had been pulling the walls in around me. And no matter how hard I’d tried to ignore the suffocating feeling, in the end I’d bolted. Russell was different, though. He was already taken. Engaged. Joanne thought that would ruin things for me, but actually it only made it easier. I could connect but remain blissfully unconnected.
I leaned over him, brushing against his arm. “No, no yearbook. But if we can figure out what school it is, we can look it up, I’m sure. All that stuff has been loaded onto the Internet.”
“Or”—he stood up—“we could go to the neighborhood where Ross grew up. Go to the schools and ask people? There can’t be that many.”
“You’re not a sit-on-your-ass kind of guy, huh? More action? It’s way too late to go to the schools tonight. I say we have a stay-in. Pour some wine, try and make some sense out of these pictures. Maybe find out what school that is. Whad’you think?”
“A stay-in?”
“Mm-hmm. Order in some Chinese. Or whatever. Pour some drinks and take these boxes apart, set all the pictures out to get a visual.” I kicked some boxes to the side to make room in the middle of the floor. “Make a map of Ross Saunders’s life right here.” I motioned to the empty space. “Maybe something else’ll pop up?”
He flipped the Polaroids again in his lap. “Where’d you say you found these? Maybe there’s more.”
My hands went to my hips. “The dining room, cabinet in the corner. I think there’s a nice bottle of Pinot Noir in there. I just bought it. A California Pinot, but not bad. Go. I’ll call for food. Chinese? Is that good?”
He pulled himself up from the chair. “Fine. Just an egg roll for me. Maybe some pork fried rice.”
When I heard his feet hit the bottom step, I grabbed the photographs of Ross with the pug man—I’d purposely hidden them from Russell—and shoved them into my purse. Mr. I-Need-Directions was all mine. And I wasn’t going to need a yearbook to identify him. I knew him already. But he’d been missing for so long, I had no idea where to start. I was going to flush him out to get some information. But I needed to do it alone.
CHAPTER 24
Marie scrubbed her hands in the basin and watched the bubbles and warm water swirl around her fingers, mesmerized. Then, as if someone had wound a key in her back, she dried her hands on the towel and ripped the wimple from her head, tossing it onto a chair. Her mind was hazy, her eyes moist. She’d been weepy and emotional all day. Thoughts of her family—what was left of it—had occupied her thoughts.
Ross and Claire were dead, both caught up in a whirlwind of other people’s misdeeds. The difference was that Ross had forced other people to carry the burden. An eye for an eye, he’d said, trying to use the Bible to bolster his cause. The number of times he’d pleaded with his daughters the night he’d appeared on their doorstep, almost twenty years ago, couldn’t be counted. It was that night that she understood why her mother had married him. That night, Ross Saunders was a whole person, a man who’d been fighting in one way or another his entire life, who would stand up to right or wrong when it mattered. Even if it destroyed everything around him. And it had.
She opened her eyes and blinked. Saw her father, covered in the blood oozing from the wound in his head. Having driven for hours from Philadelphia, he’d deposited himself on Claire’s doorstep in Brooklyn, his eyes large and frightened.
“What happened? Were you mugged? Oh my God,” she’d said.
But it was clear within minutes that wasn’t the case. He had been the attacker and was now being chased. Claire had been unmoved. Unyielding. Panicked, she scanned the hallway to make sure no one was watching. She knew the implications of letting him in, yet in the end, in one swift pull on his arm, he was on the floor in the entryway of her apartment. Blood everywhere. Claire didn’t dare turn on the lights to draw attention.
“Did you leave a trail to my door?” She opened the door again and inspected the carpeting leading to the elevator. “I can’t have this.”
“Please, Claire. I’ll be dead or arrested if you don’t help me. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” His voice was hushed, whispering. His entire body was trembling. “I’ve never asked you for a thing in my life.”
“You’ve never given us a thing in our lives, you mean,” Marie said.
But the two girls sat on the floor with him and listened to his story. Marie, having arrived in New York only a month before, had been particularly pained. His words maligned the very thing to which she’d given her life. And while he talked, the alcohol and sweat were lifting from his skin, even through the blood.
“Stop, Father, it isn’t true. You’re lying to protect yourself.” Her voice reached near hysteria. “Stop now. Or I’ll throw you back out into the hallway myself.”
Claire put two fingers to her lips to quiet her sister, and it worked. Marie choked her tears into her lap, rocking back and forth.
“Go on,” Claire commanded.
He did. He told them everything he could remember. The four friends. School. Confirmation. The night they made the pact when they were kids. How they’d met for drinks earlier that day for their thirtieth reunion. The stories started and then they all agreed, in an alcohol-adrenaline rage and fury: it was time to finish things the way they’d promised they would when they were kids.
He talked while lying on the floor, slumped to the side, holding his hand to his coat so as not to stain Claire’s carpet.
“Not Father Bill. Not him too? Why?” Marie’s head had tilted to the side; she felt her face twist in anguish. “That’s not possible. He’s a priest.”
Ross had looked at her, his eyes only partially open. “I’m sorry. And they’re after me now. Please. I know this is so much to ask. But I don’t have a choice. I don’t even car
e if I die. But—”
“No one is going to kill you.”
Ross’s breaths were heavy. “You have no idea, Marie. Do you think I drove this far for nothing? Begging you two for help?”
Claire had been pacing around their father, like a bird circling, ruminating on the implications of what he was asking. “Arrested is more likely. And you’re drunk. This happened because you’re a drunk. Drinking with those friends of yours. Like always. That’s why Maman left you,” she spit. “If she were here, what would she do?” She glanced at Marie. “We should call her. What time is it in Cherbourg?”
“Claire, no. No Anais,” he begged.
“What am I supposed to do, then? If what you say is true, they’ll be after us too. They may have followed you here, do you know that?” She’d turned her back and walked to the window, looking toward the brownstones across the street. “Anyone could have seen you. Why should we help? Why?”
His answer was simple. “Because you can. And no one else will.”
“Everyone will be looking for you. Not just your friends,” Marie stressed. “Eventually the police too. Come morning.” She was still on the floor. She covered her face with her hands, protecting her from seeing him, his pleading eyes. “We can’t cover up what you’ve done—”
“It’s true. Marie is right. But I will let you stay for the night. For one night. Go to the car, be quick, and don’t make any noise. I don’t need any more trouble.” Claire pointed to the door. In one second of weakness, she’d altered the course of their lives.
Marie pulled herself up. “I’ll go. It’ll be better.” She’d removed her wimple, run her hand through her hair, and wrapped herself in Claire’s long coat.
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