I’ve had almost nothing to eat since the croissant with Ava this morning, so the first place I head is the food stands. I’d promised myself a funnel cake but for now I opt for a bag of chicken tenders and a Coke. There aren’t many places to sit—the idea here seems to be to eat while you walk—but after roaming a bit, I find an empty plastic table for four not far from the carousel and plop down with my meal.
I devour my food absentmindedly, taking in the scene around me. Most of the attendees I can see from my perch are parents with young kids, headed left toward the rides, though there are also a few couples as well as some antsy-looking young teens and the occasional pack of guys in their twenties and thirties. A few of them seem restless, even sullen, like they’re looking for more than a county fair is supposed to deliver.
And then, as if a switch has been flipped, I’m thinking of Jess Nolan and remembering the photo I saw of her—her sweet, pretty face and long, light brown hair. Her tragic story has been inserting itself into my life for days, and I guess it’s impossible to be in this place without having her conjured up. The fair is obviously dismantled after its run each season, but it must have looked pretty much the same four years ago.
I consider the theory the locker room attendant shared with me in a near whisper, that Jess had been murdered by a club employee or member rather than a stranger. If that’s the case, why hadn’t they been spotted together at the fair? Had her so-called date been nervous aboutbeing seen with her for some reason, insisting they stay only a short time? Maybe the guy was married? If that was the case, why invite her here at all? Perhaps he thought it would sound fun and harmless to her, and then immediately after they met at the fairgrounds, he’d suggested they slip away.
As I’ve already considered, it’s possible that her date was someone I crossed paths with at the club before, even someone I knew casually. Based on what Gillian Parr said, Jamie was Jess’s pal and mentor, maybe even her crush. Could she have confided in him about who she was seeing? Had Jamie had an idea who the murderer might be?
And then a horrible thought slithers into my mind like a snake. What if her date that night had beenJamie?
As my heart races, snippets from memory bombard me: Jamie knowing Jess but not admitting it to Sam and never mentioning it to me. Percy saying Jamie craved forgiveness. Jamie being uncharacteristically dead set against attending the fair.
HadJamiekilled Jess? Then had Percy somehow stumbled upon the truth? Is that what he needed to be forgiven for?
Stop, I command myself. It’s utterly insane of me to be thinking this. Because there’s no way that Jamie could have tried to rape a woman and then bashed her head in. I hate myself for having given that horrible idea even thirty seconds of mental airtime.
After wadding up the chicken tender bag, I toss it into a nearby trash can and quickly push off from the picnic table. I need to move around and flush my mind of these thoughts. I make my way along a row of game stands, where people are tossing rings, shooting darts, throwing bean bags at fake milk bottles, or bunched around watching others do one of those things. I pass the bumper-car rink, more game and food concession stands, and finally reach a cluster of microbrewery booths.
After a brief wait in line at one of them, I order a small blond beer. I don’t even like beer all that much, but I need something to hold, something to do besides think.
With the cup in my hand, I wander until I find another empty plastic table and settle in one of the chairs around it. I take a few sips, concentrating at first on the bitter taste of the beer and the foam on my lips. Eventually I let the scene around me come back into focus. The fair is overflowing with people now, probably in part because of the pleasant weather and the fact that this is one of the last nights it’s open.
I sweep my eyes over the immediate area. I’m at the far end of the fairgrounds now, close to the fence. The dusk has dissolved into twilight, but there’s enough light cast from the rides and concession stands to see into the distance. Beyond the fence is an overgrown field, and beyond that a thick, wooded area.
As goose bumps race up my arms, I realize I’m staring at the same woods where Jess Nolan was killed, woods far more extensive than I’d pictured in my mind. Thinking of Jess again triggers another pang of guilt. I can’t believe that minutes ago I let myself ponder, even briefly, that Jamie might have been her attacker. No matter what thoughts tortured him at times—thoughts that he never betrayed to either me or Sam—I know he was a good, moral person.
And beyond that, even if hehaddone it, under the influence of drugs or because he’d temporarily lost his mind or for some other staggeringly unfathomable reason, he certainly wouldn’t have returned to the area weekend after weekend, visiting the tennis and swim club and renting a home in a nearby town. Only a psychopath would have the stomach for behavior like that.
Plus, it would have been dangerous to come back here. He would have worried that someone might catch a glimpse of him and remember seeing him at the fair. It’s still an open investigation, after all. Thepolice could very well have a DNA sample from the crime scene, and he would have felt exposed, wondering if the cops might one day tie it to him.
Out of nowhere, it seems, a thought begins to paw at my mind, and though I try to grab hold of it, it wiggles away.
I tell myself once again tostop, that Jess’s death is a terrible thing that had nothing to do with Jamie. I push off from the table, toss the half-full cup of beer in a trash bin, and wander toward the fence. It’s an endless series of slatted metal sections, linked together by chains. I follow along the side of it for a while, with the beer booths behind me and pens of livestock off to my right, smelling of hay and manure. The crowd is thinner in this area, though there are two security guards not all that far from me, chatting and probably keeping an eye out for anyone trying to sneak into the grounds.
Up ahead, I notice that the chain has been unfastened between two of the fence sections, perhaps to allow in the farm trucks that deliver the animals. I step close to that break in the fence and stare out at the woods, the woods where Jess Nolan died. I have to get a better look, I realize, so I can stop seeing her in my mind, wondering about her and what happened that night. I drag one of the metal sections over a few inches, and after squeezing between that and the next one, I start across the field.
“Hey,” someone yells from behind me. Turning, I see it’s one of the security guards.
“I have an emergency,” I call back. “I need to leave now.”
He certainly can’t prevent me from exiting, right? And though it won’t be possible for me to get back into the fair from here, I don’t need to. I want to go home soon, and I can find my way back to my car just by walking along the perimeter of the grounds.
I keep moving toward the woods, picking up my speed a little. Thefield grass pricks at the skin on my ankles, and all at once a swarm of mosquitoes is buzzing around my face, too many to swat away. As I close in on the wooded area, the noise of the fair recedes, even though I’m not that far away. I finally reach the very edge of the trees and peer into the pitch-black spaces between the massive trunks.
Jess, who did you come here with?I ask myself. The woods are dark and foreboding, like woods in a fairy tale likeSnow White, and it’s hard to believe she would have snuck back here with a stranger, someone she’d met only moments before. No, she must’ve been with someone she knew. Now that I’ve seen this place, I couldn’t be more certain.
I’m about to turn around and trek to the parking lot when I notice a white gleam coming from farther inside the woods. Could it be the memorial, the one that Jess’s friend at the club mentioned? It seems almost ghoulish to have erected it here in the woods, though I’ve seen many memorials for people on highways, in the exact spot where they were killed in an accident.
I venture slowly toward it, doing my best not to stumble. I can feel rocks underfoot, as well as tree roots and fallen branches. For a few seconds I lose sight of the white glow, and then suddenly there it is again. I point myself in that direction and keep moving, grateful I wore sneakers tonight.
As I finally approach the source of the light, I see that it’s not a memorial at all, but a heap of stones, probably remnants of a very old farm fence. It’s shining because beams from the half moon have found their way to it through the tree branches.
I shudder. It’s time to get the hell out of here. As I start to pivot, I hear the crack of twigs behind me, as if something heavy has broken them. I spin around with my heart hammering. My eyes have adjusted a little to the dark, but I don’t see a thing. Maybe it was a fox or a possum, creeping through the brush behind me.
And though I’ve probably frightened it off by my presence, I don’t want to go back that way now. Narrowing my eyes, I peer through the trees on my right. From this angle I can see the low lights of the parking lot, and they don’t even look that far, I assure myself.
I hear another sound behind me, and my heart slams into my rib cage. Because this sound is even louder, surely made by a person, not an animal. And if I had any doubt, I can even hear him panting now.
