Blood Brothers Page 0,18

I spend a lot of time in town. I like the quiet now and then."

"People do. I do myself, now and again." She took one of the living room chairs, settled back. "I guess I'm surprised other people haven't had the same idea as you, and plugged in a few more houses around here."

"There was talk of it a couple of times. Never panned out."

He's being cagey, Quinn decided. "Because?"

"Didn't turn out to be financially attractive, I guess."

"Yet here you are."

"My grandfather owned the property, some acres of Hawkins Wood. He left it to me."

"So you had this house built."

"More or less. I'd liked the spot." Private when he needed to be private. Close to the woods where everything had changed. "I know some people in the trade, and we put the house up. How's the coffee?"

"It's terrific. You cook, too?"

"Coffee's my specialty. I read your books."

"How were they?"

"I liked them. You probably know you wouldn't be here if I hadn't."

"Which would've made it a lot tougher to write the book I want to write. You're a Hawkins, a descendent of the founder of the settlement that became the village that became the town. And one of the main players in the more recent unexplained incidents related to the town. I've done a lot of research on the history, the lore, the legends, and the various explanations," she said, and reached in the bag that served as her purse and her briefcase. Taking out a minirecorder, she switched it on, set it on the table between them.

Her smile was full of energy and interest when she set her notebook on her lap, flipped pages to a clear one. "So, tell me, Cal, about what happened the week of July seventh, nineteen eighty-seven, ninety-four, and two thousand one."

The tape recorder made him...itchy. "Dive right in, don't you?"

"I love knowing things. July seventh is your birthday. It's also the birthday of Fox O'Dell and Gage Turner-born the same year as you, who grew up in Hawkins Hollow with you. I read articles that reported you, O'Dell, and Turner were responsible for alerting the fire department on July eleventh, nineteen eighty-seven, when the elementary school was set on fire, and also responsible for saving the life of one Marian Lister who was inside the school at the time."

She continued to look straight into his eyes as she spoke. He found it interesting she didn't need to refer to notes, and that she didn't appear to need the little breaks from direct eye contact.

"Initial reports indicated the three of you were originally suspected of starting the fire, but it was proven Miss Lister herself was responsible. She suffered second-degree burns on nearly thirty percent of her body as well as a concussion. You and your friends, three ten-year-old boys, dragged her out and called the fire department. Miss Lister was, at that time, a twenty-five-year-old fourth-grade teacher with no history of criminal behavior or mental illness. Is that all correct information?"

She got her facts in order, Cal noted. Such as the facts were known. They fell far short of the abject terror of entering that burning school, of finding the pretty Miss Lister cackling madly as she ran through the flames. Of how it felt to chase her through those hallways as her clothes burned.

"She had a breakdown."

"Obviously." Smile in place, Quinn lifted her eyebrows. "There were also over a dozen nine-one-one calls on domestic abuse during that single week, more than previously had been reported in Hawkins Hollow in the six preceding months. There were two suicides and four attempted suicides, numerous accounts of assault, three reported rapes, and a hit-and-run. Several homes and businesses were vandalized. None-virtually none-of the people involved in any of the reported crimes or incidents has a clear memory of the events. Some speculate the town suffered from mass hysteria or hallucinations or an unknown infection taken through food or water. What do you think?"

"I think I was ten years old and pretty much scared shitless."

She offered that brief, sunny smile. "I bet." Then it was gone. "You were seventeen in nineteen ninety-four when during the week of July seventh another-let's say outbreak-occurred. Three people were murdered, one of them apparently hanged in the town park, but no one came forward as a witness or to admit participation. There were more rapes, more beatings, more suicides, two houses burned to the ground. There were reports that you, O'Dell, and Turner were able to get some of the wounded