“Honey, I could pinpoint the ten people most likely to commit homicide in this town. And a dozen other things that would curl your toes.”
I’m really not sure what to do with this information. Cora is a contradiction in terms, an ample fifty-something with the fashion sense of an eccentric yogi and a gaze so shrewd I feel like she can see right through me. When I was little and Beth Murphy used to take me and Jonathan to the library, Cora would sometimes pick out a book and read it just to me. It made me feel so special to be singled out that way. Like she saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself. Maybe it was the way that I could be both silly and serious, innocent and just a bit macabre. We share a weird sense of humor, and something makes me say: “Surely there are no homicidal maniacs in Jericho.”
Cora takes the bait and belts out a laugh like a dog barking. But she doesn’t say what I expect her to. “Oh, we’re all capable of murder. Even—maybe especially—the good people of Jericho.”
“Not Jericho!” I fake-gasp, clutching my chest.
She gives me a stern look but softens it with a smile. “Don’t be so sarcastic. It’s true. People around here are a bit set in their ways, but that’s true in most places. Communities coalesce around ideals.”
“What are Jericho’s ideals?”
She thinks for a moment. “Community. Family. Faith.”
“Tradition. Uniformity. Compliance.”
Cora laughs. “Tell me how you really feel!”
“It’s true,” I say, bristling a little.
“Maybe we’re talking about two sides of the same coin,” Cora concedes. “There’s who we are at our worst, most base moments, and the shimmer of who we could be. Who we want to be. We’re aspirational, I guess.”
I’ve never thought of Jericho as the sort of community that aspires. We preserve. Circle the wagons. Protect our own no matter the cost, and sacrifice those on the fringes. It’s not even close to being the same thing. “I guess we don’t see it quite the same way,” I tell her, and think for just a moment about sharing what Sullivan told me. About poison in the water and poison that put Baxter in the ground. This whole place feels poisonous to me.
“You don’t have to agree for it to be true.”
“Well, there’s nothing that would drive me to murder,” I say confidently. There isn’t. Of course not.
Cora shakes her head. “It’s not about a thing, hon. The motivation to kill comes down to who.”
This conversation is suddenly making my stomach twist, my palms go clammy. I’m not sure how to get out of it, but Cora must read discomfort on my face, because she gives my arm a pat.
“Sorry. I’m not sure how we got here,” I admit as I let her usher me in the direction of the small computer bank. There’s a long table with four desktops, their monitors all dark.
“You know I don’t do small talk,” Cora says with a wink. “Can’t tell if that’s a good thing in a librarian or a liability. Anyway, when’s the last time you’ve used one of our computers? We got new ones this spring. All you’ve got to do is give the mouse a little wiggle and follow the prompts. We default to Yahoo! but I’m sure you know how to get where you’re going.”
Cora disappears with one last comforting squeeze and I sink into a padded armchair. Keying in the guest username and password, I navigate to Explorer and type “water contamination” into the search bar. Over five hundred million hits unfurl before me, and I click through the first few, promptly realizing that I need to refine my results. I don’t need to know that water pollution is usually the result of human activities or that runoff from fertilizers and pesticides is the biggest offender. I’m more interested in the effects, in understanding the reasons why the Murphys would fight so fiercely, so vocally about something that seems rather inconsequential to me. Drink bottled water. Buy a purifier. Find a way. Fertilizers and pesticides, chemicals themselves, are a fact of life.
After more than ten minutes of clicking and reading, refining my search and trying again, I’m surprised to discover that the science isn’t nearly as exact as I thought it would be. In low concentrations, contamination from chemicals can cause anything from mild irritation to acute stomach distress. Higher concentrations of toxic chemicals are obviously much worse: burns, convulsions, miscarriage, birth defects, and certain types of cancer, including breast, ovarian, thyroid, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and leukemia. Scary stuff. But the Murphys don’t have kids, and Beth is far past her childbearing years. They aren’t convulsing on a regular basis—at least, not that I know of. As for cancer, doesn’t it get us all eventually? Doesn’t everything cause cancer?
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this kind of strife, the back-and-forth between people I don’t know well, about an issue that doesn’t seem all that significant to me. I’m missing something.
Cora is behind the circulation desk, gathering things up and humming to herself. It’s a subtle reminder that she has plans and I’m cramping her style as the only person in this utterly abandoned place. I don’t blame her. It’s a gorgeous summer day and I’m ready to be outside, too, but I key in one last search before I close the computer down. This time I’m a bit more specific. Iowa water pollution cases. The headlines scroll:
IOWA TOWNS FIGHT TO KEEP POLLUTION OUT OF TAP WATER
MORE THAN HALF OF IOWA WATER BODIES POLLUTED
IOWA CORN FARMS POISON DRINKING WATER
SMALL FARMERS BATTLE BIG AGRA
NASTY WATER WARS
Water wars indeed.
But this isn’t my battle to fight. I turn off the computer and tuck my chair in under the table. Cora gives me a look as I approach her with the lanyard and guest card outstretched.
“Find what you needed?” she asks slyly.
“Poison,” I tell her with a wink. “Quick, clean, undetectable.”
Cora’s laughter follows me all the way out the door.
It’s hazy and humid when I jog down the steps, and I hurry to where my car is parked in the shadow of the community center. My hour at the library has unnerved me, and when I glance through the driver’s-side window and see a yellow Post-it Note stuck to my steering wheel, a flutter of dread wings against my skin.
I don’t lock my car doors—ever. Why would I? This is Jericho, where everyone knows my name and can recognize my car by the scattering of rust over the back wheel wells. Ashley has returned borrowed shirts by tossing them on the passenger seat, and my mom often slips treats in my cupholder just because. But this feels different.
I yank open the door and slide into the hot car, snatching up the little square of paper as if I expect it to be a death threat.
Hit play. —Sullivan
I’m confused for a moment, glancing around until my eyes fall on the cassette deck in my dash. I’ve never used it, not once, but now the little flap is pushed back and I can see there is a tape inside. My car is a hand-me-down, and it has both a CD player and a tape player that came with an impressive collection of my mom’s old classic cassettes. She had once handed them to me in a cardboard box with a half smile and listening notes on her favorite composers and songs. I lugged the box around in my trunk for a while until Mom realized I was never going to develop an appreciation for her ten-tape ultimate classical collection. She reclaimed the box and stuck it in the attic.
A tape? I’m not even sure I know how to use one. And a pucker of concern makes me wonder if I want to follow Sullivan’s instructions at all. What could it be? A confession? An in-depth explanation of water contamination? I turn the ignition and sit with my car running in park. Then, with some trepidation, I reach over. The play button sinks with a satisfying click.
It’s a song I know, perfectly cued up to the first few lightly strummed guitar chords. I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips, nor can I stop myself from grabbing my phone and dialing his number.