After the news, you climbed to the attic. Rodney's weary bed and its dust covered electric blanket huddled close to the single window. On top, boxes of your mom's clothes. One-by-twelve planks ran above the naked insulation like catwalks. In a corner you found three more cardboard boxes. The first box held Rodney's toys: building blocks, Hot Wheels, and old cartoons on VHS. The second box held a broken alarm clock, a rhinestone necklace, legal deeds from Wexford and Clare counties, and the photo of an angry woman with wood chips in her hair. The picture was so old that the paper had cracked and wilted into a scroll. The third box held books. You found A Picture History of Genesee County, and Well Do I Remember by Ann Lethbridge with a green cloth cover and cardboard backing, and a guide to Michigan trees. Beneath these lay a stack of National Geographics and a half-dozen Bibles, all cheap King James editions with red covers and the words of Jesus in red. At the bottom of it all, some Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Old Farmer's Almanac from nineteen fifty-eight. You didn't find the poem.
Disappointed, you closed the boxes and went downstairs with Rodney's taped episodes of Scooby-Doo. You sat in the living room and watched every episode, always guessing five minutes in who wore the mask and why. You wondered if Flint's rat-and-cross murderer wore a mask as well. You speculated, cataloguing kids, neighbors, and family, searching for a man in a three-piece suit with a winning smile and sharp eye teeth. Maybe a staid professional with a brisk walk and an icy voice. Or a disheveled gardener with red bags under his reddish eyes. But you didn't know anyone like this and drew no conclusions. That afternoon, Ashley came over and found you sitting on your bed.
"You heard we made national news. Maybe this'll make us number one for murder again."
"I want to see it," you said. "The house where it happened."
"I'm not driving all the way to Grand Blanc just for that."
"No. The first one. Right near here."
"It's near here?"
"It's north on Lewis."
"I don't like Lewis." She was thinking of Maria.
Trembling with excitement and trying to hide it, you slipped your coat on, clicked off the lights, and left through the back door. Ashley followed. She stood in your driveway.
"Come on," you said.
She thrust her hands in her pockets and glared.