Back in the safety of her car, she ran her finger down the list of streets on the town map until she found Easton Road. She hadn’t planned on visiting Tim’s old house. A cursory drive-by wouldn’t tell her much. But having come this far, it would be silly to return to Lansford without getting a look at the scene of the crime.
*
On the drive out of town, she glanced at the bay. A pair of gulls, hovering above the pewter sea, folded their wings and plummeted into the water like stones. The raft of dark clouds mustering on the horizon threatened more rain.
Not long after she turned onto a narrow road through the forest, a battered pickup roared up behind her, aggressively close, and honked twice before speeding past.
Her shoulders tensed and she regretted her errand. What did she hope to learn from seeing the house? Pure voyeurism was all it was. She’d already examined the photos of the crime scene in all their gory detail. The bodies and blood. Toppled furniture. The bloody cleaver and kitchen knife sealed into evidence bags. Surely that was enough.
As the dark spruce gave way to birch saplings, shafts of light filtered through the boughs and the layer of mist above the loamy ground. A dilapidated house set back in the trees showed no signs of life. By the time she turned onto Easton Road, her hands ached from clenching the wheel. After rounding a bend, where the dark evergreens grew right up to the road, she came upon the house. Number 44. The name on the letter box was Gilbert.
Tall stands of hickory and sycamore dwarfed the white clapboard house. When the Stern family lived there, it was painted a pale grey with a dark green door. In summer, with the trees in leaf, the house would be largely invisible from the street. Farther down the road, Erin could just see the nearest mailbox, a good hundred yards away.
A man in a yellow rain slicker rounded the corner of the house, pushing a loaded wheelbarrow. He stopped in front of a sprawling rhododendron hedge at the edge of the lawn, the pink buds just coming into bloom, and began to shovel dark soil on the ground.
Erin parked on a soggy patch of grass in front of the house and stepped out. The cool air was pungent with damp earth and rain-washed pines.
Grasping the shovel, the man looked up and squinted. ‘Not selling anything, are you?’ He pointed to a sign by the driveway. No soliciting.
She shivered in the chilly breeze. ‘No, nothing to sell.’
‘Glad to hear it. I don’t mean to be unfriendly, but a man likes his quiet, and these door-to-door snake oil peddlers and Jehovah’s whatsits have got all out of control.’
She wondered how long he’d lived here. If this man bought the house soon after the murders, he’d probably had his fill of curiosity seekers and busybodies gawking through the windows. Or kids spooking each other on Halloween.
‘My name is Erin… Carson,’ she said, exaggerating her British accent. ‘When I was a child my family came over from London to spend the summer holiday here.’ She paused, inventing as she went. ‘My father spent some time in Maine as a boy and he wanted to visit again. Memory lane and all that.’
The man had yet to relax his grip on the shovel or move out from behind the wheelbarrow.
‘I met a girl who lived here. Lucy Tomlin,’ Erin said, pulling the name out of the air. ‘There was a trampoline out back, the star attraction in the neighbourhood.’
What neighbourhood? The question was clearly stamped on the man’s face. ‘Is that so?’ He knocked a clump of mud from his boots. ‘Well, I don’t know anything about a girl named Lucy. Only one other family lived here before we bought the place. There were two girls, I believe, but my memory’s not what it used to be.’
A gust of wind rustled the damp boughs of the trees. Erin hugged her elbows for warmth. ‘I wondered if I might have a brief look inside the house. For old times’ sake.’
Pushing his hat off his forehead, he fixed her with a gimlet eye. ‘Sure you’re not selling something? Religious pamphlets, a plot at the local cemetery? I already got one of those and my own beliefs too, so I’ll thank you to keep yours to yourself.’
She raised her hand. ‘No plots, no pamphlets.’
‘All right then.’ He scanned the sky. ‘I guess the rhodies can wait a few minutes.’
He turned abruptly, and she followed him round the back of the house, where the thickly planted spruce trees, fronted by more rhododendrons, cast a deep shade on the scraggly lawn. She made a mental note of the distance from the back door to the driveway. Fifteen yards, perhaps twenty. No more than that.
They entered the mudroom, where a green duffel coat and black parka hung on hooks. The man levered off his boots and peeled off the rain slicker.
‘Go on in through the kitchen. I guess you know the way.’
Erin stepped through the doorway. Scuffed linoleum in a starburst pattern of mustard and brown. An avocado-green cooker and fridge. Not much changed in here. The photos from the forensic report flashed through her head. Tim’s mother on the floor. Streaks of blood on the walls. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to jar the scene from her mind.
‘Are you okay, Miss? Looks like you’re having some kind of spell.’ Mr Gilbert folded his arms, as if waiting for her to drop the charade and wave a sheaf of religious tracts under his nose. ‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’
‘No, I’m fine. Please don’t go to any trouble.’ She passed a
