In winter, when Mary Rae came here in her down coat, the snow would have been high, though along the tree line where I walked now there might have been less. Even so, she would have had to break off through the field to reach the trailer, as I did. The Silver Streak stood beneath an oak, below the field’s rise, and hidden from view from the path. I’d thought there’d be yellow crime scene tape cordoning the trailer off, but there was nothing—only a trailer’s rusted hull, and the concrete blocks that formed steps up to the door. The detectives must have gotten everything they needed. I took a step up to the door, turned the knob, and pushed the door open. The inside was nearly the same as I’d seen it—though the mattress on the narrow bed was gone, and the interior was empty of its contents—the tattered drapes, the clothes that once hung on the rod. The kerosene lantern was gone, the clothespins. The shelf above the bed was empty, and the little window was broken. I guessed kids came up here, too, and, afraid to approach the trailer, threw rocks.
Despite the changes, this was the place. This was where Mary Rae had died. During the spring and summer months her body had decomposed. Now the pollen and new grass smells filled the trailer. Hornets had begun to build a nest in a corner. The floor was soft with rot. Soon the whole thing would slump into the soil. There would be nothing I could find that the investigators didn’t, yet I closed my eyes, listening. Why would she come here in the dead of winter? Had she made the trek, heartsick, and shut herself in the trailer to let the cold consume her? Somewhere I’d read that hypothermia often caused confusion, that people experiencing it shed their clothing. Maybe she’d given in and let William take his photographs, then found that wasn’t enough to win him back. If so, William played only a small part in her death—he’d confessed to not loving her—and she’d done the rest.
As I stood there someone called. It was Jimmy. My name echoed over the fields, bouncing off the line of trees. I left the trailer and went to the rise of the field where I could see his red cap, and I waved, and he waved back—this time clearly signaling for me to return. I stood at the peak, and I turned to take in the view behind me. The field led down to another large crop of woods, but I was high enough to see beyond them to a house—the yellow siding of Anne’s Windy Hill farmhouse, miles away, but visible. Mary Rae had been here above us that October evening of the All Hallows’ Eve party. I’d imagined her in the line of trees, waiting to emerge, and I’d been partly right.
Jimmy met me in the middle of the lower field. He said one of the local officers had approached him on the trail and asked him questions, and he’d told the truth—that one of Mary Rae’s friends wanted to see the place where she died. The officer had seen me walking along the tree line and told Jimmy it wasn’t safe for me to be there.
When I asked Jimmy what he meant, he shrugged. “I guess he means there’s a murderer loose.”
The sun dipped behind a bank of clouds, and I felt a chill as we started back along the trail.
“I had to give your name,” he said. “I hope that’s all right.”
“That’s fine,” I said, although I’d lied about being Mary Rae’s friend, and the officer would probably find out.
Jimmy escorted me back to Geoff’s car. He tried to talk me into a movie, or dinner, but I told him I couldn’t. He leaned on the car and crossed his arms. “You’re a cagey one,” he said. “But I’m a good sport.”
I kissed him on the cheek and drove the long way back to Ithaca, thinking about his blue eyes below the brim of his cap, the lovely curve of his arms in his T-shirt.
*
THAT NIGHT I awoke to footsteps on the stairs, the sound like the clomping of William’s heavy boots. They paused outside my door, and I waited, breathless. The knob turned, but I’d locked the door, and the footsteps retreated down the stairs. I lay in bed, holding my breath, straining to hear the front door open and close, and then rigid with fear, unable to sleep for a long time after. Was this what it was like to be haunted, to have someone return from the dead for you? The next morning Del was at my door, frantically knocking. I opened it, half-asleep, and she pushed past me into the room and slammed the door behind her.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“I saw him,” she whispered. She wore a pair of leggings and a misbuttoned work shirt, Randy’s name embroidered on the pocket.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
She went to the window and peered around the frame. “I saw him,” she said, her voice strained. “He’s out there.”
I joined her by the window, and she pulled me back.
“Nothing’s there,” I said. It was true, William wasn’t in his usual place.
“He was there,” Del said. “He was.”
Del’s face was drained of color, the shade of her platinum hair. I didn’t know what to say. I’d never confessed to seeing the dead to anyone, not even to Del. I led her back downstairs, and she pointed to the hat stand.
“He had it on,” she said.
William’s beaver-skin hat was missing from the vestibule. I had never packed it. I’d left it there, almost afraid to touch it, tangible evidence of William’s existence, almost more than I could bear. Geoff must have tired of seeing it and thrown it out. It had been months since William’s disappearance. To wonder now if he was alive was irrational.
The spring sunlight lit the vestibule’s fading wallpaper, including the edges where it had begun to peel. Del had left her apartment door open, and she followed me inside. I pulled the door closed and locked it behind us.
“What did you see?” I asked, firmly.
“I saw him standing across the street,” Del said. She went over to the small table by the window where she’d abandoned her breakfast—an English muffin, a cup of tea—and she slid into her chair.