“How are Liza and the kids?” I asked.
“Oh, fine, just fine.”
“Still haven’t had any of our own yet,” I said.
He offered the typical silent look of superiority those who have children often level at those who do not; as if being alive for a certain amount of time without eventually reproducing was a sacrilege simply too depraved to verbalize.
After an awkward silence I asked, “Hey, how’s Julie doing?”
Brian’s eyes widened almost comically. “Well, Jules is—Jules is Jules.”
I smiled innocently. “I haven’t seen her in years, she still living in Massachusetts?”
“Cambridge—in one of the worst neighborhoods, of course—for a few years now.”
I felt my pulse quicken. “Well give her my best next time you see her.”
He looked beyond me, toward his office. “Actually,” he said quietly, “I don’t see her that often. Sometimes on holidays, but that’s about it. Julie still has a lot of problems.” He pointed to his ear with his index finger and made a quick circular motion.
He said this as if it were, and had been, common knowledge in town for years—and maybe it was—but I had never involved myself in local gossip. Brian apparently assumed otherwise, so I played along. “What a shame. She’s still having those same difficulties?”
“Well, you know, she’s just out there.” If I hadn’t known, I’d have never guessed it was his only sister he was referring to with such disdain. “After a while you pull back and throw up your hands in disgust. We all have our own lives—and I have my standing in town to think of—you know what I mean.”
When we’d all been younger, before Julie had developed the problems he was so quick to point out, she’d been the main attraction in their family, while Brian, an inconspicuous kid with a buzz cut and bad skin, was relegated to supporting role status. Over time the tables had turned, and he seemed nothing short of ecstatic about it. “The last I heard she was working as a waitress. Imagine Julie still holding down a menial job at her age? There’s a shocker.” His sarcasm approached glee.
“Hey, it’s an honest living.”
Brian looked like I’d amused him. Perhaps I had. “Yes—well—at any rate, listen, it’s great seeing you, Alan.” He used my name cautiously, as if to be certain he had it right. Apparently he’d become far too important to remember someone like me. When I said nothing, he offered up a burst of insincere laughter. “At any rate, we’ll have to get together one of these—”
“Yeah, can’t wait.” I offered an insincere smile of my own. “See you around, Brian.”
I walked back to my car without looking back. It felt great to dismiss the bastard, and besides, I’d lucked out. Julie was living a little over thirty minutes away in Cambridge, and my thoughts had already turned to her.
Once I got back to the apartment, I called Donald at work and asked him if he could search the Internet for some information. I knew he had Internet access at work and at home, and since I had no idea how to even turn a computer on and didn’t have time to go to the public library and dig through microfiche, I figured he was the best person to assign with information gathering. “Do you think you might be able to find anything about homicides in New York City during 1982?” I asked.
“I’m sure there must be some web sites out there with statistical info,” he said softly, keeping his voice down so no one else could hear what he was saying.
“Well that’s the year we thought Bernard was in the Marines,” I reminded him. “If he told the truth on the tape and was really in New York City for that year then there should be some evidence of the things he claimed he did. Articles, police logs, whatever you can come up with that might somehow tie into all of this.”
“I’ll do it when I get home. There’s no privacy here, such is the life of a lowly corporate word processor. I’m not sure I’ll find any specifics but I’ll see what I can do.”
“OK, I have to get going but I’ll be in touch tonight,” I told him. “Depending on what time I get back, I’ll either give you a call or swing by the house.”
Silence answered me until he said, “Get back from where?”
“Cambridge.”
“And do I want to know what’s in Cambridge?”
“I don’t know yet. We’ll talk tonight.”
I was familiar with Boston but not so much with neighboring Cambridge, so after finding a listing for Julie in an area phonebook, I jotted down the number and address then headed out. I shot up Route 3, the coastal highway that leads to and ends just shy of the outskirts of Boston. Thoughts detonated one after another, blurring my mind as I did my best to focus on the road. The two tallest buildings in the city—the Hancock Tower, a reflecting spire of tinted glass built to appear one-dimensional from certain angles and three-dimensional from others, and the contrasting, more traditionally designed skyscraping Prudential Center, needle nose piercing the clouds—dominated the horizon. A dull sun dangled low in the sky, partially obstructed by the cityscape, as if hiding and mischievously peeking out from behind it.
I had no idea, no plan as to how I might approach Julie—or even if I should—much less broach a conversation about what may or may not have taken place in the forests of Potter’s Cove more than twenty years before. Odds were, she’d have no memory of me. In all the times I’d been to Brian’s house or played in his yard, Julie and I had probably spoken fewer than twenty words to each other. If I got lucky, she might have a vague memory of me as one of her little brother’s friends, but that was the best I could hope for.
I needed a starting point, and trying to find the truth about her and my memories of that day in the forest with Bernard was as good a place to start as any. If Bernard had done something to her all those years before, it didn’t necessarily prove he’d later graduated to murder, but it would give me a more objective view of him and hopefully point me in the right direction in terms of solving the rest of what I’d experienced.
Traffic was light, and I made my way into the city quickly. It was a bit warmer here, the air thicker and less typical of spring in Massachusetts. I drove along Washington Street then hopped onto Charles Street, cut through the Boston Common public gardens and headed toward Beacon Hill. The Longfellow Bridge took me into East Cambridge, past Kendall Square and onto Broadway.
I found Demaro Street, a narrow boulevard, a few blocks in and away from the hustle and bustle of the main drag. The phonebook had listed Julie Henderson’s address as #12. I slowed the car and noticed many of the addresses were not clearly marked. The neighborhood was rundown, the streets littered and the tenements in various stages of disrepair. The gaps between the buildings were so small the entire street had the confined feeling of an alley. On the corner was a graffiti-decorated and burned out building that had once been a convenience store. A group of guarded-looking young men and one woman stood nearby, watchful eyes locked on my car, lips moving subtly, as if speaking to each other in code. I moved on, their stares still boring through me, and a bit further up I found #12, a two-story apartment building with a flat roof, severely chipped paint and cement front steps. I pulled into the first available space across the street and checked my rearview. The group on the corner was still there but no longer seemed interested in me.
Before I could change my mind I forced myself from the car and jogged across the street to Julie’s building. A breeze kicked up but quickly dissipated. Litter and debris blew about at my feet, scraped the pavement then settled quietly.