Louis shoved Piggy off his blanket and, after a scuffle, Piggy gave him a scrap to sit on. They fell silent as Eddie climbed up, positioned himself, and dove again.
Piggy lifted his watch, an old-man steel Timex wrapped around the meat of his hand. “I’ve been timing him. It takes one-point-six minutes to execute the dive, and eleven minutes to climb back up here. He’ll start tiring soon, and with that bad hand, we can assume fifteen.”
“You got fifteen minutes, Benvenuto,” Louis said. “Make your case.”
“I’m saying that something obviously drove the Cillo girls to become the way they became. Because it was sudden. Like, in a matter of months, they went from being sheltered but wanting a normal life to sheltering themselves and becoming shut-ins. That doesn’t happen for no reason.”
“I can tell you the day Francesca switched to granny panties,” said Piggy.
“How would you know that?” asked Ben.
Piggy fell back on his towel and smiled behind his sunglasses. “I’m a detail man.”
“He sat behind her in every class. Don’t give him too much credit,” said Louis.
Ben made a face, then looked at Piggy’s watch. “How well do you guys know Frank Cillo?”
“As in Eddie’s uncle? Jesus, Benny,” Piggy said.
“There were no other guys in that house. No other guys to protect them. Eddie himself said his uncle was ready to lose it, with those girls hitting puberty at the same time.” Ben’s words didn’t sound like he imagined, like some revelatory statement that everyone would be wowed by. They sounded seedy, and sick. Like they came from a diseased mind. He could hardly believe they were coming from his mouth. Then again, neither could he believe that he’d spent two hours excising a glued-down six-by-six-inch square of his bedroom carpet and the pad underneath before tucking Mira’s notes inside and patching it up again.
“You think he smacked them around?” Piggy said.
“I’m asking what you guys think,” Ben said.
“You’re the one who was the closest to them. The only one who got anywhere close to—” Piggy said.
“Okay, okay,” Ben interrupted.
“You if anyone should know,” Piggy said.
“She shut me out, all right?” Ben realized he was yelling, but he didn’t care. “She shut me out like she shut out every single one of you. She stopped talking to me at school, she stopped sneaking out and seeing me. She cut me off dry after Connie’s wake, but you know something? Piggy was right: something happened in January that changed those girls, and I’m gonna find out what it was.”
Kyle whistled, long and loud. The boys froze.
“That was a keeper, Eddie man,” Kyle called.
Eddie climbed onto the ledge and turned away from them. He was boxy, a straight line from his sloped shoulders to his hips. With his cylindrical torso, he reminded Ben of the Tin Man. Steam coated the plastic bag that encased his hand, and water puddled at the bottom.
“Give the hand a rest, dude,” Louis said.
Eddie flapped his arms at his sides, the bag slapping his hip. He pointed his feet and dove again.
Louis checked his own watch. “Fifteen minutes starting now. And by the looks of that bandage, this might be his last dive. Go!”
Ben began to speak, but Piggy cut him off. “I know the night the drapes closed and never opened again. It was January twenty-first.”
The boys crowded Piggy’s towel.
“I was on the top of the Winnebago with my Bushnells,” Piggy started.
They made disgusted noises.
“Aw listen! It was Thursday night; it was what I did!” Piggy said.
“Fourteen minutes,” Ben said.
“Don’t judge. I have to watch the chicks in my father’s bar ‘dance’ while I bust my butt busing tables. Can’t talk to them, can’t touch them. What else am I supposed to do?” Piggy said.
“I can suggest what else you might do,” Louis said, grinning over his shoulder for Kyle’s approval. A sulfurous crosswind kicked up Kyle’s hair, along with the dying ferns that grew between the cracks.
“Anyways,” Piggy said, rolling his eyes at Ben. “Something big was going down in the bedroom. They’d lit candles, red, yellow, and green ones, the kind with the webbing on the outside that you light on the patio to keep away mosquitos?”
“Who cares what kind of candles they lit?” said Louis.
“Go on,” said Ben.
“Point being, I could see everything. Right inside. The candles were set around the bed, even on the floor,” said Piggy.
“Go on,” said Louis, nudging Piggy’s leg.
“Francesca was lying on the bed in a white nightgown. Nothing hot: long, prairie-like.”
Louis made a scoffing noise.
“Even through the binoculars, I could tell she didn’t look good,” said Piggy.
“Because of the granny jammies?” Louis said.
“Nah, I don’t mean like that. I meant, she didn’t look healthy,” said Piggy.
Ben shifted closer. “You mean, she was pale?”
Piggy held up his hand. “I’m getting to that. At first I thought she was sick. I even wondered if I should tell someone, but then I’d have to explain how I saw.”
“Good call,” said Louis.
“Mira kneeled next to the bed, praying,” said Piggy.
“Like an exorcism,” said Louis.
“What was Francesca doing?” said Ben.
“That was the freakiest part. She was tossing her head back forth, and arching her back,” Piggy said.
“It was an exorcism!” said Louis.
“It wasn’t an exorcism, knuckle job. She had a big smile on her face. Whatever was going on”—Piggy paused for effect—“she was liking it.”
Piggy and Louis smirked at each other. Five feet away, Kyle was still but for his hair moving in the breeze.
“Then Mira went to the window and stood there for what felt like hours, but it must have been less than a minute. Scared the crap out of me, if you want the truth. Then just like that, bam! She shuts the shade. Then she goes room to room, flicking off lights, and yanking down more shades and pulling drapes together round the whole house! Swear to God: after that night, they were always shut.”
“He’s right,” Ben said quietly. “By February, the shades were always drawn.”
“What time was it?” Ben said.
“After I got outta work. So late—one in the morning? Maybe one fifteen?” Piggy replied.
“Was Mr. Cillo’s car there?” Ben said.
“’Course it was there. It was the middle of the night. But guess where it was before that?” Piggy grinned.
“His office?” Louis said.
“My dad’s bar,” Piggy said.
Ben stood and paced. “So you get home from the bar and you’re jazzed so you go to peep at the Cillo girls ’cause you got something on your mind. How hard is it to imagine that Mr. Cillo goes to your dad’s bar, gets himself worked up, and goes home to that house? Who knows what happens.”
Louis’s face contorted, chiseled angles wrong. “What are you saying?”
Piggy stood, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Yeah, what are you sayin’?”
Ben stood, turning fast to face every boy. “I’m saying nothing. I’m saying the girls got weird, fast. I’m saying something happened to them inside that house.”
“Jesus, Ben,” said Louis. “I wouldn’t go there.”