And then she stands. She walks across the room, kneels down next to her brown boots, begins lacing them.
“T.J.,” says Judy.
“I’m not dumb,” says T.J. “I know what it means when someone’s got a theory they’re working, no matter how wrong they are. And I also know I have no legal obligation to stay here and talk to you. So come back to me when you’ve got a warrant for my arrest.”
She stands up and walks out of the room.
Judy, increasingly desperate, stands too, and calls after her down the empty hallway.
“What’s your theory?” asks Judy. “Do you have a theory about where Barbara went?”
T.J. stops. Puts her hands on her hips. Turns, reluctantly.
“Can I tell you something?” she says. “Woman to woman? Something you’ll keep out of that notebook?”
Judy lowers it to her side.
“John Paul McLellan is your man,” says T.J. “I can’t tell you how I know that. But I do.”
Jacob
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day Three
Overnight, he’d retraced his steps along the river, walking downstream this time. Toward dawn, it had begun to rain.
Normally he slept outdoors in daytime, but today he wanted the comfort of a home, a bed, a meal under a roof. And so at some point he found a promising house, apparently empty, and went into it.
He’d gone to the pantry first. Found it disappointingly empty, but for a large container of Quaker Oats that he cooked into a porridge on the electric stove.
Next he went into all of the bedroom closets. This, in his experience, was where people tended to keep their arms and ammunition, tucked on high shelves in bedroom closets, out of reach of children. And there they were: two double-barrel shotguns, three boxes of shells.
Too bad, thought Jacob. He would have preferred a pistol; the shotgun would be hard to carry. But it came with an ammo sling, which he loaded with the shells. Loaded a gun up, too.
• • •
It’s four in the afternoon, now, and he’s slept all day. He rises from the bed, loaded shotgun in his hands. And suddenly he hears the creak of a floorboard.
He stills.
As quietly as he can, he moves to the far side of the bed and gets down behind it. From there, he points the shotgun at the bedroom door.
He’s familiar with this position. It reminds him of hunting as a child.
The door swings open. Unswervingly, he fires—but no one has been hit. No one, apparently, ever intended to walk through the threshold of the bedroom.
Was it a trap? Jacob can’t be sure.
And then, from behind him, a voice says, “Don’t move.”
He freezes.
Through the open window by his head, a police weapon is pointing in his direction.
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Day Three
She walks up the hill, her head filled with new information from T.J. to pass on to Denny Hayes.
Good notes, she thinks, were all he asked for—and she has none.
So she goes around to the lake side of the house, ready to find herself an Adirondack chair, to sit down and write everything T.J. said before it leaves her mind.
• • •
She is disappointed, when she arrives, to find that one chair is already occupied.
From behind, the woman in it looks unfamiliar. But she turns, and Judy recognizes her suddenly: it’s Mrs. Van Laar Sr. Barbara’s grandmother. The wife of the man who had spoken to her so dismissively during her first hour on this job—the man who has, as of this morning, become one of their top suspects.
“Sit down,” says Mrs. Van Laar. “Don’t let me stop you.”
Judy complies. She bends her head to her notebook, feigning work. But in her mind, she formulates question after question—anything that might illuminate some aspect of this woman’s husband.
Mrs. Van Laar speaks before she can.
“Beautiful view,” says Mrs. Van Laar.
“It is,” says Judy.
