Nothing.
I checked the basement door to make sure it hadn’t locked behind me in case I needed to make a quick getaway, then tiptoed to the utility room. It was that or go upstairs, something I wasn’t willing to do, not when Nillson was home, which I assumed he was.
His utility room contained a water softener, a water heater, and a furnace, just like ours. It also held two stacks of bankers boxes, a dozen total. None of them were labeled. Glancing at the door I’d left open and then toward the dark stairs—I could reach the tunnel in three seconds, had my escape route mapped out from there—I slid the top one off.
Christmas decorations.
Made me wonder why Sheriff Nillson wasn’t married. Had he been? Was he divorced or widowed? Beneath that box was another containing mailing supplies. The next four held files, the kind Dad brought directly to his home office, the one place in our house that Junie and I were forbidden to enter. I flipped through the files, didn’t recognize any names, and stacked their boxes back the way I’d found them.
A scratch overhead turned my bones to gravy. I strained to listen, eyes flashing between the door and the stairs, the door and the stairs, the door and the stairs.
The sound didn’t repeat itself.
I drew a deep, shaky breath and reached for the top box in the second pile, pulled it off, rested it on the floor. It was heavier than the Christmas box had been, lighter than the file boxes.
I removed the lid and shined my light in.
A black-and-white photograph of Ed Godo stared back at me.
My heartbeat picked up.
Ed looked mad, his hair trimmed close. Without that high, greased wave at his forehead to distract, his eyes were bottomless, two holes punched into his face. I dropped to the floor on crossed legs and stuck the flashlight in my mouth so I could use both hands. The photo was paper-clipped to Ed’s file. He’d served in the army, just like he’d said.
Picked up the habit in Georgia when I was in the service. Keeps my teeth from hurting. There’s nothing better to wash down Anacin than God’s cola.
He’d been honorably discharged at the end of his term. From the list of petty crimes he’d committed since, it looked like he’d thieved his way across the Eastern Seaboard before landing in Minnesota. There was no record of formal charges once he arrived, but a smudgy carbon copy of handwritten notes said he was under surveillance for violent activity. My eyes flew over the details, which were sparse, basically what Dad had already told me. They thought he’d murdered a waitress in Saint Paul, but two of his buddies swore he’d been with them all night, and the police found no evidence at the murder scene to tie Ed to it.
I flipped the page, but there was no more information. I shuffled the papers, reading both sides again, but learned nothing new. Reorganizing Ed’s records the way I’d found them, I reached for the manila envelope that had rested beneath them in the box. I unwound the cord holding the envelope closed and slid my hand in. I felt sharp squares. I turned the envelope upside down and watched Polaroid photos falling like slick snow.
I blinked, my mouth dry around the flashlight. I took it from between my teeth, light quivering with my hands. The Polaroids were photos of naked girls, all of them young looking, some younger than Maureen, so young they didn’t have hair between their legs. Many of the photos were just of bodies, their heads cut off by the camera angle. I turned each Polaroid over. Dates, no names, some going back as far as 1971. My eyes blurred. I realized I was crying. These weren’t police photos, at least not all of them, not the ones with Sheriff Nillson’s apple-green shag carpeting visible in them.
Those poor girls, three dozen Maureens, talked into—forced into?—doing something they didn’t want to do. Like me taking off my blouse for Ant because I didn’t have a choice, not really, not if I didn’t want to be left behind.
I felt sick.
I returned the photos to their envelope, rewound the cord figure-eight style, and was wondering whether I had the stomach to grab the next envelope when I heard the unmistakable sound of a car door closing, so near it could only be coming from Sheriff Nillson’s driveway.
My tears dried up immediately.
I tossed Ed’s file back into the box, closed it, returned it to the top of the stack, and tucked the envelope of photos into the back of my shorts. The sound of the front door opening above coincided with the softest click of me closing the utility room door below.
The footsteps seemed to be striding straight toward the basement stairs, but I would never know because I was out the basement door, locking it behind me, and racing home through the tunnels before he reached the top step.