Every second my mom is gone feels like an eternity. When I can’t bear it any longer, I drag myself out of bed and head downstairs.
The naproxen bottle isn’t on the kitchen island where my mother left it this morning. I don’t even know half the places in this house that she could have hidden it.
I pause outside the downstairs bathroom, eyeing the door to Tom’s office. Tom’s back has been messed up since his car accident last year; some dumbass kid stole an ATV and led Tom and his partner, Mike, on a chase through Sunnybrook. The kid blew through a stop sign and hit a BMW, which then hit Tom and Mike.
My mother made Tom stop putting off the surgery in the spring. The doctor gave him Vicodin for his recovery; on a bad pain day this summer, I saw Tom sneak a couple pills from the bottle in his desk drawer.
The pain has destroyed my ability to think straight. It must have, because I’ve convinced myself that if the bottle still has pills left, Tom won’t notice one missing. I just need one.
Tom doesn’t lock the door to his office. He and my mom shared one in our old house. Their desks were practically on top of each other’s, and when their work-from-home days overlapped, they didn’t do much other than snipe at each other. Now Tom’s office just looks like he didn’t know what to do with all this space.
I pad over to his desk and tug at the handle of the top drawer. Rifle through the detritus—Post-its, a tipped over tray of paper clips and thumbtacks, dried-up Wite-Out pens.
I shut the drawer and move on to the one below it. When I yank, the contents rattle. Mango starts barking and trots into the office to investigate.
“No. Bad dog.” I nudge him away with my foot and paw through what’s inside the drawer. No Vicodin prescription.
A stack of envelopes, bound together by a rubber band, catches my eye.
They each have a printed label, all addressed to Tom Carlino, at our old address: 13 Norwood Drive, Sunnybrook, NY.
I run my finger over the tops of the envelopes, counting them. There are four. Every one is postmarked the same date—November 7—each one a year apart from the last.
I set the envelopes down on my lap, trembling.
November 7 is the day my sister killed herself.
I throw a glance over my shoulder. Mango is lying across the threshold of Tom’s office door, watching me.
I unfold the piece of paper in the first envelope, revealing a black-and-white picture. The quality is crappy, like someone printed it off the Internet. It takes me a moment to process what I’m looking at.
The photo of my sister and her friends. The one in the trophy case at school.
I scan the page, hands trembling when I read the words at the bottom. I cast the picture aside and tip the next envelope so the contents fall out.
Every envelope contains the same thing. Four pictures total, each with the same message typed at the bottom.
I KNOW IT WASN’T HIM. CONNECT THE DOTS.
November 7 was the worst day of our lives. And apparently, every year since the first anniversary of Jen’s death, someone has been sending my stepfather anonymous letters.
Does my mom know? Are the letters the reason she and Tom wanted to sell the house so badly—to get away from them?
I know it wasn’t him. Connect the dots.
I turn the letters over, inspecting every envelope inside and out. They’re all postmarked from Newton, the next town over. There’s no return address, and our old address is typed onto a label.
I replace the letters exactly as I found them. Suddenly the Vicodin isn’t so important. The next drawer down doesn’t budge when I tug on the handle. I give it another jangle to confirm: it’s locked, not stuck.
Key, key. I rifle through the rest of the drawers. There’s a ring of tiny keys in the top drawer. I don’t even know what I’m looking for. There has to be something else here that could explain these letters. Why Tom would keep them—and what the hell they mean.
My phone buzzes with a text from Rachel:
I fire off a response:
In the doorway, Mango sits up straight and lets out a throaty growl. Moments later, a car door slams. My mom is home already.
I shut Tom’s desk drawer. Scramble to my feet and rush Mango out of the office. He takes off for the front door, barking, sliding around on the hardwood because he’s still not used to not having carpet. I close Tom’s office door and slip up the stairs before my mom’s key turns in the lock.
* * *
—
It’s almost midnight, and the rain has picked up again. It sounds like quarters being dropped on the roof. I’m in bed, watching the droplets run down the skylight. Next to me is a fraying copy of the novel I’m supposed to be reading for English. I’ve barely touched it.
Some weirdo could have sent those letters to Tom. An anonymous creep. Juliana’s and Susan’s murders had made national news, briefly, before the headlines were consumed by a trifecta: a sex scandal involving a congressman, a terrorist attack in Europe, and a brutal wildfire in California. Jen’s suicide barely registered on the media’s radar. People kill themselves every day.
I open my browser and type in Sunnybrook NY deaths. The top result is an article from the Westchester Courier, dated the January after Juliana and Susan were killed.
OFFICER CLEARED IN DEATH OF MURDER SUSPECT
An internal investigation has determined that a Sunnybrook police officer acted reasonably when he shot Jack Canning, 38, the suspected murderer of two teenagers in October of last year. Mr. Canning died in his home after a confrontation with two Sunnybrook police officers, Thomas Carlino and Michael Mejia.
Even after all these years, the sight of Jack Canning’s name twists my guts. Tom and his partner, Mike, had just started their shift that morning when Mr. Ruiz found the girls and called the police. They were the first officers to arrive on the scene.
As the ambulances and backup were arriving, Jack Canning stepped out onto his porch. When he saw Tom, he went white in the face, ran back into his house, and slammed the door.
Tom and Mike went after him; when they cornered Jack, he pulled a gun on them. Tom shot first. While he was bleeding to death on his carpet, Jack Canning grabbed Mike by his shirtsleeve and muttered the words I’m sorry.
Later, when the police were processing the scene, they tossed Jack Canning’s bedroom and found several pictures of Susan sunbathing by her pool.
My brain circles back to those months after the murders, while the investigation was ongoing. They were the worst of our lives; Jen was dead, and we didn’t know if Tom would face any charges in the shooting. I can still see Tom sitting in the dark in our den every night, beer bottle wedged between his knees. Killing Jack Canning was the only time my stepfather had ever discharged his weapon.
I force myself to read the rest of the story.
Jack Canning lived next door to Susan Berry, 15, one of the teenaged victims. Court records show that when Mr. Canning was 20, he was arrested for a lewd act with a minor. Due to the victim’s refusal to cooperate with police, the district attorney’s office decided to drop all charges.
Many in Sunnybrook feel that this oversight cost two young women their lives. “This was a preventable tragedy,” says Diana Shaw, who lived across the street from Mr. Canning and his mother. “We should have known that a predator was living in our neighborhood. The justice system failed, and now two beautiful girls are dead.”
According to officers Carlino and Mejia, they pursued Mr. Canning into his home upon seeing him behaving suspiciously near the crime scene. The officers claimed Mr. Canning barricaded himself in his bedroom. Upon breaking the door down, Officer Carlino found Mr. Canning removing something from his dresser drawer. When Mr. Canning refused to show his hands, Mr. Carlino fired. Mr. Canning died at the scene. Later, investigators found a revolver in Mr. Canning’s dresser drawer and several photos of Susan Berry, including ones of her sunbathing by her pool.