Blair smiled at Amanda’s husband. He was such a nice guy. ‘Done,’ said Blair.
There was the thunder of boys’ footsteps on the stairs and Malcolm came in, trailed by Zach. He suddenly seemed to have a sudden attack of shyness.
‘Hi Aunt Manda. Uncle Pete,’ he muttered.
‘You got everything you need?’ Blair asked him.
Malcolm seemed relieved to be answering a familiar question. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Ready to go.’
Blair felt a sudden, piercing affection for her nephew. ‘Come here,’ she said. ‘Give me a hug.’
Malcolm’s eyes widened in surprise, but he stepped close to where she was seated on Ellis’s chair and draped an arm around Blair’s neck.
‘Have fun today,’ Blair whispered.
‘Let me get a picture,’ said Amanda. ‘Smile, you two.’
Blair was about to protest, but Malcolm turned his head to look at Amanda’s phone and Blair followed suit. Amanda took a couple of shots. Blair noticed that Malcolm kept his arm around her neck for all of the photos. She felt self-conscious being photographed wearing a bathrobe, but she decided not to fuss. She didn’t have a recent picture of herself with Malcolm. What difference did it make what she was wearing?
‘Will you send those to my phone?’ she asked Amanda.
‘Sending them now,’ said Amanda.
Peter clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘You ready for some trail riding?’ he asked.
Malcolm nodded.
‘Good. Let’s get going then.’
‘Race ya,’ said Zach and headed for the door. Malcolm was hot on his heels.
Amanda and Blair got up and embraced awkwardly.
‘Thank you for this,’ said Blair.
Amanda smiled. ‘Now you can go back to bed and catch up on your sleep,’ she said.
‘Not me,’ Blair said. ‘Not today.’
‘What are you up to?’ Amanda asked pleasantly.
Blair hesitated. She did not want to go into it. She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, shivering in her bathrobe and slippers. Amanda and Peter followed her out. Blair inhaled deeply of the chilly, gray morning.
‘I have some errands,’ she said.
The newspaper lay on the front porch in a plastic bag. Blair bent down to pick it up and tucked it under her arm. Then she waved as Amanda and Peter descended the steps and climbed into their SUV. The two boys were already in the back seat, ready to go.
Blair kept waving. ‘Have fun,’ she called out.
As Amanda and Peter pulled out of the driveway, Blair removed the paper from its plastic bag and glanced at the front page. In the middle columns below the fold was Molly’s school picture: WHO KILLED MOLLY SINCLAIR? read the headline above Rebecca’s byline. Below Molly’s picture was another headline in smaller type: A deathbed confession to a sister throws doubt on the guilt of a local man. Has he spent fifteen years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit? Her own picture appeared just under that headline. It was a picture that had appeared in the local paper, sent by the University when she got her graduate degree.
Seeing her face on the front page was jarring. Wait a minute, Blair thought. Even though she knew Rebecca was a reporter and it would all end up in the paper, she felt somehow betrayed. Blindsided. It was too soon. They had too few facts. She pulled her robe more tightly around her and went back into the house to read the story. As she closed the door behind her, the phone started ringing off the hook.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello, am I speaking to Blair Butler?’
‘Yes,’ said Blair.
‘This is radio station WRYV news. Could you comment on the story in the Yorkville Gazette this morning …?’
‘No, I can’t,’ said Blair. ‘Not now.’
Startled by the call, she slammed the receiver back down on the hook and fished for her cell in her bathrobe pocket. She started to compose a text to Rebecca. Somehow it all seemed too speculative. Precipitous.
‘The front page? We need to talk,’ she wrote. ‘We need some ground rules, ASAP.’
The dismissive answer was back in seconds. ‘Meet later. Busy making those calls.’
Rebecca doesn’t feel a shred of guilt or regret, Blair thought. And why should she? Last night they had discussed the people they needed to talk to, to try and explain those missing minutes of Molly’s life. Rebecca was already working on it. She’s right, Blair thought. Why should Rebecca be apologetic? You couldn’t ask a newspaper reporter not to write a story. Ready or not, it was in the public domain now. Blair hurried up the stairs to get dressed. She had her own part to do in this investigation and now, with Malcolm safely in the hands of the Tuckers, she had the whole day to do it.
THIRTEEN
‘The foot of the driveway,’ Yusef Muhammed growled. ‘That’s where she told me to leave her.’
Blair glanced at him on the screen of her iPad and made a note in her notebook.
‘You didn’t offer her a ride to the door?’ Blair asked. ‘It was raining.’
‘She said she didn’t want one,’ he said. ‘Why you asking me this? Are you accusin’ me again?’
‘No,’ said Blair. ‘I just need an accurate picture of what happened that day. Timing seems to be crucial.’
Muhammed was silent.
‘You’ll hear from us soon,’ said Blair. ‘Really. Try to be patient.’
‘Awright,’ he muttered. ‘But hurry.’
Last night, she and Rebecca had tried to imagine the people who might have been at Molly’s house on a weekday afternoon. People who might have seen something or known something, even if they weren’t aware of it. At the top of her list was Muhammed, whom she had just contacted via Skype. Her next stop was the post office. When she arrived there, Blair asked to see the Postmaster, who turned out to be a squat, middle-aged woman named Rose. She had tightly curled brunette hair and was wearing a shirt which gaped between the buttons. Blair inquired about the mailman for the route which faced the woods. Rose was able to tell her that the mail carrier, who had been on that route fifteen years ago, was still on that same route.
‘Is he here?’ Blair asked eagerly. ‘Can I talk to him?’
‘No, he’s out on the route,’ said Rose. ‘He won’t be back in until around 2:30 or three.’
‘So you’re saying that he’s done with his route by three?’
‘Oh yeah. Except on rainy days,’ said Rose.
Blair’s heart leapt in her chest. ‘Is it later, on rainy days?’
‘No, earlier,’ said Rose. ‘Cause he doesn’t stop to chat with people.’
‘Oh,’ said Blair, ‘ok.’ Not him, then, she thought. ‘Well, I’ll keep an eye out for him.’
‘Salt and pepper hair. Has a limp,’ Rose offered. ‘His name’s Jim Fox.’
‘Thanks,’ said Blair. She got back into her car and drove the road which cut through the woods, to the Sinclair’s neighborhood. On one side of the Sinclair’s lot, overgrown with mature trees, was a large, landscaped lot with a well-tended lawn surrounding a sprawling, brick Colonial-style house set in the middle, like an island. She drove up the winding drive and parked behind a pristine Land Rover. Blair went up to the front door and knocked. As she waited, she looked over toward the next home up the street. It also was large and impressive. Prosperity had come to Yorkville since she was a kid. After a few minutes, the door was opened by a rumpled-looking man wearing an MIT sweatshirt.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked. He looked almost like a recent graduate.
‘I’m looking for the owner of this house,’ Blair said doubtfully.
‘I’m the owner,’ he said proudly. ‘My wife and I.’
A young girl of eight or nine, with gray eyes, blonde, wispy hair, and long legs, wiggled past the man in the doorway and leaned against him, staring out at Blair.
‘Who is this, Dad?’ she asked.
Blair smiled at her. ‘Well, my name is Blair Butler. I … have some questions about some
thing that happened at the house next door to this one some years ago.’
‘How long ago?’ asked the man abruptly.
‘Fifteen years ago,’ said Blair.
‘Can’t help you. We only bought the house five years ago.’
‘Do you know who lived here before you?’
‘I don’t,’ said the homeowner. ‘You can ask the realtor.’
‘Who did you use?’ Blair asked.
‘Cronin’s,’ he said. ‘On Main Street. They’re owned by Christie’s now.’
Blair nodded. ‘Oh, ok, I will. Thanks.’
As she turned to leave, the man said, ‘What happened?’
Blair turned and looked at him questioningly. ‘Excuse me?’
‘All those years ago. You said something happened?’ he asked.
Obviously he did not read the local paper or he would have read about his next door neighbors this very morning. Probably subscribed to the New York Times and steered clear of the locals. Blair looked at the small girl, her father’s hand protective on her shoulder. No need to give her nightmares.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It was a … property issue.’
The man shrugged and closed the door.
Blair got back in her car and drove out to the road. She passed the Sinclair house and kept driving. The next property was so heavily wooded that Blair nearly missed the driveway. At the last minute, she recognized it and she turned and pulled slowly in.
The driveway wound between the trees of the wooded property. There was a small, wooden shed on the left with a door standing open and what looked like bikes, rakes and a jumble of other equipment inside. The shed appeared to be the only building on the property. But as she went farther up the drive, the main house came into view. It was clapboard-sided Colonial which had seen better days. The Sinclair’s log cabin style house, was older, but not dilapidated. Robbie and Janet had maintained it scrupulously all these years. This house hadn’t been painted in decades. There were large patches of clapboard that were worn down to the primed wood, with sizable flakes of paint hanging off, or lying in the untended bushes which ringed the house. There was a twig wreath with pine cones hanging on the front door.
Blair parked and got out. She went up to the door and knocked. The lights were on inside, and she could hear a TV running. She waited patiently until she heard someone talking under their breath and fiddling with the doorknob.
The door opened and the woman standing there blinked at Blair over her half glasses. It was hard to tell her age. Probably late fifties, Blair thought. She was a trim woman and her chin-length hair was tinted an unnatural brunette color. She was wearing a cardigan, stretchy waist pants and furry slippers. Her complexion was sallow.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
‘Mrs Knoedler?’ asked Blair.
‘Yes,’ said the woman.
Blair introduced herself and explained her purpose.
‘Is this about that story in the morning paper? About the Sinclair’s daughter?’
‘It is,’ said Blair. ‘Mrs Knoedler, I—’
‘Carol,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’
The woman gestured for Blair to follow her back into the cheerful, cluttered kitchen. A newspaper on the table was opened to the crossword puzzle that was partly filled in. A TV was running in another room. A pale young man with a bony, sculpted face, wearing sweatpants and a faded T-shirt, was seated at the table, pensively smoking. He was barefoot and his feet looked grimy. Blair couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen someone smoking inside the house. The smoke in the air was suffocating.
‘Connor, can’t you go outside and smoke?’ asked Carol.
The young man smashed the butt into an overflowing ashtray on the kitchen table, which indicated to Blair that this was a regular habit of his.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
‘This woman is asking about Molly Sinclair’s murder,’ Carol said.
‘Why? That was years ago.’ Connor protested.
‘She just wants to talk to me,’ said Carol. ‘Now go turn that TV off in there if you’re not watching it.’
‘I’m watching it,’ he said, unfolding himself from the chair. Without a look back at either of them, he shuffled off in the direction of the TV noise.
The woman put a kettle on one of the stove burners. Through the kitchen windows, Blair could see nothing but trees. The Sinclairs’ log cabin style home was somewhere over in that direction, Blair thought, but not a board of it was visible.
‘I’d love to help you,’ said the woman, ‘but honestly I don’t remember much about that day. Fifteen years ago I had four kids under ten years old. I was running in four directions at once.’
‘I’m specifically interested in Molly walking up that driveway that day. I had hoped that you might be able to see the Sinclairs’ driveway from your house.’
Carol shook her head. ‘Oh no. This house is so secluded. All the trees. I always liked that feeling of being out in the woods. You could sometimes hear things.’ She frowned in thought, one hand on her hip. ‘I do remember that dog of theirs yapping. My son, Connor,’ she said, cocking her head to indicate the young man who had just left the room, ‘was always after me. “Can we have a dog? Please mom?” I’d hear that yapping and think, “That’s all I need. More commotion.”’
‘Do you remember Molly?’ Blair asked.
Carol turned around and leaned back against the countertop, one hand covering her lips. She shook her head. ‘Oh, sure. I mean, we knew our neighbors. We knew who they were. What a wonderful child she was. The parents never did get over it. I wouldn’t have either.’
For some reason, Blair felt the desire to confide in this woman.
‘She was my best friend,’ said Blair.
Carol shook her head and her face seemed to pucker with sadness. ‘Just terrible. Is it true now that they don’t think the right guy went to jail for it?’
‘Yes, it’s true,’ said Blair. ‘That’s why I’m here. We’re trying to determine what really happened.’
‘Well, she was killed in the woods down the street and on the other side, wasn’t she?’
‘That’s where they found her,’ Blair admitted. ‘But it turns out that she had a ride home that day. Something happened to her before she ever made it into the house.’
‘So how did she end up over in the woods?’
‘That’s what we need to know.’
‘Hmm,’ said Carol shaking her head. ‘I wish I could help you. It was a rainy day. I know that. I can remember the sirens, all the police cars. You could see their lights flashing through the trees, long into the night. But honestly, I don’t recall much else. On a rainy day, my kids would have been running around, tearing the place apart, like wild Indians.’
‘What about Mr Knoedler?’ asked Blair innocently. ‘Do you think your husband might remember something?’
‘Why are you asking about him?’ Carol asked defensively.
‘I’m curious about anyone who might have seen or heard something.’
‘No, he’d be no help to you.’
‘Are you sure? I mean, he may have …’
‘By that time of day he was already in his cups. He wouldn’t notice anything.’
There was a stirring at the back door as it opened and closed and a voice yelled out,
‘Ma. It’s me.’
‘We’re in the kitchen, honey,’ Carol called back.
A nice-looking girl in her late twenties, with long, brunette curls, a blue moto jacket and high boots over her jeans, came into the warmth of the kitchen and set a white paper bag with a Walgreen’s logo on the table. She looked familiar to Blair.
‘I stopped and got your shampoo,’ the girl said. She took off her jacket and hung it on a crowded clothes tree just outside the kitchen door.
‘Thank you, honey,’ said Carol. ‘This is …’ Carol Knoedler peered at Blair. ‘Tell me your name again.’
‘Blair Butler.’
‘Miss Butler.
Blair. Blair, this is my eldest daughter, Jenna. She works as an aide at the high school,’ Carol said proudly.
Jenna smiled and nodded. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘I feel like we’ve met before,’ said Blair.
‘How was the store?’ asked Carol.
‘It was easy. No line,’ said Jenna, glancing curiously at Blair.
‘She’s asking about your father,’ Carol said frowning.
‘My father? What about him?’ Jenna’s face was instantly stormy.
In that moment, Blair remembered where she had seen this girl. She had come to the bar, to drive home her inebriated father; the abusive guy with the beard.
‘I’m not actually here about your father,’ said Blair. ‘I’m here because of Molly Sinclair. She was one of my best friends. It’s beginning to look like the wrong man went to jail for her murder.’
‘What’s that got to do with my father?’ asked Jenna defensively.
‘Nothing that I know of,’ said Blair. ‘I’m just trying to piece together what happened on the day Molly was killed.’
‘My father was probably at work,’ said Jenna.
Carol Knoedler snorted, as if that was a laughable idea.
‘Well,’ said Blair to the girl. ‘Is there anything you remember?’
Jenna shrugged. ‘I remember when we heard all the sirens, of course.’
‘Your brothers all wanted to go over there,’ Carol said, ‘but I told them to stay put. The police didn’t need them underfoot. They sneaked out anyway. Boys aren’t capable of resisting the police sirens and the lights.’
Jenna nodded, as she went to the refrigerator, opened the door and pulled out a bottle of apple juice.
‘We all wanted to know what happened.’
‘Were you friends with Molly?’ Blair asked.
Jenna shrugged. ‘She was a few years older than me. At that age, a few years are a big gap. Besides, I wasn’t looking for playmates. I had my brothers and my sister to play with.’
‘Do you remember anything about that day? The day Molly was … killed. Anything before the police showed up?’ Blair asked, without a lot of hope.
Jenna grimaced as she twisted off the lid of the apple juice bottle. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I do remember something.’
The Girl in the Woods Page 11
