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he crowd filed out to the backyard. Her lovely, neat backyard that had been sullied by those murdered girls.
We’re going to put things right now.
No one talked. No one even whispered. There was a sense of understanding all around, a resolve to do what was necessary.
Nobody seemed surprised to find the pile of torches stacked neatly beside the porch. She herself was not surprised, though she didn’t remember putting them there.
They weren’t the kind everyone had in films—jagged sticks of wood with their ends lit. These were the sort that people used around their patio in the summer so they could feel like they lived in Hawaii or some such place. And next to the torches was a large box of matches.
Mrs. Schneider picked up the box and struck the first one.
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Night of shades 40
Van Christie stood in Jo Gehlinger’s living room, listening to the sound of Miller getting sick outside on the front porch.Miller always gets sick at murder scenes.The day before, Christie would have said there were hardly ever murder scenes in Smiths Hollow, and that was why Miller had so much trouble dealing with them. But last night he’d remembered.He’d remembered all the bodies. He’d remembered all the girls.And he’d remembered that he had covered it up, pretended it didn’t happen, taken their families’ sorrow and stuffed it in a file in the basement, never to be seen again.It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten those girls. He’d been responsi
Night of shades one
L auren glanced down at her feet as she pedaled her bike toward the woods. She wore brand-new turquoise high-tops; they looked sort of like the Chuck Taylors she’d wanted, but they were off-brand from Kmart. They didn’t have theChuck label in the back but they were still pretty cool. She thought so, anyway.They would have to be cool because her mom had told her repeatedly they couldn’t afford the name-brand ones. At least no one else at school had turquoise. They were so bright they practically glowed in the summer sun, but by the time she went back to school in the fall they would be properly beaten up and she wouldn’t look like a dork.By the time she went back to school she would be almost fifteen (the end of November—five months away still), which meant she would be one of the older kids in the freshman class but still younger than Miranda, whose birthday h
Night of shades two
C ome on, David,” Karen diMucci said, unbuckling her son and gathering him out of the back seat. She’d gotten lucky and found a parking space right in front of Frank’s, so she should have been in a better mood. It was always exhaustingto walk more than a block or two towing David and the groceries, especially in the June heat. Today she would get to avoid that.Just like Lauren avoided my eyes as I passed.She tried not to let the irritation she felt leak into her tone, but David heard the bite and looked up at her in that serious inquiring way that he had.“Let’s get some sandwich stuff,” she said, deliberately injecting a hearty note. “And then we’ll get some ice cream at the Sweet Shoppe after, okay?”“Okeh,” David said.Lauren and Miranda would surely be gone from the shop by then, K
Night of shades three
MMrs. Schneider had spent the morning peering through the curtains at her across-the-street new neighbors. She didn’t know just what the world was coming to when Mexicans could move onto a decent street where decent people livedwithout so much as a by-your-leave. They played loud music in Spanish and they shouted at each other in Spanish and they always seemed to be cooking something foreign.If they wanted to eat strange food and speak a strange language, then why hadn’t they just stayed in their own country instead of coming here to take jobs away from good American folk? she wondered.She knew that most of the adults in that house had jobs on the canning line at the chili factory and she didn’t think that was right, even though Mrs. Schneider didn’t know anyone who’
Night of shades four
Sofia Lopez clipped the top sheet to the line and then pushed the rope along so that she could attach the next one. There was nothing nicer, in her opinion, than bedsheets that had dried outside in the sunshine. She mopped her foreheadwith the inside of her arm. In this heat the whole load would be dried in no time.“Mama?” Her older daughter, Valeria, stood at the screen door that led into the kitchen. “Can I have some marshmallows?”Sofia squinted at Val. The girl was eleven years old and obsessed with chemical reactions, so there was plenty of reason to suspect that Val was not going to eat the marshmallows that she’d just requested. More than likely the final result would involve a sticky mess on the floor of her bedroom or a plume of smoke coming out the window.
Night of shades five
Lauren saw her mother and brother come out of Frank’s deli and walk toward the Sweet Shoppe. She wrinkled her nose a little and turned her head away, even though there was little to no chance of her mother seeing her through thewindow in the dim interior of the arcade.She stood next to Miranda, who was standing very close to Tad, the greasy-haired (and also greasy-faced, Lauren thought) object of her affection who did not look at all like Matt Dillon.On the other side of Tad was his friend Billy, who also did not look like Matt Dillon and who seemed to have about as much interest in Lauren as she did in him—that is, none at all.Tad was very involved with his latest round of Karate Champ and they were all supposed to care just as much as he did.Lauren didn’
Night of shades six
Alejandro Lopez—he preferred to be called Alex rather than Alejandro, because the Americanized name made white folks feel like he was one of them—stood in Mrs. Schneider’s violated backyard, a place he’d never thought he’d be permitted to enter. Not that he’d particularly wanted to—you didn’t usually rush over to barbecue with a neighbor whoconsidered you subhuman. Despite the horrible thing he was looking at, he couldn’t shake the sense of having successfully breached enemy territory.Alex’s partner, John Miller (was there any more stolidly American name than John Miller? Alex wondered) wandered back to Alex’s side, having lost his lunchtime meatball sub in the far corner of Mrs. Schneider’s well-tended yard.“Wha
Night of shades seven
Lauren hadn’t wanted to ride her bike after finding the bloody handprint on the seat, but she finally conceded that it would take longer to walk it home. Plus, if she walked it and someone else came along the road they might notice theblood.She didn’t have a tissue or anything to wipe it off, so she grabbed a handful of dirt and scrubbed it over the seat until the print was distorted. This left her hands both dirty and bloody, but she scrubbed them on her cutoffs as best she could and thought that it just looked like mud.Her mother would no doubt complain about the stains on her shorts, but then her mother complained about every little thing Lauren did, so what else was new?She sat carefully on the bike seat and tried not to think about what was on her hands and under the back p
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Night of shades 40
Van Christie stood in Jo Gehlinger’s living room, listening to the sound of Miller getting sick outside on the front porch.Miller always gets sick at murder scenes.The day before, Christie would have said there were hardly ever murder scenes in Smiths Hollow, and that was why Miller had so much trouble dealing with them. But last night he’d remembered.He’d remembered all the bodies. He’d remembered all the girls.And he’d remembered that he had covered it up, pretended it didn’t happen, taken their families’ sorrow and stuffed it in a file in the basement, never to be seen again.It didn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten those girls. He’d been responsi
Night of shades 39
The crowd filed out to the backyard. Her lovely, neat backyard that had been sullied by those murdered girls.We’re going to put things right now.No one talked. No one even whispered. There was a sense of understanding all around, a resolve to do what was necessary.Nobody seemed surprised to find the pile of torches stacked neatly beside the porch. She herself was not surprised, though she didn’t remember putting them there.They weren’t the kind everyone had in films—jagged sticks of wood with their ends lit. These were the sort that people used around their patio in the summer so they could feel like they lived in Hawaii or some such place. And next to the torches was a large box of matches.Mrs. Schneider picked up the box and struck the first one.
Night of shades 38
MSchneider looked around at the circle of expectant faces in her living room. Many people had come when she called—more than she’d thought. There were twenty of them squashed together on her sofa or perched on thearmrests of the chairs(Mr. Schneider would not have liked that, no he would not, he would have thought it rude)and some of the younger ones sitting cross-legged on the floor like they were in kindergarten again.No one was talking. A sense of hushed resolve hung around the room, a feeling that they all knew their purpose and were willing to fulfill it.For the first time in a very long time her mind felt clear. No fog obscured her memories of Janey or of the other girls. If she tried she thought she could name off every one that had died in her lifetime.
Night of shades 37
Miranda looked into the face of her lover, or what she’d thought was her lover. His mouth wasn’t right. It was huge and black and seeping across his face in a way that no human mouth should. The hand across her mouth didn’t feel like ahand anymore. The sharp tips of his fingers dug into her cheek and tore the skin.I want to go home. I want my mommy.Lauren fiddled with the hem of her shirt. It seemed like Jake had been gone a very long time, though looking at the lines for every booth it was probably to be expected. She’d lost si
Night of shades 36
Miranda saw Lauren and Jake Hanson sitting at the picnic table holding hands. They seemed to be having a very intense conversation, looking soulfully into each other’s eyes.He’s probably telling her some bullshit about how he adores her and later he’ll have his hands underneath her undershirt grabbing at her tiny breasts.Tad had already grabbed at Miranda’s much more substantial breasts while they rode the Himalaya. She hadn’t cared so much about that, but his breath had been sour when he put his face close to hers and she turned her head away so he could suck at her neck instead. What she really wanted was to go home. She was tired of pretending that Tad was interesting.After they rode the Himalaya Tad and Billy decided they wanted to try their hand at the shooting gallery
Night of shades 35
Jane, Jane, Janey,” Mrs. Schneider muttered to herself as she stared out the window. “Jane, Jane, Janey.”She’d forgotten all about Janey, but now she remembered. Ever since that nosy reporter came poking his nosy nose around.The Mexicans across the street were all home today except for the police officer. The two women were out front, weeding the flower beds together and laughing. The other man was watering the front lawn with the hose. As Mrs. Schneider watched she saw him turn and spray the women briefly with the hose and laugh. His teeth were very white against his brown face and she thought he looked handsome for a moment.“Like that Ricky Ricardo that Lucy married,” she said. Except he wasn’t Mexican, she recalled. He was Cuban. “Not that it matte
Night of shades 34
ouhy stared at the headline in the Chicago Tribune. His breakfast eggs and bacon lay untouched on his plate and his coffee grew cold as he read the six words over and over.SHOCKING MURDERS STUN SMALL-TOWN POLICE“I’ll have somebody’s head for this,” Touhy said and then read the byline:George Riley, special correspondentTIt was that reporter from Chicago stirring up trouble. And a story like this would make more trouble, would bring more reporters from other places asking questions about things they shouldn’t even know about.Crystal gave him a mildly inquiring glance from
Night of shades 33
Karen waved good-bye to Officer Hendricks—Aaron, he told me to call him Aaron—as he climbed into his patrol car and drove away. She’d been out front watering the flowers when he pulled up at the end of the driveway.It had been a surprise when he stopped, and even more of a surprise when she realized he didn’t have Luke Pantaleo with him. The two of them were always together.At first she thought he might deliver more information about Joe’s death—a witness that had come forward, a suspect in custody. But he said he’d just come by to see “how all of you are doing.”Somehow a simple check-in had turned into almost an hour of conversation. They’d started chatting about books and movies and travel. Karen had never realized before how mu
Night of shades 32
Lauren found herself walking very slowly to her own house. Normally she would rush to Officer Hendricks’s side (God, you really did do that. What a stupid little puppy he must think you are), but she didn’t want to talk to him today.It had something to do with Jake and his declaration, she realized. She felt guilty about accepting his invitation to the fair and then talking to Officer Hendricks, even though she shouldn’t. It wasn’t as if Hendricks was planning on asking her out himself.And you know that you really do like Jake.She liked what she knew of him, she amended. He had been kind to her when they were young, and kind to her when she’d been sick. He was smart—she knew that because he’d graduated from high school early, and he would
