In the Dark (7 page)

 

“Women know, Jonny.”

 

He wasn’t about to argue.

 

“Was there anything in the police file?” Serena asked.

 

“No, but Tish had something new.”

 

He told her about the letter Tish had given him and about the possibility that they could find DNA on the postage stamp or the flap of the envelope.

 

Serena digested this and then studied him with thoughtful eyes. “I’m surprised you never told me anything about Laura and her death. We’ve been together a long time now, Jonny. Is there a reason you didn’t want to share it with me?”

 

He didn’t know what to say, because he wasn’t sure why he had kept the story to himself. That week in July had changed him so profoundly, in so many ways, that he was never the same person again. He had realized during that week that he was going to spend the rest of his life with Cindy. He had decided during that week, as he got to know Ray Wallace, that one way to fight back against death was to become a cop. He had also discovered how much it hurt to make mistakes and that some mistakes could never be erased. When he thought about who he was today, he could draw a straight line all the way back to that summer. Even so, he had never been able to talk about it. He rarely talked about the passions that drove him. He realized that in the two years he had been coaxing Serena to share secrets about her past, he had rarely spent any time sharing secrets of his own.

 

Serena saw in his silence that he wasn’t ready to say anything. She didn’t push him. Instead, her face softened into a teasing smile.

 

“Guess what I did this evening?” she said.

 

He cocked his head with a silent question.

 

“I went to the library and found a copy of your high school yearbook from 1977,” she told him.

 

“Oh, no,” he said.

 

Serena leaned closer and whispered, “Nice hair.”

 

“I kept it long in those days.”

 

“You and Shaun Cassidy.”

 

“It was the 1970s, for God’s sake. It was the decade that taste forgot.”

 

“No, no, I like it. What a heartthrob you were. So intense. And those eyes! What did Cindy call them? Pirate eyes? I can really see it, Jonny. Smoldering, brooding, the future wounded detective.” Serena covered her mouth and started laughing.

 

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Maggie,” he told her.

 

“I saw a picture of Cindy, too. I’ve never seen a photo of her when she was young. She was amazing.”

 

“Yes, she was.”

 

“She had such an interesting face.”

 

“I told her that once, and she almost decked me.”

 

“No, really, with those big eyes and that sharp nose, and with the raven hair, she was something to look at. I see why you fell for her. I mean, Laura was a typical teen beauty, but Cindy was distinctive.” She let the silence linger, and then she added, “So tell me about Laura. What was she like?”

 

“I didn’t really know her all that well,” Stride admitted. “She wasn’t home a lot when I was around. I always thought she was one of those girls who was uncomfortable being as pretty as she was. She didn’t like the stares from the boys.”

 

“Were she and Cindy close?”

 

“No. Not really. They weren’t enemies the way sisters can be, but they both led their own lives. Cindy really regretted the distance between them after Laura was killed. She thought she had missed out on having a sister.”

 

“I saw Tish in the yearbook, too,” Serena told him. “She’s not lying about her relationship with Laura. I spotted them together in three separate photos, and they were hanging on each other like BFFs.”

 

“Score one for Tish,” Stride said.

 

“Except you never saw them together, did you? You didn’t know Tish. Why not?”

 

“Tish says she and Laura had some kind of fight, and she moved to St. Paul by herself after graduation. That would have been in May and June, when Cindy and I began dating.”

 

“Did Tish say what the fight was about?”

 

“She claims she doesn’t remember but that it wasn’t anything important. I think she’s lying on both counts.”

 

“So what was it?”

 

“I don’t know, but what do teenage girls usually fight about?” Stride asked.

 

“Boys.”

 

“That’s my guess.”

 

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

 

“Tish says that Laura dated Peter Stanhope for a while. She all but accused him of being Laura’s stalker.”

 

Serena frowned. “Peter.”

 

“Sorry, he was up to his neck in this case,” Stride said.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me? I knew you weren’t happy when I started doing work for Peter’s law firm, but I didn’t realize you had this kind of history with him.”

 

“It was thirty years ago. I’ve barely spoken to him since then. People change.”

 

That was a lie. Stride didn’t think anyone really changed. He wasn’t crazy about the idea of Serena taking a job at Peter Stanhope’s law firm, but he also wanted her off the streets. Somewhere safe. The fire in which she had nearly died during the winter hadn’t been an accident. Her career had put her in the path of a stalker, and Stride found himself struggling with his anxiety whenever she was back on the street. Serena was a former homicide cop from Las Vegas, which was one of the toughest beats he could imagine. Her background made her fiercely independent. Even so, he understood now the emotions that Cindy must have felt whenever he left the house and the fear that would have flitted through her brain whenever she picked up the phone. For the spouse of a cop, the call could come anytime.

 

“Can I tell Peter about Tish and her book?” Serena asked.

 

Stride shrugged. “If Tish keeps digging, Peter’s going to hear about it sooner or later. You can tell him. For now, I’m not involved.”

 

“Do you really think that Peter could have killed Laura?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s possible, but no one wanted to go down that road back then.”

 

“Because of Peter’s father?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who worked the case?”

 

Stride rubbed the scar on his shoulder where a bullet had violated his flesh. The wound twinged like a reminder. “Ray Wallace.”

 

Serena let out a slow breath. “You think Ray gave Peter a free pass?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“I think you should tell me exactly what happened that night,” Serena said. “Don’t you?”

 

“Yeah.” Stride steepled his fingers and stared at the fire and didn’t say anything more.

 

“I could read the police file if you want,” Serena said. “Or talk to Maggie. But I’d prefer to hear it from you.”

 

Stride ran his hand through his wavy hair, the way he did when he was tense. He thought about the long hair he had worn back then. About Cindy’s fingers running through his hair while they were in the water.

 

“Cindy and I felt guilty for a long time,” he told Serena.

 

“About what?”

 

“About leaving Laura alone that night.”

 

“You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen.”

 

“Yes, but it was dark, and it was raining, and kids had been drinking, and we just let Laura go off into the woods. It was stupid. We should have stayed with her.”

 

Serena waited.

 

“A few of us were playing softball that night,” Stride continued. “I was there. So was Peter Stanhope. Cindy was supposed to meet me afterward, and the two of us were going to hang out by the lake. I didn’t even know that Laura would be with her, but she and Cindy stopped by the field while we were playing, and then they headed off by themselves. I was a little pissed. I didn’t want Laura around.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“That was supposed to be the night.
The
night. Cindy and I were planning to have sex for the first time.”

 

“Oh,” Serena said, drawing out the word. “Now I understand.”

 

“So I wasn’t exactly thinking with my brain.”

 

“I’m sure.”

 

“The thing is, Cindy and I talked about it later, and we knew something was wrong, but we didn’t care.”

 

“What do you mean, something was wrong?”

 

Stride frowned. “Someone was in the woods that night.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO KILLED LAURA STARR?

 

 

By Tish Verdure

 

 

 

 

 

SIX

 

 

 

 

July 4, 1977

 

 

 

 

I heard a growl of thunder beyond the trees, as if the storm were an animal getting closer. The path was dark, and that meant the sky over our heads had turned black, shutting out light through the trees. I felt the thick air like a weight on my chest when I breathed. You could almost see humid haze hanging in a cloud over the trail. My skin was dewy with sweat, and my long hair clung to it like vines. I wore a bikini top, shorts, and bare feet.

 

Laura was jittery as she walked beside me. She kicked impatiently at the dirt with her pink Flyers. Her eyes darted back and forth into the woods, as if she expected to catch someone spying. She wore jeans and a blue checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. Her backpack was slung over one shoulder. She twisted the silver ring on her finger.

 

“I hope the rain holds off for the fireworks,” I said.

 

Laura looked up at the tops of the trees. She made a noise in her throat and didn’t reply.

 

I knew the Fourth of July parties would be washed out. It
would be night in less than an hour, but before then, the deluge would begin. The air was perfectly calm now. Nothing moved. The brown birds that normally hopped around us in the dirt, looking for crumbs, had taken shelter. Every birch and pine looked as if it were holding its breath.

 

The summer storms always came quickly. One moment it would be still, and then in an instant, the wind would come alive, bending the young trees. The heavy clouds would sag open, gushing out rain. The night would turn to day in flashes as branches of lightning cracked from the ground to the sky.

 

Laura stopped on the trail. I gave her a questioning stare. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes were frightened.

 

“What is it?”

 

She didn’t say anything. The trees around us were already a black parade of soldiers. I followed her eyes, but I didn’t see anything in the shadows.

 

“What?” I repeated.

 

“Someone’s there,” Laura said.

 

I looked again. I took a couple of steps closer to the trees. I didn’t smell anything but pine, like Christmas in July.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“I heard someone,” she insisted.

 

I thought she was wrong, but it was easy to feel like you weren’t alone in the park. There was a bigness about it. It felt primitive, like we were miles from the city. People came here to do secret things. You never knew who was around.

 

“Come out!” I shouted. “Hey!”

 

A violent rustling shook the brush, and I froze, completely startled. A wild turkey lurched out of the woods in front of me, wings flapping excitedly. He was a quivering bundle of striped brown feathers with a cherry-red neck, who beat his way across the path and buried himself in the tangle of leafy bushes.

 

Laura and I both jumped and screamed. We scrambled away, nearly falling. Laura hugged the strap of her backpack tighter to her body. My heart galloped. It was silly, but it’s the kind of thing that pumps you with adrenaline and leaves you feeling
keyed up. When the turkey was gone, we kept walking, but Laura continued to turn every few steps and look nervously behind us.

 

I could hear boys’ voices ahead of us as we got closer to the softball field. We had parked near the field an hour earlier. I wanted to sit and watch Jonny play, but Laura didn’t want to hang around the boys, and I didn’t blame her. They had beers at every base, and several of them were already drunk. We were the only two girls around, and they didn’t take their eyes off us when we arrived. Some girls preened and puffed up at attention like that, but Laura wilted and wanted to run.

 

Even now, as we reached the end of the trail that looped back to the field, she hung back.

 

“Let’s go down to the lake,” she said.

 

“Why don’t we wait until the game’s over? Then Jonny can come with us.”

 

“No, I know the two of you want to be alone.”

 

That was true. I felt bad, but I wanted Jonny to myself that night. Him and me. Out in the water and then on the beach together. Still, I didn’t want to leave Laura by herself.

 

“It’s okay. You can stay with us.”

 

“Say it like you mean it,” Laura replied. She finally smiled.

 

“No, it’s just—”

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll leave when you guys get together. Let’s go.”

 

“I need to tell Jonny where to meet us.”

 

I led the way out of the woods. Laura folded her arms over her chest and followed tentatively behind me. The voices and laughter got louder. There were a couple dozen boys in a rough diamond in the field, some playing, some sitting in the dirt near the parking lot. Cars were parked haphazardly in the weeds behind them, beside a winding road that led down from the highway. The field was nothing but grass and brush, small enough that a solid hit would pitch the ball into the marshland. Over the cattails, I could see a creek winding toward the lake.

 

The sky was like charcoal to the west. Bursts of lightning
made the clouds glow, and I could smell rain. Somewhere nearby, on one of the other trails that made a web through the large park, I heard firecrackers.

 

I saw Jonny playing first base. The trees ended at the edge of the softball field, and Laura and I came up behind him. He turned as he saw the other boys waving to us. Some of them made catcalls. There were empty beer bottles thrown aside everywhere.

 

Jonny had a serious face, but it softened when he saw me. Whenever I was with Laura, I was used to being invisible, but Jonny looked at me as if he didn’t see anyone else. I’d like to tell you what the connection was between us, or why it happened so quickly. The truth is, I have no idea. Sure, he’s handsome. Tall and lean, still a little short of meat and muscle, like most boys. He’s got that long, wavy hair that looks untamed. And those amazing eyes. That was what I first noticed, his eyes, which are dark and deep. I could see everything in them. Pain. Loss. Black humor. Seriousness of purpose. He is so intense that I just have to cut him down to size every now and then, and he doesn’t seem to care when I wound his ego.