“I don’t know.” Margot threw up her palms. “Maybe they’re not the same person.”
He nodded again, but it was indulgent, condescending. “We are looking into the barn note, Ms. Davies. And we’ll look into this too.” He nodded at the piece of paper. “I can promise you that.”
“And the woman I described? Are you gonna try to find her?”
Schneider-Schmidt narrowed his eyes, glanced down at his notes in front of him. “The woman with the…auburn hair.” He hesitated. “What is auburn, by the way?”
Margot’s eyes bulged. “It’s a mix between red and brown.”
“Huh. That sounds pretty. And you’ve only seen this woman the one time?”
She inhaled a long, deep breath. “Yes.”
“I have to be honest with you, Ms. Davies. A middle-aged woman doesn’t exactly fit the mold for the type of person to graffiti a barn wall. And since you’ve only seen her the once, it’s possible she hasn’t been following you. It’s possible you just bumped into each other.”
Margot wanted to scream. And it wasn’t because she wasn’t being taken seriously; it was because he was probably fucking right. In this conversation, she sounded like the irrational one, not Schneider-Schmidt. Was she being completely paranoid? Were all these messages just a part of some teenage boys’ prank? Was the auburn-haired woman just a woman walking outside a building Margot also happened to be outside of? Worst of all, was she wasting precious time trying to use this message on the barn to connect January and Natalie when there was, in fact, nothing to connect?
She stood slowly, pressed her palms onto the table top, and forced a polite smile. “Thank you for your time.”
She was on her way out of the police station’s double doors when she heard her name. “What?” she snapped, spinning around.
Pete Finch, who’d been jogging toward her, stopped in his tracks, his face stricken.
“Oh,” Margot said, feeling chastened. “Pete. Hi. Sorry.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.”
“What’re you doing here?”
So, she told him.
“Oh shit,” he said when she finished. “No wonder you’re shaken up.”
But the truth was, it wasn’t just that note that had Margot feeling so irascible. It was everything. It was getting fired and getting that call from her old landlord. It was wondering how she was going to pay for an apartment she was no longer living in on top of everything else. It was seeing Natalie Clark’s face on the news every time she walked past a TV and the déjà vu it gave her from when she’d reported on Polly Limon three years ago. It was the gut feeling that something was happening that no one else could see and the conflicting, terrifying dread that maybe she was actually the blind one. It was being back in this claustrophobic town and watching her uncle, her favorite person in the world, slowly lose his mind.
“I’ll take a look at the report, okay?” Pete was saying when she tuned back in. “I’ll try to keep an eye out for that woman.”
Margot smiled weakly. “Why’re you being so nice to me?”
“I mean, it is my job.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re more diligent than the other guy.”
“Well. I guess it’s also a little bit of payback.”
“Payback? For what?”
He ducked his head. “Oh, come on. Don’t make me say it.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Third grade…? Recess…?”
Margot gave him a look.
“Wait. You really don’t remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Well, shit. Now I wish I hadn’t brought it up.” Pete laughed, running a hand through his hair. “So, there was this one day during third-grade recess when I went to that part of the playground where no one really went, you know? With all the trees, and it was kind of lower than the rest?”
Margot nodded.
“I went down there because earlier, I’d been hanging out with a bunch of kids and Jordan Klein said something that cracked me up—I don’t remember what it was, but I laughed so hard, I sort of peed my pants.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. Obviously, I was mortified and didn’t want anyone to see, so I just put my hands over my crotch and slunk away to the nearest place I could find that wasn’t swarming with kids. I couldn’t go to the bathroom because I would’ve had to cross right past that big red jungle gym where everybody used to hang out. Anyway, I was standing on the far side of this big tree, blocking myself from view of the rest of the playground, when suddenly, you appeared.”
Margot narrowed her eyes, his words dredging up the long-forgotten memory. “That’s right. I remember now.” As usual, she’d been reading in her favorite tree when she’d heard footsteps.
“I was trying not to let you see,” he continued. “But I guess you already knew, because you grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the water fountain no one ever used and started splashing water all over both of us. Remember how water fights used to be a thing? Every once in a while, two kids would try to see who’d get the other the wettest?”
She laughed. “Yeah. So weird.”
Pete smiled. “You told me that’s what we’d say when people asked. Instead of being the loser who’d peed my pants, I was the cool kid who’d gotten into a water fight with a girl. I can’t believe you didn’t remember that. It was pretty traumatizing for me. Or almost traumatizing I should say.”
Margot thought back to when she’d been scared and alone and January had sidled up next to her, pressing a fabric snowflake into her hand. When I’m scared, I squeeze this and it makes me brave. “I guess we just remember our own stuff.”
“Well, anyway. Enough about me peeing my pants.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “How’s your uncle doing?”
“Um. Yeah, he’s okay,” she said, then wondered if it was true.
She’d managed to get a hold of Luke on her way back from her interview with Townsend, and thankfully, he’d seemed fine. He hadn’t been able to tell her if he’d eaten lunch and he’d seemed vague about what he’d been up to that day, but he’d also been emotionally even, not angry or upset or significantly confused. And when she’d reminded him there was sliced meat and cheese in the fridge, bread by the toaster, she’d heard him start to rustle around the kitchen. Before they hung up a few minutes later, he said he may lie down for a nap. And yet, that was over an hour ago. With his condition, everything could be different now.
“I should probably be getting back to him,” Margot said. “But now that I have you…Are you familiar with January’s case?”
Pete raised his eyebrows. “Uh…kinda. I mean, being here, it’s something you hear about all the time. But I’ve never, like, seen the file.”
Margot glanced at her watch. She was torn between the desire to get home and check on Luke and the need to dissect what Townsend had just told her.
During the half-hour drive back to Wakarusa, she hadn’t been able to stop picturing the look in the former detective’s eyes as he explained why he’d never been able to arrest Krissy. Despite the nonexistent rules for law enforcement officials in retirement, despite the fact that throughout their interview he’d seemed entirely forthcoming, the way he’d looked in that moment had given Margot the unmistakable feeling that he wasn’t telling her the full truth. Had she been making it up, that strange, secretive glint? She’d always prided herself on being able to read people, but her life felt as if it was starting to unravel, her confidence starting to slip. Plus, why would Townsend, a retired detective, feel the need to hide something from her?
Margot bit the inside of her cheek. It was getting late, but she had a Wakarusa police officer who felt he owed her a favor right there and a question gnawing at her mind. “Do you have a few minutes?” she said. “There’s something I want to ask you.”
* * *
—