“What didn’t you see, then?” Chuck asked, playing along.
“I didn’t see Nicoleta’s roommate, Anca.”
Chuck pressed his hands to his stomach, containing himself. It had been Anca who had come after Clarence in the Falcon House hallway.
Parker continued, “There’s no smoking in the dorms, as you know. And of course, with the drought, there’s pretty much no smoking allowed anywhere. One spark and—” he puffed his cheek “—poof.”
“But people still smoke.”
“We can’t prohibit it. You know the buckets, right?”
Chuck nodded. Red metal canisters, open at the top and filled with sand, were bolted waist-high to the light poles lining the sidewalk in front of the dormitory buildings. Smokers were to stay within ten feet of the buckets, and to put their butts out in the sand.
“Every night at ten o’clock,” Parker said, “the TV goes off in the front room of Falcon House and she comes out for a smoke. Every single night.”
“You do work late, don’t you?”
“Never past midnight. My wife won’t let me. But we’re talking about Anca, not me.”
“Nicoleta’s roommate,” Chuck confirmed.
“Ten p.m., on the dot. Except for two nights ago.”
“I’m not really sure—”
“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” Parker said. “But she never showed. I mean, it’s gotten to the point where, when I’ve been working this summer, I’ve started anticipating ten o’clock. I know she’ll come out, have her smoke, go back inside. When she goes through her routine, it’s like everything’s okay in my world. I can keep working, go home, whatever, but the earth’s still turning, I’m going to make it through another summer season, know what I mean?”
“Except for two nights ago.”
“It was odd, that’s all. I was sitting right here.” Parker turned ninety degrees to a small computer table with a keyboard tray and oversized monitor, demonstrating how easy it was for him to glance out the window while he worked. “Ten o’clock came and went. Ten-fifteen. Ten-thirty. I finally went home, but it was unsettling.”
“Somebody doesn’t smoke a cigarette, and you call that ‘unsettling’?”
“I know. Believe me, I get it. You’re not sure what to make of it, and neither am I. But I can tell you this, Chuck: five hours after Anca’s a no-show, the cops were scooping up a bunch of what apparently is human blood, just back of where she usually has her smoke.”
“And twenty-four hours later, her roommate is dead, in almost the same place.”
“Which is why I wanted you to know, seeing’s how it’s your brother-in-law’s knife the cops are parading around.” Parker stopped, but it was clear there was something more on his mind. “He’s got a real obvious body frame, your brother-in-law.”
Chuck pictured Clarence’s short, stocky build, his pot belly, and his long, dark hair. “One that’s easy to spot in binoculars, I suppose.”
“Even at night,” Parker said.
“You saw him the night of the blood?”
“No.”
“The night before last?”
“Not then, either.”
“Good.”
“But I saw him other nights. Lots of other nights. Your brother-in-law, from what I’ve seen, has gotten around quite a bit this summer.”
“Making his way over to Falcon House?”
Parker nodded. “Several of the girls’ rooms. Lights on, lights off. Curtains open, curtains closed. Doesn’t seem to matter to him.”
“If it makes you feel any better, he told the police.”
“As well he should have.”
“You don’t miss a thing around here, do you?”
“Oh, I’m sure I miss plenty. But I consider it part of my job to catch as much as I can.”
Chuck angled back toward the cabin after exiting the conference center. Upon entering the trees, he turned and made his way through the forest to the back of the dormitories, avoiding Parker’s long-lensed gaze. Above the dining hall, the crime-scene tape was gone, the place where Nicoleta’s body had lain impossible to pick out on the slope. The mobile command vehicle and police cars were gone, too, as if the murder never had taken place.
He entered Raven House through the back door and found the students at work alongside Clarence and Kirina in the common room, with its knotty, aspen-plank walls running all the way to the second-story ceiling. Finds from the mine site, most dug from beneath the collapsed cabin, lined the front room’s wooden tables. Each item was stored in an annotated Ziploc bag. The students talked among themselves while they toted their laptops from find to find, typing up written descriptions of each.
By the end of the course, the students were to have completed full logbooks of everything recovered from the mine site, including discovery date, grid location, and physical description. Based on the fact that all twelve students were working when Chuck entered the room, it was clear they still had plenty to do.
Chuck stuck around for the remainder of the morning, growing increasingly antsy as the minutes ticked by. He couldn’t stop thinking of the errand he’d sent Janelle on with the girls. What would Elaine make of the black material? Would she recognize something about it that would shed light on the hidden shaft, the puddle of blood—even the murder?