families, but more important, he was one of Serena’s clients as a private investigator.
“I’ve done my homework,” Tish continued. “Randall Stanhope had the police in his pocket back then, and it wouldn’t have been hard for him to shift the focus away from his son. Somebody needs to take a close look at Peter Stanhope.”
Serena pushed her chair back with an iron screech and stalked away from the table.
Maggie watched her go, then leaned forward, shaking her head. “Look, Trish.”
“It’s Tish.”
“Tish, fish, knish, whatever. Let me give you a reality check. You can’t go around making accusations about anyone, let alone a rich lawyer like Peter Stanhope, without evidence. You can’t expect the police to help you.”
“Unless you’ve got something new to add to the investigation, we can’t do anything,” Stride added. “Even if we wanted to.”
“I do have something new,” Tish said.
Stride’s face was dark and suspicious. “What is it?”
“I know Laura was being stalked.”
WHO KILLED LAURA STARR?
TWO
May 20, 1977
Laura showed me the letter today. I caught her reading it on her bed when I went into her room, and I saw what it was before she could hide it. I could tell she was upset. I wondered how long she had been staring at it before I came in.
The note was written on ruled white paper, the kind we use in school. The edge was jagged where it had been torn out of a binder. Someone had used red lipstick to scrawl the message.
WHERE DO YOU WANT IT, BITCH?
“What the hell is this?” I demanded. “Where did this come from?”
Laura snatched the note out of my hand. “Someone put it in my locker.”
“Do you know who?”
“I have no idea.”
I wanted to see it again, but Laura hid it away in the drawer of her nightstand before I could ask.
“You have to tell someone about this,” I said.
Laura ignored me. She hummed along to a Hall and Oates song on her record player. “Sara Smile.” Her fluffy blond hair jiggled as her shoulders swayed, and she rubbed her index finger nervously as if she were trying to wipe away a stain. She acted as if, by putting the note away, it didn’t exist anymore.
“Laura,” I chided her. “This is serious. If you won’t tell anyone about it, then I will.”
She wagged her finger at me. “Oh, no, you won’t, little sister. I don’t want to make a big deal about this. You know what boys are like. It’s just a joke. It would make it worse if I acted like I was scared.”
I didn’t think it was a joke.
I flopped down into Laura’s white beanbag. I knew there was no point in trying to change her mind, because she didn’t call me “little sister” except when she was being stubborn. Most of the time, Laura liked the fact that I was the one in charge of the house. I could boss her around when it came to chores, and she didn’t care. She was like a sailboat drifting on the lake, letting the wind decide where she would go and not really minding where she ended up. Me, I revved my motor and followed the shore.
I stared at her on the bed. She wore a V-necked white T-shirt and cutoffs with a thick black belt. She was much prettier than I was. She had the curves and the boobs and the big Farrah hair. Jonny told me last week that my face was much more interesting than Laura’s, because it wasn’t symmetrical and perfect like hers was. He thought that was a compliment. I told him he needed to do better.
My own hair is so dark it’s almost black, and I keep it straight as an arrow, with a perfect part down the middle. I have a sharply angled nose, like a little shark’s fin jutting off my face. My irises are so large and dark that they crowd out the whites of my eyes. I have two little peaches for breasts.
Hey, I knew who the guys went for. It was Laura, not me. Maybe that’s why Laura was much less comfortable with guys than me. She kept her distance. She rarely went out on dates. During the winter, she went to the movies with Peter Stanhope a few times, but she broke it off when he wanted to get into her jeans. As far as I knew, Laura was still a virgin. Not that she would tell me that kind of thing.
“You haven’t been around much lately,” I said. For more than a week, Laura had been disappearing after school. Coming in late or staying out all night. Acting quiet and brittle. Twice I heard her crying in her room.
“So?”
“So are you okay?”
Laura shrugged. I didn’t really expect her to tell me anything. We didn’t confide our secrets in each other. Even so, I wasn’t going to let it go. She could pretend all she wanted, but I knew something was wrong. You had to look for little things with Laura. When our mother died, the only hint about what was going on inside her head was when I found a ceramic statue of Jesus, in pieces, underneath her window.
I looked for a clue. Something different. It didn’t take me long to realize that she had flipped a photograph facedown on her nightstand. When I saw that she was still tugging at her finger, I noticed something else, too. No silver ring on her index finger, just a pale white band of skin. Laura saw where my eyes had gone, and she sat on her hands to cover them up. I knew there was no point in asking her about it, so I went another way.
“Who have you been hanging out with?” I asked.
Another shrug. “I’ve been over at Finn’s a lot.”
“You and your lost causes,” I told her.
That was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes flashed at me with annoyance. Even so, I was right. Laura had a weakness for people who were damaged. She always believed she could find a way to lift them up. It was one of her best qualities, but Laura was too naive, too trusting. I must have gotten the cynical genes, because I don’t think people ever really change.
Finn was a good example. He lived across the bridge in Superior with his older sister, Rikke Mathisen, who was Laura’s favorite teacher at our high school. I knew Finn only because Laura brought him around now and then. He was an addict. Always into drugs. Creepy eyes staring at you when he thought you weren’t looking. Miss Mathisen knew Laura was a soft touch, and she thought Laura could help Finn battle his demons. So Laura spent hours over there. I thought it was a mistake, but you couldn’t tell her anything.
I opened my mouth to push Laura again about what was wrong, but she cut me off with a question of her own. Out of the blue.
“So have you slept with Jon yet?” she asked.
I made sure her bedroom door was closed, so my father couldn’t hear. “No.”
“But you’re gonna, right?”
