Page 80 of Coram House

Parker shrugs. “Motive is just a story. It doesn’t matter if you can prove someone committed a crime.”

I taste blood. I’ve chewed the inside of my cheek to shreds. Snow flutters against the window, melting as it makes contact with the glass. He’s right, of course. Technically, motive doesn’t matter. But how can you ever be sure, really sure, what happened if you don’t understand the why of it?

“Look,” I say, ready for a change of subject. “This isn’t the only reason I asked you here.”

Parker uses his chopsticks to pick up a piece of glistening pork. “There’s more?”

I tell him what Karen said about Bill Campbell, how he paid people off so they’d settle the case. How Rooney used to brag about getting the largest slice of the pie. My suspicion that there might be more to Bill’s acquisition of the Coram House property—that maybe Rooney knew it and was using that information to hold power over him.

Parker is sitting up straight now, arms crossed over his chest, the easiness from before gone. I might as well have shoved an iron rod up his back.

“So you think Bill Campbell is crooked,” he says. “Does this source have proof that he paid people off?”

I wonder if I should tell him about my conversation with Bill earlier today but decide against it. It’s not like I learned anything new. I shake my head.

“No proof. And my source signed an NDA, so I’m not sure if she’d be willing to testify more officially.”

“What does Alan say about it?”

I was afraid he’d ask that. I shrug. “Father Aubry said something about how Bill and Alan worked together on the settlement. I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I mean, Alan was their lawyer, so of course he was involved. But now I’m wondering if there’s more to it.”

I think of the words Father Aubry used:they were instrumental to the plan.

Parker lets out a low whistle. “Alan too, huh?”

I tear my chopstick wrapper into tiny pieces until the table is littered with confetti. “I don’t know, Parker. That’s the thing—I don’t know who did what or if any of this is even true.”

My voice cracks and, to my deep embarrassment, I feel tears gather at the back of my throat. I pick up my chopsticks and chase slippery noodles around my plate, so I don’t have to meet his eyes.

“Alex.”

I wipe my nose with a napkin and look up. Parker is sitting with his elbows on the table, looking at me. “Thank you for sharing this,” he says.

“But?”

“But this isn’t your job. There’s a whole police department out there working on this case.”

“I know that, I—”

“If any of this—Rooney, Campbell, these bribes—is connected to a murder, we’re going to find out. But what about this boy who drowned? No one else is looking at him.”

“I can’t prove anything.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Alex. You don’t need proof. You’re not here to solve some fifty-year-old crime. You’re here to tell their story.To make people—care. You have his name, his picture—what are you waiting for?”

The words fall on me like a blow. He thinks I’m failing them. But how can I make sense of the past if I can’t figure out how it’s connected to the present?

“Coram House is at the center of this all. What happened then and now. I can’t understand any of it until I know how.”

Parker sighs and rubs his eyes. I recognize his expression—frustration, disappointment, and, the one that cuts deepest, resignation. He glances down at his watch. I feel desperate to keep him there, to explain that I haven’t abandoned the book. That it’s the opposite. My greatest fear is failing those kids, but it seems like every road leads me back to the body of Jeannette Leroy in the water.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “We’ve got CCTV footage from the construction site that puts Fred Rooney’s car there at six a.m. the morning Jeannette Leroy was killed. His prints are all over the canoe.”

My heart lifts—he must have talked to Xander.

“We also found an empty bottle near the cove where you discovered her body. It tested positive for his DNA. His prints are also all over the machinery used to dig up the grave, and he’s refusing to give an alibi for either time period. He’s in custody now, waiting on bail. Fred Rooney is going to jail, and you helped put him there. This is a happy ending, okay?”

I nod and try to summon some kind of happiness or at least satisfaction, but it won’t come.

---