Beneath Devil's Bridge(25)

“There is no doubt in your mind it was her?” I ask.

“I . . . You could totally see it was Leena. She—it’s her shape. Leena is—was—tall and big, and she had a certain way of walking that people made fun of. Sort of lumbering. But it was more marked because Leena had been drinking a lot that night, or at least she looked totally drunk. Falling around and grabbing on to the railing. And then a truck went by. The headlights lit her up. And I said to Jepp, ‘Hey, that’s Leena,’ and I turned around in the seat, to watch.”

A tightening begins in my chest.

“So she was alone?”

“I . . . I think so. I didn’t look farther back or anything to see if anyone was behind her, and then we were past, and off the bridge.”

“You didn’t think to stop, to see if she was okay, stumbling along the bridge like that? All alone.”

Amy’s eyes gleam. “I . . . Not really.”

“Did Jepp see her?”

“No, he was driving. He noticed someone but not that it was Leena.”

“Which direction was Leena walking in?” I ask.

“The opposite way to which we were driving.”

“So she was going north?”

“Yeah.”

I glance at Luke. Leena’s backpack and belongings were found on the south bank of the river, beneath the bridge. But her Nike runner and bloodied sock were discovered on the north bank under the bridge, where we also found blood on the trunk of the cedar growing there.

“Was she carrying her backpack?”

“I . . . No. I don’t think so. I can’t recall her carrying anything.”

“But she was wearing the jacket?”

“Yeah. Definitely the jacket. The same one she’d been wearing at the bonfire.”

I make another note in my book. We’re still searching for that jacket.

“What kind of truck was it that passed Leena?”

“I . . . Just like a regular pickup. I can’t remember the color. It was dark, and . . .” Her voice fades.

“Any other cars?”

“I . . . Maybe one other went by.” She wrinkles her brow. “I don’t know. I don’t really remember. I . . . I wasn’t paying that much attention—” She looks at her mother, distress twisting into her face.

“Were you drunk, Amy?” I ask.

She nods. A tear plops onto her thigh and leaves a wet mark on her leggings. She swipes at her eyes. “I’m sorry. If . . . if I’d been more focused, maybe . . . maybe we’d have stopped . . . maybe Leena would be alive. Maybe I would have said something more to Jepp.”

“But you didn’t. You took a whole week,” says Luke, leaning forward. “Why?”

“I . . . I didn’t think it was an issue.”

“Not even after you heard she was missing?”

“We all thought Leena was just being, like, Leena, and that she would show up.”

“You didn’t think it was an issue?” Luke repeats. He’s trotting out his bad-cop persona to my friendly one.

Amy flushes deep red. “I . . . I . . .”

“She was worried that I’d find out she lied to me,” Sarah snaps. “Amy had informed us that she would be sleeping over at her friend Cheyenne’s house on the night of the bonfire. But she spent the night at Jepp’s. She didn’t want us to know. She thought she’d get in trouble, and she did. She was grounded.”

In a tiny voice, Amy says, “Jepp’s mom works the night shift at the hospital. She’s a nurse. His dad doesn’t live with them. So his parents didn’t know I was there.”

I know Barb Sullivan, the nurse. I know Jepp’s parents are divorced. That much is true.

“But when I started hearing the rumors at school that Leena was probably dead and floating in the Wuyakan River, a victim of some serial killer, I . . .” Amy begins to cry in earnest now. “I told the guidance counselor at school that I’d seen her on the bridge that night. He took me to the principal, who called my mom. And my mom brought me to the station. And we went to the station to make a statement.”

“Who told you Leena could be floating in the river?” I ask.

“It was just like a rumor. Everyone was saying they’d heard it from someone else. No one knows who started it.”

“So you cannot remember which person at school, specifically, told you?”

“I . . . I think it was the girl who has the locker next to me. She said she heard it from someone in her class, who heard it from someone else.”

“And when you got to Ari’s Greek Takeout, what did you do there?”

“Bought donairs. We ate them outside. There was a bunch of people there who’d been at the bonfire.”

“Who did you see there?”

Amy picks at an invisible thread on her leggings. “I . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t really focused. Sort of out of it. Kids from my class, and some seniors. Tripp Galloway. He was talking to Darsh Rai. Um . . . Cheyenne. Dusty. Some others.”

“Darsh was there? And you didn’t think to tell him that his little cousin was stumbling drunkenly along the bridge in the dark alone? You didn’t think he might be worried?”

She shook her head.