At noon, I saw her. She disappeared into the lunchroom with her storm of red hair. A sudden bright sensation lit me. When I peered in, she was sitting alone at a corner table, and I fought an urge to introduce her around. Fortunately, a couple of the kinder girls, ones who rarely got invited to the dances, joined her.
“Checking on your girl?”
I twisted to find Peter at my side. “I suppose I was,” I said, catching my breath. “Wasn’t sure she was going to make it, honestly.”
“She almost didn’t. Carol said she showed up around ten.”
“Ten?”
“Pretty damned hard walking into a new school. Had to be all the harder once she delayed.” He scanned the lunchroom. “Where’s she sitting? I was out when she arrived.”
I pointed in her direction, but a group of kids blocked his view. Peter stepped a few feet into the room, making a point to glance first in the opposite direction, not wanting to single her out. He conveyed a kind intelligence in everything he did. He knew every student and every clique in the school, who composed the core of each group and who were the hangers-on. He could spot those rare students who blended across multiple cliques and those who struggled to land in any group for long.
Evangeline sat sideways to the door. When Peter saw her, his face spasmed as if stung. It was a small matter. I’d likely not thought more about it, but he was somber when he stepped out.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Sure.” He cleared his throat. “Tell me, how exactly do you know this girl? Is she related to you?”
“No. Why? Do you know her? You seem . . . surprised.”
“I’ve seen her before.”
“When?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, what’d you say your connection is?”
“None, really. Rufus found her in the middle of the night. About a week ago. She was under that old plum tree. It was freezing out there.”
“She showed up at your place?” He sounded alarmed.
“Said she was homeless. She’s been staying in the guest room.”
I caught what seemed an involuntary flick of his eyes in her direction. “Know anything else about her?” he asked. “Where she’s from. Anything like that?”
“What’s going on? Why all these questions?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. But please. If you could tell me what you know.”
“All right. The short version is her mother died and she ended up alone in Poulsbo. She hopped a bus here a few days before she landed at my place.”
He shook his head. “That’s not good. Not good at all.”
“What’s not good?”
“That she’s lying to you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” I said, unable to restrain my irritation.
He glanced at his watch. “Look. I’m really sorry. This is a little complicated, and right now the Harrisons are waiting in my office. They need to berate me about our AP World History book. Apparently it’s anti-American.” He raised his brows as if hoping for commiseration. Finding none, he said, “When’s your free period?”
“Two fifteen.”
“I’ll clear my schedule. Come then.”
PETER WAS RIGHT. The girl had invented parts of her story. She hadn’t been raised in Ohio. I was certain of that. But teenagers often try on different histories, especially those attempting escape. I couldn’t imagine what had Peter so worried.
At two fifteen, I arrived at his office, hoping the meeting wouldn’t last long. I wanted to be home to greet Evangeline after her first day. Even before she’d lost her mother, the girl had clearly been on her own. When I’d reminded her to keep me informed of her whereabouts, she’d acted confused. “I don’t get it,” she said. “It’s not like you’re my parent or anything. No one is going to blame you if something happens to me.” She couldn’t fathom an adult interested in anything other than their own legal cover.
Peter flipped around from his computer when I knocked, motioned to the small table where he held meetings.
“How’d things go with the Harrisons?” I asked.
His face went blank, then he smiled and shook his head. “I had to promise I’d raise their concerns with the school board.”
“Will you?”
“Hell no.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said.
He didn’t laugh. I doubt he even heard, preoccupied as he was checking his door to make sure it had clicked shut. He poured me a glass of water and sat opposite me. “Tell me,” he said. “How was your day?”
He genuinely wanted to know, but I could feel his distraction, his need to get to the girl. Or maybe it was my own urgency that made the room hiss as if with static. “It was fine. Well, no, a little rough, actually, but the kids were great. It’ll just take a while.”
“Yes,” he said, his hands rubbing the table in tight circles. His eyes caught the motion and he made them stop.
I took a sip of water, waiting.
“The girl,” he said, his fingers twitching. “It worries me that she ended up at your place.”
“I can tell.” I aimed for a teasing tone, but he didn’t smile.
“I’m not very good at hiding things from you, am I?”
“One of your best qualities.”
He leaned forward. “All right then, bear with me. This girl, she told you she got in town a few days before you found her, right?”
I nodded.
“Any chance she’d visited here before?”
“Maybe, but she made it sound like this was her first time.”
His brows furrowed. “See now, that’s what’s not making sense, because I saw her in early September.”
“September? Where?”
“Out Coleman Way, by the paper mill.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting out of a truck.”
“That doesn’t sound so dire.”
“It was late, after nine thirty at the edge of town.”
Did he think she was involved in criminal activity? “I’m sorry to be dense, but I’m not—”
“I’m worried about you. Don’t you see? This girl shows up at your house. It’s not easy to find. You have to go way up the drive to even see it. Why your place?”
“She was hoping for shelter. Thought it was the park.”
He pressed back in his chair. “Do you believe her?”
I started to argue but stopped, let out a breath, deflating. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe when it comes to her.”
He pressed his lips together, gathering strength it seemed, and said, “There’s something more. . . . The truck she got out of? It was Jonah’s. Daniel got out too.”
“What? When?”
“A few days before the murder.”
“And you saw this how?” The man was speaking nonsense.
He heard my disbelief, my anger, and said, “I know this is hard.”
I wanted to shout that he knew nothing of losing a child.
This too he heard as if spoken. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I have no idea what it’s been like for you. I know that. But I did see her. I was heading home from Poulsbo. Some of the local principals get together for dinner every few months, and I was coming around that long curve by the mill. Saw a tall guy getting out of an old navy truck, passenger side. When I got close, I realized it was Daniel. Just as I passed, the girl hopped down.”
“You saw Evangeline?”
“Pretty sure I did. I think Daniel was letting her out. That was my sense of it. He probably got back in, but I didn’t see that. I was already around the curve.”
“A few days before the murder?”
“Can you see now why I’m concerned?”
“Are you sure about this? I mean, we all wondered if a girl was involved. What did the investigators say? They must have looked for the girl.”
“I . . . I didn’t tell them that.”
How could this be true? My son was missing for a week. We had been desperate for information.
“I know it sounds crazy now,” he said, “but it was dark and such a fleeting thing. I mainly saw the hair. There’s that skinny kid from Chimacum. Derek something. The one who shows up at a lot of the games. He’s got long red hair like that. You know who I mean? I thought it was him. I’d never seen a girl like that around, and I know pretty much everyone. But today, seeing her, seeing that hair. That’s who I saw.”
“So why not tell the investigators about Derek?”
“I did. He denied seeing the boys around that time. But he cooperated, even gave a DNA sample. Nothing matched.”
I rubbed my neck. “I’m confused. You just told me you didn’t tell investigators.”
His face froze as if reviewing his exact words. “No. I didn’t tell them about a girl. That’s what I didn’t tell them. I didn’t know until today who I’d really seen.” He searched my face, likely seeking evidence of belief or apology or simple acknowledgment. He received none. “I should have told you at the time, but you know how social Daniel was. We all saw him with dozens of kids that first week of school. When Derek was ruled out, I didn’t think any more of it.”
I pushed back from the table, trying to escape the words swarming me. “Maybe you were right. Maybe it was Derek.”
His expression, which had been knotted in agitation, tightened briefly then broke free. For the first time since I entered the room, he seemed to actually see me. “Maybe,” he said. He sighed deeply. “Maybe.”
And with that small grace, everything in me wanted to be spoken, to be shared with my friend: Evangeline’s arrival with filthy, torn hands; her concocted backstory; her surreptitious departures and late returns; her raiding of the pantry. And the small details that turned her real: battles waged for more light in the evening, jam licked from wrists, and only last night a lullaby sung to a dog behind the closed door of her room. Most of all, I wanted to tell him of her pregnancy, to rid myself of some of its weight.
I jolted to a stand, overwhelmed and worried that I would say too much, would reveal secrets not mine to share.
“What are you going to do, Isaac?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m here to help. The state can help too. There’s paperwork we need to file with DSHS. You know that. They’ll be able to place her in a good home.”
“No!” I said, surprised at my fierceness. “She has a home with me.”
He gave me a moment, then said quietly, “You’re a good soul, Isaac. She needs a place, and you’ve always had a big heart for strays. But give it some thought, all right? As for the forms, I’m with you. I’d skip them in a heartbeat, but we got our asses handed to us last time we tried that. Remember? With the Salconi kid? There are a lot of people to consider here, including yourself. We can’t know what she’s really after.”
“She’s after a home, and I have one,” I said. “I have more of a home than I need.”
Peter rose, placed his hands on my shoulders. “Okay. Let’s talk about this in a few days. For now, just . . . I don’t know, keep an eye out, will you? Who knows what we’re dealing with here.”