Page 39 of Middle of the Night

“So, um, I guess you want me to go over everything I remember about that night.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Detective Palmer says. “I know Billy’s case forwards and backwards. It’s what got me into law enforcement, actually. I was twelve when it happened, and I remember it just like it was yesterday. I grew up not too far from here, believe it or not. In Somerville. And that summer, I remember most people only wanted to talk about O.J. But me? I was obsessed with finding out what happened to Billy.”

That makes two of us. The only difference is that Detective Palmer got to choose her obsession.

“No, I’m interested in what youcouldn’tremember back then,” she says. “I don’t suppose the memory bell has rung much since then?”

I look down at my coffee to avoid making eye contact. I know Ishould tell her about The Dream, even though it’s unclear if it’s a memory or just a combination of imagination and nagging guilt. Also, there’s no new information contained in it. Just the tantalizing possibility that I might have been awake when the tent was sliced open and Billy was taken. Which I guess is reason enough to talk about it.

“I have a recurring dream,” I say, still staring into my mug, alarmed by the way my reflection ripples and wobbles on the coffee’s mud-brown surface. Is that how I look to Detective Palmer? Is it how I look to everyone?

“About Billy?”

“About that night.”

I describe The Dream in as much detail as possible, right down to that unholyscriiiiiiiitchbefore I wake.

“Interesting,” Detective Palmer says when I’m done. “And it’s the same every time?”

“Always.”

“I’d ask if you’ve tried to unpack what it all means, but I assume you have.”

I respond with a solemn nod.

“Do you have any idea who might have taken Billy?” Detective Palmer says.

“I don’t,” I say. “I didn’t see anything.”

“I wasn’t asking if you saw who did it. I want to know who youthinkdid it.”

I take another sip of coffee, thinking it over. For thirty years, I’ve pondered that very question, usually while lying awake in the middle of the night. While various possibilities have crossed my mind, none have ever quite stuck.

“Ethan?” Detective Palmer says when twenty seconds pass without a response from me.

“Still here,” I say, although part of me remains deep in thought.WhodoI think took Billy? The question was always so hard to answer because I never knew why Billy had been taken—or what happened to him afterward. Now that I know the latter, I can infer the former.

“Someone at the Hawthorne Institute,” I say.

Detective Palmer crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “An intriguing answer. I’m curious why you think that.”

And I’m surprised by her curiosity. Billy’s bones were discovered there. Isn’t that enough?

“Because we were there that day,” I say. “At the falls. Did Detective Patel tell you that?”

“He did, yes.”

“And did he also tell you what happened?”

“He told me that as well,” Detective Palmer says.

“Yet you don’t think it’s related to Billy’s death?”

“We’re looking into every possibility.”

It’s the same thing Ragesh said. Obviously, the official line. One that feels created to placate suspicious people like me, even though I have every reason to be suspicious.

“You are now,” I say. “But that wasn’t the case thirty years ago. Do you know why the institute’s grounds weren’t searched back then? Was it because Ezra Hawthorne was filthy rich?”

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