Tess stared at him in disbelief.
“It’s time to tell the truth, Miss DeGraff.”
“I told the truth,” she said.
“I’ll remind you again,” he said in a menacing tone. “That is not possible. Let me give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps it was an honest mistake. Perhaps you were saying that you saw someone who looked a certain way…and the adults around you jumped to an incorrect conclusion.”
Tess immediately remembered her conversation with Aldous Fuller. The former chief was afraid that blame would fall on him and now it seemed that Rusty Bosworth was suggesting exactly that. It was Lazarus, she wanted to say. Lazarus. But the words stuck in her throat. The chief was not going to listen to that. He was not going to listen until she at least acknowledged the possiblity that she had been mistaken. Tess thought again of her college boyfriend. The one she thought she saw leaving the dorm, when he was actually several states away. What was the point of insisting on the impossible? She thought of Erny, and shame swept over her as she remembered his words: You told the cops that guy was guilty, and that was a lie.
Not a lie, she insisted silently.
“Miss DeGraff.”
“I don’t know for sure what happened,” she said.
Rusty pounced, his eyes gleaming. “You were wrong. You admit it.”
Tess stuck out her chin. “All I admit is that it doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s not good enough,” said the chief.
Tess summoned all her nerve. “That’s all I can tell you. That’s all I know. And that’s all I’m going to say to you without an attorney present. I want to leave now. I’m not under arrest. I assume I can leave.”
Rusty scowled at the mention of a lawyer and raised a hand, as if to detain her, but then seemed to think better of it. “All right. You can go. For now,” said Rusty Bosworth. “But I warn you, Miss DeGraff. If I find out that you committed perjury, you will face criminal charges. Take my advice. If my hunch is correct, you’ll be sacrificing yourself to protect a man who doesn’t deserve your loyalty. Not if he killed your sister…”
Tess stood up, even though her legs trembled beneath her. “My father would have died to protect my sister,” she said in a raspy voice. “To protect any one of us.”
Rusty Bosworth peered at her. “But he didn’t, did he?” he said.
Tess wanted to shout at him or slap his face. She wanted to shriek at him that no one had suffered more than Rob DeGraff over what happened to Phoebe. She wanted to, but she didn’t. Bosworth was an enemy who had made up his mind.
Erny was already in bed by the time Tess got back to the inn. Julie had sent a helping of chicken pot pie home with Dawn for Tess. Dawn heated it up for Tess and set it down in front of her, but Tess had little appetite. She picked at it and ate a few forkfuls.
“What did he want, honey?” Dawn asked.
Tess shook her head and avoided her mother’s gaze. She was not about to tell Dawn about Rusty Bosworth’s speculation that Dawn’s husband was responsible for the murder of their daughter. Tess could not imagine even uttering the words, much less forcing her mother to hear them. “He was asking me about that night. What I remembered,” she said blandly. “Just hoping I might be able to provide some new information for the case.”
Dawn nodded. Tess excused herself after barely eating anything. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “I’m going to turn in.”
“Try and sleep,” Dawn said, although, judging by the dark circles beneath her eyes, Dawn was unable to take her own advice.
Tess shook her head. “I’ll try. Good night, Mom.”
Dawn hugged her for a long time and Tess could feel her mother’s frame shaking. “Are you okay, Mom?” Tess asked.
“Oh sure,” said Dawn. “It’s just…this never ends, does it?”
Tess left her mother in the kitchen and went down the hall to her room. The room was dark except for the moonlight that spilled in through the window. Tess got changed in the bathroom and slipped under the covers of her bed. Across the room, she could hear Erny’s steady breathing. Tess lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. She felt as if she were pinned there by a dead weight. In the last forty-eight hours, she had done nothing, it seemed, but react to the disorientation caused by unfolding events. The unexpected results of the DNA tests had upended the one certainty she had clung to about the death of her sister. The identity of the killer. She did not know why he had done it, or where, or why he had picked on them out of all the people in the world. But at least she had always known who was guilty. Lazarus Abbott. The man she described to the police. The killer.
Now even that was gone.
Who is wrong and who is right? And who is truly to blame? The room was quiet and Tess longed to sleep, but she couldn’t turn her thoughts off, couldn’t stop thinking about what she knew and didn’t know. The DNA results were a fact. They exonerated Lazarus Abbott. That meant that he could not have raped Phoebe.
But no matter what preposterous theory Chief Bosworth floated about her father, she knew for a fact that it was not him. As for her mistaking Lazarus for someone else, Tess remembered the face of Lazarus Abbott. And even if, over time, she thought she might have altered the face she saw that night to fit the face of the man they arrested, Chief Fuller’s words this morning came back to her. When she had described the man with the knife that long-ago night, Chief Fuller had recognized her description instantly. When Lazarus Abbott had been brought into the police station, she had screamed at the sight of him.
That reaction was not an accident. So where did that leave her? What if, she asked herself, your identification is right, and also the DNA is right? How, she wondered, can I reconcile two facts that seem to be mutually exclusive? It was Lazarus Abbott who took her. It was not Lazarus Abbott who killed her.
“Mom?”
Tess jumped and let out a soft cry.
“It’s just me,” said Erny, delighted with her alarmed response.
“You scared me. I thought you were asleep,” she said.
“Nah. I was waiting until you got back.”
“Well, I’m back,” she said firmly. “Now you can sleep. Did you have a good time at your aunt and uncle’s?”
“Pretty good. Ma, I’m sorry I said those things to you. I shouldn’t have said you were lying. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know, honey. Don’t worry about it. We’re all a little stressed.”
“What did the police chief say?”
Tess was not about to utter the accusation against Rob DeGraff, the grandfather Erny had never known. “We just went over the same stuff. He thinks I must have…remembered the wrong man.
“Did you?” he asked. “Did you remember the wrong guy?”
Tess sighed. “I don’t think I did. I saw the man who took her. But it’s a problem because the test results say someone else did the…crime.”
Erny was silent for a minute. “Maybe it was his friend. Maybe his friend dared him to take her.”
It seemed like an utter non sequitur. “His friend? What friend?”
“I don’t know. Any friend. Your friends can get you into trouble sometimes,” he said in a knowing tone.
Tess turned over in her bed and propped herself up on one elbow. She could see the other bed, the jumble of Erny’s covers, and his shock of dark hair against the pillow in the moonlight.
“What do you mean?” said Tess.
“Oh, you know, Ma. Sometimes they say, ‘Let’s do something bad,’ and you might not even want to do it. But you do it anyway.”
Tess’s heart skipped a beat. She knew he was speaking from experience. And any other night, she would have pursued his explanation, but tonight all she could think about was the possibility he raised. “That’s true,” said Tess slowly. Julie said that Lazarus had had no friends, but that wasn’t necessarily true. Maybe if she knew more about his life…. Erny yawned while Tess turned the idea over and over in her mind. Then she said aloud, “But no. Wait. It couldn
’t be.”
“What couldn’t?” Erny murmured. Sleep was beginning to overtake him.
“If someone else did the…crime,” said Tess, thinking aloud, “Lazarus would have told the police. Why would he take the blame?”
“He didn’t want to be a snitch,” said Erny, as if that were the most reasonable explanation in the world.
No, of course not. Tess was silent. A partner in crime. The thought opened up a realm of evil possibilities, like a deadly nightshade blooming in the dark. It would explain how she could have seen Lazarus and yet the rape, and possibly the murder, was committed by someone else. Maybe someone else had planned the whole thing. Goaded him into it. Lazarus never could have been the brains behind it. It had to be someone older or smarter. Someone he would be afraid to betray.
Tess looked over at her son in the dark, amazed by his simple suggestion. “You know, honey, you might be right.”
But Erny had not heard her. He had flopped over on his side and was making a murmuring, sighing sound. Soughing like the wind. Dreaming.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning dawned sunny and warm, a moment of Indian summer. Dawn had opened the sitting room windows a few inches to air out the inn a little bit. Tess pulled back the curtain and felt the light, fresh air as she looked out at the inn’s wide driveway. Tess noticed that the corps of reporters had thinned out a bit. The public’s appetite for sensational news stories was insatiable, but their attention span seemed to be ever diminishing. Thank heaven, Tess thought. The fewer developments there were to report, the sooner the reporters would vanish. Those who remained were now assembling outside in a desultory fashion.
As she looked out the window, Tess saw Jake’s white van, flanked on both sides and across the top with closed extension ladders, pull up at the end of the walkway to the front door.
“Erny,” she called out. “Uncle Jake’s here.”
The front door opened and Jake came into the vestibule “Hey, Tess,” he said. “Is the kid ready?”
“He’s getting his stuff,” she said.
“What happened with Bosworth?” he asked.
Looking at Jake, Tess thought of the chief’s suggestion that their father might have been her sister’s assailant. It made her feel sick to her stomach. She did not want to imagine Jake’s reaction if he heard about this theory that the chief had posited. “Nothing. Really. It was a complete waste of time. Where are you two headed today?”
“I’m gonna take him out to the Whitman farm. It’s a great place for a kid to run around. He can go exploring while I finish the trim on those third-floor windows.”
Erny appeared in the hallway wearing his sweatshirt and tugging Leo by his leash.
Jake frowned at the sight of the dog.
“You said I could bring him,” Erny reminded him.
Jake shook his head. “I did? I must have been drinking. All right. Come on. See ya later, Tess.”
“Have fun,” she said to Erny.
As soon as they were out of sight, Tess picked up her bag and pulled her own jacket from the hook in the hallway. She drew in a deep breath to try to calm her jittery stomach. She told herself she was going to sail past those reporters as if they were invisible. She couldn’t hide inside this morning. Erny’s sleepy suggestion about a friend had given her an idea and she needed to pursue it. She kept her gaze straight ahead as the reporters, galvanized by the sight of her, began to shout out her name.
Ironically, unlike the Stone Hill Inn, the offices of the Stone Hill Record were subdued. A receptionist greeted Tess with a pleasant nonchalance when she asked to see Channing Morris. “Who shall I say is asking?” the receptionist asked politely. It was only when Tess said her name that the girl’s eyes widened and she rang the publishers office and spoke in a low, hurried voice.
She hung up the receiver and looked up at Tess. “He’ll be out in just a minute. You can have a seat,” she said, indicating the waiting area of the newspaper’s modest office. Tess thanked her and walked over to the low-slung leather couch that sat beneath a wall of framed photos. They told a story in pictures of the newspaper’s history. Most were photos of men dressed in banker’s-style suits, shaking one another’s hands and beaming avuncularly. The exception was a stern, square-jawed woman with snapping black eyes who was in the center of many of the pictures. Tess was studying the gallery when Chan Morris, handsome and casual-looking in an open-collared shirt, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his well-worn chinos, emerged into the waiting area.
“Miss DeGraff,” he said. “You looking at my journalistic forebears there?”
Tess nodded. “You had a female publisher, I see.”
“My grandmother,” said Chan.
“Wow. Looks like she was kind of a feminist pioneer,” said Tess.
“Oh yeah. No knitting and cookie baking for her. She was as tough as nails. But she taught me the newspaper business.”
Tess smiled. “I guess you didn’t have much choice.”
Chan shrugged. “Luckily, I liked it. So, what brings you here? I thought you were avoiding the media entirely.”
“I am. I was,” Tess admitted. “But I need a favor.”
“Come through,” he said. “Tell me what I can do for you.”
She followed him back into the paper’s warren of offices. “I want to look at all the articles from the paper concerning my sister’s abduction. I need the local viewpoint. I looked on the Interet, but you’re only catalogued for the last five years.”
“I know,” said Chan sheepishly. “It’s been a nightmare with all the news organizations covering this story.”
“Are the back issues available?” Tess asked.
“Down these stairs,” said Chan, indicating a basement staircase. “We have them in the archives. It’s a nuisance to look through them, but yes, we do have them.” Chan raked his fingers through his soft black hair. “Perhaps we can help each other out. How about just a few words of reaction from you about all this?”
“I’d rather not say too much,” said Tess.
Ignoring her reluctance, Chan reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small spiral-topped pad and a pen. “Just tell me how you felt when you heard the governor’s announcement?”
Tess took a deep breath. “Shocked,” she said truthfully.
Chan scribbled on the pad. “You didn’t have any doubts, all these years.”
“I believed,” she said carefully, “that the courts and the police had done their jobs. That the matter was settled.”
“And now?”
“And now…it would seem that the case has to be reopened.”
Chan wrote down her response and looked at her quizzically. “You sound very detached,” he said. “Almost as if it wasn’t personal.”
“Oh, it’s very personal,” she said. “Are you finished?”
“One more question? If you don’t mind my asking, what are you looking for in the archives?”
Tess was not about to tell him her “accomplice” theory. She did not want people to know that her search was motivated by the hunch of her ten-year-old son. She managed a vague excuse. “Well, naturally, I have questions and I am looking for answers. Not that I think I can find what the police couldn’t, but I have to at least see if I can find something to jog my memory. Just for my own peace of mind.”
“Jog your memory about that night,” he said.
“Yes, exactly,” she said. “Can I have a look now?”
“Sure.” He seemed to accept her motive. He replaced his pad in his pocket and led the way toward the basement staircase. It crossed Tess’s mind, as she accompanied him down the steps, that he wasn’t a very aggressive reporter. They came out into a room that looked like a low-ceilinged library, lined with shelves, which were piled high with papers. Tess frowned, looking at the towers of papers around her. She had expected microfilm, at least.
Chan saw her expression of dismay. “Sorry…I just don’t have the manpower to get these back issues catal
ogued.”
“How do you find anything?” she asked.
Chan sighed. “It takes a while. Uh, the years you want would be over in that far corner,” he said.
Tess sneezed.
“Dust,” he said apologetically.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“There’s a Xerox machine over there, if you want a copy of anything.”
“Thanks, I’ll be fine,” said Tess. She followed the dates on the shelves and found the section where the papers she wanted to look at might be. She took the first sheaf over to a small table at the end of a stack and sat down.
“Mind if we get a photo of you looking through the archives?” Chan asked.
Tess felt frozen inside, but she nodded politely. It was the price she had to pay. “Go ahead,” she said.
“I’ll see if we’ve got a photographer in the house,” he said and he sprinted back up the stairs, wanting to catch her before she got away.
Tess began to comb through the papers. It was an arduous task, both hard on her eyes and on her heart. She read the accounts of Lazarus’s life closely, looking for any indication of a friend or an associate. In the process, she was forced to look past countless pictures of her own family, dressed in forgotten clothes, looking stunned and grief-stricken.
She was forced to stop for a moment to turn and look gravely at the camera of the photographer Chan had found for the job. Then she returned to leafing through the papers. She found a few items of interest among the many articles. There was an interview with one of Lazarus’s old schoolteachers that talked about his life as a disliked and below-average student. No mention of friends or associates. On the contrary, the teacher was eager to label him, as so many killers were labeled in their youth, as a loner.
There was another interview with his aunt, Rusty Bosworth’s mother, who insisted that their family was like a Norman Rockwell portrait of Americana, and there had to be some mistake. There was also one reporter’s account of trying to interview Nelson Abbott, but being met with only his scorn and impatience.
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