She passes us a pile of forms and a pen clipped to a clipboard. “Fill these in.” She lists again to the left. “Next.”
This time we step aside, carrying everything over to a couple of empty chairs by the window. I fall into mine, helplessness pressing down hard enough to make me breathless. “Now what? I’m out of ideas, Dave. Where are we going to look next?”
“Well, we could go back and case the neighborhood again, or maybe try to track down some more classmates. Other folks might have a different story to tell.”
“You think so?”
Dave wrinkles his nose. “Honestly? Both options feel like a wild-goose chase to me.”
“Yeah. To me, too. And now that we have a copy of the yearbook, I can track down those folks anytime. I don’t need to be here to do it. There’s got to be something else, something we’re missing.”
We fall silent, thinking.
I lean back in my chair and replay the conversations with Coach Miller and the old man at the community center, and something about them nags at me. Something one of them said, some detail one of them dropped doesn’t sit right, but my thoughts are like a kitten batting at a ball of yarn. Whenever I’m close to catching it, it rolls away.
I imagine the teenage Will waiting outside that burning building, watching firemen carry his parents out, one of them in a body bag. Was he really surprised to see his father alive, like that old man said? Even after everything I’ve learned about his life here, I can’t imagine Will knowingly set the fire in the hope that his parents would become victims. No matter how awful his parents were, they were still his parents, and they weren’t the only lives he would be putting at risk by lighting that match. The Will I knew would never do such a thing.
And yet, the old man claimed he wasn’t the only one who suspected Will was guilty. Though they couldn’t prove it, the police did, too, enough so they assigned someone to keep him out of trouble.
I sit up straight, pointing my pen to the lobby lights. “That’s it.”
Dave frowns. “What’s it?”
“The old man said that Will was assigned a case officer after the fire. That’s who we need to talk to next.”
“Okay, but how? He never said a name.”
“No, but maybe it’ll be in the police report.”
“It wasn’t in the redacted version I read online, but surely something that essential would be included in the full version. You keep working on those.” He points to the papers on my lap, rising out of his chair. “I’ll go see what I can find out from our friendly lady officer.”
I watch him set off across the lobby, heading back to the ten-deep line at the requests desk with all the nonchalance of a Sunday stroll, and something squeezes in my chest—warmth and sunshine and fraternal love. Dave dropped everything to fly with me to Seattle. He left his job, his husband, his life to cart me around this strange city, to pick me up every time new news about my husband knocks me down. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay him.
As if he feels me watching, he swings back around and makes a writing gesture with his hand. I smile, blow him a kiss, then return to the forms.
I’m starting in on the second page when my cell phone chirps inside my bag, and I scramble to dig it out. After my unfinished conversation with the blocked number, Dave and I agreed I should keep my phone at easy access and the ringer volume high. Whoever the sender is, he likely lived in Rainier Vista at the time of the fire, and he seems to have a very different perspective than what we heard from the old man and Coach Miller. Creepy stalker or not, I want to talk to him. I want to find out what he knows. And so I’m more than a little disappointed when it’s my father’s name that lights up the display.
“Hi, there, punkin’,” Dad says in that easy, steady way of his, and I plug my other ear with a finger so I can hear him. “What’s with all the racket? Where are you?”
“In the lobby at the police station. Don’t worry, we haven’t been accosted or arrested or anything like that. We’re just here to request an old police report. It’s too much of a story to go into over the phone, but suffice it to say, my husband was a very different person when he lived here. Oh, and it seems I have a father-in-law.”
“Huh. Well, I’ll be darned. Did you meet him?”
My father has always been the master of understatement, and I can’t help but smile. “I did, in fact. And he’s not doing so great. He has Alzheimer’s, and his nursing home is awful. More drama that I’ll fill you in on later.” My gaze wanders out the wall of windows, and the pedestrians slogging through the constant drizzle as if it were a sunny day. “Anyway, were you calling to chat or did you need something?”
“I’m calling because your mother’s been nagging me to find out when you’re coming home, but also to give you a couple of messages.”
“Why didn’t Mom just call and ask me herself?”
“Oh, you know your mother. She didn’t want to be a nag.”
“So she just nagged you instead.”
“As I said, you know your mother.” I laugh, and a smile pokes through his words when he continues, “Now, you got a pen and paper handy?”
I dig an old receipt from the bottom of my bag and flip it over. “Hit me.”
“All righty, let’s see...” There’s a rustling and sounds of paper shuffling, and I picture my father sliding his readers onto his nose and flipping through his list. “Claire Masters from Lake Forrest called to check in, as did Elizabeth, Lisa and Christy, who seemed worried they hadn’t heard from you since the memorial. I assume you have everyone’s numbers?”
“Yes. I’ll shoot them all a text later.”
“I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you. Leslie Thomas said to tell you she’s very sorry, and that if you’ll talk to her, she has a name you need to hear. Something about a cocktail waitress at a bachelor party, if that makes any sense?”
“It makes total sense, unfortunately. Did she leave a number?”
Dad recites it for me, then moves on to the next message. “Evan Sheffield called, said he was sorry he missed you at the friends-and-family meeting but wanted to make sure you got the updates. He sounded legit. I hope you don’t mind, but I gave him your email address.”
“That’s fine. I promised I’d get it to him at the memorial anyway, and then with all the travel, totally forgot.”
“And a man named Corban Hayes stopped by earlier this afternoon. He seemed like he knew a good deal about you and Will.”
“He does. I talked to him at the memorial, too. Remember? He’s a friend of Will’s from the gym.”