The Silent Sister(58)

He shook his head. “Very doubtful. I’m sure no one up there is looking at records from 1990.”

“They were using computers back then?”

He nodded. “At least partly. I got the feeling they were just starting to digitize. I’m sure they had more on the case than I could get my hands on.”

“You’re amazing.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it; I felt proud of his skill, even if he’d used it for something illegal. “What did you find out?”

He took a pull on his cigarette. “It snowed pretty heavily that night,” he said through a stream of smoke, “and that apparently screwed up the investigation. But there were definitely signs of two people being there. Here’s the weird thing, though.” He moved his computer from his lap to the bed and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “That second set of footprints? They withheld that tidbit from the media. There’s no way Tom Kyle could have read about them anywhere.”

“How could he know, then?”

“That’s a really good question, isn’t it?” He blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. “They’re sure the second set of prints was from a man’s boots, but—”

“Matty,” I wondered out loud. “Remember I told you about him? They were really close friends, and we have pictures of—”

“Matthew Harrison,” Danny said. “Assuming it’s the same guy as the one mentioned in the police report, that’s his full name. They questioned him because he was there the night she killed her teacher, so—”

“He was?”

“Yes, but they don’t think he had anything to do with it. He didn’t get there till after the guy was shot. But since he was already on their radar, they questioned him about the suicide. Turned out he was out of town the night she supposedly killed herself.”

“Oh, my God!” I said, excited now. “Supposedly? Did the police think she—”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he said. “Most likely, she did it, but—and don’t freak out about this—one of the theories they were looking at was that the second set of prints might have belonged to someone who killed her and made it look like suicide.”

“But she left a note, remember?”

“Could have been faked. And the other set of tracks could have been from before she was in the area, or it could have been someone who saw her abandoned car and was checking it out.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on his bed. “Like I said, the snow made checking out the scene a challenge. Anyhow, it seems they stopped looking into it, so it’s a cold case at this point.”

“If she’s alive, I want to find her,” I said.

“Well, good luck with that wild-goose chase,” he said, “but if you do happen to track her down, let me know, so I can give Harry a call. He loves a cold case.”

“Danny.” I stared at him and he stared right back. “You’re teasing me, right?”

“When have you ever known me to tease?”

As a boy, he’d teased me relentlessly and good-naturedly, but the grown-up Danny had lost that playful side. “I know you didn’t like her,” I said. “I know you blame her for everything that’s ever gone wrong with our family. But you were only six when she died … or disappeared. You never really knew her.”

“You need to accept the fact that she’s a murderer, Riley.” He shook another cigarette from the pack on his bed.

“She never got to have a trial,” I said.

“And whose fault was that?” he asked as he lit the cigarette.

I stood up. “If I find her,” I said, “I just won’t tell you.”

He leaned back against the wall again, his face momentarily clouded by a puff of smoke. “That’s probably a good idea,” he said.





OCTOBER 1992

27.

Jade

She sat on the cool floor in the hallway of the music building, leaning against the wall outside a classroom. Inside the room, an ensemble rehearsed a Bruch concerto. They were good. A dull ache traveled down her arms as she listened to them, and her throat was tight from the effort of holding back tears. She’d skipped her child development class to sit here and listen, like an addict who couldn’t stay away from her next fix, and she knew she was in trouble.

Her first few weeks of college had been an out-of-body experience for her. The campus swarmed with students and she didn’t remember ever feeling a part of something so enormous. Having been homeschooled all her life, she found it hard to adjust to moving from one classroom to another. The structure was so impersonal; the crush of students daunting.

She was quiet in her classes, afraid to draw attention to herself, and she didn’t interact with her fellow students. The only people she could sincerely call her friends were Grady and Ingrid and some of the regular customers, like Charlie, who came in every week to talk music.

The ensemble reached her favorite part of the concerto and she rested her head against the wall, shutting her eyes to listen. She didn’t know why she tortured herself this way, hanging out in the music building, but she couldn’t stay away.

When the ensemble had finished rehearsing, she opened her eyes and noticed a bulletin board on the wall across from her. Unlike the boards where she’d found the poster about Matty’s concert, this one had small typed or handwritten notices: students advertising instruments they wanted to sell. She caught her breath. Standing up, she crossed the hall to scan the notices. There were three violins, none anywhere near the quality of Violet, but there was a Jay Haide for five hundred dollars. More than her car had cost her, but probably in better shape.