“Calm what down?” Kyle said. “It’s been over thirty years.”
“It may have been over thirty years,” Nancy said, “but it’s not like she disappeared and was never heard from in all that time. She’s been in our faces now for a decade at least. And it … rankles … some people.”
“Some people such as whom?” Gregor said.
“Mostly,” Nancy said, “there’s Belinda, who’s just livid. I think Belinda’s entire worldview came apart at the seams when Betsy got famous. And there’s Maris Coleman, of course, but she doesn’t really live here anymore. I don’t know if she counts.”
“So,” Kyle said. “What was it exactly that you and Chris thought you were going to do?”
“Chris was going to throw her a party,” Nancy said, “and I was going to take her out to dinner—not by herself but with all of us, or nearly all of us. Stu being what he is, Peggy can’t usually make it. Anyway, all of us except Peggy and Belinda were going to do something and see if we couldn’t sort of just bury the hatchet, so to speak. So Chris drove out there to talk to her. She was trying to make an effort.”
“How did she know Betsy would be home?” Kyle asked. “Did she call ahead?”
“She tried to call ahead,” Nancy said sourly, “but you just couldn’t get through on that phone. It was hooked up to an answering machine. Chris left a few messages, but she could never get Betsy to call her back.”
“I’ll bet,” Kyle said.
“You don’t need to be such a snot about it, Kyle. You’re the one who said it had been over thirty years. It had been over thirty years. You’d think some people would grow up. Especially famous people. Somebody as successful as Betsy Wetsy shouldn’t still be obsessing about high school.”
“Right,” Kyle said.
“You said she drove over there on her own,” Gregor said. “Do you know what time that was? Did you go with her?”
“I didn’t go with her, no,” Nancy said. “I’m almost never out of here before five, even though the school day ends at quarter to three. She intended to go out there at around three-thirty or four, but I don’t know if she went then or earlier or later, at least not for sure. I do know she was intending to go alone.”
“This Miss Smith,” Gregor said.
“Mrs. Kennedy,” Nancy corrected.
“Was she out sick that day, too?” Gregor asked.
Nancy shook her head. “She was right here, all day. Trust me, if she ever pulls one of these two days in a row, Hollman will hear about it. No, Peggy was in as usual, yesterday. I picked her up and drove her in. But I forgot to pick her up this morning.”
“How could you forget?” Kyle asked.
“I met Emma in JayMar’s and she made me furious,” Nancy said. “So I came in early to do some work. If Peggy had called to say she was stranded, I would have gone back out to get her.”
“Back to Chris,” Kyle said. “She was supposed to go out to Betsy’s house between three-thirty and four. As far as you know, she did it.”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“You were here. Peggy was here—”
“Well, not at three-thirty, she wasn’t. Shelley Brancowski gave her a ride home at three. Shelley does that when I have to work late. Peggy only stays late when she’s got French Club, and they only meet twice a week.”
“Right,” Kyle said again.
“Christ,” Nancy said again. “Do you really think any of us would kill Chris off? Whatever for? I mean, I know she was a pain and a snot and all the rest of it, but there’s just no reason for any of us to have done it. And you can’t really think Betsy did it, no matter what Belinda says. Why would she kill Chris? If she was going to kill any of us, it would be Belinda. And I say if she hasn’t killed Maris yet, she’s not capable of killing anybody.”
The door opened and the young woman named Lisa poked her head in. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, “but somebody from the police department is on the phone for Kyle.”
PART THREE
“Babylon”
—DAVID GRAY
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”
—BOB DYLAN
“My Life”
—BILLY JOEL
ONE
1
Not all small towns are alike. Some are small because they are kept that way, deliberately, by residents whose lives are really in a city not too far away, by people who know very well that a modern and efficient police force is indispensable, even if it seems not to be on a day-to-day basis. Other small towns are really small towns. They exist naturally. The people in them live in a bubble that allows them to think that they are immune from the disease of violence that infects every other place, and that has infected even small towns from the beginning of time. Gregor often thought that if you wanted to do something effective to teach people about crime—and to convince them to protect themselves from it—you would run a sixty-second commercial that did nothing but spell out the mayhem that had occurred in small towns in the last two years, any two years, pick them. Serial killers in Richmond, Nebraska. Domestic violence deaths in Mortimer, South Dakota. Drug gang wars in Leeland, Oklahoma. Envy, jealousy, and spite—everywhere, Gregor thought, because those things were part of being human. He had no idea where so many people had gotten the idea that crime was an aberration. To him, it seemed that crime was a constant. Anthropologists found evidence of murder in fossil remains.