Leo and Marissa have been together long enough for Leo to realize that Candace Lopresti is the kind of mother who wants more than anything to be friends with her daughters. She never created any rules, mostly because she wasn’t home to enforce them; she was always traveling for work. She gives Marissa and her older sister, Alexis, whatever they want whenever they want it. A brand-new phone and a brand-new Jeep to replace the ones that Marissa willfully trashed is Candace’s way of saying I’m here for you, honey.
Nothing is normal, nothing will ever be normal again, but Leo tries to immerse himself in work at the Boat Basin—the clients, his golf cart, his walkie-talkie. He smiles and chats like everything is just dandy; for all the boat owners know, Leo is a cheerful, friendly Nantucket kid who is heading to the University of Colorado in the fall and doesn’t have a care in the world. Every time he pockets a tip, he thinks to himself, I deserve an Oscar.
Then, one morning when he’s at work, Marissa calls to say that Alexis had news. Vivi’s running shoes, which had mysteriously gone missing, were just found in the trash can of the Stop and Shop break room. The custodian who takes out the trash noticed them because—and no one was happy to hear this—he sometimes went through the trash looking for things of value that people threw away. He found Vivi’s sneakers, which he thought might be worth saving until he saw they were stained with blood. Then he called the police.
“I hate to say this but it’s not looking good for Cruz,” Marissa says.
“Why would you automatically think of Cruz?” Leo says. “Other people work at that store, you know.”
“Leo,” Marissa says. “Come on.”
Vivi
She needs Martha! She needs Martha! Where’s Martha?
Vivi approaches the green door. She puts her ear to the panel and hears faint singing. It sounds like…like “Fool in the Rain,” by Led Zeppelin. Is Vivi imagining this? It’s such a great song, a song totally worthy of the afterlife, but shouldn’t the choir be singing hymns or madrigals?
Ever so slowly, Vivi takes hold of the knob and turns…
“Vivian!”
Suddenly, Martha swings open the door from the other side, pushing Vivi back toward the bookshelves. A new scarf, lavender in hue, is tied around Martha’s ponytail, a 1950s-sock-hop look.
“What did I tell you about the door, Vivian?”
“I’m not supposed to open it.”
“I should dock you a week of viewing time,” Martha says.
“No, please don’t! I’m sorry! You said you would come when I needed you and I need you now. I want you to assure me that Cruz wasn’t the one who hit me. I would forgive him—I would forgive that child anything. But I’m afraid the world won’t forgive him. I’m afraid the court system, the judge, the Nantucket Police, and my own kids won’t forgive him. Please, Martha, tell me Cruz wasn’t the one who hit me.”
“You seem a little slow in learning the rules,” Martha says. “I can’t tell you who hit you or didn’t hit you.”
“Is that because you don’t know or because you don’t want to tell me?”
“Oh, Vivian, the same rules apply to us here as down there.”
That’s not really true, Vivian thinks.
Martha shakes her head and the scarf moves like a curtain in the breeze. “Some things you have to figure out on your own.”
The Chief
Dixon, again with the bad news. A janitor at the Stop and Shop found bloodstained sneakers in the trash in the break room and he called the police to report it. Dixon went himself to retrieve the sneakers, and they exactly matched the description of Vivi’s missing sneakers.
“For crying out loud!” the Chief says, because his mind travels right to Cruz DeSantis.
“This is good,” Dixon says. “They were lost, now they’re found. And you know, Chief, the DeSantis kid works at the Stop and Shop.”
“Did the janitor find the clothes as well?”
“No, just the shoes.”
Just the shoes. That makes no sense. And what’s valuable, from a forensics standpoint, is the clothes—the shorts and the tank—in case there are flecks of paint. Every contact leaves a trace.
“Do you want me to bring the DeSantis kid in?” Dixon asks.
“Not yet,” the Chief says. “I need to think.”
The Chief asks Dixon to air-freight the shoes to Lisa Hitt on the Cape. He should probably request a homicide detective from the state police—the Greek would be his best option—but he doesn’t want to call one