if under coercion, Maggie was prompted to show up at your home as she did? Perhaps she was not the mastermind of the attack and instead was tasked with drawing Ben from home that night. If this is the case, it isn’t Maggie’s anger with Ben over the end of a relationship but this unknown man’s motive in question. Few teenage boys have deadly acquaintances. At first I looked at possible enemies of your father and stepmother.” My eyebrows pinch. I’ve been thinking of Ben’s killer as Maggie’s accomplice, her friend even. What if this isn’t the case? What if she couldn’t describe the shadow man’s face because she was afraid to?
Sweeny’s theory means that Ben shares a killer with the others, with Becca, and if that’s the case, then there are no traces of Ben left over. Ben isn’t a vengeful hero or villain. “Your father is well liked in the community; we didn’t find any grudges against him. But Diane was more difficult to investigate,” Sweeny continues, “both because there’s little information available and because she wasn’t forthcoming when I interviewed her in person at Calm Coast. We can’t compel her without evidence that she’s willfully withholding. And her doctors are adamant that she may not have the mental faculties to remember.”
“She’s sad,” I whisper.
Sweeny frowns. “True as that may be, it’s unusual when the mother of a dead child doesn’t cooperate fully.” An awkward moment passes. “I believe that if I find your stepbrother’s killer, I will have found the person guilty of all this.”
An abrupt ache is opening up in my chest and I want to touch my knees to it, curl into a ball, and go invisible. “Are you aware that Ben went to eight different schools in eight states during the six years before Diane married your father, Lana?”
My fingernails dig into the fleshy stuffing of the couch. When we were little, I knew that magical things appear out of nowhere. To me, Ben was the most magical. I wanted Ben to be past-less. It meant that there was nothing else to know about him. “No,” I say.
“I obtained Ben’s school records, which included the transcript from his middle school before he moved to Gant. Then I called that school and requested those records and so on. This is how I plotted Diane and Ben’s progress across the country. They lived for no longer than ten months in each town. Short durations like that are unusual unless a parent has a job that relocates him or her often. I can’t find any record of Diane working. None of the schools had emergency contact info for family other than Diane. The last school I located, an elementary in Atlanta where he was in the second grade, had no previous records. It’s where their trail ends.” She watches my reaction. “Do you know where Ben was born, Lana?”
I’m nauseated answering. “The south.”
“The south where?”
“South of the country.” I am lost and embarrassed at how little I know. “Don’t police have access to past addresses? Can’t you type in Diane and Ben Wright and let your database spit out the answers?”
“Not always. Not under certain circumstances,” Ward says, stepping out from behind Sweeny and adding, “Did Ben ever share memories with you of his early childhood?” before I can get What circumstances? out. “A city or state or landmark he remembered? An amusement park or zoo they spent a day at? Someone’s—anyone’s—name?”
“I don’t think so.” Ben rarely shared memories. If he did, they were disjointed and brightly painted snapshots of a bizarre nomadic life. I knew they moved around; I didn’t know how often or why.
“And you know none of the places Ben lived before the second grade,” Sweeny says.
I squint, trying to picture what Ben might have looked like so young. Although our walls are covered with framed pictures of our family of four, there are no photos of Ben before Gant. “Ben lived with his mom,” I say, and then, “I’m going to be sick. I need to go home, please.”
Sweeny’s expression falls, and her lips flatten into a straight line. “I understand. Maybe tomorrow I can come by. Once we’ve processed evidence here, I’m sure we’ll have additional questions. My condolences regarding your friend. The officer”—she waves to a policeman crossing from the kitchen—“will walk you out.”
As I’m led away, I watch the shrinking double doors over my shoulder and another officer dragging the blue tarp to the ground. The swing set groans as