The Cheerleaders(17)

I blink at the blinding white home page on my laptop. The search bar is accompanied by the message What are you looking for? It feels like a taunt.

There are several Jack Cannings in the world. I refine my search to include only Sunnybrook, NY.

At the top of the page are several hits for pictures. Juliana Ruiz, her hair in a high ponytail and silver hoops in her ears. Susan Berry standing next to her, wearing her slightly robotic smile. Her normally pin-straight blond hair is crimped, and she’s wearing pearly pink lipstick. The caption says this photo was taken during Spirit Week, on Time Travel Tuesday. Every grade was assigned a decade; the sophomores got the eighties.

I click through the images, a lump in my throat. More pictures of Juliana and Susan. There’s only one of Jack Canning—a blurry, unsmiling driver’s-license photo. His hair is dirty blond and his glasses take up half his face.

There are no other pictures of Jack Canning, no childhood shots of him snuggling the family dog or showing off a medal at a high school robotics competition. None of the usual pictures of murderers that the news likes to flash as they report that “he seemed so normal!”

I double back to the search results and scroll down. One headline jumps out at me: WHEN DEATH COMES TO TOWN. It’s hosted on the Crunch, a website we all used to dick around on in the library before the school blocked it. Calling the Crunch “news” is generous. It’s mostly garbage quizzes and celebrity gossip; it’s hardly a hub for serious journalism.

Yet, three years ago, someone there decided to write about the Sunnybrook cheerleader deaths.

I glance at my door to make sure it’s shut. Like I’m looking at porn or something. I gnaw on my thumbnail and pull up the article. I skim the profiles of Bethany Steiger and Colleen Coughlin and the horrific details of their car accident. The writer must have spoken to someone in Sunnybrook; their account is eerily accurate, down to the part about the paramedic vomiting at the scene.

The first mention of the murders is several paragraphs down. It starts with the night before homecoming, describing Juliana’s and Susan’s excitement for the following day’s festivities.

My chest grows tighter. The details of the murders read like a horror novel: The killer had draped a bath towel over Susan’s naked body. I skip the rest of the description of the crime scene, unsure how much more I can stomach.


To many, it was an open-and-shut case, one without the media circus that accompanies a drawn-out trial. Jack Canning was dead, taking his reasons for killing the girls to the grave with him. The elderly Mrs. Canning was moved to a nursing facility and died shortly after.

And yet, many who knew Jack Canning are still unable to reconcile their perception of him as a childlike, gentle giant with the man police say viciously killed two teenaged girls. One has to wonder if the circumstances surrounding the murders created a perfect storm for a hasty investigation. The town was still reeling from the gruesome deaths of Colleen Coughlin and Bethany Steiger. Almost everyone who worked for the Sunnybrook Police Department had a personal connection to the girls. Were the police wearing emotional blinders?



By the time I’m done reading, nearly an hour has passed. At the bottom of the page is a headshot of the author of the article: Daphne Furman, blond and serious. Probably in her early thirties.

There’s a contact email for Daphne in her bio. I open my inbox and begin writing.


Hi, Ms. Furman. I’m Jennifer Rayburn’s sister. I read your story “When Death Comes to Town” and I have some questions.



I hesitate for a moment before sending the message off. I sit back in my chair, gnawing at my chipped pinky nail. Turn my computer off, swallow two Motrins with water from my bathroom tap, and go to bed.



* * *



—

When I wake in the morning, I have a response.


Hi, Monica. Call me Daphne. What are you doing Saturday morning? We should talk. I can come to you.





* * *



—

In my head, I break down the agonizing wait for Saturday. Twenty-four hours; nine class periods; one dance team practice; one awkward Friday family dinner at Ristegio’s, the Italian restaurant in town; and one restless night’s sleep. All hurdles to clear before I can talk to Daphne Furman.

I’ve been Googling her obsessively since she emailed me back. Daphne graduated from the University of Virginia eight years ago with a dual major in English and journalism. (She also played lacrosse.) Until a few years ago, she wrote exclusively for the local paper in her hometown of Westchester. “When Death Comes to Town” was her first piece published on a major website.

At some point, a long-dormant memory lights up in my brain. Rumors, three years ago, about a reporter harassing the families of the dead girls. Murmurs among my parents’ friends about that reporter. People said it with a tone usually reserved for child molesters and animal beaters: that reporter.

Daphne Furman has to be that reporter. And now I’m meeting her for coffee to discuss my dead sister.

Saturday morning is mid-sixties, with not a cloud in the sky. I told Daphne I could meet her at the Sunnybrook Starbucks at ten. My bike is one of those old-fashioned cruisers, with a mint-green body and peach wheels. I dump my phone and wallet in the basket and head off for town as soon as my mom and Petey leave for his soccer practice.

I ride past the gazebo on Main Street, past the sign welcoming me to Sunnybrook in gold-painted letters. Beside it is a town directory boasting our annual craft festival and award-winning microbrewery.