I admitted that I used to sneak out in my boat to watch Ned and Isabel on the platform. “This whole thing is my fault,” I said. My voice had grown hoarse and it came out in a whisper. “I was jealous of her. I didn’t want her to have Ned. I didn’t mean for her to get killed, though.” I felt my father’s hand on my back and I wasn’t sure if he meant the touch as a comfort or if he was telling me to stop talking, that I was saying too much.

I was sorry when the policemen left, because I was suddenly alone with my family again and I no longer knew how I fit in. There was an air of helplessness in the bungalow. My mother and grandmother worked in the kitchen, their silence broken by sudden bouts of sobbing. My grandfather and father sat on the glider near the bed on the porch, deep in conversation. Lucy was curled up at one end of the couch in the living room, her eyes closed, thumb in her mouth, her nose still red from crying. I did not know where to go. I thought of reading, but felt sick again when I thought of the childish, made-up mysteries in my Nancy Drew books.

I sat on the couch with Lucy for a while, staring into space, wishing she would wake up and talk to me, but she slept as though she’d been drugged. Maybe she had been. Maybe someone had given her something to let her sleep through the grief.

Finally I got up and walked into the kitchen.

“Can I help?” I asked, my voice small as I tried to tiptoe my way back into my family.

My mother looked at me, surprise on her face as though she’d forgotten I existed. She turned back to the frying pan where she was searing a roast.

“I’m sorry I hit you, Julie,” she said, her attention on the roast instead of on me.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“Here.” My grandmother handed me the potato peeler and pointed to the pile of potatoes on the counter. “You can peel.”

We worked in a silence that was rare in my family, but I welcomed it because the only things that could be said would be full of pain and anger. I peeled every potato perfectly, leaving no hint of skin and carving out every eye. I wanted the task to last all afternoon because I wasn’t sure what I would do once I had finished.

The phone rang, and my mother jumped but made no move to walk into the living room to answer it. She stood at the sink, a half-washed spatula frozen in her hand, as we listened to my father’s footsteps in the other room, then his Hello? into the receiver. The three of us listened hard, but could not hear much of his conversation. Finally he walked into the kitchen.

He stood in the doorway, the color of his face so ashen I felt afraid for him. He might die, I thought. This might kill him. I would be responsible for both their deaths.

“She wasn’t…there was no rape,” he said. “Thank God for that.”

“What do they think happened?” I had never heard my mother sound so tentative and weak, as if she was afraid of the answer.

“They said she drowned, but that she’d been…manhandled first. She had a bruise on her shoulder and her arm and a lump on her head. They guess she fought the Walker boy off and then fell or maybe jumped into the water and hit her head on the edge of the platform.”

My mother suddenly threw the spatula against the wall, then buried her face in her hands. My father was quickly next to her, pulling her into his arms. My grandmother moved to them, wrapping her arms around them both. I stood alone in the middle of the kitchen floor, the peeler in my hand, tears no one noticed running down my cheeks.

Officer Davis returned to our house just as we were sitting down to a dinner we had no interest in eating. My father answered the door, then walked with him back to the porch.

“Sorry to disturb you folks,” Officer Davis said, “but I need to talk with Julie again.”

My father nodded to me without saying a word.

I stood up, scraping my chair away from the table, then walked outside with my father and the policeman. Daddy and I sat on the double Adirondack chair again, and this time, Officer Davis took a seat as well. He pulled his chair in front of me and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together loosely in front of him.

“We found Bruno Walker,” he said.

I was filled with hatred for Bruno. I remembered how he’d looked toward the bridge the day before, how I’d hoped my sister could be drawn in by his lovely eyes.

“Where’d you find him?” my father asked.

“In Ortley Beach,” the officer said.

“Did he confess?”

The officer shook his head. “He said he was with some friends at one of their rental cottages and that he left them around one in the morning and went home to bed. We talked with several of his friends separately, and they all confirmed his story.”

“What crap,” my father said.

Officer Davis locked his eyes onto mine. “Tell me again about informing Bruno that your sister would be on the platform at midnight,” he said. “Where were you when you told him?”

“The other side of the canal,” I said.

“With your friend.” The officer nodded. “What’s her name?” he asked.

“Wanda Lewis.”

“They’re not really friends,” my father said, and I knew it was not the time to argue with him.

“Who else was there?” the officer asked. “Was there anyone else who might have heard your conversation with Mr. Walker?”

You up to no good, girl.

“George was there,” I said. “Wanda’s brother. Her other relatives were there, too, but they were down—” I pointed across the canal to the area where Salena and the men had been fishing. “They weren’t close enough to hear.”

“But this George was,” the officer said.

I nodded. Suddenly I realized where this was going.

“George wouldn’t hurt anybody,” I said.

“Why are you asking her about this…George?” My father said his name as though he was talking about an object and not a person.

“Mr. Walker claims that Mr. Lewis looked very interested when he heard Julie say that Isabel would be alone on the platform.”

“Bruno’s just trying to pin the blame on someone else,” I said, but I could feel my heart sinking. I remembered George’s occasional appreciative comments about my sister and the scary way he’d cut his eyes at my father the day he came over to drag me home.

“Well, that may be so,” Officer Davis said. “Just the same, we need to talk to Mr. Lewis. Do you know how we can reach him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have a phone number or address or anything,” I said. “But I think they live on South Street. And they’ll be back across the canal in the morning, probably, if it’s a nice day. But I know he didn’t do it.”

“You don’t know that, Julie,” my father scoffed. “You don’t really know those people. You don’t know what that boy’s capable of doing.”

“He’s nice to me,” I said, but that only enraged my father more.

“This is what happens when you disobey me,” he said, and I supposed he was right.

I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I went up to the attic early with Lucy, who was weepy and withdrawn, and I didn’t bother going down again. I kept crying—we all did. I would think I was okay, that I’d gotten a grip on my emotions, and then all of a sudden, I’d be sobbing again.

I replayed the night before in my mind over and over again, examining my actions to see if I could have done something different and thus prevented my sister’s death. I remembered looking out the attic window at the dark canal. If only I’d left the house earlier. Would that have made a difference? And what if I’d gone through with my idea of getting Ned to go with me? Then we would have been in his boat and been able to reach the platform safely, although we might have been too late.

Suddenly, I sat bolt upright in my bed. I remembered running over to the Chapmans’ house, getting ready to knock on the screen door only to realize their entire house was dark. I remembered looking toward the canal and seeing the empty Adirondack chairs. And then I remembered the policemen questioning Ned that afternoon, and the way he had looked down at the sand when his father said they’d been watching a meteor shower together in the backyard. Had Mr. Chapman fabricated an alibi to save his son?

I pressed my hand to my mouth, a shiver running through my body.

Oh, Ned, I thought to myself. Why?

CHAPTER 39

Julie

1962

I awakened the next morning with new resolve and a plan: I needed to do my own investigation. The facts I knew did not fit together. I would tell the police my suspicions about Ned, but not until I’d seen what other evidence I could gather. As heartsick as I was at the thought of George being my sister’s killer, I was triply distressed to think it might have been Ned. I would be objective, though, as detached as I could possibly be from the outcome as I gathered my clues.

I was relieved to have something to do that would both ease my sense of helplessness and also allow me to avoid my family. I left the house early and started walking toward the beach. What made no sense, I thought as I walked, was that Ned had told me to tell Isabel he couldn’t meet her that night. Then why would he have thought he could find her on the platform? My question was answered only minutes later.

I was nearly to Mitzi’s house when I noticed she was in her front yard washing her parents’ car. She tried to hide from me on the other side of the car, but she knew I’d already seen her. I saw her shoulders sag with resignation as she watched me approach.

“Hi, Mitzi,” I said, walking up her short driveway.

“Hi, Julie.” She stopped scrubbing the car with her soapy sponge. I almost felt sorry for her, she looked so uncomfortable. “Are you all right?” she asked. “How’s your mother and grandmother?”