Why now? Why me?
“What am I going to find in the notebook?” I asked her.
“You’ll see,” Alma said. She turned toward her door, then back to me. “Go meet her,” she said. “Do whatever she asks. Maybe you don’t want my advice, but that’s it.” Then she turned, went into the house, and closed the door behind her.
* * *
• • •
No one followed me on the dark roads as I drove across town from Alma’s to the motel. Was I supposed to be working tonight? I didn’t even remember anymore. Maybe I was quitting. Maybe I was fired. It didn’t matter.
The road sign was lit up, the familiar words blinking at me: VACANCY. CABLE TV! Nick’s truck was in the parking lot, and the office was closed and dark. I parked and got out of my car, letting the cold wind sting my face. There was no sound but the far-off rumble of a truck farther down Number Six Road. I could smell dead leaves and damp and the faint tang of gasoline.
In a crazy way, I belonged here more than I’d belonged anywhere in my life. The Sun Down was the place I was supposed to be.
And yet I had the feeling that I was here at the end of the Sun Down’s life. That it wouldn’t be here much longer.
I walked to the stairs and climbed them, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of my neck. Betty, maybe. Maybe one of the others. I no longer really knew.
I reached Nick’s door and banged on it. It opened immediately and he was there, big and tousled, in a dark gray T-shirt and jeans, a worried look on his face. “Thank fucking God,” he said. He took my wrist and gently pulled me into the room, closing the door behind him.
I paused, looking around. I’d never been inside Nick’s room before. There was a suitcase with clothes strewn over it, a wallet and a phone on the nightstand. The gun was nowhere to be seen. The bed was rumpled and slept in, a fact that would have embarrassed me except for the fact that it was also strewn with papers, a spiral notebook lying open in the middle of it.
“The notebook,” I said.
“I got your message,” Nick said. “It was in the candy machine, just like you said. Behind the panel I was working on, jammed into the machine’s works. She must have put it there recently. There was no way it was in there for thirty-five years.”
I looked down at the papers strewn over the bed. They were all inked with the same hand: pages of writing, lists, maps, diagrams. “Marnie must have put it there after I started working here. I wonder how much she knows.”
“Everything,” Nick said. “Carly, I’ve been reading through this. I’ve barely started. But it’s incredible.” He picked up a piece of paper. “This is a map of Victoria Lee’s street. Her house, the jogging trail, the place where her body was found. See this X? She’s put a note saying that from this spot you can see Victoria’s house and you can access the jogging trail at the same time. This was most likely where the killer was standing.”
He put that down and flipped a page in the notebook. “These are her notes about Simon Hess’s sales schedule at Westlake Lock Systems. It says he was in Victoria’s neighborhood the month she was killed. He sold locks to Cathy Caldwell. And this here”—he picked up another sheet—“these are her notes about the day she followed Hess to Tracy Waters’s street and watched him follow her.”
“What? She saw him stalk her?” I looked at the notes. “She must be the one who wrote the letter to Tracy’s parents. She must also be the one who phoned the school principal. There’s no other way.”
“This, here,” Nick said, turning to yet another page, “is her diary of Simon Hess’s movements. His address, his phone number, the make and model of his car, his license plate. When he left the house every day and what he did. Where he went. Vivian was following him. For weeks, it looks like.”
He was right. I scanned the notes and saw day after day listing the times Simon Hess left his house and where he went. There were gaps in the timeline, with notes: Not sure—missed him. Fell asleep. Lost him somewhere past Bedford Rd. But there was no mistaking that Vivian had been following Simon Hess. Stalking him.
On the bottom of a note listing Hess’s name, address, phone number, and place of work was a note: That was easy.
Whatever had happened to Simon Hess, it hadn’t been an accident. He had been targeted for a long time.
Maybe my aunt Viv was crazy.
I pulled up the room’s only chair and sat down. I put my head in my hands.
“Marnie had all of this, all this time,” Nick said.
“She must have,” I said. “But where is Viv?”
His voice was gentle. “Dead, maybe. It’s been thirty-five years.”
“She left that night,” I said, still staring down between my knees as I cradled my head. “She ran. She wasn’t abducted. She killed Hess and took off without her car or her wallet. Without money. How?”
I heard Nick move to the bed and move the papers. “She had help.”
“Which means Marnie, and maybe Alma, have been hiding her all these years. Maybe supporting her. Why? Why not turn her in?” I shook my head. “Hess was a serial killer. The pattern is right there in Viv’s notes. He was dangerous. Why not call the police and claim self-defense?”
“Because she’d still go to jail,” Nick said. “No matter who she killed, she’s still a killer. The circumstances could be mitigated a little, but that’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is that there’s no evidence at all that Hess killed anyone—at least nothing that can be proved in court. So Viv goes down as a crazy girl who decided to commit murder one night and chose an innocent man as a victim. Either way, she goes down.”
Maybe she should have, I thought. I’d seen the car parked in the old barn, the dried blood on the ground beneath it. Maybe the person who did that should go to trial. To prison. If she didn’t, what was to prevent her from doing something like that again?
“Do you smell smoke?” Nick asked.
I lifted my head and realized I did. Cigarette smoke, fresh and pungent. The smoking man, though I’d never felt him up here on the second floor before.
“Henry,” I said.
“What?” Nick asked.
I stood up. “Henry. That’s the smoking man’s name.” I walked to the door and opened it, looking over the dark parking lot. Waiting for the lights to go out.
The lights stayed on. Nick’s truck and my car were the only cars in the lot. But standing in the middle of the lot was the figure of a man. He was thin, cloaked in shadows. I watched him raise a cigarette, watched the smoke plume around him. He was facing my way, and I was sure he was watching me.