Mrs. Nester continued. “Folks around here don’t like to talk about certain things. It’s bad for business.”
Caroline put the candy she was holding onto the counter in front of her. “Yes, ma’am. I don’t want to cause any trouble. It’s just—” She stopped, thinking how to explain.
Megan and Adam dumped their loot onto the counter too. Everyone waited for Caroline to continue, but she didn’t know how to tell them it had to do with her mother. She had to know why her mother kept running away from her. It made no sense when she put it this way, but she knew her mother had a secret, and it had something to do with Billy and drownings. If she could figure it out, maybe she could help her mother and she would stop running.
Mrs. Nester rang up their order. When she finished, she told Caroline to wait. She must’ve seen something on Caroline’s face—perhaps pity. Whatever it was, she disappeared behind a door at the back of the store, returning a few minutes later with a pile of newspapers.
“Take these around back. I’ve got a couple of chairs on the patio. Leave the papers on the table when you’re done. If anyone asks, you didn’t get them from me.”
Caroline took the papers and thanked Mrs. Nester repeatedly.
“Go on now, get, before I change my mind,” Mrs. Nester said.
As soon as they were outside, Megan complained. She didn’t want to read old newspapers. She didn’t see the point. It was like doing homework, and it was summertime. She wasn’t going to read anything she didn’t have to. And Adam was more interested in the bubblegum and baseball cards.
They settled on Mrs. Nester’s back patio. The sun blared, but at least they were in the shade under the trees. Megan took out her new lip gloss and smacked her lips while Caroline sifted through the papers. The black print rubbed off on her fingertips. She scanned the article about the boating accident and the man who had drowned, the one she had witnessed three summers ago. She dug farther into the pile and pulled out the last paper in the stack, dated July 1997.
With trembling hands, she shook the paper open, the headline reading: Sixteen-Year-Old Local Boy Drowns. She held the paper inches from her nose and inspected the blurry black-and-white photo of a teenage boy. There was something she recognized in him, a look or coolness she sensed in some boys, definitely Chris, maybe Johnny. But it was hard to gauge something like that from just a grainy photo. She continued to read.
Sixteen-year-old William J. Hawke disappeared late Monday night after last being seen on the beach outside the lake Pavilion by his friend Kevin Knowles police said. After an extensive search lasting five days, his body was recovered near the floating pier in the middle of the lake. It is speculated William “Billy” Hawke went swimming alone that night after his friend had gone home. The drowning was ruled an accident. Memorial services to be announced.
The mention of her father’s name came as a complete surprise, and Caroline immediately shoved the paper under the pile. She wiped her blackened fingertips on her shorts.
“Are you finished now?” Megan asked, irritated about having to wait.
Caroline nodded, her thoughts reeling.
“What did you find?” Adam asked.
“Nothing,” she said, not wanting to talk about it. “Let’s go.” She left the papers on the table like Mrs. Nester had asked, and walked to the front of the store, where their bikes lay on the ground.
Adam handed her a couple of baseball cards. “Here,” he said. “I already have these.”
“Thanks.” She took them absently and climbed onto her bike.
She did the math and yes, both her parents would’ve been sixteen in 1997, the same age as Billy. Her father had known Billy all along. They were friends.
A heavy weight settled onto her shoulders, and a sense of betrayal swarmed her chest. Was her father in on her mother’s secret too? What were her parents hiding and why?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dee Dee stepped outside and gazed at the frenzy of fishing boats dragging the lake. Goddamn Heil, she thought, and bent down to pick up the empty beer cans from the night before. There were at least a dozen or more scattered across the porch floor. She dropped the first armful into the recycling bin, catching sight of the sheriff making his way across the yard.
He tipped his hat in greeting. “It must have been some party,” he said, eying the cans still on the floor at her feet.
“Hardly.” She picked up several more empties, not caring whether he believed she had had a party of twenty or the truth, a party of one.
“Well, I’m glad I caught you.” He motioned to her white scrubs. She worked in one of the few hospitals where the nurses still wore white. Most wore different colors—maroon, blue, green, hideous flowered prints. She preferred the crisp, clean look of white. No muss. No fuss.
“What brings you by?” she asked. “I hope you’re here to give me some good news.”
The sun showed the lines on the sheriff’s face. He was older than her by at least fifteen years, but not that old that he didn’t cross her mind in ways that maybe he shouldn’t. And yet, it wasn’t so strange for her to think of him in a romantic way. After all, he was as much of an outsider here as she was, him being the sheriff and her being the woman whose brother had drowned. She supposed it was only natural for the two of them to seek each other out.
“I was able to get my hands on a preliminary report,” he said, getting straight to business, which she appreciated. “It’s what we thought. The snappers took the bones. But they did find something I think is curious.” His hand was resting on his sidearm. His hat was pulled low to shade his eyes against the sun.
Her body stilled. The muscle in her right bicep twitched.
He continued. “Did your brother hurt his arm that you know of? Or mention anything to you about injuring it?”
“No,” she said, and then took a moment to think. “No.” She was certain. “He wasn’t hurt. He would’ve told me if he were. He didn’t keep anything from me. Why? What’s this about?”
“They found a fracture on the ulna. They’re calling it a nightstick fracture. It happens when something hits the forearm, say in a hard fall or when the forearm strikes something with a lot of force. Either way, it was enough to limit the use of his arm.”
Her heart tumbled, rolling over inside her chest. “What does this mean? Does this prove it wasn’t an accident?”
“It’s hard to say at this point, but I think it’s worth looking into.”
She crushed one of the empty cans still in her hand. She had waited so long for something, anything to prove her brother’s drowning wasn’t his own doing. He didn’t just slip and fall and crack his head like everyone wanted to believe. And now to discover he had a fractured arm, too. “And you think this contributed to his death?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I think the question we need to ask is how he fractured it,” he said. “I wanted to confirm with you first that he didn’t injure it prior to that night.”
“He didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“All right, I’ll start asking around and see if anybody knows anything about how he might’ve hurt it.”
“What makes you think someone is going to talk now?” She tossed the crushed can into the bin and folded her arms, hiding the large knuckles of her fists.
“Maybe someone knew something then and didn’t think it was relevant at the time.”
“But it is relevant.”
“I think so.”
“Will you question Jo?” If Dee Dee trusted anything, it was her instincts. She had sensed something was wrong between Billy and Jo before they had ever left the cabin that night. Did they have a bad fight? Was that how he fractured his arm? She had always believed Jo knew more about what had happened than she was saying.