“I thought your parents were going to be here.”
“Maybe it sounds funny to you, but my parents still don’t like to talk about Eric’s death. It was so sudden, so unexpected, and he-well, he was their favorite. I’m not saying they slighted me. They didn’t. But he was their first child and their only boy, and they never got over it.”
Once Tess might have been surprised by such a candid, easy confession, especially from a hard-shell Eastern Shore native. But she had learned people were often anxious to tell their secrets, if only someone would ask. Strangers made the best confidantes. Hallie Langley led them into the shadowy living room, a place that did not appear to have changed much over the past two decades.
“Eric was born in the hospital over in Salisbury?” This was Carl. Tess had agreed he could take the lead here.
“Born there and died there. But we always lived here.”
“Now I’m not clear how he died. The hospital records say it was an allergy attack, but there was no autopsy.”
“I guess people would call it a freak accident. It was the big bull and oyster roast, you know the one?”
Tess did. It had been an obligatory stop for the state’s politicians as far back as she could remember.
“So, you know, it’s safe as houses. My parents took us over there and gave us money, told us to do what we wanted to do. Eric was four years older’n me. He sure didn’t want to be with his little sister.”
“Yeah, well,” Carl said. “Boys.”
That moment of inarticulate empathy hit Hallie like a drug. She began talking in a rush.
“He ditched me to be with some boys in his class. And some girls. They wanted to meet girls. I made a fuss, but he gave me some money and said he’d hook up with me at five o’clock near the front gate. He gave me plenty of money, but I was mad at him. I hoped my parents would beat him to the gate, so I could tell what he’d done. Then five o’clock came and he didn’t come and he didn’t come-” Her hard, tanned face went slack, and Tess could almost see the little girl she had been, standing forlornly by the front gate, time stretching out the way it does when someone makes you wait. As the minutes go by, impatience turns to anger. Anger slides into fear, then back to anger again.
Unless the person never shows up.
“My parents got there and started asking, ”Where’s Eric?“ By then, I didn’t want to tell them he had ditched me, I knew he’d get in trouble, only not too much trouble, because they did favor him. In fact, I always thought my mother blamed me a little for letting Eric buy me off. She always has a way of figuring out how things are my fault. Anyway, we found him in a grove of trees, outside the fairgrounds proper.”
“Was he dead?” Tess winced at the bluntness of Carl’s question, but it didn’t seem to bother Hallie.
“Probably. The paramedics came and took him to the hospital, working on him all the while. But, even as a little girl, I thought it was just for our benefit.”
“Still,” Carl said, “to die from an asthma attack.”
“Wasn’t asthma, exactly, it was shellfish. He was bad allergic, real bad. It was almost a kind of joke, someone growing up around here allergic to shellfish. We used to say Eric could die if the wind cut the wrong way. Well, all it took was for a little crabmeat to get into a hamburger, and that’s what happened. Someone was broiling burgers and crab cakes on the same grill.”
“I’m allergic to shellfish too,” Tess said. “But if you have a reaction, there’s usually time to get a shot. And if you’re really allergic, you can carry an EpiPen, right?”
“Yeah, now. But he didn’t have an EpiPen and he didn’t get help fast enough.”
“Was he alone?” Carl’s question was a good one, open-ended but shrewd. Tess shot him an approving look.
“They said he must have been.”
“They said. But what do you think?”
Hallie Langley pressed her lips in a hard line, determined not to cry. Tess realized that suffering, as much as the sun, had set the woman’s features into these premature creases.
“No. No, I don’t. Someone had to be with him. Whoever it was must have panicked. They had”-she lowered her voice, as if this were still a secret, all these years later-“they had been smoking dope and drinking beer. I saw the cans, saw the cigarette where it had fallen. My daddy put that butt in his pocket, but I never forgot it.”
“Did you see who he went off with that day?”
“I saw him with his friends from high school. But his buddies told everyone he went off with some girl. She swore up and down that she didn’t, and one of her friends swore by her, saying they were together most of the afternoon. So maybe everyone was there, or no one was there. I don’t know.”
Carl leaned forward. He was close enough to touch Hallie Langley or take her hands in his. He was smart enough not to.
“What do you think, Ms. Langley?”
“Miss Shivers.”
“I thought-”
“I left my husband six weeks ago. So I guess I’m turning back into Miss Shivers.” She frowned, thinking something through. “Langley’s a better name, isn’t it?”
“It’s a pretty name, Langley. It suits you. But Shivers is a good name too, and it’s your family name.”
“With no one to carry it on. Not since Eric died.” Hallie shook her head, as if to clear her mind of some memory. “I’m sorry. To answer your question-no, I don’t think he was alone. I think he did go off with that girl, Becca. Becca Harrison. His friends would’ve known what to do if Eric had an attack, because they grew up with him.”
“Wasn’t she from here too?”
“She went to the high school, but she was one of the Notting Island kids.” Hallie smiled. “We called them Not-heads back then. Stupid thing, but it made them so angry. Why do kids say such stupid things to each other?”
“I thought I knew the bay, but I don’t know Notting Island.”
“Most people don’t.”
“Virginia or Maryland side?”
“Well, we like to say it depends on which way the tide is going,” Hallie said. “But, officially, it’s Maryland. Past Smith. Really, it’s like a piece of Smith that fell off.”
Tess couldn’t hold back any longer. “Is her family still there?”
Carl gave Tess a look, as if she were headed off on a tangent. But it seemed crucial to her. A boy had died under mysterious circumstances, only to have his name and Social Security number appropriated by a man who had reason to need a fake identity. Who would know better that his identity was available than someone who had witnessed his death? Becca Harrison might have clearer memories of the day.
“I wouldn’t know. It’s been fifteen years. I don’t even remember much about her. Becca Harrison. Not Rebecca, mind you. Becca. If you called her Rebecca, she’d get all high and mighty and say, ”Rebecca was in the Bible. I’m Becca.“ As if it would shame her, somehow, to be in the Bible.”
“Perhaps,” Carl said, “this Becca would not say, as Rebekah did, ”I will go.“ Remember when Abraham’s servant goes to fetch a wife for Isaac?”
Hallie nodded. Tess, who always confused Rebekah and Isaac with Jacob and Rachel, was clearly out of her league, biblically.
“No, this girl never said, ”I will go‘ to anyone in her life.“
“So what are the odds she’s still there?”
“Slim to none. She was one of those people who was on her way to leaving from the moment she arrived. But those who are there should remember her, and someone might know where she’s gone. For what it’s worth, but I don’t think it’s worth much.”
“Why not?” Tess insisted. Carl frowned at her, a reminder that she was breaking their own ground rules. But Tess was not used to keeping quiet.
“She’s just one of those people who never admitted to doing anything wrong. Held herself like she was so perfect. Look, my family knows no one meant to hurt Eric. People panic when things go wrong. It was an accident. All you ask is that people own up to what they did. You can’t forgive them until they do.”