Page 98 of Coram House

I think back to the depositions in my head. A boy had described the day Tommy died—how he was left in the forest to build a fort all alone because neither of his friends—Willy or Tommy—showed up. Willy who got suckered into helping the nuns. Bill who got in trouble for telling the devil’s tales. I’d assumed they were different people, but what if they were the same? What if Fred was never the boy in the boat at all? What if it had been Bill forced to help Sister Cecile with swim lessons that day? I feel the clunk of the missing piece sliding into place. But I need to get back to my desk, to see the words in front of me. I need to be sure.

The sky is fully black with clouds now. Snowflakes smack against the windshield like insects. The radio jangles pop music until it’s interrupted by a weather report warning about a dip in temperatures and high winds. I hear the wordbomb cycloneand turn it off.

I park crookedly and take the stairs two at a time. At my desk, I lay out the transcripts one by one. Sarah Dale. Fred Rooney. Karl Smith. Karen Lafayette. Violet Harrison. I open the binder to a map of Coram House as it was in 1968 and review the places I’d marked in red. The kitchen. The boathouse. The cove where Tommy drowned. The dump. The old oak.

First, Sarah Dale. On the day Tommy died, she described waiting by the back door to the kitchen when she saw Fred Rooney.

I’d just seen Fred outside the kitchen, on the path down to the water.I’d been scared. He’d had this huge knobby stick through the handle of his bucket. A boy like that doesn’t carry a stick unless he means to hit someone with it.

The first time I read it, I’d focused on the stick—what it said about Rooney that she’d been so scared of him—and the fact that he’d been headed down the path to the beach. When Sarah Dale looked at the water, she’d seen two boys in the boat with Sister Cecile—of course she’d assumed one was Fred. But I’d missed the mention of the bucket.

Next, I pull out the transcript of Stedsan’s interview with Fred Rooney.

We ate orphan gruel. I know because every goddamn day it was my job to take a bucket of leftover slime we couldn’t choke down over to the dump.

On the map, I trace the most direct route from the kitchen to the dump. It starts out as the same path to the water, but then splits off to the south. Rooney had never been heading to the cove at all; he’d been taking the bucket to the dump, same as every other day.

So Sarah Dale saw Fred leave down the path and then waited for the lemonade. For how long? Ten minutes? More? I try to retrace the path from Coram House to the water in my head. Would Rooney have had enough time to empty the bucket and then run to join Sister Cecile and Tommy in the boat? The timing seems unlikely. And Sarah Dale herself said she never saw their faces. She’d just assumed it was Fred and no one had questioned it.

My panic is gone. I pick up Karl Smith’s interview and turn the pages until I find the spot where he talks about the day Tommy died.

See, we were supposed to meet up. All the kids were down on the point, playing in the woods. The sisters hardly ever gave us time like that just to play, but it was so hot. I think they just wanted to get rid of us. Tommy was supposed to meet me and Willy, but he never showed up.

That afternoon, Tommy would have been with Sister Cecile at the cove. I’d skimmed over his mention of the other boy—Willy. It hadn’t seemed relevant. But I scan farther down the page.

Willy was in trouble—he’d gotten suckered into helping one of the sisters with something, so he was out. Tommy was supposed to meet me, but henever showed. It was supposed to be this perfect day, you know—three boys building a fort in the woods—but then it was just me, all alone.

It’s not much to go on. But maybe it’s enough.

Quickly, I turn to Violet Harrison’s transcript.There was this one boy—I remember he used to tell these crazy stories. Will? There was one about a lake monster that had us all terrified for weeks. None of us wanted to go near the water after that.I don’t need to review Karen’s transcript to remember what she’d told me about Bill Campbell.Bill used to tell these stories. There was this one about a monster in the lake that gave the kids nightmares.The same story. The same kid.

My mouth goes dry. I’ve read the transcripts a dozen times. All the words are the same, but suddenly the story is different. Before I know what I’m doing, I pick up the phone and dial Karen Lafayette. She picks up on the first ring.

“Karen, this is Alex Kelley.” I’m breathing heavily, like I’ve been running. “I’m sorry to call like this. I just—I had a question for you.”

“Is this about the police?” she says. “Because I called that detective back and—”

“No,” I say quickly. “This is going to sound strange, but did Bill Campbell ever have a nickname?”

There’s a moment of silence and I’m worried Karen’s hung up, but then she laughs. “God, I’d forgotten all about that. Kids used to call him Little Willy. There was another Bill at the House already. And he was so tall for his age, I think thelittlepart was a joke.”

Bill Campbell was supposed to meet his friend in the forest the day Tommy drowned, but he didn’t show up. Because Bill got in trouble for telling stories and had to help Sister Cecile with swim lessons.

Sarah Dale saw Fred Rooney go down to the water. A few minutes later, she saw two boys in a boat with Sister Cecile. One was tall and lanky like Fred Rooney. Or like Bill Campbell.

Tommy went into the water and never came out.

“Alex?” Karen asks. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”

It’s as if my brain is split in two. One half is thanking Karen and saying goodbye. The other half is in 1968. The day after Tommy disappeared, Karen saw Rooney punch Bill Campbell. He must have known what really happened. All these years.

I hear Fred’s voice the day I showed up at his house.Maybe I was there that day, maybe not. But I can tell you I never touched that boy.The way he smiled at me, like he was toying with me. I’d assumed he was lying. But what if he’d told me the truth right from the beginning? Someone else had pushed Tommy into the water. And Fred, like Sarah Dale, had been watching from shore.

I think of how pale and sweaty Bill had looked when Rooney stumbled into Jeannette Leroy’s funeral drunk and shooting off his mouth. He must have been terrified that Rooney was spiraling out of control—that he’d say something. Because Rooney’s blackmail had never been about the case. It had been about hiding what happened the day Bill Campbell pushed Tommy into the water and watched as the little boy drowned.

For a moment, I have to remind myself to breathe. Even if I’m right—Bill had been a minor and under coercion. Would he really kill Fred to hide what happened?He paid Rooney for decades to keep quiet,says a voice inside my head.He made sure to buy that property and then sat on it for ten years. He cared deeply about keeping the secret.Maybe Stedsan wasn’t the only one worried about his legacy.

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