A thought popped into Juniper’s head. “Has anyone tried to interview you? Or Jonathan? About what happened back then?”
Mandy’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nothing,” Juniper said quickly. Apparently, whoever was working on a podcast about the Murphy murders hadn’t bothered to interview the prime suspect yet. Thank God. True crime podcasts peddled in the court of popular opinion—if damning recordings had already been made, there was little Juniper could do about them. “Look, I want to help, but I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mandy caught both of Juniper’s arms and gave her a desperate look. “I want you to talk some sense into him.”
“Me? We’re not exactly close anymore.”
“He’ll listen to you about this. He doesn’t talk about that summer, but I know you two were inseparable back then. Just persuade him that we need to get the cops involved.”
Juniper didn’t necessarily agree that calling the police was the best course of action. The people of Jericho had long memories, and though Jonathan had never been convicted of the murders, it was impossible to separate Cal and Beth from her brother. Guilty or not, he bore the stain of accusation—and had been treated accordingly for almost fifteen years. Plenty of people thought Jonathan Baker had gotten away with murder. Juniper knew her brother had had to start his own online web design business because no one in town would hire him. He had to marry a girl from out of town, stop going to church, keep to himself. There were unwritten rules that had shrunk Jonathan’s world until it could be tucked away: out of sight, out of mind. Maybe it was best to stay there.
“My husband didn’t kill those people,” Mandy said as if she could read Juniper’s mind.
Uncertainty coiled itself around Juniper’s neck and she backed away, yanking out of her sister-in-law’s insistent grip. Hurt registered so immediately on Mandy’s face that Juniper quickly reversed course and folded her in a hug. “I know,” she said, but the assurance rang hollow.
The distance between Mandy’s confidence and Juniper’s own misgivings was razor thin. But it was there. When Cal and Beth Murphy were murdered nearly fifteen years ago, no one could have predicted it. And in some ways, everyone should have.
No one was entirely innocent. Not even Jonathan.
CHAPTER 4
SUMMER 14 AND A HALF YEARS AGO
My cell is a slim flip phone in sparkly pink. It was a birthday present to myself, a splurge that still gives me a little burst of pleasure when I slide it out of the back pocket of my shorts and thumb it open. I feel guilty for loving it, for having even a brief, happy thought when the sky is darkening to cinders above me and Baxter is buried beneath a couple feet of freshly turned earth in the grove.
I’ve missed several text messages, most of them from Ashley, who has undoubtedly been trying to get a hold of me all morning. But of course I didn’t dare to answer my phone with Beth alternately sobbing into a crumpled-up tissue and muttering angrily under her breath.
“Where have you been?” Ashley demands when I call her.
“Long story.”
“I have time.”
I sigh, uncertain that she’s ready to have this conversation. The low-grade drama that has surrounded Cal and Beth Murphy for as long as I can remember feels changed this morning. Darker, somehow dangerous. But if I’m honest with myself, the slow simmer has been developing into a fast boil all along. First, there was the slur bleached onto their pristine front lawn. It took an entire summer for the four ugly letters to become indistinguishable from the rest of the carefully tended, bottle-green grass. KOOK. I wasn’t even sure what it meant. What were they trying to say, those mudslinging, property-destroying tormentors? It seemed laughable at first. But the Murphys didn’t find it funny. “It’s not about property damage,” Cal had said. “It’s dehumanizing. They’re trying to isolate us.”
Then the Murphys’ trees were toilet-papered, their roadside stand egged, and a single leaded window broken by a rock hurled through the vintage door. Later, Jonathan had told me about threatening phone calls and a truck that drove onto the Murphys’ property one night and spun a few donuts in the gravel before honking madly and careening off into the darkness. Popular opinion pointed to teenage hoodlums as the culprits, but everyone knew there were other threats at play. Still are, apparently.
But I’m not interested in talking to Ashley about any of that right now. The strange angle of Baxter’s neck is haunting me, making me feel jittery and scared. And Jonathan’s proclamation: This wasn’t an accident. I can’t help but feel like whoever poisoned him is crouching in the ditch grass right now. Watching.