Lucas gave a sad little laugh. “You know, Grampa Paul probably preferred it that way. He went peacefully, and he wasn’t locked away in some room when he did. That’s not so bad. But I hear you. It could have been much worse, and no one wants a loved one to pass away alone.”
I checked my watch. “Well, I should go. I appreciate the talk.”
“Of course.”
“I made an appointment this morning to visit the facility in Stanton where your grandfather was. Just to see what it’s like and get some of my questions answered. I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Do you want company?”
“Really? Could you do that?”
“There’s nothing on my schedule that I can’t cancel.”
“Well, that would be so helpful. Thank you. It won’t take much time, I promise. I have to get back to Everywhere soon. I need to check on the FBI search at the resort.”
Lucas gave me a puzzled look. “The FBI are back in town? Did something happen?”
“Haven’t you seen the news?”
“No, I hardly ever read the paper or watch television. I usually don’t know what’s going on in the world. You’d be amazed how little difference it makes to your life on most days.”
“Well, it’s about Jeremiah Sloan,” I told him.
“That boy who vanished years ago? Is there new information in the case?”
“Yes, we found evidence that he was taken to an abandoned resort outside Witch Tree after he disappeared. The FBI is searching the area to see if there’s anything that would help us figure out what happened to him.”
“You mean, like a body?”
“That’s what we’re afraid of.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lucas stared into the trees, and I watched his brow furrow with memories. “Witch Tree. Wow. That takes me back. I don’t suppose it’s the Mittel Pines Resort, is it?”
“Yes, it is. Why? Do you know it?”
“Sure. I was there for a couple of weeks every summer before we moved away. Grampa Paul used to take me there. That was one of the things I really missed about being in Kansas City. I couldn’t visit the resort with him anymore.”
“Hang on, your grandfather used to stay at the Mittel Pines Resort?” I repeated, just to make sure I had it right.
“It was his favorite place in the world,” Lucas told me. “He loved it out there. He was so upset when it closed. I bet he stayed there practically every summer of his life. I remember sometimes when I was in the facility with him in Stanton, he’d talk about the days we spent there. He’d tell me that when summer came, we really had to go back and stay in the cabins. That was so sad. In his mind, the resort was still open, and I was still a ten-year-old boy.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lucas and I stood outside the nursing home in Stanton where Paul Nadler had spent the last months of his life. I had an appointment to talk to the administrator about my father, but instead of going inside, I stood on the sidewalk and found myself unable to move. Yes, I was hesitating because I was scared to even think about my dad in a place like that. But I also couldn’t get Lucas’s story about his grandfather out of my mind.
“Shelby?” Lucas said, when I stayed frozen where I was. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Should we go in?”
“Not yet.”
I looked up and down the street that ran past the three-story apartment building. I drove past this location every month when I had errands to run in Stanton, but I’d only stopped here once, after Paul Nadler’s body was found by the river. From where we stood, I could see the Oak Street bridge a few blocks away. I thought about Mr. Nadler wandering out of this facility when no one was looking and taking a stroll past the neatly mowed lawns until he reached the bridge. He climbed down the slope and sat underneath the bridge deck, and at some point on that summer Friday, his heart stopped. When the rains came the following night, the river rose up and carried his body away and left him on the grassy bank outside town.
That was what had happened to him.
And yet.
I walked across the street, and Lucas followed me with a puzzled expression on his face. The parking lot of the McDonald’s on the corner was crowded. I sat down on a cold bench beside the bus stop and tried to make sense of it.
“Shelby?” Lucas said, trying again. “Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking?”
What I was thinking was crazy, but I said it anyway.
“I think your grandfather was the one who took Jeremiah to that resort.”
Lucas shook his head. His expression made it clear that he definitely thought I was crazy. “Grampa Paul? Come on, that’s impossible.”
“Maybe, but hear me out. Over in the national forest, we’ve got a ten-year-old boy on his bicycle. He misses his grandfather so much that he won’t even take off his Sunday suit. And now over here in Stanton, we’ve got a nice old man with dementia who loved taking his ten-year-old grandson to the Mittel Pines Resort. An old man who wandered away from his nursing home on the same morning that Jeremiah disappeared.”
I watched Lucas struggle with what I was saying.
“Yeah, it’s a weird coincidence, but that’s all it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, it doesn’t make sense, Shelby. Grampa Paul’s body was found by the river here in Stanton. Not in Everywhere. Not in Witch Tree. Here in Stanton.”
“You’re right.”
“The national forest where that boy disappeared is more than an hour away from here. And Witch Tree is, what, another hour past that? How on earth did Grampa Paul get there?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, even if he took somebody’s car, it doesn’t add up. You’re saying he drove to Everywhere, picked up Jeremiah, went out to this resort, came back to Stanton, dropped off the car that apparently nobody realized was gone, and then went walking by the river, had a heart attack, and was carried away by the current? Doesn’t that sound absurd?”
“Yes, it does.”
“Plus, if Grampa Paul really was the one who picked him up, what happened to Jeremiah? I hope you’re not suggesting that my grandfather harmed that boy. Because he didn’t, Shelby. He would never, ever hurt a child. He was the nicest man I’ve ever known.”
“I’m sure he was, Lucas.”
“Then how do you explain Jeremiah never turning up?”
“I can’t.”
“Well, see? There’s no way it happened like that. No way.”
I was ready to agree with him, because everything he said was true. My theory didn’t make sense. It left me with too many questions that seemingly had no answers. And yet I couldn’t give it up for one simple reason.
I was right.
I knew I was right. I knew it had happened exactly that way. Paul Nadler took Jeremiah Sloan to the Mittel Pines Resort. I didn’t know what happened next, but I was sure that somehow their two lives had intersected that day in the national forest.
As if to prove I wasn’t really crazy, the universe took that moment to send me a sign. A real sign that helped explain everything.
We sat on the bench across from the nursing home, and a regional bus rumbled toward us from the center of town, the way it did every hour of every day, serving Stanton and Mittel Counties. I saw it coming, and I looked at the destination on the electronic sign on the front of the bus.
It said Martin’s Point.
I got up immediately and flagged the driver to stop. “Want to take a ride?” I said to Lucas.