Thirty-Two

Detective Tyrone took us to the Connecticut State Police barracks. I had driven past this place, just off the highway, so many times in my life. Eloise and I had gone to the shopping outlets at the next exit. We’d had clam rolls at Patrick’s Seafood Shack down on the waterfront. Adalyn’s aunt’s beach house was less than a mile away. Never in my life would I have dreamed that the police barracks would become familiar to me?.?.?.?but ever since Eloise’s murder, they had. This was the epicenter of the investigation.

Instead of the stark interrogation room, Detective Tyrone told Matt to wait near the entrance, in a chair across from the police sergeant’s desk. She brought me into her office. I had been in here before, when Eloise first went missing.

She had a wide desk covered with neat stacks of papers, a couple of law books, and a nameplate that said DETECTIVE EILEEN O. TYRONE . The shelf beside the desk held medals and commendations she had received through the years. There was a framed photo of her in uniform with a group of other police officers, one with her dressed in the dark pantsuit I’d always seen her wear as a detective, and of her shaking hands with the current governor of Connecticut.

Tilted toward her chair, out of visitors’ views, were two framed photos of children. I craned my neck and saw that one was of a boy and a girl, teenagers, and the other was a family with Detective Tyrone, a man, and the two kids. In spite of how often she and I had spoken since last October, she had never mentioned her family to me.

She had a whiteboard on the wall beside a big window. I stared and saw that every inch was covered with details about Eloise and her case. A timeline of the crime, clues that even I hadn’t known about—she had found gold dust at the scene and held that back from the press, even from me. Eloise’s life list of birds. She had taped photos of my sister to the board—Eloise as a child, her eighth-grade graduation portrait, and a photo with me taken at the beach last summer.

I sat on the other side of the desk from Detective Tyrone. I was dusty and dirty from fighting Fitch. She brought me a bottle of water, and I drank it down. I had been so frustrated with her at first, when the investigation had been stalled. But I kept glancing at the bulletin board, realizing how much she cared, and how much she had been working these last months. She saw me staring at the board, but neither one of us mentioned it.

When I finally looked away, I asked about Iris and Hayley.

“Are they okay?” I asked. “Did their parents get them?”

“Yes, the girls are doing well,” she said. “Their parents came straight to the hospital from Newport, and they are all together.”

“The hospital?” I asked, my heart skipping.

“Nothing too serious,” she said. “Both girls had to be checked over, and Iris is having X-rays and an MRI.”

“Because of her head injury,” I said. That choked me up. “We wanted her to go to the clinic, but she couldn’t—Fitch had said he’d kill Hayley if she told anyone. That’s why I didn’t call you,” I explained.

“You were in a tough position, Oli,” Detective Tyrone said. “Of all the people in the world, you knew what Fitch Martin was capable of.”

I nodded. She was right about that.

My backpack was under my chair. I pulled it out, opened it, and put the Ziploc bags on the detective’s desk.

“What are these?” she asked, bending over them.

“Evidence I collected after I pulled Iris out of the crevice,” I said, pointing out the leaves I had combed from her hair, the feather, the fingernail scrapings, the traces of gold dust, and the delicate little charm.

“Good thinking to do that,” she said, peering at them.

“The charm was made by Minerva Morelock,” I said. “And the gold dust came from her jewelry shop. Fitch used it. It was part of his ritual.”

“Tell me what you know about that,” Detective Tyrone said.

“He sprinkled gold dust on Eloise and Iris before he buried them,” I said. “He pretends to be a researcher, all about science, but he also uses alchemy. It’s part of their family history. He has a book of magic—the Sibylline version of Malleus Maleficarum —the Hammer of Witches .”

“Yes,” Detective Tyrone said. “We found it in the attic.”

“It belonged to their great-aunt Daphne Agassiz.”

“Daphne,” Detective Tyrone said. “What a life she has led. A hundred years old, incredible. And one of the original Sibylline sisters.”

“You’d heard of them before?” I asked.

Detective Tyrone nodded, with a smile and a far-off look in her eyes. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I think everyone who grew up on the shoreline has. We’d drive past that faded sign down by the New London waterfront and wonder who those girls were.”

“It’s called a ‘ghost sign,’?” I said. I hesitated, wanting to be respectful of her privacy, but I had to know. “You said ‘we’?.?.?.?Who did you drive by with?”

“My sister,” Detective Tyrone said.

“You have a sister,” I said. I felt a tingle that went all through my body.

“I do,” she said. “Jenny.”

I closed my eyes for a minute. When I opened them, I saw her watching me with incredible kindness. “I’m not at all surprised,” I said. “I felt how much you understood Eloise and me.”

“Sisters,” she said. “There’s nothing like it.”

“Is she older or younger than you?” I asked.

“Younger,” she said. Like Eloise.

Then she did something I didn’t expect. She came around the desk and pulled a chair next to me. She held my hand, gazing into my eyes.

“You’ve been so strong, Oli,” she said, and paused for a long time. “I’m not sure I could have been that strong.”

“If you lost Jenny,” I whispered.

“Yes.”

We sat there in silence for a few minutes. She didn’t let go of my hand, and I knew we were both thinking of our sisters, of how happy I was that she still had Jenny, and how much we both wished that I still had Eloise.

“I know how hard this year has been for you. As many cases as I’ve worked on, this has meant?.?.?.?so much to me. I wanted to catch him for you. I wanted to find the person who killed Eloise.”

“I know you did,” I said.

“But you caught him, Oli. You solved this crime.”

I nodded. With the help of my friends, it was true.

“You even thought to collect evidence. You’re a good investigator,” she said, letting go of my hand.

“Thank you,” I said. I held back for a few seconds, then blurted it out: “I think I want to be a detective someday.”

She didn’t look taken aback at all; she looked happy. “Well,” she said, with a wide smile. “I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised at all. You’ll make a good one.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Absolutely. You like to figure things out, and you’re good at it. When the time comes, I’ll help you.”

That meant a lot to me. My grandmother was slipping away too fast to appreciate what I wanted to do and why. Only Detective Tyrone got it. Well, her and Eloise. It might have been weird to say this, but I suddenly felt as if I had family again. A person who cared about me, who knew me.

“A lot of families just want to move on from what they’ve been through,” she said. “The loss, the investigation. We haven’t gotten to trial yet. That will be hard on you, Oli. It might change the way you feel about joining the police.”

I hadn’t let myself think about a trial yet, but I was ready for whatever happened, whatever it took to put Fitch in prison. “It won’t change what I want to be,” I said. “I am positive about that.”

“The trial will bring it all back,” Detective Tyrone said. “There will be a lot of testimony, forensic evidence, and crime scene photos that will be painful for you to see. You’ll be called on to testify. You’ll have to be up there on the witness stand with Fitch at the defense table, watching you. His lawyer?.?.?.?won’t be easy on you or anyone.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I won’t be easy on him, either.”

She actually laughed at that.

It was time for me to leave the State Police barracks and to say goodbye to Detective Tyrone. Not forever, that was for sure. But our connection would be different now. We knew who had killed my sister, and he was in custody. I hoped Detective Tyrone would be my mentor when the time came.

She put out her hand to shake mine. I couldn’t help myself. I stepped forward and gave her a hug instead.

Then I left her office, went into the outer area, and found Matt.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, giving him a genuine smile, because the weight of the world—or at least a large part of it—had been lifted from my shoulders. Together we walked outside, down the steps, and into his Jeep. He reached across the seat and touched my Turk’s head bracelet. It was no longer white; dirt from the Braided Woods had turned it dark and dusty brown.

“I’m going to make you a new one,” he said.

“No way,” I said. “I’m never taking this one off. Sailor’s knot. It symbolizes?.?.?.”

“Us,” he said, smiling. “It symbolizes us.”

“It does,” I said.

He leaned forward, and every inch of my body shimmered because I was sure he was going to kiss me. Then a group of police officers walked into the parking lot and stood a few feet from the Jeep—not paying attention to us, just talking and laughing. But we felt self-conscious, so we both smiled and pulled apart.

And then Matt shifted into drive.

And we headed out of the parking lot and left the police barracks in the rearview mirror as he drove me home.