The sheriff smiled. “Well, he was sixteen then. That was before the murders. A lot of things can change a man.”
“Can they ever.” Cathy pounded the table, causing Murphy to hack on one of her special-order cheese curds. “Well, we’re meandering around the meat of it. Though I warn you girls, it’s ugly.” She stopped and peered at Murphy, who’d managed to swallow the offending curd. “How old is this one, exactly?”
“Sixteen,” Murphy said, smoothly. “I look young for my age.”
Claire was impressed—almost as much as she had been by her own silver tongue.
“She’s fine,” Claire said. “Please, Cathy, what can you tell us about the day of the murders?”
That was something a journalist would say, right?
“Oh, it wasn’t day,” said Cathy. “Middle of the night. And the murders didn’t happen together. No, months apart. It started the night after high school graduation. Mark, the middle son? He’d graduated top of his class. There’s one boy I didn’t peg as odd. Out of that whole Enright clan, I’d say he was the most normal. God’s truth, that’s what I would’ve told you back then. He worked as a busboy here the summer before it happened. Mark was charming, he really was. Handsome, too. Customers raved about him. Somehow, between busing, he managed to strike up conversations left and right. Kerry, if you were in Patrick’s class, that means Mark was, what, a couple years older than you?”
“I was a sophomore,” said the sheriff, Kerry.
“Don’t you think Mark was handsome?” Cathy shouted across the diner.
At that, Kerry smiled and said, “I don’t know if I’d be the best judge of that, Ms. Hollins.”
Cathy seemed to recall something, and then she smiled too. She waved off Kerry, like she’d told a big joke that Claire didn’t understand. Then, sober again, she went on.
“That was Mark. Whole town loved that boy—I don’t think that’s too strong a way of putting it. He was class president and a real talented artist; sensitive type, but not too sensitive. Got a real good scholarship. PSU, was it? Or maybe Lewis and Clark.”
Claire winced, and at first she was unsure why. Then she remembered.
Yale.
No college.
Her bleak, education-less future.
Of course. How could she ever forget?
“It was the night of graduation,” Cathy said. “After midnight, said the police. That’s when Mr. Enright was killed. Blunt force trauma to the head. There was blood all over those parlor walls. On the piano keys too, they said. Mrs. Enright’s prized piano.”
Claire was grateful not to have touched her parfait. She felt sick. The piano she’d seen, admired with her own eyes. She hadn’t thought, when they’d made their tour of the house, to check it for bloodstains.
“Morning comes,” said Cathy, “and Mrs. Enright discovers the body. She screams bloody murder, calls the police straight away. And what do they find when they arrive? Mark Enright has left town. Fled, in the middle of the night. Now, what innocent man would do that? Especially when he had a big homecoming dance the next day.”
Claire frowned, raising a finger. “I … sorry to interrupt. You said it was graduation night?”
Cathy blinked. “Yes, that’s right.”
“But … then you said homecoming.”
Cathy’s eyes widened. “O-oh. I did, didn’t I? Well … let’s see, when was it? I thought it was spring, but …”
“No,” called out Wyatt. “Definitely fall. I remember, it was right before Halloween. There were pumpkins on the front porch in the newspaper photos.”
“Were there?” Cathy said, dubious.
“I’m with Cathy,” said Orson. “I remember it being spring. It rained that night, a real April shower.”
Cathy, who had begun to look distressed, shook her head dismissively. “Oh, well, it was two decades ago. You’ll have to forgive our collective memory, girls. Point isn’t the date; it’s what happened next. And that was this: Police tracked down that boy at an Amtrak station in Portland. Brought him back, placed him under arrest, put him on trial. It was a real tragedy.”
Cathy heaved a long sigh, as though she’d finished a Herculean task.
Claire was still playing the part of the journalist, though. She had to ask the question.
“Cathy,” she said. “You said murders. Murders, plural.”
Cathy looked weary. The silence of the diner was sticking to Claire, filling her pores like humidity. She realized, then, that Cathy hadn’t meant to stop her story; she’d had to stop it, because it was too much of a burden to tell.
“I-I’m sorry,” Claire said, gently resting her hand on Cathy’s.
Cathy murmured, “That’s all right, hon. It was just