Holly

July 24, 2021

Both parking lots of the Kanonsionni Campground, the one for cars and the one for campers and RVs, are full, pandemic be damned. The campground itself looks jammed. Holly drives a quarter of a mile further up Old Route 17 and parks on the shoulder. She calls Lakeisha Stone, who says she’ll be waiting on the shady side of the campground store. Holly says she’s up the road a little way, give her five or ten minutes.

“I’m sorry about the parking,” Lakeisha says. “I think half the cars in the lot are ours. We’ve got a gang this year. Most of us work at the college, or went there.”

“I don’t mind,” Holly says. “I can use the walk.” This is true. She can’t seem to get the smell of her mother’s potpourri out of her nose… or maybe it’s her mind she can’t get it out of. She hopes the fresh air will flush it away. And maybe it will flush away nasty emotions she doesn’t want to admit to.

She keeps thinking about the first months after Bill died. What remained of her trust fund went into Finders Keepers over her mother’s howls of protest. She remembers praying for clients. She remembers shuffling bills like a blackjack player on speed, paying what had to be paid, putting off what could be put off even when the bills came with FINAL NOTICE stamped on them in red. Meanwhile, her mother bought jewelry.

Holly realizes she’s walking so fast that she’s almost jogging and makes herself stop. Just ahead looms the campground’s sign, a grinning Native American chief in a gaudy red, white, and blue headdress holding out what’s probably supposed to be a peace pipe. Holly wonders if the people who put it up realize how absurdly racist that is. Surely not. They probably think old Chief Smoke-Um Peace Pipe is a way to honor the Native Americans who once lived on Lake Upsala and who now live on a reservation miles from where they once hunted and fi—

“Quit it,” she whispers. She takes a moment to close her eyes and mutter a prayer. It’s the one most commonly associated with recovering alcoholics, but it’s good for lots of other things and lots of people. Including her.

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

Her mother is dead. The terrible days of looming insolvency are past. Finders Keepers is a paying concern. The present is for finding out what happened to Bonnie Rae Dahl.

Holly opens her eyes and starts walking again. She’s almost there.

Thanks to her work indexing those doorstop histories, Holly knows that Kanonsionni means “longhouse” in the old Iroquois tongue, and there is indeed a longhouse in the center of the campground. Half of it is a store and half of it seems to be for group gatherings. Right now the latter part is full of boys and girls singing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” while the choir director (if that’s what he is) chords along on an electric guitar. It’s not Joan Baez, but their voices rising on the afternoon air are plenty sweet. A softball game is going on. A gang of men is throwing horseshoes; a clang shivers the hot summer air and one of them shouts, “A leaner, by God!” The lake is full of swimmers and splashers. People stream in and out of the store, munching munchies and drinking sodas. Many are wearing campground souvenir tee-shirts with Big Chief Smoke-Um Peace Pipe on the front. There are few masks in evidence. Although Holly is wearing hers, she feels a burst of happiness at the sight of all this exuberant, barefaced activity. America is coming back, Covid-ready or not. That worries her, but it also gives her Holly hope.

She walks around to the shady side of the longhouse and there’s Lakeisha Stone, sitting on the bench of a picnic table whose surface is covered with incised initials. She’s wearing a light green coverup over a dark green bikini. Holly thinks she’s Bonnie’s age, give or take a year, and she looks absolutely smashing—young and vital and sexy. Holly supposes Bonnie looked the same. It would be nice to believe she still does.

“Hello,” she says. “You’re Lakeisha, aren’t you? I’m Holly Gibney.”

“Keisha, please,” the young woman says. “I bought you a Snapple. It’s the kind with sugar. I hope that’s okay.”

“Wonderful,” Holly says. “That was very thoughtful.” She takes it, screws off the cap, and sits down beside Keisha. “May I be snoopy and ask if you’re vaccinated?”

“Double. Pfizer.”

“Moderna,” Holly says. It’s the new meet-and-greet. She takes off her mask and holds it in her hand for a moment. “I feel silly wearing it out here, but I had a death in the family recently. It was Covid.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear. Someone close?”

“My mother,” Holly says, and thinks, Who bought jewelry she didn’t wear.

“That’s awful. Was she vaxxed?”

“She didn’t believe in it.”

“Girl, that’s harsh. How are you doing with it?”

“As they always say on the TV shows, it’s complicated.” Holly stuffs her mask in her pocket. “Mostly I’m concentrating on the job, which is finding Bonnie Dahl, or finding out what happened to her. I won’t keep you from your friends for long.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re all playing softball or swimming. I’m a lousy baller and I’ve spent most of the day in the lake. Take all the time you want.” There’s an outbreak of cheering at the softball game. Keisha looks over. Someone waves at her. She waves back, then turns to Holly. “A bunch of us have gotten together here for the last three years and I was really looking forward to it. Since Bonnie disappeared…” She shrugs. “Not so much.”

“Do you really think she’s dead?”

Keisha sighs and looks at the water. When she looks back, her brown eyes—beautiful eyes—are filled with tears. “What else could it be? It’s like she dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve called everyone I can think of, all our friends, and of course her mother called me. Nothing. She’s my best friend, and not a word?”

“The police have her down as a missing person.” Of course that’s not what Izzy Jaynes thinks. Or Pete Huntley.

“Of course they do,” Keisha says, and takes a drink from her own bottle of Snapple. “You know about Maleek Dutton, right?”

Holly nods.

“That’s a perfect example of how five-O operates in this town. Kid got killed for a busted taillight. You’d expect them to take a little more interest in a white girl, but no.”

That’s a minefield Holly doesn’t want to walk into. “May I record our talk?” Never call it an interview, Bill Hodges said. Cops do interviews. We just talk.

“Sure, but there’s not much I can tell you. She’s gone and it’s wrong. That’s the extent of what I know.”

Holly thinks Keisha knows more, and although she doesn’t expect any great breakthrough here, she has that Holly hope. And curiosity. She sets her phone on the scarred table and pushes record.

“I’m working for Bonnie’s mother, and I’m curious as to how they got along.”

Keisha starts to reply, then stops herself.

“Nothing you say will go back to Penny. You have my word on that. I’m just crossing t’s and dotting i’s.”

“Okay.” Keisha gazes down toward the lake, frowning, then sighs and looks back at Holly. “They didn’t get along, mostly because Penny was always looking over Bonnie’s shoulder, if you know what I mean.”

Holly knows, all right.

“Nothing Bonnie did was quite right with her mom. Bon said she hated to drive her mother anywhere because Penny would always tell her she knew a shorter way, or one with less traffic. She’d always be telling Bonnie to get over, get over, you want the lefthand lane. You feel me?”

“Yes.”

“Also, Bonnie said, Penny’d always be pumping the invisible brake on the passenger side or stiffening up if she felt like Bon was getting too close to the car in front of her. Irritating as hell. One time Bonnie got a red streak in her hair, very cute… at least I thought so… but her mother said it made her look slutty. And if she’d ever gotten a tattoo, like she talked about…”

Keisha rolls her eyes. Holly laughs. She can’t help it.

“They fought about her job at the library all the time. Penny wanted her to work at the bank where she worked. She said the pay and the benefits would be much better, and except for in-person meetings she wouldn’t have to wear a mask seven hours a day. But Bonnie liked working at the libe, and like I said, we have a good gang. Everybody friends. Except for Matt Conroy, that is. He’s the head librarian, and kind of a pill.”

“Grabby?” Holly’s thinking of something she’s heard from one of the other librarians, neither of whom are here today. “Touchie-feelie?”

“Yeah, but he’s actually been a little better this year, maybe because of that assistant prof in the Sociology Department. You probably didn’t hear about that, the administration kept it pretty quiet, but we hear everything in the library. It’s gossip central. This guy grabbed some grad student’s ass, there was a witness, and the prof got fired. That’s around the time Matt started to behave.” She pauses. “Although he never misses an opportunity to peek up a girl’s skirt. Not unusual, except he’s pretty fucking blatant about it.”

“Could you see him having anything to do with Bonnie’s disappearance?”

Keisha gives a delighted laugh. “Lord, no. He’s what my mama calls a stuffed string. Bonnie outweighs him by at least thirty pounds. If Matt grabbed her ass, she’d flip him over her shoulder or hip him into the wall.”

“She knows judo, or some other martial art?”

“No, nothing so serious, but she took a self-defense class. I took it with her. That was something else her mother bitched about. Called it a needless expense. Bon just couldn’t do anything right in her mother’s eyes. And when it came to Mrs. D. wanting her to work at her bank, they had a couple of real screamers.”

“No love lost.”

Keisha considers this. “You could say that, sure, but there was plenty of love left. Do you get that?”

Holly thinks of the dog-eared poetry notebooks in the drawer of her mother’s night table and says she does.

“Keisha, would Bonnie have left town to get away from her mother? All that constant carping and complaining, those arguments?”

“There was a woman police who asked me that same question,” Keisha said. “Didn’t come see me, just called on the phone. Two or three questions and then it was thanks, Ms. Stone, you’ve been a great help. Typical. The answer to your question is not a chance. If I gave you the idea that Bon and Mrs. D. were at each other’s throats, I didn’t mean to. There was arguing and sometimes yelling but no physical stuff, and they always made up. So far as I know, at least. What went on between them was more like a stone you can’t get out of your shoe.”

Holly is struck by this, wondering if that was what Charlotte was to her: a stone in her shoe. She thinks of Daniel Hailey, a thief who never was, and decides it was quite a bit more.

“Ms. Gibney? Holly? Are you still there, or are you gathering wool?” Keisha is smiling.

“I guess I was. Did she have a cash reserve that you know of? I ask because there’s been no action on her credit card.”

“Bonnie? No. What she didn’t spend went into the bank, and I think maybe she had a few investments. She liked the stock market, but she was no plunger.”

“She didn’t have any clothes at your place? Ones that are now gone?”

Keisha’s eyes narrow. “What exactly are you asking?”

Holly is a shy person as a rule, but that changes when she’s chasing a case. “I’ll be blunt. I’m asking if you’re covering for her. You’re her best friend, I can tell you’re loyal to her, and I think you’d do it if she asked.”

“Kind of resent that,” Keisha says.

Holly, who has gotten hesitant of touching since Covid, puts a hand on the young woman’s arm without even thinking about it. “Sometimes my job means asking unpleasant questions. Penny and Bonnie may not have had an ideal relationship, but the woman is paying me to find her because she’s half out of her mind.”

“All right, I hear you. No, Bon didn’t keep any clothes at my place. No, she didn’t have a secret cash stash. No, Matt Conroy didn’t grab her. He also asked around—college employment office, campus security, a few library regulars. Did his due diligence, I’ll give him that. The note she supposedly left? It’s bullshit. And leave her bike? She loved that bike. Saved for it. I’m telling you someone stalked her, grabbed her, raped her, killed her. My sweet Bonnie.”

This time the tears fall and she lowers her head.

“What about the boyfriend? Tom Higgins. Know anything about him?”

Keisha utters a harsh laugh and looks up. “Ex-boyfriend. Wimp. Loser. Stoner. Bonnie’s mother was right about him, at least. Definitely not the kidnapping type. No idea what Bon saw in him to begin with.” Then she echoes Penny: “The sex must have been great.”

Holly is back on someone stalked her. That seems more and more likely, which would mean it wasn’t an impulse crime. Ergo, Holly needs to look at the Jet Mart footage again, very carefully. But it ought to wait until tomorrow, when her eyes and mind are fresh. This has been a long day.

“Have you been a private detective for long?”

“A few years,” Holly says.

“Is it interesting?”

“I think so, yes. Of course there are dull stretches.”

“Is it ever dangerous?”

Holly thinks of a certain cave in Texas. And of a thing that pretended to be a man falling down an elevator shaft with a diminishing scream. “Not often.”

“It’s interesting to me, you being a woman and all. How did you get into it? Were you on the cops? You don’t seem like the cop type, is all.”

Another clang from the horseshoe pit followed by yells of delight. The kids in the meeting hall are now singing “Tonight,” from West Side Story. Their young voices soar.

“I was never a cop,” Holly says. “As to how I got into the business… that’s complicated, too.”

“Well, I hope you succeed on this. I love Bonnie like a sister, and I hope you find out what happened to her. But I can’t help feeling bitter. Bonnie’s got a well-off mama with a cushy bank job. She can afford to pay you. It’s wrong to feel that way, I know it is, but I can’t help it.”

Holly could tell Keisha that Penny Dahl probably isn’t well-off, she’s been furloughed from her job thanks to Covid, and while she may still be getting a check from NorBank, no way can it be her full salary. She could say those things but doesn’t. Instead she does what she does best: keeps her eyes on Keisha’s face. Those eyes say tell me more. Keisha does, and in her distress, or anger, or both, she loses some of her careful I’m-talking-to-a-white-lady diction. Not much, just a little.

“What do you think Maleek Dutton’s mama has? She works in the Adams Laundry downtown. Husband left her. She got twin girls about to go into middle school and they’ll need clothes. School supplies, too. Her oldest has a job at Midas Muffler and helps what he can. Then she loses Maleek. Shot in the head, brains all over his bag lunch. And you know that saying about how a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, if the prosecutor asked them nice? They didn’t indict the cop that shot Maleek, did they? I guess he was just peanut butter and jelly.”

No, but he did lose his job. Holly doesn’t say that, either, because it wouldn’t be enough for Lakeisha Stone. Nor enough for Holly herself. And to Isabelle Jaynes’s credit, it wasn’t enough for her. As for the cop? Probably working a security gig, or maybe he caught on at the state prison, guarding the cells instead of inhabiting one.

Keisha makes a fist and bangs it softly on the scarred surface of the picnic table. “No civil suit, either. No money for one. Black News got up a fund, but it won’t be enough to hire a good lawyer. Old story.”

“Too old,” Holly murmurs.

Keisha shakes her head, as if to clear it. “As for finding Bonnie, go with God’s love and my good wishes. I mean that with all my heart. Find whoever did it, and… do you carry a gun, Holly?”

“Sometimes. When I have to.” It’s Bill’s gun. “Not today.”

“Well if you find him, put a bullet in him. Put it right in his motherfucking ballsack, pardon my French. As for Maleek? Nobody’s looking for his justice. And nobody’s looking for Ellen Craslow, either. Why would they? Just Black folks, you know.”

Holly is thrown back to the Dairy Whip parking lot, talking to those boys. The leader, Tommy Edison, was redhaired and as white as vanilla ice cream, but what he said then and what Keisha said just now are voices in two-part harmony.

You want to know whose mother is worried? Stinky’s. She’s half-crazy and the cops don’t do anything because she’s a juicer.

She thinks of Bill Hodges, sitting with her one day on the steps of his little house. Bill saying Sometimes the universe throws you a rope. If it does, climb it. See what’s at the top.

“Who’s Ellen Craslow, Keisha?”

Holly lights a cigarette as soon as she gets back to her car. She takes a drag (the first one is always the best one), blows smoke out the open window, and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She fast-forwards to the last part of her conversation with Keisha, the Ellen Craslow part, and listens to it twice. Maybe Jerome was right about it being a serial. No jumping to conclusions, but there is a pattern of sorts. It just isn’t sex or age or color. It’s location. Deerfield Park, Bell College, maybe both.

Ellen Craslow was a janitor, swapping her time between the Life Sciences building and the Bell College restaurant and rathskeller. The Belfry is in the Memorial Union, a central spot where students tend to get together when they’re not in class. Keisha’s library gang gathers there for their coffee breaks, lunch hours, and often for beers when the day’s work is done. It makes sense, because the Reynolds Library is nearby, making it a quick walk on those winter days when the snow and wind come howling off the lake.

According to Keisha, Ellen was bright, personable, probably a lesbian, although not one with a partner, at least currently. Keisha said she once asked if Ellen had thought about taking classes, and Ellen said she had no interest.

“She said life was her classroom,” Keisha says from Holly’s phone. “I remember that. She said it like she was joking, but also not. Do you know what I mean?”

Holly said she did.

“She was happy with her little trailer in a trailer park on the edge of Lowtown, said it was just fine for her, and she was happy with her job. She said she had everything a girl from Bibb County, Georgia, could want.”

Keisha got used to seeing Ellen sweeping in the Belfry or buffing floors in the lobby of Davison Auditorium, or up on a ladder, changing bulbs, or in the women’s bathroom, filling the paper towel dispensers or scrubbing graffiti off the stalls. If she was alone, Keisha said, she always stopped to talk to Ellen, and if all of them—the library crew—were together, they always made room for her in their conversation if she wasn’t working in Life Sciences or too busy. Not that Ellen would sit with them, but she was happy to join them for a little talk, or maybe a quick cup of coffee, which she would drink on her feet, standing hipshot. Keisha remembered once they were arguing about No Exit, which the theater club was putting on in the Davison, and Ellen said in an exaggerated Georgia accent, “Ah dig that existential shit. It be life as we know it, my homies.”

“How old was she?” Holly asks from her phone.

“Maybe… thirty? Twenty-eight? Older than most of us, but not a lot older. She fit right in.”

Then one day she wasn’t there. After a week, Keisha thought Ellen must be on vacation. “I never thought about her that much, though.” Her recorded voice sounds embarrassed. “She was on my radar, but out toward the edge of the screen, if you know what I mean.”

“Not a friend, just an acquaintance.”

“That’s right.” Sounding relieved.

After a month or so Keisha asked Freddy Warren, the Union’s head janitor, if Ellen had been switched to Life Sciences full-time. Warren said no, one day she just didn’t show up. Or the next. Or at all. One lunch hour, Keisha and Edie Brookings dropped into the college’s employment office to find out if they knew where Ellen had gone. They didn’t. The woman they spoke to said that if Ellen got in touch with Keisha to get an address. Because Ellen had never picked up her last check.

“Did you follow up? Maybe check her residence?”

A long, long pause. Then Keisha said, low: “No. I guess I assumed she just wasn’t up for another winter by the lake. Or went home to Georgia.”

“When did this happen?”

“Three years ago. No, less. It was in the fall, and had to’ve been right around Thanksgiving, because the last time I saw her—or one of the last, I can’t be sure—the tables in the Belfry all had paper turkeys on them.” A long pause. “When I say no one looked for her, I guess that includes me. Doesn’t it?”

There’s a little more—Holly showed Keisha the photo of the earring and Keisha also confirmed it was Bonnie’s—but nothing of substance, so Holly shuts off her phone. She’s smoked her cigarette down to the filter. She mashes it out in her portable ashtray and immediately thinks about lighting another one.

Keisha hadn’t connected Ellen Craslow with Bonnie Dahl, probably because they disappeared years apart. The connection she made was Ellen and Maleek Dutton, because both were Black. And she was embarrassed, as if telling the story about a woman suddenly being not there made her realize that she wasn’t so different from the people—probably most of them in the city—who didn’t care much about one more young Black man shot at a traffic stop.

But there was a huge difference between a young man shot dead in his car and an acquaintance who just dropped out of the mix. Holly could have told Keisha that, but she had been too full of her own thoughts—troubled thoughts—to do more than thank Keisha for her time and tell her that she, Holly, would get in touch if she had more questions or if the case resolved.

There’s probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for Ellen Craslow’s disappearance. Janitorial work is a skill, but Holly thinks it’s probably a high turnover job. Ellen could have moved on to someplace warmer, just as Keisha said—Phoenix or LA or San Diego. She could have gotten an urge to see her mama again and eat some of her mama’s home cooking. Except she never picked up her last check and Peter Steinman disappeared around the same time. Ellen lived in Lowtown (on the edge), but she worked at the college, which is only a couple of miles from the Dairy Whip. Less, if you cut through the park.

As for Bonnie Rae Dahl, her bike was found in front of an abandoned repair shop approximately between the college and the Whip.

Holly starts her car, makes a careful U-turn, and drives past the campground, where summer vacationers are enjoying themselves beneath the benevolent gaze of Chief Smoke-Um Peace Pipe.

It would be a long drive back to her apartment in the city, too long after the day Holly has put in. 42 Lily Court is closer, but she has no desire to spend the night in her dead mother’s house and smelling her dead mother’s potpourri. She registers at a Days Inn near the turnpike and gets a take-out chicken dinner from Kountry Kitchen. She didn’t bring a change of clothes, so after eating in her room, she walks to a nearby Dollar General and buys fresh underwear. To this she adds an extra-large sleep shirt with a big smiley face on it.

Back in her room—not fancy, but comfortable enough, and the air conditioner doesn’t rattle too badly—she calls Barbara Robinson, feeling she has troubled Barbara’s big brother enough for one weekend. Barbara is almost as good at sussing out information on her computer as Holly is herself (she’s willing to admit that Jerome is better than either of them). Besides, she wants to know how Barbara’s doing. Holly hasn’t seen much of her this summer, although Barbara was at Charlotte’s Zoom funeral.

“Hey, Hol,” Barbara says. “What’s going on? How are you doing with your mother and all?” It’s the right question under the circumstances, but Holly thinks Barbara sounds distracted. It’s how she sounds if you try to talk to her when she’s reading one of her endlessly long fantasy novels.

“I’m doing well. How are you?”

“Fine, fine.”

“Jerome had quite a time, wouldn’t you say?”

“He did? What’s up with Jerome?” No noticeable excitement in Barbara’s voice.

“Had to take a woman to the hospital. He was asking her some questions for me and she OD’d on booze and pills. He didn’t tell you?”

“Haven’t seen him.” Distracted for sure.

“As for what’s going on, I’m looking for a missing woman, and came across another one in the process. The name of the second one is Ellen Craslow. I was wondering if you could do a little digging and see if you could find out anything about her. I’d do it myself, but the WiFi at the motel where I’m staying is super poopy. It’s kicked me off twice already.”

A long pause. Then: “I’m kinda busy, Hols. Could Pete do it?”

Holly is surprised. This is a girl who used to love playing Nancy Drew, but seemingly not tonight. Or maybe, considering what she went through last year, not at all.

“Are you thinking about Ondowsky? Because it’s nothing like that.”

Barbara laughs, which is a relief. “No, I’ve pretty much put that to bed, Hol. I’m just really really busy. Kind of under the gun, if you want to know the truth.”

“Is it your special project? Jerome said you had one.”

“It is,” Barbara says, “and I’ll tell you all about it soon. Maybe even next week. You, Jerome, my folks, my friends. I promise. But not now. I don’t want to jinx it.”

“Say no more. I’ll talk to Pete. It’ll give him something to do besides taking his own temperature every fifteen minutes.”

Barbara giggles. “Does he do that?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Are you really doing okay with your, you know, your…”

“Yes,” Holly says firmly. “Really okay. And I’ll let you get on with whatever it is you’re doing. Not to sound like your mother, but I hope some college prep is involved, because it won’t be long.”

“College prep may eventually play a part.” Barbara sounds amused. “And listen, if this woman is really important, I can—”

“No, no, it’s probably nothing.”

“And we’re good, right?”

“Always, Barb. Always.”

She ends the call, wondering just what Barbara’s special project could be. Writing is Holly’s best guess, something carried in the genes. Jim Robinson, their father, spent ten years as a newspaper reporter on the Cleveland Plain Dealer; Jerome is writing a book about his notorious great-grandfather; so why not?

“As long as you’re happy,” Holly murmurs. “Not having nightmares about Chet Ondowsky.”

She flops down on the bed—comfy!—and calls Pete. “If you feel well enough to give me a hand, I could use one.”

Pete replies in a voice that’s a little less clogged and raspy. “For you, Hols, anything.”

It’s hyperbole and she knows it, but it still makes her feel warm inside.

Before signing off, Pete reminds her it’s the weekend, and he may not be able to get the stuff she wants until Monday, probably Monday afternoon. Holly, who works all the time when she’s working, sees weekends mostly as an annoyance. She has three missed calls from Penny and three voicemails. The VMs are basically the same—where are you, what’s happening. She’ll call and update her, but first she wants a cigarette.

She dumps her clogged portable ashtray in a trashcan by the motel office, then smokes beside the ice machine. When she started this nasty habit as a teenager, you could smoke everywhere, even on airplanes. Holly believes the new rules are a big improvement. It makes you think about what you’re doing and how you’re killing yourself by inches.

She calls Penny and gives her a progress report that’s accurate but far from complete. She relates a version of her conversation with Keisha Stone that omits the part about Ellen Craslow, and although she tells Penny about talking to the Dairy Whip Gang, she doesn’t mention Peter “Stinky” Steinman. She will if Craslow and Steinman turn out to be connected, but not until then. Penny’s frame of mind is dire enough without planting the idea of a serial killer in her head.

Holly undresses, puts on the smiley-face shirt (it comes almost to her knees), flumps down onto the bed, and turns on the TV. She stops channel surfing long enough to watch some of an old musical on TCM, then turns it off. In the bathroom she washes her hands thoroughly and brushes her teeth with her finger, scolding herself for not getting a toothbrush along with undies and the nightshirt.

“What cannot be cured must be endured,” she murmurs. Will she sleep tonight after such an eventful day, or will her thoughts turn to her mother as she lies there listening to the drone of semis on the turnpike, a sound that always makes her feel lonely? Oddly enough, she thinks she will sleep. Holly knows herself well enough to understand she’ll never have complete closure with her mother, and that Charlotte’s lies—a new millionaire walks into a bar wondering how her mother could do what she did—may rub at her for a long time to come (especially the hidden stash of jewelry), but does anyone ever get complete closure? Especially from a parent? Holly doesn’t think so, she thinks closure is a myth, but at least she got a little of her own today, smoking in the kitchen and breaking those fracking figurines.

She gets down on her knees, closes her eyes, and starts her prayer as she always does, telling God it’s Holly… as if God doesn’t know. She thanks God for safe travel, and for her friends. She asks God to take care of Penny Dahl. Also Bonnie and Pete and Ellen, if they are still ali—

Something bombs her then and her eyes fly open.

Maybe it’s not location, or not just location.

She sits on the edge of the bed, turns on the light, and calls Lakeisha Stone. It’s Saturday night and she expects her call will go to voicemail. There may be a dance in the longhouse, or—perhaps more likely—Keisha and her friends will be drinking in a local bar. Holly is delighted when Keisha answers.

“Hi, it’s Holly. I have one more quick question.”

“Ask as many as you want,” Keisha says. “I’m in the campground laundry, watching a drier full of towels go around and around and around.”

Why’s a fine-looking young woman like you doing laundry on a Saturday night is a question Holly doesn’t ask. What she asks is, “Do you know if Ellen Craslow had a car?”

Holly is expecting Keisha to say she doesn’t know or can’t remember, but Keisha surprises her.

“She didn’t. I remember her saying she had a Georgia driver’s license, but it was expired and that was a hell of a good way to get in trouble if you were stopped. Driving while Black, you know. Like Maleek Dutton. She wanted to get one from here but kept putting it off. Because the DMV was always so crowded, she said. She rode the bus to and from work. Does that help?”

“It might,” Holly says. “Thank you. I’ll let you get back to watching your towels—”

“Oh, something else,” Keisha says.

“What?”

“Sometimes, if the weather was good, she’d skip the bus and go to the NorBank close to her place.”

Holly frowns. “I don’t—”

“They rent bikes,” Keisha says. “There’s a line of them out front. You just pick the one you want and pay with your credit card.”

Holly finishes her prayer, but now it’s really just a rote recitation. Her mind is on the case. If anything keeps her awake tonight it will be that, not thinking about Charlotte’s Millions. In her mind she sees Deerfield Park, with Ridge Road on one side and Red Bank Avenue on the other. She thinks of the Belfry, the deserted repair shop, and the Dairy Whip. She thinks, location, location, location. And she thinks that none of them had a car.

Well, Bonnie did, but she didn’t use it for going back and forth to work. She rode her bike. Ellen also rode a bike when she didn’t take the bus. And Pete Steinman had his skateboard.

Lying in the dark, hands clasped on her stomach, Holly asks herself the question these two similarities raise. It’s crossed her mind before, but only as a hypothetical. Now it’s starting to feel a lot more practical. Is it just the ones she knows about, or are there more?