Upon hearing this news, Linda Ottomanelli took it upon herself. She was obliged, as Rhea’s best friend (and a little threatened, that it was Nikita who’d unearthed this inside poop). She decided to distill this hurtful hearsay—this gossip—and locate the truth. She went to the Roosevelt Field mall and bought the latest PlayStation. Promised the boys they could have it, so long as they tried their best to remember. Then she asked them the same question she’d asked a dozen times before, only this time, she gave them Sam Singh and Lainee Hestia’s version first. Then she asked: What happened?
The boys corroborated the story. But because they had a cruel streak, they added something, too. She said he’d done it to her, Mark said. I think that morning. That’s why she was bleeding. It wasn’t period. I think that’s why she was so mad. Yeah, Michael added. She called him a rapist. She was screaming all about how he raped her. She was scared he was gonna come after her.
Weeping with fear and confusion and sadness and even gratitude that her own children seemed healthy and unscathed (or was it possible they’d been tainted, too?), Linda rewarded them with the game system, then walked straight to Rhea’s house, breathless and terrified and feeling just a little bit of the German word that means delight in the tragedy of another.
Rhea thought about Shelly’s body, which still might be found. She thought about the dog, perfectly preserved. She listened to Linda’s story; let it sink and fill her, like crawling along the bottom of a wine-dark sea, and opening wide.
* * *
Fourteen days into the search, representatives from the police department rang the Schroeder bell. Heads heavy, they informed Rhea (Fritz was at work) that they’d been unable to pass a final tidal tunnel; the last possible place that Shelly’s body might be. They’d need several days to shore it before they could resume their search, and even then, the tunnel might be too narrow to traverse. They would have to send for small divers trained specifically for such tasks. Unless Shelly’s body had gotten into the sewer system, this was the last place she could have drifted.
In situations like this, the waiting tended to be more excruciating than the answer. They believed that Rhea ought to schedule a memorial service. It was time to stop hoping.
Slowly, because her knee had been acting up, Rhea came forward. Shook hands and thanked them for coming. She’d already prepared a list of funeral directors, blown up a seventh-grade class photo. It wasn’t that she’d hoped for this. Not that. But she’d prepared.
Maple Street watched this interaction through their windows. They witnessed, so she would not have to go through it alone.
Saturday, July 24
Sheened in sweat, the people of Maple Street sat up. They bathed and powdered and perfumed and then sweat through, their skin a fragrant crust. They dressed in black. They put out dark suits and muted dresses for their children. The Walshes came out early. After that, the Hestias, then the Pontis: Steven, Jill, Marco, and Richard. Quarrelsome Tim and Jane Harrison demanded that their children choose which parent to ride with. Elder brother Adam picked his mother. Younger Dave opted out. He stayed in his hot box of a bedroom, wishing the PlayStation’s connection worked, so he could lose himself into Deathcraft, and forget this whole, terrible thing. The divided house, of course. Not Shelly, whose death was still too raw for him to believe.
The Atlases did not attend, as Bethany had spent the night throwing up. The Singh-Kaur family departed in their Honda Pilot, each kid bopping in headphones to music on separate screens. Peter Benchley didn’t go, but watched from his attic perch. Dominick and Linda Ottomanelli knocked on 118’s front door, and the Schroeder and Ottomanelli families collected on the porch. The adults, having seen too many movies, wore sunglasses and knocked back shots of whiskey. Then they headed for their cars, so they could caravan.
They passed the Wilde house on their way. FJ picked up a quartz rock, two inches thick. The cloudy white kind that only sparkles when broken. He threw with a strong running back’s arm. It ricocheted against the front door and landed back at his feet.
Everyone stayed still for a moment. Shocked.
“Don’t be stupid,” Rhea said at last. “It’s broad daylight.”
The front door opened. Pregnant Gertie stood inside the screen, Arlo beside her.
Rhea picked up that same rock. Wiped away the dirt and bitumen, and put it in her purse like an idea that needed warming to hatch.
* * *
The Wildes watched the last car leave for Shelly’s memorial service. Excluded, again. And now somehow blamed. “Let’s do it here,” Arlo said, thinking of the life his pop had lived, and all the funerals they’d had for his street friends. Not the church kind or the coffin kind—the junkie kind. “Everybody get something important—something that means what you feel about Shelly. Bring it back to me.”
Nobody moved.
“Just get something that reminds you of her, that you wouldn’t mind parting from.”