TEN
After we had had time to let it all soak in, to go over all the information in the article-in our minds, Jason said, “What does it mean, Steve?”
“It means that this girl was kidnapped and killed!” Steve said, sounding almost excited.
“Well yeah, I know that, but why did you think it was such a big deal to read us the article?” Jason asked. “I mean it’s sad and all, but people die everyday. What’s so special about this?”
Cory and I sat there watching Jason and Steve go back and forth with each other with a growing interest, because in some small way we saw something that Jason didn’t.
Steve didn’t get excited about things in general all that much. He wasn’t a genius, but he sure wasn’t a moron either, and when something piqued his interest you could bet he would make it exciting for the rest of us.
Folding the newspaper and sticking it under his right leg, freeing his hands, Steve said, “Okay, think about this. How many people live in Corona?”
The three of us stared at Steve for a moment before I said, “A million?” Of course there wasn’t that many, but I was guessing to get the conversation rolling quicker.
He shook his head.
Cory: “A hundred thousand?”
Wrong again.
Jason: “Do you know?”
This time Steve nodded. “The sign at the bottom of Magnolia says that the population is a little over nineteen thousand.”
Again the three of us held his gaze, waiting to see what he was getting at. Then, in unison, we all said, “And?”
He gave us a few more seconds of silence, an attempt to build up more suspense on his part, then, “Well I’ll tell you something else: Corona is about fifteen square miles. It may seem big to us, but compared to other cities like Riverside or Los Angeles, it’s small. But that’s not including all the citrus groves. If you add them it would probably be another fifteen.”
Corona, founded at the height of the Southern California citrus boom in 1886, once laid claim to the title “Lemon Capitol of the World.” There were groves scattered throughout all of Corona.
“What’s a square mile?” I asked.
Steve was about to answer my question when Jason beat him to it. “Think of a square.” He drew an imaginary one on the floor of the playhouse with his finger. Tracing one side of it he said, “This line right here is a mile long. About how far it is from here to 7-Eleven. Going to the next invisible line he said, “This one here is also a mile long. So is this one and this one.” And by the time he had traced a box on the floor I had pretty much gotten the idea.
“Now put fifteen of those squares all next to each other to form one big square. That about right, Steve?”
Steve sat there with a smile, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s it. I’m glad to see someone’s using their brain.” The comment was directed at Cory who sat like a lump, bouncing the tennis ball that he’d picked back up.
“That still doesn’t explain why you read us the newspaper article,” Jason said. “Come on. I know there’s more.”
“I’m getting there. Now, we just said Corona’s about fifteen miles by fifteen miles and has about nineteen thousand people living in it, right.”
“Right. We know. Fifteen miles. Nineteen thousand. Get to it,” Cory said seeming almost bored.
Steve reached out and grabbed the tennis ball in mid bounce and handed it to Jason who stuck it in his lap. “How long have we lived here? I’ve been here since my dad… well since I was about seven. Six years or so. Cory?”
None of us knew where Steve’s father was. It wasn’t that we were afraid to ask, we just never really knew if he wanted to tell us about him because he never spoke of him.
“My parents moved here before I was born, but they lived in one of the trailers in Crown Pointe. We moved to Cottonwood I think eight years ago when I was almost three,” Cory said racking his brain.
“What about you two?” This question was directed at my brother and me.
Jason answered. “My mom and dad lived in an apartment when I was born, but bought the house after it was built… so eight years too. Same as Cory. Why?”
“Well,” Steve said, “we’ve all been here in the Crown for more than five years. And we’ve all been hanging around together for about that long. In all that time, in all the places we’ve explored and all the stores we’ve been to, the arcade, the library, the Tumbleweed Connection, the Plunge, we’ve come across a lot of people. Wouldn’t you say?”
We nodded. Our city was big to us, but in all it was still a small suburban sprawl.
“I guarantee, no, I’ll bet all of you a thousand dollars, that whoever killed that little girl, and if they live in Corona, we’ve probably run across, or even met them.”
Wow. That was something new for us to think about. It did seem possible that one, if not all of us, might have met this killer.
“Where are you going to get a thousand dollars from?” Cory asked like a dope.
Steve rolled his eyes and said, “That’s not the point, dick. All I’m saying is what if this guy is someone we know. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”
We agreed that it would be. It even started to spark a little fear in me, and I was brought back to the Dark Dreams I had been having at night.
Bubbles popping.
Voices screaming.
Children dying.
“I don’t know. You really think we might know this person? I mean what are the chances?” Jason asked.
“I’d say the chances were good,” Steve answered. “In fact, I’d say they were really good. You guys want to know why I think that?”
Children are curious, it’s a fact. Of course we wanted to know his theory on knowing the killer. And when he explained it, it knocked us for a loop.
“The reason I read you the article and the reason we may have met the killer is, well, I’ve already met the victim.”
We stared at him, mouths slack.
Jason said, “What?”
Steve nodded twice and said, “I knew Amy Garret.”