The Broken Girls(101)

There was icy silence on the other end of the line.

“You thought I’d ask for money, didn’t you?” Fiona said. “I suppose everyone asks you for money. But that’s not what I want from you.”

“What exactly do you want with the diary?” Katie asked.

“There’s a historian in the UK who is writing about Ravensbrück,” Fiona said. “The records from the camp were burned before the Soviet army liberated it. The survivors’ histories are few. She’s trying to put the pieces together, to tell the story. Sonia’s diary would add to the history.”

“I’m willing to consider it,” Katie said. “I’ll ask the girls. But we aren’t prepared to give the diary away permanently. We’ll lend it or give a copy. But we’re in that diary—she drew all of us. It’s personal to us.”

“I think she can work with that.”

“I’m burying her, you know,” Katie said. “Sonia. Now that the coroner is done with her and she has no relatives, I’ve asked that she be released to me. I’m going to have her properly buried in Barrons Memorial Cemetery, with a headstone. There will be a small ceremony next week, if you’d like to come.”

“I will,” Fiona said. “And I’m still going to write the story about the case, about her disappearance and the discovery of the body.”

“I see,” Katie said. “And will your story mention Rosa Berlitz?”

“It might.” It would. Of course it would. Whom did she think she was dealing with?

“Do your worst,” Katie said, resigned. “I’m old now. I have lawyers.”

“I will. Thanks. And there’s one more thing.”

“What is it?”

Fiona reached into one of the file boxes and pulled out the file in which Lila Hendricksen, Idlewild’s history teacher, had put together the map of the Hand house and the church before Idlewild was built. “When you get the files, there’s one in particular you’ll want to read. It’s the history of Mary Hand—the real Mary Hand. She was an actual person, and her house was on the Idlewild grounds before the school was.”

There was another cold silence, but this one was tinged with fear. “My God,” Katie said. “Is she buried there?”

“With her baby, yes,” Fiona said.

“She’s in the garden, isn’t she?” Katie was excited now. She didn’t wait for a reply before she said, “I knew it. That damned garden. Well, it’s my garden now, which makes her mine, too. I’m calling the girls.”

“Katie—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Katie said, and hung up.





Chapter 37


Barrons, Vermont

December 2014

The Barrons police headquarters looked the same as it always had, squat and industrial. Fiona crunched through the icy crust of last night’s snow through the parking lot and up the walk to the front door. She passed the picnic table where she’d sat the first day she’d told Jamie about the Idlewild story.

Christmas was a few weeks away, and someone had pulled out the department’s box of wilted decorations. A too-short garland made of tinsel sagged over the door when Fiona walked through, and a small plastic Christmas tree, topped with a Snoopy, sat on the dispatch desk. The old cop on dispatch looked up and nodded at Fiona as she came through the door. “Back interview room,” he said. “The chief’s waiting for you.”

Fiona tasted copper in the back of her throat at the words. The chief’s waiting for you. It wasn’t Garrett Creel; it was Barrons’ current police chief, Jim Pfeiffer. Still, she wasn’t quite used to hearing those words. She nodded and kept walking.

The open office had a low hum of activity that went quiet as she passed. Jamie’s desk was empty, his coat gone, his computer off. Jamie was on leave while his father’s case moved through the system.

People watched her as she walked by. This was the effect of being the person Barrons’ beloved longtime police chief had assaulted and nearly killed, the person that had caused his fall from grace. She kept her gaze forward and walked back to the station’s interview room.

Jim Pfeiffer was fifty, fit and vigorous, unremarkable except for the black-framed glasses he wore that made him look more like an engineer from 1960s NASA than a modern-day cop. He shook Fiona’s hand and offered to take her coat before he closed the door of the interview room.

“Sit down,” he said, not unkindly. “I thought we should talk in private.”

Fiona sat. “I already gave my statement,” she said. “Several times, actually.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Pfeiffer said. “There are a few other things I’d like to go over.” He smiled. “First of all, how are you doing?”

Fiona smiled tightly back at him. “I’m just great. Thanks. Your entire force hates me because your former boss tried to kill me, but that’s okay. I sleep great at night knowing he’s out on bail.”

Pfeiffer leaned back in his chair. “That’s how the system works, Fiona. The judge made a ruling.”

A judge who was one of Garrett’s golf buddies, likely. But Fiona kept quiet.

“We’ve been getting some calls from the media,” Pfeiffer said. “Chief Creel’s arrest was public record, but I’ve been fielding inquiries that contain inside information.” He stared at her from behind his glasses. “Specifically, we’ve been getting calls about a case from 1993, the assault of a girl named Helen Heyer. There seems to be some belief starting up that the Heyer case has to do with Tim Christopher.”