“Said she was homeless. She’s been staying in the guest room.”
I caught what seemed an involuntary flick of his eyes in her direction. “Know anything else about her?” he asked. “Where she’s from. Anything like that?”
“What’s going on? Why all these questions?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. But please. If you could tell me what you know.”
“All right. The short version is her mother died and she ended up alone in Poulsbo. She hopped a bus here a few days before she landed at my place.”
He shook his head. “That’s not good. Not good at all.”
“What’s not good?”
“That she’s lying to you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” I said, unable to restrain my irritation.
He glanced at his watch. “Look. I’m really sorry. This is a little complicated, and right now the Harrisons are waiting in my office. They need to berate me about our AP World History book. Apparently it’s anti-American.” He raised his brows as if hoping for commiseration. Finding none, he said, “When’s your free period?”
“Two fifteen.”
“I’ll clear my schedule. Come then.”
* * *
—
PETER WAS RIGHT. The girl had invented parts of her story. She hadn’t been raised in Ohio. I was certain of that. But teenagers often try on different histories, especially those attempting escape. I couldn’t imagine what had Peter so worried.
At two fifteen, I arrived at his office, hoping the meeting wouldn’t last long. I wanted to be home to greet Evangeline after her first day. Even before she’d lost her mother, the girl had clearly been on her own. When I’d reminded her to keep me informed of her whereabouts, she’d acted confused. “I don’t get it,” she said. “It’s not like you’re my parent or anything. No one is going to blame you if something happens to me.” She couldn’t fathom an adult interested in anything other than their own legal cover.
Peter flipped around from his computer when I knocked, motioned to the small table where he held meetings.
“How’d things go with the Harrisons?” I asked.
His face went blank, then he smiled and shook his head. “I had to promise I’d raise their concerns with the school board.”
“Will you?”
“Hell no.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said.
He didn’t laugh. I doubt he even heard, preoccupied as he was checking his door to make sure it had clicked shut. He poured me a glass of water and sat opposite me. “Tell me,” he said. “How was your day?”
He genuinely wanted to know, but I could feel his distraction, his need to get to the girl. Or maybe it was my own urgency that made the room hiss as if with static. “It was fine. Well, no, a little rough, actually, but the kids were great. It’ll just take a while.”
“Yes,” he said, his hands rubbing the table in tight circles. His eyes caught the motion and he made them stop.
I took a sip of water, waiting.
“The girl,” he said, his fingers twitching. “It worries me that she ended up at your place.”
“I can tell.” I aimed for a teasing tone, but he didn’t smile.
“I’m not very good at hiding things from you, am I?”
“One of your best qualities.”
He leaned forward. “All right then, bear with me. This girl, she told you she got in town a few days before you found her, right?”
I nodded.
“Any chance she’d visited here before?”
“Maybe, but she made it sound like this was her first time.”
His brows furrowed. “See now, that’s what’s not making sense, because I saw her in early September.”
“September? Where?”
“Out Coleman Way, by the paper mill.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting out of a truck.”
“That doesn’t sound so dire.”
“It was late, after nine thirty at the edge of town.”
Did he think she was involved in criminal activity? “I’m sorry to be dense, but I’m not—”
“I’m worried about you. Don’t you see? This girl shows up at your house. It’s not easy to find. You have to go way up the drive to even see it. Why your place?”
“She was hoping for shelter. Thought it was the park.”
He pressed back in his chair. “Do you believe her?”
I started to argue but stopped, let out a breath, deflating. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe when it comes to her.”
He pressed his lips together, gathering strength it seemed, and said, “There’s something more. . . . The truck she got out of? It was Jonah’s. Daniel got out too.”
“What? When?”
“A few days before the murder.”
“And you saw this how?” The man was speaking nonsense.
He heard my disbelief, my anger, and said, “I know this is hard.”
I wanted to shout that he knew nothing of losing a child.
This too he heard as if spoken. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I have no idea what it’s been like for you. I know that. But I did see her. I was heading home from Poulsbo. Some of the local principals get together for dinner every few months, and I was coming around that long curve by the mill. Saw a tall guy getting out of an old navy truck, passenger side. When I got close, I realized it was Daniel. Just as I passed, the girl hopped down.”
“You saw Evangeline?”
“Pretty sure I did. I think Daniel was letting her out. That was my sense of it. He probably got back in, but I didn’t see that. I was already around the curve.”
“A few days before the murder?”
“Can you see now why I’m concerned?”
“Are you sure about this? I mean, we all wondered if a girl was involved. What did the investigators say? They must have looked for the girl.”
“I . . . I didn’t tell them that.”
How could this be true? My son was missing for a week. We had been desperate for information.
“I know it sounds crazy now,” he said, “but it was dark and such a fleeting thing. I mainly saw the hair. There’s that skinny kid from Chimacum. Derek something. The one who shows up at a lot of the games. He’s got long red hair like that. You know who I mean? I thought it was him. I’d never seen a girl like that around, and I know pretty much everyone. But today, seeing her, seeing that hair. That’s who I saw.”
“So why not tell the investigators about Derek?”
“I did. He denied seeing the boys around that time. But he cooperated, even gave a DNA sample. Nothing matched.”
I rubbed my neck. “I’m confused. You just told me you didn’t tell investigators.”
His face froze as if reviewing his exact words. “No. I didn’t tell them about a girl. That’s what I didn’t tell them. I didn’t know until today who I’d really seen.” He searched my face, likely seeking evidence of belief or apology or simple acknowledgment. He received none. “I should have told you at the time, but you know how social Daniel was. We all saw him with dozens of kids that first week of school. When Derek was ruled out, I didn’t think any more of it.”