“What’s his name?” asks Judy.
“Was,” says Mrs. Clute. “He’s dead.”
“What was his name?”
“Stoddard,” says Mrs. Clute. “Same as mine.”
Judy’s mind works. It’s a name she knows from the bankers box she went through earlier this morning. “Carl Stoddard was your—”
“Father.”
Judy writes in her notepad. Truthfully, she doesn’t know what words she’s forming there—but she needs time to formulate her next question carefully. To avoid frightening her off.
“Clute’s your married name?” she says.
The woman nods impatiently. She’s looking back at the house now, growing nervous, waiting to be noticed.
“Do they know you’re a Stoddard?” Judy asks.
“God, no,” says Mrs. Clute.
“Why did you take this job?”
She shifts. “Desperation,” she said. “Mouths to feed. You heard the shirt factory closed.”
Judy hadn’t. She doesn’t know what shirt factory Mrs. Clute is talking about. Still, she nods.
“Well, there’s no other work in Shattuck. It was this or move,” says Mrs. Clute. “And where would we go?”
“Does the rest of your family know? The Stoddards, I mean.”
Mrs. Clute nods.
“My sisters understand,” she says. “But my mother isn’t speaking to me. Said the whole family was rotten. That I’d regret it.” Mrs. Clute looks out at the lake. “Turns out she was right.”
“Mrs. Clute,” says Judy. “Do you have any idea where Barbara Van Laar has gone?”
This, the woman answers quickly. “No idea,” she says. “Truly. But I bet you her family does.”
Again, that sensation—instinct, thinks Judy.
“Why?”
“I’m speaking out of turn here,” says Mrs. Clute, “but when Bear Van Laar went missing, the family bungled the whole search from start to finish. First thing was they didn’t call searchers in until hours after the boy first disappeared. By then there were footprints all over the place, and it had rained, and any hope of tracking him was lost. For the hounds, too, it made the work more difficult.”
She holds out the thumb of her right hand, as if preparing to tally all the ways the family had erred.
“Next,” she says, “they let us Shattuckers help, but after a week they sent us off. Flew in a team of searchers from the Sierra Madres, instead. Chartered a private plane and everything. Paid them handsomely, from what I heard.”
“Did they pay the local searchers, too?”
Mrs. Clute scoffs. “Hardly,” she says. “They were treated as if they worked for the family already. Even those that didn’t, those that missed their jobs to help. And the irony is, those searchers from California had no idea what they were doing. They’d never seen terrain like ours before. Never seen underbrush so thick. They turned tail and left without finding a single trace of the boy.”
She smiles, almost in triumph, and then becomes aware of herself.
“Now listen,” says Mrs. Clute. “I feel terrible for the family. If they’re innocent—which they very well might be—it’s an honest sin, what they went through. But what I’ll never forgive them for is not clearing my father’s name. After he died, they just let it be—presumed that he was the one who killed Bear. And that they’d most likely not find the boy, because you can’t ask questions of a dead man.”
She glances over each shoulder, and then continues. “I’ve seen someone on the grounds who was here before, when Bear went missing. LaRochelle’s his name. I remember him from when they were making the case against my father. He’s a liar. I wouldn’t trust him, if I were you.”
Judy keeps her head very still. To nod, even slightly, seems incorrect. But she understands what the woman is saying.
Mrs. Clute says, “Do you have children?”
“I don’t.”
“All right. Well, if you ever do, remember this conversation,” says Mrs. Clute. “Remember my words. And ask yourself—would you stop searching as early as they did?”
Judy looks down, embarrassed suddenly by the depth of emotion in Mrs. Clute’s gaze.
“Would you ever?” she says, once more.
Both are silent for a pause.
“I’ll have to go back inside now,” says Mrs. Clute. “Lots to do.”
Judy nods. “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? Anything else I should know?”
Mrs. Clute thinks. “Only thing I can think of is no one in that family likes that little girl. Barbara. Neglect, is what I’d call it. Before she went down to the summer camp, she used to wander into the kitchen for something to eat. Lost-looking, in her own house. I’d feed her whenever I could. Her mother didn’t like it. Used to tell me to stop giving her food. I’d nod and pretend to be listening, but I always liked her visits. Barbara’s an odd girl, dresses strangely, but she’s the only one here who took the time to learn my name. She’s a good soul, is what I think.”
