It wasn’t even clear if the use of the abandoned car was evidence of a murderer’s plan or a murderer’s desperation.
Perhaps placing a corpse in a car that was about to be incinerated in a game was a sign of good planning: After all, any evidence indicating where Uncle Will died and how his body was transported to the old Buick would have been driven over by the cars of Erika’s friends, and then by the heavy fire trucks. Important clues would have been burned and washed away. On the other hand, if the abandoned car on Tilby’s Dream was a location that was easily recognized in a riddle, then it was a location known by most locals. So it could have popped into the head of a murderer who had done no planning at all, a person who had accidentally killed someone and was desperate for a place to dump a body. I was back to square one.
I knew of two people angry enough to get into a fight with Uncle Wilclass="underline" Aunt Iris, fearing he was going to put her away, and Audrey Sanchez, believing he was in league with the devil. Elliot Gill had once been very angry, but why would he hurt Uncle Will after so many years? And then there was Carl, who was obviously worried about the police finding out who was at the fire and who seemed a likely candidate for the earlier harassment of Uncle Will. But even if I came up with solid reasons for these suspects to intentionally or accidentally strike the blow that killed Uncle Will, it wouldn’t matter without evidence. The most likely place to find evidence was the site of the murder, which the police didn’t seem to know.
But maybe I did. Somehow, before I even arrived in Wisteria, I had seen where the car had burned; some part of me had visited the place. In my second O.B.E., I began somewhere else and ended up at the fire site: What if I was seeing the place where my uncle was struck on the head?
Maybe in that O.B.E., I made the journey with him from the time of the attack to the disposal of his body. If I saw the actual place where he was killed, would I recognize it the way I had recognized the fire site?
I pulled into the area at the top of Aunt Iris’s driveway, waited for a car to pass, then made a U-turn on Creek Road. Driving to where it forked off Scarborough, I headed away from town toward the large tulip poplar. A storm was brewing. The sky, which had been sullen all afternoon, was growing darker in the west, and when I got to the landmark, its leaves looked pale against the threatening clouds. I turned onto the road that ran through Tilby’s Dream and drove between fields of soy and corn. Their vibrant green yellowed in the pre-storm light.
My plan was to check the immediate area, working my way outward from the fire site. I couldn’t remember anything at the actual site that looked like a wall with notches in it, but I remembered how Erika’s clues, her riddles, were metaphors; maybe the images in my O.B.E.s worked in a similar way. Having turned at the “spring flower” in the riddle, I finally spotted the “green tunnel” and parked my car at its entrance.
I jogged down the dirt road. The old trees and overgrown brush were gloomy, the air oppressive. I was glad to reach the clearing. It was still cordoned off by the yellow police tape. To the left were fields that stretched to the horizon. To the right was a small, uncultivated field hemmed by pine. I walked a ways into the pine trees, perhaps a quarter of a mile, and saw that the wood and its soft floor of needles seemed to go on and on. At that point I stopped. If Uncle Will had been killed here, there would be a limit to how far his body could be easily carried, and the space between the pines was too narrow to drive.
I returned to the burn site, then headed down the road that ran in the opposite direction from which I had come, walking through an identical avenue of trees and passing through open fields. The route curved until I found myself back on what I thought was Scarborough Road, although far enough from the big poplar that I couldn’t see it. I turned and retraced my steps.
It occurred to me that, for the murderer, convenience might not have been possible — or even necessary. Given Aunt Iris’s habit of coming and going any time of day or night, and her state of confusion, there would be time to kill Uncle Will and move his body before anyone thought to ask where he was or wonder why she hadn’t reported him missing.
Since convenience didn’t limit the murderer, the crime could have been done anywhere that Uncle Will might go.
Obviously, I needed the help of someone familiar with the town and the area around it, someone who would recognize the images in my O.B.E. and guess the riddle they presented.
I wanted to trust Zack, but I couldn’t because of his loyalty to Erika. Marcy would be even more familiar with Wisteria and the area around it, but I would have to think of a reason for asking about an image like a notched wall. I could say I had seen the place in one of my mother’s photos and I wondered where it was.
When I reached the fire site again, I heard a rumble of thunder. In the open country, it seemed to roll and roll, like a bowling ball thrown down an endless lane. I knew underneath trees were dangerous places to hang out in a storm, but despite what they said on the Weather Channel, I wasn’t inclined to seek out a low-lying rut in a field. I crossed the burn site and started through the avenue of trees that led to my car, hoping to beat the storm.
A second peal of thunder sounded closer, and I broke into a jog. The thunder was followed by silence, a long, ominous quiet. A fluttering of birds broke the spell. Wind gusted and branches tossed. I saw a streak of lightning through the trees on the right. I never saw what was coming from the left.
I was hit hard from behind and slammed to the ground.
The breath was knocked out of me — I couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight back. Facedown in the road, I gasped for air.
Branches and shells ground into my skin. My mouth got gritty with sand.
I tried to pull my knees up under me, tried to get leverage to stand up, but the person holding me down was heavy. I struggled to cover my head with my arms — all I could think of was Uncle Will struck from behind. But the attacker grabbed my hands and pinned my arms to the ground, bending my wrists at odd angles over the ruts in the road. Now I had my breath again, now I screamed, screamed in pain and fear. I got a knee thrust in my back.
“Listen to me,” a male voice said. “Listen, if you don’t want to get hurt.”
I continued to struggle and got my hair pulled hard. I howled like a beaten puppy.
They laughed. There was more than one.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I hissed.
“Stay out of Erika’s business.”
I strained to pick up my head. “It’s my uncle’s business I care about.”
My face was pushed back in the dirt.
“Stay out of it,” said a male voice different from the first.
“Your uncle’s dead. Don’t make us stuff you in a trunk.”
Their laughter was drowned out by a crack of thunder and a sound like wood splitting. The pressure lightened on me for a second, then I was shoved facedown again. It was raining hard even under the trees, turning the road beneath me into a river of grit. I had to shut my eyes to keep out the splashing sand and mud.
“We’re going to let you go, but don’t move. We’ll be right back on you. Count to a hundred. Do it nice and slow. Don’t get up till you’ve reached the end. Then walk real slow back to your car. Don’t tell the police. Don’t tell anyone. We’ll know. And we won’t be so friendly next time.”
I was released. As soon as I heard the slap of their racing feet against the road, I lifted my head. I watched the fleeing figures, three of them, until they were erased by rain. I rose shakily to my feet.
I walked slowly, not because they had told me to, but because I was stunned by the attack. I was shocked at how easy it was to overpower me, how quickly I had found myself facedown on the ground and unable to fight back. I walked in a daze, hardly hearing the storm, and finally climbed into my car, soaked to the bone. Lightning flashed over and over; I sat staring up at it dully, as if I were waiting for a traffic light to change. At last I switched on the ignition and headed to the house.