backpack behind on the shore as witness to her departure. When Cameron had become way overdue at home that day, I started looking for her. I'd roused my mother enough to feel she could watch Mariella and Gracie for at least a little while, and I'd trudged through the sweltering heat, following the route Cameron took when she walked home from the high school. It was getting to be twilight by then. Cameron had stayed at school later than I because she was helping to decorate for a dance; the senior prom, I think.
I'd found her backpack, fully loaded with the school-books, notebooks, notes passed to her in class, broken pencils, and small change. And that was all that was left of Cameron. The police had kept it for a long time, gone through its compartments, asked me about the content of every note. Then we'd asked for its return. Today, we carried that backpack in the trunk of our car.
When Tolliver came in, I was still lying on my bed. I'd rotated again, to lie flat on my back as I gazed at the ceiling, thinking about my sister.
'The car from the hotel's going to pick up Art at the airport,' he said. 'I got it all arranged.'
'Thanks,' I said, moving over to give him room. He lay on the other half of the vast king bed, shoes properly off. I let him have a pillow. Then I gave him another one.
'Looking back on the cemetery thing this morning,' he began, and gave me a moment to fix my attention back on the nearer past.
'Okay,' I said, to let him know I was ready to listen.
'Did you notice that man mixed in with the kids?'
'Yes, the guy who looked to be about thirty-five or so?'
'Dark brown hair, five ten, medium build.'
'Right. Yes, of course I noticed him. He stood out.'
'You think there was something fishy about him?'
'There was another older student,' I said, not really protesting Tolliver's direction, but testing it out.
'Yeah, but she was a regular person. There was something off about this guy; he was there for a purpose, not because he had to be. You think he was some kind of professional debunker? There to spot how we did it, and expose us?'
'Well, I think that was Clyde Nunley's goal in teaching the course, don't you? Not an inquiry to stimulate students' minds to seriously consider spiritualism and the people who practice it, but to prove that it's all claptrap.'
'But not as… I don't know, this guy seemed to have an agenda. He was purposeful.'
'I know what you mean,' I said.
'You think we've been set up?'
'Yes, I sure do think so. Unless this is most amazing coincidence in the history of coincidences.'
'But why?' Tolliver turned his head to look at me.
'And who?' I countered.
The worry in his face mirrored my own.
My business would die without word of mouth. But it has to be a quiet word. If I brought a trail of newspaper and television reporters with me, half the people who use my services wouldn't want to see me coming. There are a few who'd love nothing better, but only a few. Most clients are embarrassed at hiring me at all, because they don't want to seem gullible. Some are desperate enough to be just that. But very few of them want any outside scrutiny.
So restrained coverage from time to time is okay. Once, a really good reporter wrote a story on me for a law enforcement journal, and I still get business from that exposure. Lots of officers clipped that story; when all else fails, they may get in touch with me through my website. My prices scare off some of the people who apply for my services. I'm not a lawyer, and no one asks me to do pro bono work.
Well, that's not true. People do. But I refuse.
However, I've never left a body unreported. If I find one in the course of a job, I'll report it, and I never ask for extra money for that.
If I got into the news too much, I'd be absolutely grabbing at pro bono work, just to get the good press. I didn't want to have to do that.
'Who do you think would hire such a person? Someone I didn't satisfy?' I asked the ceiling.
'We've found everyone since Tabitha,' Tolliver said.
Yes, I'd had a long string of successes: cases with enough information to go on and enough persistence on my part. Bodies found, causes of death confirmed. Money in the bank.
'Maybe someone connected with the college who wanted to check on what the class was being exposed to?' I guessed.
'Could be. Or someone connected with St. Margaret's, who felt the cemetery was being used in some irreligious way.'
We both fell silent, puzzled and unhappy about too many things at once.
'I'm glad I found her, though,' I said. 'No matter what.'
My brother, who had followed my thoughts as he often did, said, 'Yeah.'
'Nice people,' I said.
'You never thought what the police suspected—?'
