“Isla—”
I opened it and snow slipped down into the Jeep and onto my coat. “My art final.”
“I don’t—”
“My teacher submitted it to regionals. There’s a gallery show coming up. We should all go.” I sounded like a stranger.
He nodded slowly and then got out.
A few weeks later, I attended the gallery showing with Mom and Moni. I never mentioned it to Marlow or brought it up again to Sawyer. We drove down together to the Minneapolis Convention Center, Moni already proud, holding my hand in the car.
The three of us stood in front of my piece, a framed matte board with two black-and-white photos placed at different angles. The first: one of the earliest pictures Dad took of Marlow. She was six, with that empty look on her face she wore, standing on a stool in the bathroom, looking over her shoulder. A toothbrush was clutched in one hand. The other: the one I took of her the previous fall, with her hand spread over her face. The curve of her cheekbones looked as though they were carved out, her eyes light and engrossed.
You couldn’t take your eyes off her.
Each second came something new that you hadn’t noticed before. A pang inside you that someone could really have this much control over your very eyes. She was art that didn’t exist yet. A medium all her own.
Between the two photos, I had inserted a clipping of an old newspaper article about her from 1995, a tiny blip in the paper about the girl found in the woods. A few lines of red paint crisscrossed the article.
When we were finished looking at my piece, Mom and Moni floated to other displays. I stayed near mine, as if it needed to be watched over.
A bald man in a formfitting charcoal sweater stopped in front of Marlow’s picture. He bent forward, his nose almost touching the black matte board. He didn’t move, with the exception of his hand rubbing the base of his neck, as if to soothe himself from his visceral reaction.
I could see the whites of his eyes, glistening. Wet.
CHAPTER 29
THE INTERVIEW
2021
[Studio]
MARLOW FIN: Kill.
JODI LEE: Yes?
MARLOW FIN: Kill. That is a very, very strong word.
JODI LEE: Perhaps I should rephrase my question, then. Did you have anything to do with the murder of your sister, Isla?
MARLOW FIN: We don’t know what happened to Isla. Whether she is alive or dead. Whether she was killed or if there was an accident. All we know is she is gone.
JODI LEE: Have you seen your sister since the night of September 7, 2020?
MARLOW FIN: No, I have not.
JODI LEE: What do you think happened to her?
[Roll package, footage of police at crime scene]
JODI LEE: It was a year ago Labor Day weekend that Marlow’s sister was last seen by anyone. On the morning of September 8, 2020, police arrived after receiving a 911 call from Marlow. Her haunting words have been played over and over again by the media:
I found blood . . . in the shed. Please send help.
Two Cook County police officers were dispatched to the family’s lakeside home near Grand Marais. Marlow was found almost immediately. But there was something off.
[Secondary Studio, interview with Officer Randall Bittner]
JODI LEE: You were the first one to arrive at the scene?
OFFICER BITTNER: Yes, ma’am. I was followed closely by another officer and then Sheriff Vandenberg.
JODI LEE: Did you know of any preexisting history between the Baek family and Sheriff Vandenberg?
OFFICER BITTNER: It was pretty much known around our force that he was there when Marlow Fin was found all those years ago in the woods. Especially when she became a celebrity.
JODI LEE: Did you notice his reaction when he arrived?
OFFICER BITTNER: Stunned. He didn’t really know what to say when we found her.
JODI LEE: You found Marlow first, correct?
OFFICER BITTNER: Correct.
JODI LEE: Can you tell me what you saw?
OFFICER BITTNER: Ms. Fin was crouched over by the edge of the lake near the shed. She didn’t say anything to me even though I called out to her several times before approaching. By the time I reached her, she abruptly stood up.
