Willa’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
“He loved them, Wills. Cal and Beth were like a second family to him. Jonathan was wrecked when they died. I didn’t think we’d ever get him back.” In many ways, they never did.
“But why was he there? How did he know?”
It was exactly what Juniper kept asking herself over and over again. That summer had unraveled so spectacularly and then spun into such a complicated knot of deception and scheming, it was nearly impossible to tease out the truth from lies. “I’m not sure,” Juniper finally said. “He says he heard the gunshots from our farm, and I have to believe my brother.”
Willa glanced at Jonathan’s notebook still on top of the stack, but she didn’t press it. “What about everyone else?”
“It could have been a murder-suicide.” Juniper tugged that notebook out of the stack—it was black and nearly empty—and held it up. “But not likely.”
“Why not?” she pressed.
Juniper inhaled. Willa wasn’t going to let her off easy. “Well, Cal’s back was to Beth, so if he shot her first and then shot himself, he would have had to turn away from her to do it. Seems improbable.”
“And two shots? How do you shoot yourself twice?”
“Exactly.” Juniper tossed the notebook on the coffee table.
“But Cal’s fingerprints were on the gun.”
“It was his gun; of course his fingerprints were on it.”
Willa’s eyes were a little too wide, her breath high and quick in her throat.
“Is this too much?” Juniper chanced a touch and put her hand lightly on her daughter’s knee. Willa didn’t shake her off. Nor did she budge even an inch.
“I know a lot already,” she said with a calm that belied her age and contradicted the slightly panicked glint in her eyes. “The gun was taken from the glove compartment in Mr. Murphy’s truck. It was parked beside the shed and unlocked. There were only two sets of fingerprints on the gun: Mr. Murphy’s and Jonathan’s.”
“That’s right.” Juniper nodded carefully. “But Jonathan said he picked up the gun from where it had fallen in the dirt. It makes sense. There was a lot of debris on the gun, too.” And blood. “Jonathan had no reason to hurt the Murphys. No motive.” Motive, means, and opportunity. The holy trifecta of making a murder conviction stick. Every time Juniper dug deeper, she feared she’d uncover a motive strong enough to cast her brother in a whole new light.
Willa dipped her head once, and though Juniper couldn’t tell if it was in agreement or doubt, she added Jonathan’s notebook to the black one on the coffee table.
“It could have been a stranger,” Juniper went on, holding up a blue Moleskine. “Someone passing through. But nothing was taken from the farm, and random acts of violence are less common than the news would have you believe.” Another notebook discarded on the pile. “Besides, how would a stranger know that Cal kept his gun in the glove box?”
“What about the Carver guy?”
Juniper found the green notebook. It pained her to even have it, and she tossed it on the coffee table without pausing. “That was a terrible mistake. Carver Groen didn’t know what he was doing.”
“I thought he confessed.”
“He did. He also wore a different-colored superhero cape every single day of the week and carried a pocketful of dimes that he left on windowsills around town.” Juniper felt a hot, creeping shame when she thought of the photograph the newspaper had run of Carver grinning from ear to ear as they led him out of the police station. “He didn’t understand. He just wanted to help.”
Juniper didn’t want Willa to know how painful that had been, how hard for the entire community to watch Carver—a beloved fixture in Jericho—insist that he had killed the Murphys. Did he want closure? Was he trying to make the people around him happy? Carver was a five-year-old in the body of a twenty-seven-year-old, but he knew the well-worn path between his mother’s house, the grocery store, and several other key spots around town. Everyone looked out for him, which was why it was initially concerning that there were forty-five minutes during the night of the Fourth of July that Carver was unaccounted for. Some had seen him in the park, others walking home after the fireworks. But the time in between was as dark as the night had been. Carver’s mother—a single mom and night shift factory worker at the processing plant in Munroe—took to drinking after his rash confession, and a couple of months later sent Carver away to a group home. Fourteen years had passed, and Jericho still felt bereft of his presence. Lessened somehow without the bright flash of one of his capes as he half skipped down the street.
“But he could have done it,” Willa said. “I mean, if he wasn’t quite right…”
And that was exactly why Carver’s confession had been so devastating. There was always a lingering sense of: What if?
“His fingerprints weren’t on the gun,” Juniper reminded Willa. And herself.
“He could have worn gloves.”
A small smile came unbidden to Juniper’s lips. “Sounds like you could be a detective someday, Willa Baker.”
“No thanks,” she said quickly, with an accompanying movement inward; hands fisted, arms crossed tight.
Juniper pivoted back to facts. “There are five notebooks left. The Tates.”
But Willa was already uncurling, pushing herself up from the couch to dismiss Juniper’s final suspects. “It wasn’t anybody in the Tate family.”
“How do you know?”
“Come on.” Willa rolled her eyes. “The Tates have been here forever. They’re nice people.”
Juniper knew nice people were capable of terrible things. “You can’t say that, Wills. You can’t know.”
“Why would they hurt the Murphys? It doesn’t make sense.” Willa rocked from her heels to the balls of her feet and back again. “You haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
“It all comes back to Jonathan, doesn’t it?” Willa shook out her hands as if they’d fallen asleep and she had to help the blood flow back into her fingertips. But it was more than that. Juniper could see she was trying to throw off the taint, the stain of suspicion on her family, her name. Butcher’s Girl. Because before Jonathan found Mandy, before Hunter or Cameron were ever born, there was Jonathan and Willa. Juniper abandoned her baby, and the rest of her family stepped in. Willa had moved into her mother’s old bedroom, right across the hall from Jonathan. He became her protector and best friend, an uncle who was more father figure than anything. Willa had always been his girl.
“If not Uncle Jonathan, then who?” Willa asked, her voice reedy with fear.
“Willa, sit down. Let’s talk about this. There are things that—”
“I know enough,” she said, turning away. “I don’t want to know any more.”
When Willa slammed the door to her makeshift bedroom, the sound of it reverberated for a long time in Juniper’s chest.
CHAPTER 14
SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO
Every summer, right in between Jonathan’s birthday and mine, we go camping at Lake Munroe. This isn’t a family thing, it’s friends only, and it’s this dreamy little weekend that celebrates the several weeks that my brother and I are the same age. Mostly it’s an excuse to leave work early on a Friday afternoon and spend a couple of days on the lake with our favorite people.