Three Days in Paradise
If there was ever a town to inspire Norman Rockwell to pick up a brush and palette, it was Laurel, a quintessential New England village where neighbors helped one another in times of trouble, front doors could remain unlocked both day and night and families gathered around their dining room tables on Sundays after church. It was a community where everyone—man, woman, and child—turned out for the annual Easter egg hunt, Memorial Day parade, Fourth of July picnic and Christmas tree lighting.
Few people ever moved out of Laurel, and strangers rarely wandered in. Most residents could trace their roots to colonial times. If there was one word to describe this picturesque little village, it was paradise. Yet as we have seen in literature dating back to the Bible, paradise can be a vulnerable place, and one day a serpent was introduced into the tranquil, unsuspecting hamlet.
* * *
Day 1
Former bank manager Sidney Unger woke up at the sound of his alarm, put on a robe and slippers and walked down his driveway where the paperboy had thrown the Laurel Daily Herald. There was no reason for the retiree to get out of bed at six in the morning, but he was determined to lead an active life despite his age. He didn't want to be one of those senior citizens who sat around the house in their pajamas, watching game shows or daytime talk shows. Rain or shine, the sixty-eight-year-old rose early and, after a healthy breakfast, walked five miles a day, forgoing his constitutional only when icy sidewalks made foot travel hazardous.
There were days when he wondered why he took such good care of himself. With his wife in her grave the past six years, he lived a life of solitude. His only human contact was with the check-out girl at the grocery store. If he bought into the whole Christian concept of being reunited with his dead relatives when he passed on, perhaps he would simply give up and welcome the day when his eyes closed for the last time. However, until he had proof that heaven actually existed, he would do his best to remain alive on earth.
On this day, Sidney brought the newspaper back into his house, made himself a cup of coffee and two slices of whole wheat toast that he topped with a low-cholesterol spread. Then he sat down to read the sports section. When he spread the paper open, he noticed someone had written two words across the page with a thick, black marker: I KNOW. Initially, it was not the message that bothered him as much as it was the fact that the three-quarter-inch-wide, eight-inch-high letters made reading the coverage of the Red Sox game impossible. It was only after the anger passed that Sidney wondered who had ruined his paper and why.
* * *
Mary Anne Conley didn't need an alarm clock to wake her. Her eyes opened every day precisely at six. For the mother of three, life was one long, never-ending routine. Weekday or weekend, during the school year or summer vacation, she went to the kitchen where she prepared the same breakfast for her children: Cheerios, milk and apple juice in the warm months; oatmeal and hot cocoa in the cold ones. After the kids were on the bus to school, their mother performed her daily housekeeping chores, always in the same order and in the same manner. Although not obsessive-compulsive, she didn't handle change very well and had difficulty adapting to new situations. She felt comfortable only when following her well-established routine.
This day, however, Mary Anne experienced a disruption in her schedule. The day began the same as usual: make breakfast, walk the kids to the bus stop, do the dishes and make the beds. It was at the point she walked into the first-floor powder room carrying a mop, bucket and bottle of Lysol that her self-discipline broke down. On the vanity mirror, written with a tube of Ravishing Red lipstick, were two words: I KNOW.
Her children, two boys and a girl, ranging in age from six to twelve, had always been so well-behaved. Other than a few time-outs for minor infractions of the rules, she never had to discipline them. Which one was guilty? Which one would she have to punish? As she scrubbed the lipstick off the mirror with Windex and a Bounty paper towel, she ceased to wonder who had been the culprit and concentrated on why they had written such a message.
* * *
Paramedic Brian Aikens worked the night shift at the Laurel Medical Clinic, assisting the doctors in providing routine and minor emergency care. People went to the clinic to have broken bones set, wounds sutured, sprains taped and colds and coughs treated. For more serious illnesses or injuries, patients were referred to the county hospital, more than twenty miles away. In severe cases, patients were driven by ambulances or flown by medical helicopters.
While most of the villagers were waking up, Brian was leaving work, anxious to go home, have something to eat and get some sleep. The sun was already up as he crossed the parking lot and neared his car. As usual, the white SUV was covered with a layer of dirt because the town's carwash was only open during the hours he was asleep—one of the many disadvantages of working the night shift.
Yawning, he reached into his pocket for his keys. As he walked around the rear of the car to the driver's side, his eyes were immediately drawn to the front door. Someone had written two words in the dirt with a finger: I KNOW.
That's original, the paramedic thought. Kids usually write WASH ME on a dirty car.
When Brian got behind the wheel and started the engine, it occurred to him that it most likely hadn't been a kid. Few youngsters, even teenagers, hung around the clinic during the night since it was one of the few places in town that had a modern security system. But if it wasn't a kid, then who was it?
* * *
Sixteen-year-old Kaylee Emmett called goodbye to her mother and walked out the front door. In another year she would have her driver's license and wouldn't have to walk to school every day. She adjusted the straps of her backpack in an attempt to redistribute the weight and walked down the driveway. As she neared the mailbox, she noticed the red flag was raised.
Didn't anybody get the mail yesterday?
When she pulled down the door, she discovered a yellow pastel envelope, like the ones that held greeting cards, inside. She removed it from the box and saw that it was addressed to her—well, not exactly addressed. Only her first name was scrawled across the front of the envelope. There was no last name, no address, no postage and no cancellation mark. Someone had obviously just stuck the card in the mailbox rather than send it through the mail.
Kaylee tore open the envelope. It was a general occasion card with no greeting on it—just a drawing of a kitten on the front. The card company had deliberately omitted all writing so that the sender could pen his or her own sentiments. The person who sent the card to Kaylee had written two words inside: I KNOW. The sender hadn't bothered to sign it.
What is this, some kind of a joke?
She was staring at the unfamiliar handwriting, when her mother called, "Is something wrong?"
"No. I got a card in the mailbox."
"Well, you'd better hurry up and get going. You're going to be late for school."
Kaylee shoved the envelope in her backpack and hurried down the street toward the high school, all the while wondering who had sent her the card and why.
* * *
A true workaholic, Ward Overton was always the first to arrive at his office. One would think that given Laurel's small population, the village would need only a part-time mayor. However, Ward put more effort into fulfilling the duties of his office than most public servants did. A hands-on leader, he was never one to delegate responsibility to others.
As Mayor Overton sat at his desk reviewing a proposed plan to create a bike lane along the village's main street, he heard the familiar ringtone of his cell phone: the first twelve notes of "Hail to the Chief." He took the phone out of his pocket and read the name of the caller. It was his wife. Whenever she needed something done, however trivial, she called him on his cell phone. Lately, these were the only conversations the couple had. It was nothing important; it never was. She noticed they were running low on milk and asked him to pick some up on his way home.
God forbid she get into her car and drive down to the grocery store herself, he thought, annoyed at being treated more like a domestic servant than Laurel's highest elected official.
Moments later, as he was putting his phone back in his pocket, he received a text. The caller ID wasn't of any help, identifying the sender as anonymous. Whoever it was, he or she sent him only a two-word message: I KNOW.
The mayor texted back: WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU KNOW? But he received no reply.
* * *
After putting her lunch in the refrigerator in the teachers' lounge, Lois Grier hurried down the hall to her classroom. She walked with her gaze straight ahead, not bothering to wave or smile at her fellow faculty members. When Macy Hickok, the energetic and idealistic new kindergarten teacher greeted her, Lois pretended not to hear.
At sixty-two, the fifth-grade teacher was just three years shy of retiring. It couldn't come soon enough. She supposed she was once as enthusiastic and optimistic as Miss Hickok, but that was forty years ago. Things had changed in those four decades. Roughly twelve hundred students had sat at their desks, staring up at her as she tried to teach them how to multiply fractions, where to place Vietnam on the world map and when to use the semicolon instead of a comma. Of those twelve hundred children, some had been a delight to teach. Then there were the ones who made Lois's life a pure hell. They were the lying, disrespectful troublemakers who liked to play pranks on the instructors.
"Mark my words," the fifth-grade teacher once told the vice principal, "the next time there's a school shooting, it will be the teacher holding the weapon!"
As Lois crossed the threshold of her classroom, she immediately saw the writing on the blackboard. In carefully printed letters, nearly two feet high were two words: I KNOW.
The educator's first thought was that a student had somehow gotten into the school. Then she realized it was impossible. Since Sandy Hook, security even in peaceful little Laurel was tight. Without swiping an electronic key, no one could enter the building before the first bell. That meant one of the faculty had left the ambiguous message on the board. But who?
* * *
Reverend John Korman walked through the main entrance of the Maple Grove Nursing Home and was welcomed by the receptionist on duty. As pastor of the Laurel Methodist Church, he knew nearly everyone in town on a first-name basis. He was one of those remarkable people who always remembered not only names and faces but family histories as well.
"Hello, Stacy. How are Paul and the children?"
"Just fine, Father."
"And your dog? Did she have her puppies yet?"
"Four of them. All but one are spoken for. Would you be interested in the last one?"
"As much as I'd love to have a dog, I'm afraid my duties don't leave me much time to train a puppy. Give my best to Paul, won't you?"
After he'd signed in and put on a visitor's badge, the minister headed toward Room 128 to visit Edith Geddes, a parishioner who was suffering from stage four cancer. In the hallway outside the patient's room, he ran into Moira McCreary, Laurel's only practicing psychiatrist. The two stopped and chatted for several minutes, and then both went about their business.
When Father Korman entered the room, he sensed death was imminent. Edith was sleeping peacefully, no doubt heavily medicated. The minister sat at the patient's bedside and took her hand in his. In all the times he visited her, he had never seen another guest in her room. John couldn't help feeling a twinge of anger. The poor woman had devoted most of her life to her children and grandchildren, and not one of them cared enough to spend time with their dying relative.
"There's a special place in heaven for loving mothers," he whispered.
John patiently waited fifteen minutes beside the bed, never letting go of the woman's hand. Finally, he bowed his head and prayed for her soul.
"I'll be back in a day or two," he told the unresponsive patient, finally relinquishing her hand.
As he turned to go, he saw on the bedside tray a pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT form. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it. It was one found in offices across the country. What caught his attention was his own name written on top of the form. There was no caller name or return phone number. The only other writing on the form was the message itself: I KNOW. The minister picked up the paper and stopped by the receptionist's desk on his way out.
"Stacy, did this caller leave a name?" he asked.
"I didn't take that message, Father. We don't even use those pink pads here," she replied, showing him the wire-bound book that offered carbonless copies of messages taken. "We use these white ones. I have no idea where that could have come from."
On the drive back to the parsonage, John was more concerned with how the message got into the patient's room than in who the caller had been and what the message meant.
* * *
I could go on and tell you about others who found the same message that day. However, there's no need for me to belabor the point. Suffice it to say that more than half the people in Laurel received the anonymous missive. Oddly enough, no one mentioned receiving it, not to their spouses, parents or friends. Certainly, no one notified any of the four village police officers, all of whom received the message themselves.
When night fell at the end of the day and the people of Laurel were safe in their beds—with the exception of those working the overnight shift at the clinic—many were plagued by insomnia. Two words kept them from sleeping: who and why?
* * *
Day 2
Sidney Unger was awake when his alarm went off. Not since his wife died had he had such a poor night's sleep. As usual, he put on his robe and slippers and walked out to the driveway. This time, however, he didn't wait until he was inside to open the newspaper. He stood in the driveway and thumbed through the pages. Unlike the previous day, there were no words scrawled across the paper with a thick black marker.
He should have been relieved, should have seen the incident as a one-time prank and forgotten about it. Instead, the questions that had bothered him during the night continued to haunt him as he made his breakfast. Who was responsible? The obvious answer would be the paperboy. He was the one who last handled the newspaper. Somehow, Sidney couldn't see the ten-year-old as the culprit. If he were caught defacing the pages, he would lose his route. While it wasn't the most lucrative job, there were few opportunities for someone his age.
Who else had access to that paper? he wondered.
He mentally went through names of people who worked for the Daily Herald. This didn't take long since the paper was by no means The New York Times. One name stood out from the others: Doris Balfour, the editor's secretary, who was once a teller at the bank where Sidney had been employed.
I KNOW. The two words echoed in his brain. Sidney remembered the odd way Doris had looked at him the day he retired. Was there accusation in her blue eyes? Did she know?
* * *
The three Conley children sat at the kitchen table, looking at their mother as though she just landed from Mars. Where were their Cheerios? Their milk? Their apple juice? Their mother stood there in front of them, still in her pajamas despite the fact that she was always dressed by the time they were up.
"Who did it?" she demanded to know, holding a tube of Ravishing Red lipstick in front of her so that the children could all see it.
"Did what?" the oldest asked.
"Who took my tube of lipstick and wrote on the downstairs bathroom mirror?"
All three children denied being the offender.
"I can't even reach the mirror without help," the youngest pointed out logically.
"Well, if none of you did it ...."
Mary Anne's voice trailed off. There was only one other person in the house: her husband, Lenny. Suddenly, the words I KNOW assumed a terrible significance. Did he know? If so, when and how did he find out?
* * *
When Pauline Murtogh, head nurse at the Laurel Medical Clinic, pulled into the parking lot, she was surprised to see Brian Aikens's car still parked there. She walked into the building's lunch room and saw the paramedic seated at the table, staring out the window.
"I thought I saw your car," Pauline said. "Why are you still here?"
Brian turned toward her, his eyes narrow with suspicion, and asked, "You know what car I drive?"
"Of course, I do. I've seen you get into it enough on the days when I've arrived early."
Maybe it wasn't a kid who wrote in the layer of dirt on his car.
"Are you feeling all right?" Pauline asked. "Is that why you haven't gone home yet?"
"I'm fine, just tired. That's all. I was struggling with insomnia yesterday."
"Why don't you take something to help you sleep? Go get yourself a sleeping pill. You know where I keep the key to the pharmaceutical room."
Did Brian detect a note of accusation in the nurse's voice?
* * *
Mrs. Emmett noticed Kaylee was in a foul mood the moment she went into the girl's bedroom to wake her. However, she didn't pay any attention to her daughter's bad humor. She dealt with teenage angst by simply ignoring it.
"Do you want me to make you breakfast?"
Heading toward the bathroom, Kaylee mumbled a response that her mother didn't understand.
"Oh, my God!" the teenager exclaimed with exasperation when she saw her reflection in the mirror. "I look like shit!"
From tossing and turning most of the night, her hair was thoroughly mussed like she had just stepped out of a wind tunnel. Worse, there were dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. How could she go to school looking the way she did?
Half an hour later, after a shower and a thick coat of concealer beneath her eyes, Kaylee went downstairs where her mother had breakfast waiting for her.
"Your hair's wet," Mrs. Emmett said, stating the obvious. "You should dry it before you go outside. You don't want to catch cold."
"My hair gets too poufy when I blow-dry it."
"I saw Amy's mother at the post office yesterday," Mrs. Emmett announced, trying to engage her daughter in conversation. "She told me there's a school dance this weekend."
"So?" Kaylee replied with feigned indifference.
"Are you going?"
"Nah."
"Why not? You don't need to go with a date. Lots of girls go to dances alone."
Like millions of American teenagers, Kaylee felt her mother didn't understand the problems faced by modern youth. Surely, girls of the twentieth century never had boyfriend problems, experienced difficulty in school or suffered from low self-esteem.
"Only losers go to the dances alone."
"You don't have to stay home every night just because you broke up with Donny Martindale."
Kaylee rolled her eyes. He mother was completely clueless. She didn't break up with Donny; he was the one who dropped her.
"I'm not hungry," the girl said, dropping her fork on her plate.
"You're only sixteen years old. You've got your whole life ahead of you. You'll meet someone else, and you'll forget all about Donny."
"Like you forgot about Daddy?"
Mrs. Emmett winced as though her daughter had slapped her across the face. To be reminded of her husband who had left her for a younger, prettier woman caused her pain.
"It's not the same thing. You had a schoolgirl crush on Donny. I was married to your father for fifteen years. I had a child with him."
Before she said something she might later regret, Kaylee got up from the table, grabbed her backpack and ran out the door. As she walked down the driveway, she replayed the conversation with her mother in her mind.
It's not like her to bring up my love life. And what's with that comment about her having a child with my father?
When she came abreast of the mailbox, her thoughts shifted from her mother's words to the unsigned card she received the day before. Kaylee had assumed it was someone from school playing a harmless joke. What if it wasn't? What if someone other than Donny Martindale actually knew?
* * *
Mayor Ward Overton didn't speak to his wife that morning; neither of them was very talkative. He woke, showered and got dressed in silence as his wife sat at the kitchen table reading a magazine. It wasn't until he picked up his briefcase that his spouse spoke.
"No coffee this morning?" she asked, not really caring what his answer would be.
"I'm late for a meeting," he lied.
There was no other communication. The wife didn't ask if he would be home for dinner. The husband didn't say if he would be home on time. Neither one bothered to say goodbye. The Overtons did not have a bad marriage, per se. Neither one was having an affair. There was no animosity between them. They had simply grown bored with each other. Ward no longer felt a passion toward his wife, and she no longer bothered to make herself attractive for him.
It was more than apathy that made Ward uncommunicative that morning, however. He'd slept badly the previous night. Like so many others in Laurel, he couldn't get the anonymous text message out of his mind. What did it mean? Who sent it?
The mayor was so distracted by the mysterious text message that he didn't notice the car in front of him had stopped for a yellow light. When he finally realized the car wasn't moving, he hit his brakes. He was too late; his Lexus slammed into the back of the Ford Taurus.
"What the hell's wrong with you?" he yelled to the driver of the other car, a skinny, petite, birdlike woman in her seventies. "Why did you stop for the light? It was yellow, not red."
The elderly woman recognized the mayor and immediately began to cry.
"I didn't break any laws, did I?"
Another driver stopped when he saw the collision.
"Is anyone hurt?" asked Cord Janikowski, a contractor who had given his support to the candidate who ran against the mayor in the last election.
"No," Ward replied. "It was just a fender-bender."
"Do you want me to call the police?" Cord asked, reaching for his cell phone.
"I didn't do anything wrong," the woman sobbed.
"That won't be necessary," the mayor told the contractor. Then he assured the woman, "Technically, I was at fault. When you have your car fixed, tell the mechanic to send me the bill."
"I'm not in any trouble then?"
"No," the mayor said, already regretting his angry outburst.
"If everything's okay, then I'm going to get going," Cord said. "I have an important meeting with my attorney."
The mayor stiffened. Why had Janikowski looked directly at him when he said that?
As Ward continued on to his office, he thought about the contractor. During his years as mayor, the two men had butted heads a number of times, mostly over zoning issues. Their relationship deteriorated to the point where the builder wanted to see him removed from office and even campaigned for Pierce Follett, his opponent, in the last election. Ward recalled how quickly Cord had reached for his cell phone. Was he the one who had sent the ambiguous text?
I KNOW. What exactly did he know?
* * *
Lois Grier, tired from lack of sleep, opened the refrigerator door in the teachers' lounge and shoved her lunch bag on one of the overfilled shelves.
"Doesn't anybody ever clean this thing out?" she complained to the empty room.
The teachers' lounge was just one more thing she hated about her job, although it ranked near the bottom of the list. No sooner did Lois close the refrigerator door than she encountered another that was much nearer the top: Macy Hickok, the annoyingly perky kindergarten teacher.
"Miss Grier! I've never seen you in here before," Macy said, smiling ear to ear.
"I only come in here when I have a lunch that needs to be refrigerated."
"Why don't you sit down and have a cup of coffee with me? The first bell won't ring for at least another ten minutes."
"I ought to get ready for today's lessons."
"Please. I never get to talk to you. I've got some homemade Toll House cookies, if you'd like one."
Although Lois had no desire to socialize with her coworkers, she did have a fondness for chocolate chips.
"I've got a minute," she said and sat down at the grimy table.
"So," Macy said, opening the foil she'd wrapped around a plate of cookies, "how long have you been teaching here at Laurel Elementary?"
"Since the late Seventies."
"Really? You must have seniority over all the other teachers."
Lois frowned. Was Macy deliberately trying to make her feel old?
"You must have started around the same time as Principal Quinton."
"He came here the year before I did. He was a seventh grade math teacher back then."
"I can see why the board made him principal. He's so good with people, and not just the students. You must know him very well."
Miss Grier's eyes narrowed.
"Not that well."
"Really? You've worked with him for forty-odd years, and you never got to know him?"
Lois popped the last cookie into her mouth and got up from the table.
"I've got to go. Teaching fifth grade isn't like teaching kindergarten. We do more than play games and paint pictures."
Macy, hurt by the older woman's words, sat open-mouthed, staring at her retreating form.
As she stomped down the hall toward her classroom, Lois fumed with anger. There was no doubt in her mind that Macy was the one who wrote I KNOW on her blackboard. What puzzled her was how the kindergarten teacher found out.
* * *
Father John Korman was woken by the sound of his telephone. He looked at his bedside clock. It was already after nine. He never slept beyond six, but then he had been awake most of the night.
"Hello?" he answered, forcing his weary body to get out of bed.
It was the director of the Maple Grove Nursing Home.
"Father Korman, I'm sorry to bother you."
"It's quite all right. You're calling about Edith Geddes, aren't you?"
"Yes. I'm afraid she passed away during the night."
"Thank you for letting me know. Were any members of her family with her?"
"No. I haven't seen her kids since last Christmas."
Tears came to the minister's eyes. He'd known Edith Geddes for many years. She was a wonderful person and an excellent mother who raised her children by herself after her husband's death. What thanks did she get for it? Her children put her in a nursing home and forgot about her, only visiting at Christmas. As a minister, he knew he shouldn't question God's plan, but it seemed unfair for such a good person to have such a lonely, painful death. Still, whether he approved of the family's treatment of Edith Geddes or not, he was duty-bound to contact them and offer what solace he could.
Once he was ready to start his day, John went to his office in the basement of the church and took a folder from his file cabinet that contained names and phone numbers of all his parishioners and their family members. As he leafed through the stack of loose pages—he really ought to devise a better filing system, preferably computerized—he saw a pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT form similar to the one he'd found in Edith's room the previous day.
This message contained the personal phone number for Dr. Moira McCreary. John remembered the day the psychiatrist had scribbled her number on the paper. Although there might have been a few dozen businesses in Laurel that used the same message pads, Moira McCreary had been at the nursing home yesterday. Furthermore, she had arrived before John did. She could easily have put the message on Edith's tray without being seen.
I KNOW. She knew. In fact, she was the only one in Laurel who did. Unless she'd told someone else!
* * *
Again, I won't mention all the people who had similar experiences. If I did, my narrative would cease to be a short story and take on the size of an urban area phone book. I will only say the residents of Laurel were all feeling the effects of too little sleep and too much stress. Most of them had a strong suspicion if not a clear certainty as to the identity of the person who had left the mysterious message.
In just two days, the tranquil village had taken on the volatility of a powder keg.
* * *
Day 3
No alarm sounded in the Unger house the morning of the third day. Sidney spent the night in his living room, sitting awake in his chair. His eyes burned and his head ached from lack of sleep, but it did no good to close his eyes. His mind would not rest. The sound of the paperboy's bicycle signaled his nerves to go on red alert. He jumped from his chair and hurried outside.
"Hi, Mr. Unger," the ten-year-old called. "Here's your paper."
"What time does Doris Balfour start work?"
"I don't know who you're talking about."
"Doris Balfour, the editor's secretary. What time does she arrive at the office?"
"I don't know," the newsboy answered, fearful of the crazed look in his customer's eyes.
"You don't know?" Sidney shouted. "Why not? You work for the Herald, don't you?"
"I don't go to the office though. A delivery truck drops the papers off at my house."
Sidney literally growled with anger and cried, "You're useless!"
He then turned to go back up his driveway. That might have put an end to an ugly situation, but the paperboy, unlike children of Sidney's generation, did not believe in respecting his elders unless they were worthy of that respect. Clearly, by his behavior, Sidney did not deserve it.
"Useless, huh?" the child yelled back at the retired bank manager. "I'm up at dawn every morning, in good weather and bad, delivering these damned newspapers. And then I go to school. What do you do? You don't even work. You sit home on your ass all day and collect Social Security."
"Why, you little bastard!"
Livid, he quickly closed the space between himself and the paperboy. At sixty-eight, he was still in good shape. With one solid punch he knocked the boy off his bike and onto the ground. Dazed and bleeding from the mouth, the child put up no defense as Sidney hit him a second, third and fourth time.
Exhausted from the physical exertion, Unger fell to his knees.
What have I done? he thought when he saw the bloody, lifeless face of the newsboy in front of him.
His guilt was quickly eclipsed by anger, which he directed at what he saw as the cause of his misery.
She made me do this. It's all her fault.
Having killed once, he saw no reason to hold his fury in check. He would spend the rest of his days in jail for murdering a child. He might as well get the satisfaction of killing her, too. With the paperboy's blood still on his hands, he got into his car and drove to town. The Herald's office was not yet open, so he waited in the parking lot. Sidney ducked when the editor arrived, but the man, who was facing his own demons that day, paid no attention to the unknown Ford. Five minutes later, Doris Balfour's Toyota Camry pulled into the parking lot. Sidney got out of his car at the same time Doris got out of hers. The secretary paled when she saw the blood on him.
"Have you been in an accident, Mr. Unger? Would you like me to call an ambulance?"
"Why not the police?" he asked. "Or would that spoil your little blackmail scheme?"
"Blackmail? What are you talking about? Did you hit your head?"
"Just drop the act. I saw your little message in the newspaper. I KNOW. So what? Do you think I still have that money?"
"What message? What money?"
"The money I embezzled from the bank. You think you can blackmail me, but it won't do you any good. I used that money to pay for my wife's medical bills. I don't have a dime of it left."
"I don't know anything about your embezzling money."
"You lie!"
Sidney did not punch the secretary as he had the paperboy. Instead, he placed his bloody hands around her throat and choked the life out of her.
* * *
Lenny Conley, who commuted seventy miles to work, rose every morning at four. A considerate husband, he insisted his wife stay in bed and sleep. He was more than capable of dressing himself and making a cup of coffee. Therefore, when he walked into the kitchen after taking his shower that morning, he was surprised to see Mary Anne standing beside the stove.
"What are you doing up this early?" he asked.
"Aren't you happy to see me?" she countered.
"Of course, I am. I just figured you do so much during the day, you need your sleep in the morning."
"Now you're being sarcastic. Why don't you just come out and say it: you have to go to work every day while I stay home and do nothing."
"What's gotten into you? I never meant any such thing. I know you don't have it easy. You've got three kids to take care of plus this big house."
The whistle of the teapot began to squeal. It was a piercing sound, yet Mary Anne seemed not to notice.
"You want to get that?" her husband asked.
"You haven't by any chance seen my Ravishing Red lipstick lying around, have you?"
"I'm calling the doctor," Lenny said, reaching behind his wife to turn the burner off beneath the teapot. "There's obviously something wrong."
"Which doctor are you going to call, our family doctor or my obstetrician?"
Lenny turned toward his wife and smiled at what he believed was good news.
"You're pregnant?"
"Three kids aren't enough for you? Oh, wait. Strike that. Two kids."
Lenny was worried. There was definitely something wrong with his wife. Could she somehow have ingested something to make her behave so strangely? There had been several well-known cases of product tampering in the past. Could someone have slipped a drug into a bottle of Dasani?
"Never mind the doctor," he said. "I'm taking you to the hospital."
"You are? Just like that. You don't ask; you tell me. Hell, why don't you just write it on the bathroom mirror? Wait, I'll go get my lipstick for you."
"You're making no sense at all. It's like you've completely lost your mind."
Mary Anne reached out her hand and slapped him across the face, scratching his cheek with her long nails.
"I KNOW. Isn't that what you wrote? You know. Why didn't you just come out and say it instead of playing games."
"Just calm down and tell me what you're talking about."
"You know about Colby."
A new fear gripped Lenny's heart. What was wrong with Colby, their oldest child?
"What happened to him? Is he hurt? In trouble?"
"Always the concerned father. Or is that just an act? Do you care anything at all about him now that you know he's not really your son?"
"What?"
It was the first thing Mary Anne said that made sense. It put all her ravings into context. Lenny married her after high school graduation because she was pregnant and he assumed the child was his.
"Who's the father?" he asked, knowing he would still love Colby as a son regardless of his DNA.
"Don't you know?" she asked snidely. "I thought you knew everything."
"I fail to see why you're acting as the injured party here. After all, you're the one who's been lying all these years."
The taught string of guilt that Mary Anne had carried since she first decided to keep Colby's paternity a secret finally broke. She snapped, grabbed the hot teapot behind her and brought it down on her husband's head. The scalding water more than the blow caused him to scream in agony.
At the sound of their father's cries, the three children woke up and ran down the stairs. They crossed into the kitchen at the precise moment their mother thrust a butcher knife into their father's heart.
"Mommy, no!" the little girl sobbed.
No longer in control of her actions, she pursued her children, killing Colby first, the middle child next and then the youngest. When the Westminster chimes of the grandfather clock tolled half past six, Mary Anne stepped over the bodies of her children and husband and turned on the stove. It was time to make breakfast, and she must stick to her routine.
* * *
When Pauline Murtogh arrived at the clinic, Brian Aikens was waiting for her in the lunchroom.
"Are you still here?" she asked. "This is getting to be a habit."
"No. I got off half an hour ago. I stopped for coffee and decided to pick one up for you. It's my way of thanking you for the sleeping pill yesterday. It really helped me a lot. I can't remember the last time I had such a good night's sleep."
One look at his bloodshot eyes and haggard appearance told Pauline he was lying.
"If you're looking for more, I can't help you. You'll need a doctor's prescription."
"No. I'm fine. I don't need any more pills. Here, I got this mocha latte for you."
"You really didn't have to do that," the nurse said, eyeing the whipped cream-topped coffee.
"I know I didn't. I wanted to."
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
"I bought brownies, too," he said. "Why don't you sit down and have one with me?"
Pauline looked at her watch and replied, "Sure. I have a few minutes before my shift starts."
They exchanged the usual small talk reserved for coworkers who don't really know one another well. As soon as Pauline finished one fudge-frosted brownie, Brian offered her another.
"No, thank you. I shouldn't even have had that one. I'm trying to cut down," she said and looked at her watch again. "It's getting late. I'd better go."
She finished the last of her latte and stood up. Suddenly her head began to spin.
"Are you okay?" Brian asked.
"I'm feeling ... a bit ... dizzy."
"You better sit down."
"Something's not ... right."
Pauline looked at the paramedic and saw hatred in his eyes.
"You put ... something ... in the coffee."
Brian did not deny the accusation.
"Why?"
"Because you know I stole drugs from the clinic. But they weren't for me. They were for my brother. He was wounded in Iraq and came back hooked on painkillers."
"I ... didn't ...."
Pauline never had the chance to finish her sentence. She fell forward across the table, knocking over the sugar bowl in the process. With a sardonic smile on his unshaven face, Brian used his index finger to write I KNOW in the spilled sugar.
* * *
Kaylee Emmett walked into school, tired and irritable from lack of sleep, feeling as though she had landed on an alien planet. People who had previously been friendly to her now ignored her, and those who were indifferent in the past seemed to look at her with hostility. Was she being paranoid or were the girls whispering together in groups talking about her? Were the ones giggling over some shared joke actually laughing at her?
Her mind kept going back to the unsigned card she'd found in her mailbox. Who had written it?
I was a fool to think no one would find out! she thought as she struggled to open the combination lock on her locker.
Somehow she managed to get through first period biology without breaking into tears. The real challenge for her would be second period gym. That was the one time of day she had to face Donny Martindale, her ex-boyfriend. Unlike most high schools, gym in Laurel High was a coed class. All students, male and female, donned their shorts and tee shirts and went out onto the athletic field. Most of the boys were running track, and the girls were split up into groups to compete at the long jump, high jump and pole vaulting.
As Kaylee waited in line for her turn at the long jump, she looked at Donny who was shamelessly flirting with Sue Wilson, a curvaceous redhead.
"It doesn't matter," she told herself.
Finally, it was her turn to jump. She took a running start and leaped into the air, but she fell far short of her classmates. When she landed hard on her bottom, she heard people laugh. It was bad enough to be humiliated in front of the other girls, but to have Donny there to witness her humiliation was far worse.
"You didn't go too far," Sue teased.
"That's not what I heard," laughed Donny's best friend, Dylan.
They know! They ALL know!
There's only one way they could have found out: Donny had to have told them. Only four people knew about her trip to the clinic in Boston. Certainly, neither the doctor nor his nurse would ever have revealed that she'd had an abortion.
While Donny and his friends laughed at Dylan's joke, Kaylee kept her head down, not wanting to face them or any of her other classmates. They probably all knew, too. She wished she could be anywhere else—the dentist's office, prison or even a medieval torture chamber—than on the Laurel High athletic field where her shame and guilt made her a laughingstock.
"Honestly, Donny," Sue said, just loud enough so that Kaylee would overhear. "I don't know why you ever went out with her. She's such a skank."
Kaylee couldn't bear it anymore. She ran off the field and into the girl's locker room. The gym teacher would no doubt give her detention, but she didn't care. After several minutes of crying and wishing she were dead, she heard the other students returning. Hoping to avoid them, she slipped into the equipment room. Surrounded by racks of sports paraphernalia, she felt safe. Volley balls wouldn't laugh at her. Field hockey sticks wouldn't make jokes at her expense.
But her safe harbor was a temporary one. The bell would sound the end of second period, giving students four minutes to get to their third period class. She would have to leave her sanctuary and return to the cruel world. How would she be able to concentrate on algebra—what she considered the most useless subject in her academic schedule—when she felt as though the world was crashing down around her?
How can I factor a trinomial after ...?
There it was: the answer to her problem! Standing tall and proud amidst basketballs and tennis racquets was a thirty-inch-long Rawlings baseball bat. It was love at first sight. As Kaylee's hands tightened on the grip, she felt like Carrie White on prom night. With the grim determination of George Pickett's division charging up Cemetery Ridge, she marched out of the equipment room, through the gym and into the boys' locker room, all the while chanting a mantra: "I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW." Donny and Dylan were putting on their clothes after taking a shower.
"What are you doing in here?" Donny cried.
"I KNOW. I KNOW. I KNOW."
Both boys were taken unawares. Neither one had expected the swift, lethal force with which the sixteen-year-old girl swung the bat. Dylan was struck first, killed with one blow. Donny soon joined him, despite his pleading.
As Kaylee stood over the two bodies, her chant came to an end with one final, "I KNOW."
* * *
When Mayor Ward Overton arrived at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new town hall and police station, the bodies of Lenny Conley, the three Conley children and the ten-year-old paperboy had yet to be discovered and Doris Balfour, who was still alive, was getting dressed for work. At the same time, Brian Aikens was purchasing two mocha lattes from the coffee shop, and Kaylee Emmett was sitting in homeroom listening to the morning announcements. As far as the mayor knew, Laurel was still a paradise.
Ward pulled his Lexus next to the contractor's field trailer and turned off the engine.
"Hi, there, mayor."
"What are you doing here?" he asked Cord Janikowski, the contractor who had been at the scene of his collision the previous day. "You're not working on his project."
"No, I'm not. My bid was rejected, but you already know that."
"Johnson Brothers came in with a lower figure," the mayor lied.
"Did they?" Cord asked with a wry smile on his deeply tanned face. "Well, I suppose there's a first time for everything."
"Just what are you suggesting?" Ward asked.
"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just making an observation. Johnson Brothers has always bid high. But we can continue this discussion later. Here come the reporters to cover the groundbreaking."
Once the press arrived, Dick Johnson, the man who had been awarded the lucrative construction contract, came out of his trailer carrying a ceremonial shovel. Like the mayor, he was surprised to see Cord Janikowski.
"I didn't expect to see you here today," Dick said, casting a guarded look in the mayor's direction.
"Why not? This is the largest construction project in Laurel's history. Both as a builder and as a tax-paying resident of the town, I'm interested in its progress and whether or not it comes in at budget."
Conversation ceased as the reporters got within earshot. While only one writer was covering the story for the Herald, there were two from neighboring towns and even a news crew from a nearby television station.
Mayor Overton stepped forward and became the center of attention. With shovel in hand, he walked to the spot where the groundbreaking would occur. There were two dozen visitors, mostly local businesspeople, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
As the mayor posed for photographs, a disembodied voice seemed to float on the wind, whispering to him, "I know."
"Who said that?" the mayor asked, craning his head to scan the faces in the crowd.
"Who said what?" Dick replied. "I didn't hear anything."
The mayor's eyes rested on Cord Janikowski. That same smug smile was on the contractor's face as had been there the previous day.
It was him, the mayor concluded. Not only did he send me that threatening text message, but he's been stalking me as well. That's why he was there when I rear-ended that old woman at the light.
"Aren't you going to smile for the camera, your honor?" called one of the photographers.
The mayor put on his campaign face, grinning from ear to ear. For all intents and purposes, he was lovable Ward Overton, the man Laurel depended on to keep the village on an even keel. He smiled, waved and posed with the shovel, until the wind blew again.
"I know."
The mayor's head whipped around, and the smile vanished.
"It was you," he shouted, pointing his finger at Cord.
The contractor was as confused as everyone else in attendance.
"You sent me that text."
"What text?"
"You know what text. Did you think you could blackmail me into giving you the next municipal contract?"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I never texted you, and I certainly have no intention of blackmailing you."
"Bullshit! You found out I took a bribe from Dick Johnson and awarded him the contract instead of you. Now you want to get even with me."
The unintentional confession caused a stir among the reporters. The cameraman from the news crew had even caught it on tape. Ward's outburst would not only cost him his office, it would most likely result in criminal charges being brought against him.
"Shut up for Christ's sake," urged Johnson, who was also likely to face legal ramifications.
"Mayor," one reporter shouted, "do you have any comments for the people who voted you into office?"
Too late, Ward realized the consequences of his outburst. Everything he'd worked for his entire life was gone in an instant. Furthermore, he faced financial ruin if not jail time. His anger focused on Cord Janikowski.
"Come on. Let's get out of here," Dick said, tugging at the mayor's arm.
Meanwhile reporters continued to press him for answers.
"How did he know?" Ward asked Johnson. "Was it just a good guess, or did you tell him?"
"Keep your mouth shut," the contractor warned as he led the mayor toward his field office.
The two men were standing on the steps of the trailer, the press and spectators at their heels like a pack of hungry dogs, when once again the wind carried a voice to the mayor's ears: "I know."
Ward suddenly pulled free of Dick's grip. He ran to the contractor's pickup truck and turned the key that had been left in the ignition. One face stood out in the crowd: Cord Janikowski, the man who had brought him down.
"Well, I damn sure won't go down alone!" he shouted and floored the gas pedal.
Mayor Overton ran down five people, including the news crew cameraman, before hitting his target. Only when Cord was dead beneath the pickup's rear wheels did he turn off the engine.
* * *
As Lois Grier entered Laurel Elementary School early that morning, she was surprised to see that during the night the janitors had upgraded the locks on the windows.
"This place has got more security than Fort Knox," she grumbled as she walked into the teachers' lounge to put her leftover meatloaf in the refrigerator.
"You saw the new locks then?"
The voice startled Lois who hadn't seen Macy Hickok sitting in the far corner of the room.
"Yes, I did. I don't know why the board wastes the taxpayers' money. This isn't Detroit or New York. This is Laurel, Massachusetts, one of the safest communities in the country."
"I'm sure the people in Newtown, Connecticut, felt the same way once."
Lois, in no mood for a lecture on school safety from the rookie teacher, rudely left the room without another word. As she was walking away, she overheard part of Macy's last statement: "I know." She turned and immediately went back in the lunchroom.
"What did you just say?" Lois inquired.
"I said, 'I know I for one will sleep better at night.' Why? What did you think I said?" Macy asked when she saw the older woman's angry countenance.
"Were you in my classroom two days ago? Did you write the words I KNOW on my blackboard?"
"No. It must have been one of your students."
"Not likely. The writing was there when I arrived in the morning. Like today, I got in early, and you were the only other person here."
"Two days ago? I wasn't the only one here. Mr. Quinton was in his office when I got in."
"Avery Quinton was here, was he? That explains it. It had to be him."
"I don't think he's the kind of man who would write messages on your blackboard. Of course, this is my first year teaching here. You know him much better than I do."
Lois looked like one of her students that had miraculously come up with the correct answer to a hard math problem.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" she asked Macy. "Trying to pass the blame on to Avery."
"I told you I didn't write on your blackboard. Why would I? What would I have to gain by such childish behavior?"
"I don't know. Maybe you're sleeping with him now. Monogamy has never been his strong point."
"Who are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb with me. Somehow you learned that I had an affair with Avery Quinton when he was still teaching here, before he began moving up the administrative ladder."
"Honestly, Miss Grier, I had no idea, and frankly it's none of my business. Whatever may have happened in the past is between you and Mr. Quinton—and obviously his wife."
"Aha! That's your angle. You want me to stop you from going to his wife."
"You're being paranoid. I'm going to go to my classroom and forget about this entire conversation, and I suggest you do the same."
Lois took Macy's advice and went to her classroom; however, she could not put the conversation out of her mind. On the contrary, she brooded about it all morning. When the midday bell rang, and her thirty students went to the cafeteria, she stayed at her desk, not caring about the leftover meatloaf in the refrigerator in the teachers' lounge.
The fifth-grade teacher was so deep into thought that when she heard a knock on her classroom door, she literally jumped in her seat. She looked up and saw Principal Quinton opening the door.
"May I come in?" he asked.
She nodded in approval.
"I spoke with Miss Hickok briefly this morning. She said you're upset about someone defacing your blackboard."
Leave it to Avery to misunderstand the situation.
"It was nothing," she lied.
"Good. I like to see things running smoothly. I don't like complications."
You certainly don't.
As the principal opened the door to leave, he adjusted the thermostat for the heater.
"You ought to keep the heat turned down. This classroom is like an oven," he said and moments later he was gone.
Lois was still sitting at her desk when the children came back from recess. Many of her students were sweating after a strenuous game of kickball.
She recalled the principal's last words, "This classroom is like an oven."
For years, she had harbored an unrequited love for Avery Quinton despite his having left her to have an affair with the home economics teacher—all the while he was married with two children. Now she realized that love had faded years ago, replaced by a hatred that extended to everyone and everything around her. She hated her job, her fellow educators, the school, her stuffy classroom, the children in her care.
With those thick steel doors and unbreakable glass windows, this whole building is like an oven.
Without a word to her students, she left the classroom and walked downstairs to the maintenance room, where she proceeded to set fire to the bins full of paper to be recycled. Then she went to the office and pressed the button that would put the school into lockdown. Finally, she left the building through the only available exit: she walked up to the roof of the two-story school and climbed down the fire escape.
Inside, the other teachers and students panicked at the sound of the alarms. Was there a shooter in the building? A bomb threat? The teachers, reacting to their training, shut and locked their classroom doors, lined their students against the wall, lowered their blinds and turned out the lights. It wasn't until the fire had reached the main hallway and the acrid stench of smoke entered the classrooms that the teachers realized it was not a shooter that threatened them.
When Macy Hickok realized the danger they were all in, she got her cell phone out of her handbag and called 911. The dispatcher assured her that help would reach them soon, but as smoke began filling the room, she feared it would not arrive soon enough.
If we could just break one of these windows, she thought with desperation.
When she opened the blinds, she saw Lois Grier, who was smiling like a village idiot as she watched the school burn.
* * *
Father John Korman sat in Edith Geddes' living room going through the motions of comforting her children, none of whom seemed upset by their mother's passing. The minister suspected they were more concerned with how much money they could get when they put her house up for sale.
"I was with your mother the day she passed," he told Edith's younger daughter. "She was sleeping peacefully."
"I'm glad she didn't suffer too much at the end. Tell me, father, do you charge for your services at the funeral?"
"No. It's customary for the family to make a donation to the church, but it's strictly voluntary."
"I assume you're going to perform the service."
"Of course. Your mother was a valued member of my church, a fine woman."
"I don't suppose you can have a word with the mortician? Get him to give us a break on his price?"
"Forgive me for asking, but didn't your mother have life insurance?"
"Yes, but that policy and this house are all she left us. Divided four ways, that isn't much."
Father Korman stayed only a few minutes longer and then escaped.
Those kids make me glad I never married.
Of course, there had never been a question of his marrying. Other than his parents, whom he loved dearly, there was only room for God in his heart.
A face the minister hadn't seen in more than two decades came unbidden to his mind. It was followed by a dagger-like stab of pain. There had been another love, years earlier, when he was fresh out of seminary school. That sweet, innocent face that had so thrilled him in the past now tortured him with guilt and regret. Those bittersweet memories reminded him of the message he'd found on the tray beside Edith's bed.
I KNOW. There was only one living person, other than John himself, who knew about that chapter in the minister's life: Moira McCreary. She had been the psychiatrist assigned to evaluate him after he'd tried to take his own life. After two painful years of therapy, she had finally unraveled the cause of his depression.
I trusted you, he thought. You not only betrayed me personally, but you also committed a breach of professional ethics.
As a good Christian, he realized he shouldn't condemn Dr. McCreary without proof. He ought to at least give her the benefit of the doubt and allow her to explain. Always an impulsive man, he turned the car around and headed back toward the center of town.
When John got off the elevator on the fourth floor, he turned right and headed toward the psychiatrist's office. There was no one in the waiting room, and the receptionist informed him that the doctor's patient phoned and cancelled at the last minute.
"If you want to talk to the doctor, I'm sure she'll see you."
After announcing him to her employer over the intercom, the receptionist told the minister to go inside.
"John, what are you doing here?" Moira asked. "You're not thinking of harming yourself again, are you?"
"No. I wanted to talk to you about a message I found in Edith Geddes' room at the nursing home."
"A message? What did it say?"
"You don't know?"
"Why would I know?"
John's eyes went to the screen of the psychiatrist's laptop. Two words, in six-inch-tall letters scrolled across her desktop like a screensaver: I KNOW.
"It was you!" he cried pointing to the screen.
"Is that what your message said?" she asked with surprise. "You got one, too?"
"What do you mean too?"
"Someone sent me an email two days ago, and when I opened it, it downloaded that screensaver. I can't rid of it, not even by running a full virus scan."
The minister was relieved.
"I thought you had left the message for me."
"Why would I do that?"
"I thought you were reminding me about my little indiscretion."
"Little indiscretion? I'd hardly call it that."
John detected condemnation in the doctor's tone.
"I thought psychiatrists were supposed to remain impartial, not pass judgments on their patients."
"That was before I became a parent," Moira said, not denying her disapproval of his actions. "Look, I have no problems with same-sex relationships. I fully support equal rights for gays and lesbians, including the right to marry. If Dominick had been a consenting adult, I would feel differently, but he was a fifteen-year-old boy in your Christian Youth Fellowship."
"I never forced him to do anything," the minister defended himself.
"It doesn't matter. You were the adult, his pastor, a male authority figure. Despite my medical degree, I'm still human. If you'd had an intimate relationship with my fifteen-year-old son, I'd want to castrate you. But regardless of my personal feelings, I'm your doctor. I would never risk jeopardizing the progress you made."
Despite her vehement denials, John believed she was the one who had sent him the message.
"You lie," he said and lunged forward.
In attempting to break free from her patient, Moira knocked the lamp off her desk. The crash brought the receptionist running into the room. After seeing the minister and psychiatrist struggling, she ran back to her desk and called the police. By the time the patrol car arrived, Dr. McCreary was hanging from a ceiling rafter by the lamp cord.
* * *
By noon nearly one-third of the residents of Laurel were dead, including the seven murderers I've described herein. They themselves were murdered soon after committing their heinous crimes, as were the people who killed them. By nightfall only one adult remained alive: the chief of police, who after fatally shooting his wife and son drove to the American Life Insurance building, took an elevator to the top and jumped out a window to his death.
Massachusetts State Police, aghast at the carnage they encountered when they went to Laurel the next day, wondered what could turned a previously quiet, peaceful village into an abattoir.
"It's like walking into Jonestown," one of the younger troopers commented after vomiting his lunch into Mary Anne Conley's azalea bushes.
"Only a lot messier," a more experienced officer added. "I've never seen so much blood in one place before. It's like a war zone."
"The forensic guys will have their hands full," his partner declared. "The blood spatter evidence alone is going to take some time to piece together."
A fourth trooper walked out of the Conley house looking like a shell-shocked World War I veteran.
"Are you okay?" the senior man asked.
The trooper shook his head but after several moments was able to put his feelings into words.
"You ever hear that old cliché that pops up on nearly every true crime program, that such and such a town is the last place you'd expect to see a murder? Well, this is the last place I'd expect to see one, much less so many."
"I know what you mean," the older man said. "I always thought of Laurel as a good place to raise a family or to retire, a true paradise."
After criminologists investigated the deaths—which will no doubt be debated, theatrically recreated and written about for decades to come—a convoy of bulldozers leveled the town. No one ever learned that it was the police chief's thirteen-year-old son and his friends—including Tommy Conley who wrote on his bathroom mirror with his mother's lipstick and Michael Quinton, the principal's son, who wrote on Lois Grier's blackboard—who were responsible for the I KNOW messages that led to the horrendous bloodbath. Not one of the boys had meant any harm. It had been nothing but a childish prank, the equivalent of the crank phone calls youngsters made before phone companies offered caller ID to their customers.
Regardless of their motives, these children unknowingly unleashed the force that led to the destruction of the entire town. Laurel became a paradise lost, destroyed by fear and human nature, for buried beneath the most innocuous personalities lay secrets for which people are willing to kill to protect.
I KNOW who destroyed my newspaper before I had the chance to read it.
