T.J., inside, jumps.
“Sorry to startle you,” says Judy.
“You didn’t,” says T.J.
“Have a minute?”
“For you?” says T.J. “Sure.” She smiles, and Judy is momentarily disarmed. Then she gathers herself, and walks over the threshold of the room.
“What’s going on?” says T.J.
“How come you didn’t tell me your father was alive?” says Judy.
“Didn’t I?”
“No. You talked about him as if he was dead.”
T.J. sits down on the edge of her small bed. “Well,” she says, “I guess that’s what it feels like. He’s not himself these days.”
Judy nods. Remains standing. “Where is he now?” she says.
“With family.”
“With family.”
T.J. nods.
“Why?”
“You needed to use our house as your headquarters,” says T.J. “I didn’t have a better place for him to go. He needs to be looked after, all the time.”
Judy glances back into the hallway. “Lotta empty rooms in this building,” she says, but T.J. is shaking her head.
“You don’t understand,” she says. “He’s not familiar with this place. He’d wander off. He needs to be—watched.”
T.J. looks out the window.
“What family is he staying with?”
“What? Oh,” says T.J. “With his brother.”
“His brother?”
“Yes,” says T.J.
For a moment, silence. Then Judy takes out her card. Hands it over.
“Miss Hewitt—T.J.,” she says. “I don’t know why, but I have the feeling that you’re not telling me the whole truth. If you want to, you can call me anytime.”
Judyta
1950s | 1961 | Winter 1973 | June 1975 | July 1975 | August 1975: Night Five
Judy can’t sleep. She lies in her room at the inn, turning one way and then the other. She turns on the television, and then she turns it off. She ruminates on the facts of the day: Vic Hewitt. T.J. Hewitt. The results from the analysis of the blood on the uniform in McLellan’s car: Type A positive. A match for Barbara Van Laar, though not definitive proof.
An hour goes by. Another.
It takes her until midnight to realize she never had dinner.
Defeated, she rises from her bed, pulls a wrinkled suit back on, and extracts several quarters from her wallet. Then walks under the portico toward the main building of the inn, where she’ll get something from the vending machines.
• • •
The front door is unlocked, but the desk is empty. Under the fluorescent lights of the lobby, Judy inspects her choices. She’ll get a Milky Way bar, she decides—her mother’s favorite. But when she makes her selection, the bar gets stuck against the glass on its way down.
Judy curses. Kicks the machine once, twice.
Three times.
With her hand, she pounds on the glass.
“Miss?” someone says, and Judy spins, panting.
It’s Bob Alcott—the owner of the inn.
“I’m sorry,” says Judy, twice. “Did I wake you?”
“No, no,” says Mr. Alcott. “I was up anyway.” He’s fumbling for something in his pocket, and she sees that it’s a set of keys. He takes the smallest one out, inserts it into the vending machine, and opens the door.
