I swung the door open, and there was Philippa. She’d heard the news, too. I grabbed my bag and coat, but instead of heading to school, we circled back and, using the fire escape stairs, climbed to the top of Hill Estates. The wind was up, and it whipped hard at our skirts and hair. I lit a cigarette and gave up on it, tossing it over the side. The butt almost hit an old woman walking a toy poodle. The dome of the Capitol played peekaboo through the shifting tree limbs.
“What do you think?” she said, full of wonder.
“B and E are ready to storm the police station,” I said.
“What? Why?”
“Jackie died under similar circumstances.”
A few strands of strawberry blond hair flapped across her face. “Okay?”
“Remember, Bogdan strangled her and dumped her in the river. She washed up not far from Sousa Bridge, naked. He’d done the worst to her.”
“The worst to her?”
“He assaulted her,” I said, irritated by her naivete.
It didn’t seem to be sinking in.
“Sexually,” I said, but she still looked confused. “Jesus, Philippa. He raped her.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t—“She bit her lip. “Oh, my God. She was only nine.”
“Like I said, Bogdan had a Shirley Temple thing.”
“What does that even mean?”
“B and E see similarities between Cleve’s and Jackie’s deaths and are jumping to conclusions. They’ve always been convinced Bogdan is still out there, hunting children. The boogeyman.”
Philippa rested against the crumbling chimney and sheltered herself from the wind. The sky was beginning to darken. Rain was coming. She crossed her arms and gazed at me, her slate-colored eyes grave and earnest. “But Cleve’s seventeen, not nine,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“And he wasn’t completely naked like Jackie.”
“That too.”
“And somehow, all this might be connected to Miss Martins.”
“Maybe.”
Sure, Cleve and Miss M were at odds. I still see them in the classroom: Miss M’s defeated slump, her tear-stained face, and her hollowed-out expression, and then Cleve’s flailing arms, his irate stutter, and his stupid wounded eyes. If I’d had that iron stake, I would’ve driven it through him, then and there. But that wasn’t Miss M’s style. No, she didn’t do it; she couldn’t have done it. I’d suspect myself before I’d suspect her. As for Cleve’s death being linked to Jackie: B and E are desperate to find a connection, to grasp at some hope. But who knows? Maybe they’re right.
“Shouldn’t we do something?” Philippa said, leaning in and blocking the breeze. “We need to do something.”
“I know where to start,” I said.
Her eyes urged me on. “Well?”
“Cleve’s family. The Closses.”
PHILIPPA, OCTOBER 26, 1948
I was on the edge of the river, the brackish water slurring and shifting against the tree-lined horizon. Behind the trees, the sky deepened from pale purple to indigo to bruise gray. A storm was about to break. My feet were sinking into the muck—twin white slivers with toes wiggling, then just ankles, then knees—I was being swallowed up and couldn’t move. Twenty feet in front of me, I spotted debris of some sort, moving in and out of the choppy waves. I strained to make it out. A fish? A part of a boat? Garbage? Suddenly, I was near it, above it, floating, magically freed from the mud. Under the surface, a human form darted away like a skate or a ray. Was it Cleve? I followed him, worried I was getting too far out; the river was vast, oceanic. I caught another glimpse of it, him. It wasn’t Cleve, it was Jackie Peabody. As soon as I was close enough to glimpse it, it glided away again, a limp hand casting a spray as it sliced the water. I zipped after it, flying like a character from a comic book—or maybe I was on the bow of a boat? When I saw her, it was my mother—pale and lovely and smiling. I was close to her, leaning toward her, a glass-thin layer of water between us. I reached out for her. But the boat rocked (it was a boat!), and I lost my grip and tumbled in, headfirst.
I’ve never had a dream like that before. I was terrified when I woke up. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Jackie’s small, bare body, a pale fish slipping away under the surface of the Anacostia River. Like Cleve, she was unfathomable. For a long time, I just lay there, listening to the trees sway outside my window and the patter of rain against the glass. Then I got up to use the bathroom.
Dreams are like scattered jigsaw puzzles, pieces flung under tables, between cushions, and behind radiators. Maybe my mind was picking up pieces as I slept, trying to complete the picture. As I scribble this down, I no longer see Cleve or Jackie or even my mother submerged in the river, but instead, Miss Martins. The water is rushing over her, becoming foamy and opaque. Her face is slack, and her eyes mascara-streaked. She’s sinking away from me. I see the back of a man, her attacker, his naked rear end thrusting, his cologne singeing the air like mustard gas. Her hand is stretching out to me. Does she need my help? No, that’s not it, is it? She’s reaching out to me, her palm cupping the light. “Take my hand,” she seems to be saying, “and I’ll show you everything.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Philippa relished recording her dreams, as did Judy. In college, both of them—us, both of us—thumbed through Freud’s writings, but long before then, our gut told us that dreams were “the Royal Road to the unconscious.” Our own minds, especially the secret impulses we harbored there, were fascinating to us. Like the Romantics and teenagers everywhere, we were self-absorbed, endlessly entertained by our own enigmatic natures. Perhaps that’s why we tore through journal after journal, trying to get down every detail, impression, and opinion. We knew we could pick through them in retrospect. Unlike adult diarists who claim to be writing for themselves but in truth are writing for posterity, we were writing for our future selves, as if we knew this moment, the occasion (and necessity) of this book, would come.
We each had our own style: Philippa favored little hardbound books, with dainty string ties and floral print covers. She always wrote with smooth, thick black ink, her script tight and orderly, almost as if it were typeset, with the occasional smudge. On the other hand, Judy was drawn to large-format journals, like artist portfolios or sketchbooks, where she could scrawl her thoughts with whatever writing implement was within reach and paste in memorabilia, part record keeper and part art project.
Both of us saved and protected our journals compulsively: Philippa in a large tapestry suitcase under her bed. It’s now frayed and worn at the corners, the handle is broken, the locks rusted and warped. And Judy in a secondhand steamer trunk until a mouse clawed through the laminated paperboard exterior and ransacked it, making a cozy nest out of 1951–52. Now what’s left of both collections is organized and cataloged on a bookshelf in my office.
I’ve read them many times, even my own. I’ve taken reams of notes about 1948 and the years before and after. It was tedious reading. You have to slog through weeks and weeks of “Bonnie baked me a pineapple upside-down cake. I just HATE pineapples. She knows that!” Or “I wonder if B&E actually love each other—Oh God, imagine them having sex!” Or “Can’t sleep. The news about that woman cut in two by a psychotic killer in Los Angeles has me all nerves.” Or Mother Wore Tights is all technicolor fluff and… I really can’t tolerate musicals. The Lady from Shanghai is killer-diller, though.”
The daily record-keeping has its use: every flourish of the pen, every smear of ink, and every pencil scribble brings me closer to the past. After all, didn’t honest Abe say, “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.” These pages are our memories, shuffled together to make a whole—one story. Sure, I’ve excised the redundancies and dull bits. I’ve filled in the gaps here and there. But I’m aiming for the truth.
* * *
JUDY, OCTOBER 27, 1948
Mrs. Whitlow didn’t notice me as I peered in. The old snoot was typing at her big wooden desk, her fingers striking the keys fur
iously, and her eyeglasses perched on her nose. It was lunchtime, so no one was around. I signaled to Philippa. She hesitated, a worry line creasing her forehead. “Don’t chicken out,” I thought. “Come on, damn it!” Then she leapt into action, dashing into the room, clutching her chest, and gasping, “Mrs. Whitlow!” Pure melodrama.
“Yes, Philippa?” Her voice sugary, full of thinly veiled contempt.
“This girl, Ramona, tripped and hurt herself on the steps out front! She’s bleeding from the mouth and the ears!”
“Oh, dear!” Whitlow said, popping up from her desk, her chained reading glasses dropping from her nose.
Philippa was getting the job done, even if she was laying it on a bit thick. Whitlow careened across the room, half-drunk with panic. To me, she said, “Go find the nurse!” To Philippa: “Show me where Ramona is.”
As Philippa passed by me, I mouthed “ears?” to her.
She shrugged and followed Whitlow out, calling to her, “The front steps, Mrs. Whitlow! The front!”
To my right stood a large, three-tier file cabinet that must weigh as much as an army tank. With no time to waste, I slid Whitlow’s chair over to the cabinet and climbed on its seat, wobbling, tightening my abdomen to steady myself. I needed to see into the A–G drawer at the top. Using the excuse that we wanted to send condolence letters, we’d asked for the Closses’ home address. Principal Green told us that he wasn’t sharing it out of respect for their privacy, but he’d be happy to convey any notes to the family. Well, that wouldn’t work. We needed to know where the Closses lived. So, we concocted a plan. This “brilliant” plan.
I yanked on the drawer, and it slid out with a bang. I lost my balance, stabilizing myself by grabbing the top corner of the file cabinet, the sharp metal biting into my palm. I peered in and began searching the files: Cline, Cooper, Crane, Cromfield, Cross, but no Closs. I heard footfalls and voices in the hall and jumped down, forgetting to close the drawer. I fell to my knees behind Whitlow’s desk. My heart thumped against my rib cage. Someone was in the room: students murmuring something about whether or not the football players would get their uniforms in time for the game. I thought, “Go the hell away! Now!”
Luckily, they left as quickly as they had arrived. Making sure the coast was clear, I rose up. I stood on the chair and flipped through the files again. No Closs. Had the police already claimed it? Or maybe Principal Green had it in his office? I shut the drawer and dragged the chair back to Whitlow’s desk. I noticed a piece of paper scrolled in the typewriter, a condolence letter from Green to Mr. and Mrs. Howard Closs. She’d typed the address: 610 A Street SE! Not far from Philippa’s house.
Footfalls again.
I was on the other side of the room sitting calmly in the waiting area when Principal Green, who hadn’t heard about the mortally wounded, brain-bashed, blood-gushing Ramona Carmichael, appeared and said, “Hello, Miss Peabody. What can I do for you?”
PHILIPPA, OCTOBER 27, 1948
We’d been spotted.
Beyond the bright scarlet-leaved maple in the front garden, I detected a flash of white in the large bay window of the Closses’ three-story Victorian townhouse. I scanned the scraggly bushes clustered around the iron stairs leading up to the front door. To the right of the steps, jammed crookedly into the ground, was a grimy birdless birdbath. Nearby, a moss-eaten marble figurine of Pan as a boy puffed on his pipes, his horns snapped off, perhaps by a young Cleve.
I remember thinking: How are the grief-stricken Closses going to respond to a knock on their door from two “friends” of Cleve’s? I mean, who are we to them? And what are we really attempting to do here? Are we investigating Cleve’s murder? Or who attacked Miss Martins? Or both? Isn’t that pretty pushy of us? Or just foolish?
I paused on the sidewalk, registering my quickened breath and the thrum of my nerves. Judy seemed so cool, so confident. Her impatient glance was enough to unglue me. We trudged through a sea of red leaves and up the steps, the soles of our shoes clattering across the filigreed metal. Judy’s finger shot out, stopping just short of the doorbell. “Here we go,” she said. “Remember what we talked about. Keep to the plan.”
I nodded, and she pressed the doorbell. Behind the doors, from a far corner of the house, it chimed a hollow, mournful sound. I waited, still breathless and tense. Nothing. Judy glanced at me, scowled, and pressed it again. Again, that noise—like a gong at the bottom of a well. We could retreat to the street, to safety, I thought. It wasn’t too late. Then the bolt on the other side of the door slid back, and the thick door opened, scuffing against its frame.
Smiling grimly before us was a woman in her mid-sixties or so. She had a large, elegant bouffant that flared out from the sides of her head like a silvery crown. She wore a navy-blue cape trimmed with lustrous chinchilla fur. Costly, no doubt. She tilted toward us, insisting that we speak first.
“Are Mr. and Mrs. Closs in? We’re friends of Cleve’s,” I said, all jitters.
“And I thought the reporters had finally found us.” Her remark fell like a dead weight between us. “Your names?” she said with an impatient sigh. “Let’s begin there.” Her makeup was thick and expertly applied to smooth out any wrinkles. Her sculpted eyebrows arched over her moist protuberant eyes, giving her a look of constant surprise—or was it perpetual shock?
“Philippa Watson, and this is my friend—”
“Judy,” she said, thrusting her hand out like a dagger.
The woman winced. “I’m Moira, Cleveland’s grandmother.”
The article in the Post mentioned that she was rich and that her husband had built Capitol City Hardware from the ground up. It was the largest chain in the city, with a store in every major neighborhood. Cleve’s parents must have money too, although the size of the townhouse didn’t suggest significant wealth, not like Judy’s.
Moira held out her well-manicured hand to Judy. It bobbed between them like the head of a snake, her huge pear-cut diamond glittering like a spectral eye.
“We’d like to pay our respects,” Judy said in a muted tone, constructed, it seemed, to suggest deference, even pliability. She shook Moira’s hand. I did too, cautiously. My nerves were subsiding.
“That’s thoughtful, but it’s not a good time. His mother is—we all are—terribly upset,” she said, not seeming remotely upset.
“We’re torn up, too,” Judy said, using that voice again.
“Perhaps another time.” Moira began to close the door.
“Please,” Judy said, stepping forward. “We may know something about what happened to your grandson.” We didn’t know anything, or if we did, we didn’t know what we knew, but it was clear Judy was determined to get inside and meet Cleve’s parents. Moira squinted at us as if she couldn’t quite make us out, but her curiosity seemed piqued. “Very well,” she said. “Come in. But you’ll need to be brief. Elaine isn’t well, and my son isn’t here.”
Moira led us into the front parlor. The scarlet maple radiated through the bay windows, but the drab emerald-green wallpaper and the heavy velvet upholstery on the sofa and wingback chairs swallowed its brilliance, leaving the room filled with a dull pink haze. A vase of dingy silk flowers—red and white roses, and thin plumes of baby’s breath—like a remnant from a decades-old Valentine’s Day bouquet, moldered in the fireplace, a sad substitute for a fire. No light, not even the ornate Victorian chandelier, was on. The low murmur of classical music hissed from an art deco radio console in the corner. The unease that had lifted briefly wormed its way back into me.
“Have a seat,” Moira said, gesturing toward the sofa, over which hung a landscape of a vast plain with a dark river running through it. In the background, a wall of rain was consuming the low rolling hills. It looked like the moor in Wuthering Heights. I thought of Catherine’s ghost scraping at the window, and I shivered. We sat down, and Moira marched out of the room, her cape rippling.
Opposite us, a large oak grandfather clock with a tarnished moon dial and elaborate finials glowe
red. Its pendulum swung, glinting in the gloom of its casing. “Go away,” it seemed to whisper. “The Closses have suffered enough.” Its gears rotated, a creaky mechanical noise, and it chimed—a quarter till four.
I was aware of someone staring at us.
The silhouette of a woman lingered in the threshold of a second entrance into the room. Judy shifted beside me, and the sofa’s springs squeaked. Moira materialized behind the woman and, with assertive, carpet-ripping energy, swept the shadow toward us. “There, there, Elaine, no need to be skittish,” she said, her arm across her back, guiding her. “These children were friends of your son.” Moira smiled at us. “As you can imagine, this has been difficult for us, but especially for his mother. Why don’t you join her at the window? The light is better over there and, unlike the harsh electric lights, won’t agitate her. She gets furious migraines.” She released Cleve’s mother and waved her hand at the window seat, upholstered in dusty velvet. “I’ll gather some cookies and milk,” she said, stopping by the radio to switch it off. “Or would you prefer tea?”
“Milk is fine,” I said.
We positioned ourselves on the U-shaped window seat. Between Cleve’s mother and the two of us was a dainty, thin-legged tea table. In her mid-thirties—I’m guessing—Elaine might’ve struck me as an attractive woman, but her gaze was averted, focusing on her lap, and her tight, high-collared dress was propping her up like an exoskeleton. “You knew him?” she said, glancing up. Her eyes were damp and startlingly vibrant, the color of green jasper.
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