Lost Girls

history, as they say.''

Pittle places his hand on the cover page of Dundurn's journal, then quickly pulls it back, leaving an oily stain of chicken fat and Tabasco in its place.

''Dammit,'' he mumbles, mouth full.

''She escaped the war and made it to freedom only to be hunted down right here in happy old Murdoch.''

''It's funny, isn't it, in a terrible sort of way.''

''Funny,'' I say, feeling the broken ice lapping up to the knees, the chest. Arms held out to the puffing faces on the shore. ''Terrible.''

For a time neither of us says anything while Pittle eats and I pretend to eat. These things really are hot, yet utterly tasteless except for the painful burning they leave on the end of my tongue. I glance over toward the bar and find the waitress standing there looking back at us, and although it's too dark to make out her face I imagine a cruel, satisfied smile playing over her lips.

''Okay, Doug. Let's go back a second,'' I say once I've given up on lunch for good. ''Even if I go along with your interpretation that Dundurn was there at the lake when it happened, how does that help me with Mrs. Arthurs's theory that the Lady has come back to claim Flynn and McConnell? Not that that's possible. But as a matter of argument--''

''As a matter of argument, of course.'' He lowers his wing and clears his throat. ''Well, Dundurn goes on to detail certain instances where the Lady was said to have reappeared in the years following her death. Sightings up near the lake. Walking through the trees at night in her hospital clothes. Rising up out of the lake at dusk, or a scream echoing out over the water in the middle of the night. What's most interesting perhaps are the reports made by children. Cottagers' kids running in crying to their mothers saying that a mean, green old lady had approached them, asking them to take her hand and go for a little swim. Crazy stuff like that. Dundurn figures that these stories even played a part in the region's failure to make it as a viable tourist destination. People got the creeps bad enough that they decided to spend the extra money to buy places fifty miles to the south. You can take that argument or leave it. But what's important is that Mrs. Arthurs isn't alone in her opinion. It's just that she may be the last person alive to express it.''

I nod once and finish my beer. Lay my napkin over the food in front of me like a white sheet.

''Why didn't you tell me about Tripp, Doug?''

''Sorry?''

''The last name on the sign-out card of that Dundurn book I took from the library was his.''

''That's interesting.''

''Yes, it is. And given that the circulation desk of the Murdoch Library is not exactly a busy place, you would have known about it. And then you recommend the same book to me.''

Pittle smiles once, a carnivorous flash, then pulls it back into the bush.

''I didn't know what he was looking into specifically at the time,'' he says. ''I mean, it's just a book of local history, right? The guy can read. But after he was arrested and the rest--I had some ideas of my own.''

''So then you handed it over to me.''

''You were interested. So was Tripp. And I thought if you saw his name in there it might mean something to you.''

Now Pittle slurps at his beer, lifts a chicken wing to his mouth. ''So?'' he asks, takes a bite.

''So what?''

''What do you think he was doing with Dundurn's book?''

''Listen, Doug, I'm not sure I can--''

''Off the record.''

''Legally speaking, off the record doesn't mean a thing.''

''I give you my word, then.''

It's moments like this they drill into you at law school. How never to betray your client's confidence even with your closest friends, colleagues, or loved ones, and Pittle not even qualifying as any of the above. And yet I want to tell him something. Part of me thinks I might make the unclear clear through putting it into words. Part of me just wants to say it to someone else.

''Tripp ran an after-school club with Ashley and Krystal where they would read books and talk about them, do creative writing exercises and other stuff like that,'' I start, and Pittle stops eating for the first time.

''I'd heard something about that.''

''Well, that's how it all began, anyway. But I have reason to believe it went farther. That they started to dramatize events. Put on plays of their own making. That was one of the rules, as a matter of fact. Nothing could be real.''

''And you think this is of importance to the defense?''

''Probably not. But it might be important, nevertheless.''

For a while we keep our eyes lowered to the table, let the static of sports statistics fill our ears. Then Pittle shakes his head as though he'd just stepped through cobwebs.

''The imagination can be a very dangerous thing,'' he says.

''How's that?''

''When you stop seeing it only as the hypothetical and take the step into making it real. Think about it. This is really what we mean when we talk about someone having an evil mind. Charlie Manson, Oppenheimer, Hitler, Dahmer, whoever. People who let themselves go too far into their heads.''

''C'mon, Doug. There's an entire body of science-- the hangover of traumatic childhoods, chemical imbalances, whatever. There're many other ways of explaining--''

''I'm a librarian,'' he interrupts. ''A part-time reporter. I prefer my world to be the world of facts. At the same time I know the control it takes to keep it that way. Sometimes I wish I could be something different. But I have to resist those kinds of thoughts. Remind myself that so long as I stay with the facts, I'm safe.''

''Safe from what?''

''What I might be if I let myself.''

At the bottom of our baskets the waitress has thrown in a wet nap that each of us now struggles to rip open. Inside, the sharp lemon of jet-travel hygiene. I smear it over the bottom half of my face as Pittle, so aggressive with his food a moment ago, now makes delicate stabs at his lips and pushes his basket to the side of the table. A male voice from the TV above us panting, ''I just went out there to kick some butt and that's exactly what I did.''

Then Pittle starts again, this time jumping forward in his chair, hands diving and poking up through his papers. ''I can't believe I didn't even show you.''

''Show what?''

''Dundurn's picture.''

''What difference does it make what he looks like?''

''Not him.'' He pulls a square of paper away from a paper clip, holds it a foot away from my eyes. ''Her.''

I hold out my hand and he drops it into my palm. Too small to convey an entire person really, a white-fringed square the size of a commemorative stamp. Black-and-white, but more yellowy brass than anything else. And coated with a fog that at first obscures the subject: a woman in a buttoned cardigan (a little too tight at the shoulders) framed from the waist up. Hair tied and pinned into a disordered nest the color of carbon dust. A long, weary neck, riddled with vertical bulges that could be muscle or tendon or vein. And a face of the kind of beauty that somehow resists the simplicity of such a term, a beauty against the beautiful. A face like a historical map, rough marks indicating shifting boundaries, the outside bordered by hypothetical coastlines. Not aged but suggestive of vast expanses of endured time. The face of Europe pushing through an out-of-focus lens.

''So?''

''So.''

So she was real. Real in the manner of the unreal. Someone you could base a story on, as soon a romance as a tale of vengeful horror. A once-living woman, but more than this? Nothing but a flayed, insistent slip of history.

''Hard to believe this woman is the Lake St. Christopher monster,'' I say after a while.

''She's not. Or only a part of her is.''

''And which part is that?''

''What we've had to make up. The worst parts we could imagine.''