We’re now at a stop sign, yet my mind is swirling one hundred miles per hour. “Wait? It wasn’t rescinded. He was hired.”
“Craig had to get out of Marquette. Despite the looks of this town, Blue Gil was his big opportunity. He spoke with someone on the committee. The next thing we know, he’s engaged to Serena and the offer was reinstated.”
“Someone from here—in Blue Gil,” I clarify, “on the search-and-screen committee knew he was accused of inappropriate behavior.”
“No, Jill,” Keith says as we continue driving, passing old farmhouses and open fields. “Someone here saw the police report. Though Diana wasn’t underage, the situation resulted in a charge of indecent exposure.”
“That’s a felony.”
Keith nods. “It can be. It depends on the circumstances. I’d just started on the Marquette police force. Our parents were well known. The school didn’t wantthe publicity. The charge was changed to a misdemeanor. It was Craig’s first official offense. By the time the paperwork was complete, you’d have thought he ran a stop sign. However, I know that the report that was leaked wasn’t whitewashed. It was the original police report.”
“How do you know that?”
Keith looks my way. “I’m the one who leaked it.”
I suck in a breath. “Shit, no wonder you weren’t close.” We’re silent for a bit when I ask, “Does Serena know that you did that?”
“No. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because I want you to know that I tried to stop him from coming to this innocent small town.”
“Blue Gil isn’t innocent, Keith. It wasn’t before Craig Gilbert came to town and it sure as hell isn’t now. Ask my sister. We have some pervert out there who’s still walking the streets.”
I’ve lost track of where we are, my mind being on our conversation, when I see the debris from a distance. That’s what it looks like at first, but as we get closer, I see what Hank was talking about yesterday. There are bouquets of flowers, teddy bears, balloons.
“I drove this way last Saturday and I didn’t see this.”
Keith pulls the truck over to the easement on the opposite side of the road. “It’s been growing each day, like the damn stuffed animals are rabbits.”
“Shit, there are two,” I say, realizing that there are two crosses, both made of wood, painted white, with names written in gold paint.
One readsCoach.
The other readsMarty.
By the time my shoes are on the ground, and I close the truck door, my hands are shaking. “I saw Marty with my sister on Saturday afternoon. It’s hard to believe she’s dead. She was just a kid. Kids shouldn’t die.”
Keith doesn’t speak. His eyes are on his brother’s makeshift memorial. “I wanted to set up a camera out here last week,” he says. “I went to Joseph about it.”
“To see if the person responsible for Craig’s death would come back?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s common for the killers to do that.”
“Manes wouldn’t let you?”
“No, and if we had, we’d have video evidence of whoever disposed of Marty’s body.”
“Oh shit. You would.” I stare at Marty’s memorial. Her flowers are fresher and her balloons float higher. “What was the sheriff’s reasoning for not doing it?”
“At first, he didn’t give one. Then he said it’s private property and not an option.”
“But is it?” I point back to the place where the swale goes up. There’s a strip of land about six feet wide and then the edge of an unplowed field. “Isn’t this shoulder, the swale, and that easement county or state land?”
“County, I checked. Manes still said no.”
I walk to the edge of the road. The ground of the shoulder is a hodgepodge of tire tracks and shoe prints. “How many people do you think have been here?”
