Chapter Forty-Two

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ROY RESSLER IS on his way to town to pick up some ice cream to go with the apple pie Susan has made. He likes to have something sweet with the late-night news before bed. He's hoping the drive will take his mind off his troubles.

At the end of his long driveway, as he's turning left onto the rural road, he sees what looks like the lights of a vehicle coming out of one of his fields. It startles him. Nobody has any reason to be in his fields – they're private property. He immediately thinks of Diana, so brutally murdered and left in another one of his fields along this same road. He sees the red taillights of the vehicle ahead of him and tries to catch up to it, but it's too far in front of him and puts on an impressive burst of speed and disappears. By the time Roy gets to the crossroads in his old truck, there are three possible directions the other vehicle could have taken, and he has no idea which way it went.

Roy never makes it to the store. When he arrives at the police station, he's got himself all worked up. He worries that there might be another girl, dumped in one of his fields, and he feels a terrible sense of urgency.

The detectives aren't there, but officers from the state police are available to talk to him. He tells them what he saw, but he can't give them a description of the vehicle at all. ‘There's no good reason for anyone to be in one of my fields at night,' he says anxiously.

‘Do you remember exactly which field it was?' one of the officers asks him.

Roy nods emphatically. ‘Yes.' He knows his fields like the back of his hand. He's known them all his life.

‘Let's go take a look,' the officer says.

Roy gets into his truck and two officers follow him in a police cruiser. When they reach the field, they park on the side of the road and get out of their vehicles. ‘How far is it,' the officer asks Roy, ‘from here to the field where you found her?'

‘Under half a mile,' Roy says, ‘down this same road.'

The officer studies the entrance to the field with a strong flashlight. ‘Tyre tracks,' he says.

‘I told you,' Roy says, feeling vindicated. But mostly he's afraid. If someone has dropped another dead girl on his property, he's not sure he can survive it.

‘I'm calling Stone,' the officer says to his partner. ‘He's going to want a thorough search.'

Paula is quiet and thoughtful all evening. She's worried about her daughter, Taylor. She saw her sitting alone again today at lunchtime, on a bench in the hall outside the cafeteria. She had her lunch beside her, and she was reading a book. Students passed her, going in and out of the cafeteria, without talking to her, without even seeing her. It broke Paula's heart.

She hesitated. She considered going to her daughter and asking her what was wrong, but she thought it might be better if she asked her at home. It might have embarrassed her at school.

It pains her deeply. Why doesn't Taylor seem to have any friends? Where have they all gone? Why has she become so quiet? She had lots of friends at middle school. Is something going on online? She needs to get into her daughter's phone somehow and see if she's being bullied. But how? Her daughter's not going to let her see her phone. If Taylor won't talk to her, how will she help her? She's becoming more and more withdrawn.

She had spoken to her about Turner, specifically, when the news came out about him and Diana. She'd asked her daughter if he'd ever been inappropriate with her, or if she'd ever seen him behave improperly with anyone else, but Taylor had again turned away in embarrassment and said no. She'd had to ask. At least, with Turner gone, she won't have to worry about Taylor and the other kids at school any more.

Paula suspects Taylor might be struggling socially because her mother is a grade nine English teacher. Paula reminds herself that other kids survive going to school where their parents teach, but she can't help feeling guilty. Maybe she should try to find a job further away. Would that help? Or has the die already been cast for Taylor at Fairhill High?

She has a serious talk about it with Martin. He's also worried about how Taylor's managing but doesn't think that Paula being a teacher at the same school is as big a problem as she does. He agrees they should talk to her.

They go to Taylor's bedroom after supper. Paula knocks on her closed door and says, ‘Can we come in?' She hears a grunted assent and enters the room.

Taylor looks startled and seems wary. Paula studies her for a moment – she's such a pretty girl, with her fine features and sleek brown hair. But she's not open and smiling like she used to be; she doesn't look happy. Paula can tell she doesn't want to talk to them. Paula is getting used to this, to being shut out. Are all teenagers like this? Taylor is her only child; she doesn't know. She knows how the kids she teaches act at school, but not how they are with their parents.

‘Is everything all right, honey?' Paula asks gently, sitting down on the end of the bed. Her husband remains standing awkwardly by the door.

‘Yeah, fine. Why?'

‘I just – I've noticed you're so quiet lately. Always stuck up here in your room.'

‘So?'

Paula hesitates and then says, ‘I saw you at lunch today, sitting by yourself.'

Taylor flushes.

‘Why weren't you with the other girls – your old friends – Kiley and Petra? What happened to them?' She tries to keep her voice light, but her heart is breaking in two.

‘They're around. I just don't hang out with them so much any more.'

‘Why not?'

‘I don't know.' She turns her head away.

‘Taylor, is it causing a problem for you, that I teach English to a lot of your classmates?'

‘No.'

‘Are you being bullied?'

‘No.'

‘Can I see your phone?'

‘No.' Taylor has her hand on her phone and pulls it closer to her.

Paula looks up at her husband helplessly. He's looking back at her as if she should have all the answers. She finds herself getting angry at him for not being more helpful. She doesn't know what to do next. Does she take her daughter's phone? She doesn't know the password. She decides to retreat in defeat, for now.

‘Okay. But you know you can always talk to me – to us – about anything, right?'

Taylor nods but doesn't answer; she clearly just wants them to leave.

Paula, upset, leaves her daughter's bedroom and goes to the den. Martin follows and pours them both a drink. ‘That went well,' she says sarcastically.

‘We'll get to the bottom of it,' Martin says, but he looks more concerned than he did before.

‘What should we do about her phone?'

He shakes his head helplessly. ‘I don't know. What do other parents do?'

She will find out what other parents do. Maybe they should take her phone away unless she agrees to show them what's on it. She's only thirteen. How much privacy is she entitled to? There shouldn't be anything on there that her parents can't see, should there?

She sips her drink, worrying about Taylor. On top of that, she keeps remembering her meeting with Principal Kelly earlier that day. It's so distressing, all of it. That Diana is dead. That Turner was bothering her – and another girl, it turns out. That he doesn't have an alibi for Diana's murder. And there's the fact that the body was found on his fiancée's family farm. Could he have killed her? It's making her sick to her stomach, thinking about it all.

She and her husband watch the news together. It's out in the open now, about this other girl, it's on the news. A shitstorm is about to come down on Graham Kelly's head. She thinks that he probably deserves it. He hadn't handled it properly, and it looks like he will have to pay the price. He will probably lose his job over this. He may never be able to work in education again. She suspects a female principal might have handled it differently.