Page 7 of Someone Knows

“Good luck with your . . . homicide.”

We disconnect. My brain tingles with the information he’s given me. I want to think about the woman murdering the older man, but I’ve got other things to keep me busy.

I pull up a new email, type in the address Aaron provided, and compose yet another lie:

Hannah,

I received the chapter you submitted through Blackboard. However, for some reason I was unable to open it. It’s a system glitch, which happens occasionally. Can you please email it to me directly? At this address would be fine.

I stare at the screen. Hit send. And the wait for a response begins.

CHAPTER

4

Normally, on Thursdays after I’ve finished teaching, I head to the yoga studio across from campus, but today I skip exercising. I also haven’t been running every morning like I usually do. It’s been almost a week since I emailed the student who submitted the ominous chapter, and I can’t seem to quell the unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve considered calling Ivy. The three of us—Ivy, Jocelyn, and me—were inseparable back in the day, the three musketeers. A trio of lost souls who bonded over being dirt-poor and neglected by our alcoholic, single moms. Or in Ivy’s case, alcoholicanddrug addicted. We told each othereverything. So it’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years since I’ve spoken to either one of them. I know where Ivy is at least. Jocelyn, though, she disappeared the day I did, two decades ago. I went north, and she went south to Florida, and that’s the last I heard of her. I’m not sure whether I should try to make contact with either of them. What if someone is trying to smoke us out, cause us to make mistakes? No, it’s best to keep to myself. Besides, it could all still be a coincidence, couldn’t it? I once read an article about identical twin brothers separated at birth. They never even knew about each other, yet they married women with the same names and gave their firstborn children and dogsthe same names.

It’s not impossible.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

But today I need to do a little more digging, a little more research—though not from my laptop this time. Everything we do in today’s world leaves an electronic footprint, and one can never be too careful.

My eyes are alert, scanning face after face as I walk to the library. Three kids fresh out of high school kick around a hacky sack to the left, a redhead twirling her hair and making googly eyes at a nice-looking guy with broad shoulders sits on a bench to the right—he’s too busy to notice, checking out the ass of every woman who passes. Before last week, I wouldn’t have seen a single face, but suddenly everyone is a suspect to rule out.

Inside the library, I take the stairs to the second floor. My pulse quickens as I approach the bank of cubicles, each equipped with a desktop available for anyone’s use. There are more than a dozen, yet only one is occupied. Everyone has a laptop or iPad these days.

I choose the workstation farthest from the woman working and glance around before pulling out a chair. No one seems to be paying attention, so I hit the space bar to wake up the screen and jump right into it, clicking the Google icon from the menu bar, then typing:

D-A-M-O-N S-A-W-Y-E-R

My hand shakes as I hit the enter key. It’s a name I’d managed to not think about in a very long time—almost two decades—until last week.

The search return at the top of the page is the website of Chapman and Sons Funeral Home. Obituary of Damon Sawyer. I’ve read it before. Hundreds of times, a lifetime ago. But I click into it and read.

Damon Sawyer passed away tragically at age thirty-nine on May 20. He is survived by his devotedwife, Candice, and a seven-year-old son. Damon was born and raised in Minton Parish. Upon graduating from the University of Southern Louisiana with a degree in secondary education, Damon returned home to Minton Parish to become a teacher at the local high school he had attended. He was a beloved member of the teaching community and earned the title of Teacher of the Year three times—a testament to how much he gave to his students.

How much he gave . . .

Scrolling the rest of the results, I find most of it vaguely familiar—a few mentions from Minton High School, an old article from theMinton Herald, triathlon results from twenty-five years ago. I guess when you’re dead, very little gets added to your Google search. At the bottom of the page, though, there is something new—another obituary on the website of Chapman and Sons Funeral Home. Obituary of Candice Maynard-Sawyer.

His wife.I click into it. It’s dated five months ago.

Candice Maynard-Sawyer passed away at age fifty-eight on December 13. Candice met the love of her life, Damon Sawyer, while attending college at the University of Southern Louisiana. Together they had one son. Candice was a Eucharistic minister for more than thirty years, bringing communion to elderly church members who were unable to attend mass. Her yearslong battle with heart disease ends only for her to be reunited with her beloved husband and our Father in heaven.

Beloved.What a joke.

The nerves I felt typing Damon’s name are suddenly replaced by anger. I tug at the neck of myblouse. Why is it so damn hot in here? I need some fresh air, so I close out of the web page and gather my things. But as I start to get up, I think better of it. There are other names I haven’t searched in a long time. So I type:

I-V-Y L-E-I-G-H-T-O-N

Unlike Mr. Sawyer’s, this name comes back with a ton of hits—the first of which is from Minton Parish Child Protective Services. A few years back, I had a rare, lucid conversation with my mother, and she mentioned that Ivy had become a social worker. The irony isn’t lost on me that the child who used to get removed from her home has now become the remover. Curious, I click into the web page, and I’m taken aback when a picture of my old best friend pops up. She hasn’t aged so well, but there’s no doubt it’s her. Plump face, tired eyes, graystreaked frumpy hair—the same gummy smile that shows off the tiny chip in her front tooth she got when we were riding bicycles at seven. I read the bio and stare at her for a while. She lives in Clarion, a stone’s throw from where we grew up and where she apparently still works. But it couldn’t be Ivy who sent me the chapter, could it? She’s the only person in the world who stands to lose almost as much as I do by dredging up things from the past. Plus, she hasfivekids. She wouldn’t have time to dig skeletons from closets. But before I click back, I jot down her email and telephone number—just in case.

I look around before typing again. The one woman using a computer isn’t paying me any mind, and other than her, it’s a ghost town up here.

My eyes well up as I type the next name.

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