The Silent Girl

“Arthur and Dina and Mark. We had dinner together, in this room. Opened gifts.” He looked around the table, as if seeing their ghosts still seated there. “I remember Charlotte was there, at that end of the table, asking Mark about Harvard and whether he liked it there. Dina gave her a pearl necklace. We had pumpkin pie for dessert. And afterward, I took Mark downstairs to my woodshop, because he loves working with his hands. The Harvard kid who’d rather be building fine furniture.” Patrick blinked and looked at her, as if suddenly remembering she was there. “Now they’re gone. And there’s only Mark and me left.”
    “You two seem close.”
    “Oh, he’s a fine young man.” Patrick paused and suddenly smiled. “Mark’s already thirty-nine, but at my age, anyone under forty still seems like a young man.”
    Jane pulled another book out of the box—not a family album this time, but a Bolton Academy yearbook with the school’s seal embossed in gold on the maroon leather.
    “She was a sophomore that year,” said Patrick, looking at the cover. “That was the year before she …” He paused, his face darkening. “I thought about suing the school for negligence. They took my daughter on a field trip without adequate supervision. There they were, in a public place. Faneuil Hall! They should have known some of the kids might wander off, or some stranger might approach them. But theteachers, they didn’t pay attention, and suddenly my girl was gone. I was an ocean away, where I couldn’t do a damn thing to save her.”
    “I understand you were in London.”
    He nodded. “Meeting with some potential investors, adding to my goddamn fortune. I’d throw this all away, if only I could …” Suddenly he stood up. “I think I could use a stiff drink right now. Can I pour you one?”
    “Thank you, but no. I’m driving.”
    “Ah. The responsible policewoman. If you’ll excuse me,” he said, and walked out.
    Jane opened the Bolton yearbook to the sophomore section and spotted Charlotte in the bottom row of photos. Her blond hair hung loose to her shoulders, and her lips were barely curved in a wistful smile. She was a beautiful girl, but tragedy already seemed stamped into her features, as if she knew that the future held only heartbreak for her. Printed beneath her photo was a list of her interests and activities. DRAMA CLUB. ART. ORCHESTRA. TENNIS TEAM .
    Orchestra. She remembered that Charlotte had played the viola. She also remembered that Laura Fang had played the violin. The girls might have grown up in different universes, but they had music in common.
    She paged through the book until she found the activities section, where she once again spotted Charlotte, posing with two dozen other music students. The girl was seated in the second row of string players, her instrument propped in her lap. The caption read: CANDACE FORSYTH, MUSICAL DIRECTOR, AND THE BOLTON ACADEMY ORCHESTRA .
    She heard Patrick return to the dining room, carrying a drink that tinkled with ice cubes. “Did your daughter know a girl named Laura Fang?” Jane asked him.
    “Detective Buckholz asked me that same question, after Charlotte disappeared. I told him I hadn’t heard the name before. I only found out later that Laura Fang was a girl who vanished two years before Charlotte. That’s when I understood why he asked me about her.”
    “You can’t think of any link between the girls? Charlotte never mentioned Laura’s name?”
    He looked at the photo of the Bolton orchestra. “Your child comes home from school and talks about this girl or that boy. How can any parent possibly remember all the names?”
    He was right; it was an impossible thing to expect of a parent.
    Jane flipped to the back of the book, to the section of senior students, and scanned the photos of clean-cut boys dressed in their Bolton uniforms of blue blazers and red neckties. There was Mark Mallory, his face a bit thinner, his hair longer and curlier. Already he was a handsome young man, bound for Harvard. Beneath his photo, his interests were listed: LACROSSE, ORCHESTRA, CHESS, FENCING, DRAMA .
    Orchestra again. That was, after all, how the Dions and Mallorys had met—through their musical children at the Christmas pageant.
    “I’m not quite sure how any of this is going to help you,” said Patrick. “Detective Buckholz asked me all these questions nineteen years ago.”
    She looked up at him. “Maybe the answers have changed.”
    A S J