6

This is where it had happened.

I stepped forward into the clearing. The black-and-white historical overlay forming in my mind was not too different from the muted winter scene before us. Jedidiah Roth, the father, stumbling up the slope, feet slipping against a fall of dead leaves. Ezra and Silas Roth, his two grown sons, their faces tight and set. The muscled arms swinging upward. The dull thuds as the axes fell. The soft light filtering through the clearing glinting against the sharpened blades.

In the present, the pale winter sun emerged from behind the clouds, warming my face. No breeze rattled the bare branches. No birds chirped.

Through the silence, Reed’s phone buzzed. Whistling lightly between his teeth, he fished it from his pocket.

“You have cell service?”

Reed nodded. The tips of his hair waved gently in the cold. “It’s spotty up here, but you can sometimes get a signal. Especially at the top.” He gestured to our right, where a path led out of the clearing and on an upward rise toward the summit. He frowned at his phone, tapped a quick reply, and slipped it back into his pocket. “Sorry. That's the old ball and chain. He's not thrilled I didn't check in after my shift. Ready to head back? I can take you down the shortcut.”

I might as well. I'd stood still too long. My feet had practically frozen to the ground. And I couldn't concentrate on recreating historical murders with an excitable teenager bouncing on his toes beside me. If I wanted to set the scene, I’d have to come back alone.

“Which way’s the shortcut?”

Reed pointed. “Straight down that ridgeline.”

My face must have betrayed skepticism, because he tilted his head to the side and adopted a pedantic tone. “It's the same route the Roth boys took when they chased their father up here.” He hooked a thumb toward the center of the clearing.

He had me, and he knew it. Cocking an eyebrow at him, I pulled out my digital recorder. He rubbed his hands together, grinning and clearing his throat theatrically. I fell in step beside him as he recounted a quick summary of the murders. He didn’t add any details I didn’t already know, but it was interesting to hear him tell it in his own words. The long-simmering resentment, the fight on the old Roth homestead, the bitter words, the pursuit. I let the stream wash over me, unfazed by Reed’s incessant chatter. At least he wasn't talking about sports or girls or TV or whatever it was that teenage boys talked about.

Not that I knew much about teen boys. I’d missed my chance to figure them out when I’d been a teen myself. Now it seemed too late to worry about it.

That’s one of the complications of growing up in foster care. Never knowing how long you'd stay somewhere had a way of discouraging close bonds. Then after a while, you just stop trying. That had been me. Until Mom and Dad Scott, of course.

Reed and I crunched our way down the ridge, blackberry brambles snagging against my coat. Reed’s creaky voice receded into the background as I mulled over the details of the murder. Jedidiah Roth may very well have been a terrible person, but it was hard for me to imagine children killing their own father.

Frankly, it was hard to imagine having a father.

Even harder to imagine a father that would kill his own children.

Which brought me back to Mitchell Charles David Johnson.

Which didn’t help.

That’s exactly why I'd come up here. To think about something else for a while—even if it was another murder.

Some people might balk at focusing on one horrific crime to stop thinking about another.

I envied them.

“…which brings us right to the back of the Store, just like I was telling you,” Reed was saying as we emerged from the trees.

I lifted my head, immediately aware of two facts.

First, Reed’s shortcut had worked. We’d emerged directly behind the The Olde Birchardville Store, and it had taken considerably less time than my roundabout trek via Griffis Road.

Second, the man with the sandy hair and mustache was back. He stood in our path—and he didn't look happy.