“I don’t care what you think you know,” Miss Nelson went on. “There are lives at stake. I know you like your games, Francis, but this is real. People could die. And one of your own housemates could be in danger.”

Francis gulped in some air, pulled the dress down, and stepped out from behind the screen. Miss Nelson was no longer the gentle and meek head of Minerva. She was a woman standing like a wall in her doorway. And for the first time that whole night and morning, Francis was afraid. She looked down at the spot in the skirting board. What was behind that board could cause more trouble than she wanted. Her secrets were sealed in that wall.

“Could I just . . . have a moment?” she asked as meekly as she could.

“No,” Miss Nelson said. “I will pack your things. You will go.”

Francis Josephine Crane walked out of her room, having no idea it was for the last time.

9

THERE WAS THE MOOSE SIGN AGAIN.

There would never be a moose.

The Ellingham coach was going on its Sunday run to Burlington. Only a few people were on today—not people Stevie knew well. Everyone had headphones on or was reading or playing something. Stevie was reading her tablet, where she had a copy of Truly Devious: The Ellingham Murders by Dr. Irene Fenton open. It was one of the first books she had ever gotten on the subject. She had flipped to the part about the discovery of Dottie Epstein: May 16, 1936, was a soft day with hints of an early summer. It was five thirty in the morning, and Joseph Vance had started his milk run from Archer’s Dairy Farm. He had thirty-five deliveries of milk, cream, and butter in the back of his truck and a vacuum flask of coffee for his journey. He had just made the first ten deliveries to houses outside of Jericho, Vermont, and it was a good time to pull off to the side of the road and have a mug of coffee and his breakfast roll. He parked on a bit of rough grass across from Babbett’s Farm, drank and ate, and when he was finished, he went to relieve himself by a tree some twenty feet back from the road.

Joseph would later say he had no idea what moved him to go so far from the truck; this was a quiet area; no one was around for miles. Still, he moved back to the privacy of the tree, and while he was going about his business, he saw what appeared to be a sack on the ground. He moved closer. This is when he realized there were two legs coming from the sack—or, at least, parts of legs. They were discolored, ravaged by weather and wildlife. The rest of the body was still under a bit of dirt and some loose bits of wood. When Joseph moved these away, he saw the girl’s curly hair, the remains of her face, and even a pair of glasses.

He ran several feet away and was violently ill. Then he got in his truck and drove directly to the police station. Little Dolores Epstein, the brilliant young student from the Ellingham Academy, had finally been found. When the body was removed and examined, a massive fracture would be found on the right side of her skull.

At that point, the Ellingham kidnapping became the Ellingham murder. In all of the publicity around the missing mogul’s wife and his daughter, many would forget that the first known victim was a student, a poor little girl from New York City—a girl who taught herself five languages and showed a prodigious gift for translating ancient texts, a girl who did college-level chemistry and physics, who had a near-photographic memory of everything she ever read.

Later, Dolores’s movements on that fatal day would be retraced. It is likely that she was in the dome in the sunken lake when the kidnappers came there to receive the ransom money. Dolores liked to hide herself away and read, and she had a well-known penchant for getting into out-of-the-way spaces. That day, she had taken a volume of Sherlock Holmes stories with her into the dome. It would be found on the floor.

It is possible, even likely, that Dolores Epstein saw the face of the Ellingham kidnapper, and that is why she had to die.

The coach rolled into Burlington. Burlington was a pleasant town—very college, touch of hippie, small-town America but with good coffee and snowshoes and yoga and crude profiles of Bernie Sanders spray-painted on walls. There were darker things too—signs of homelessness, some scenes around the courthouse that looked grim.

The coach let everyone off on Church Street, which was the main shopping street. Stevie walked down toward the waterfront, taking in the houses and shops and the general scenery. Ellie could have snuck off to any one of these houses or lofts. She could be hiding away, looking down at Stevie now from a window.

But was it so easy to stay concealed in a place like this? Ellie would have to go out eventually, and Burlington wasn’t so large. If she had come here, she’d probably gone on, maybe taken someone’s car. Maybe she had headed west, to the desert, or California. Maybe she went up into Canada. That would be a quick and easy way of getting away from the American police. Maybe she had gone to New York or Boston, where it would be easy to hide.

But staying hidden forever was hard. Running was hard. You needed money. You needed ID and a phone. And it was hard to hide from cameras. They were everywhere. At traffic lights, at ATMs, on streets.

So maybe she was still here somewhere, tucked up in one of these hippie studios.

Stevie shook off her deliberations and continued down to the waterfront to the Skinny Pancake. There was a cold wind whipping off Lake Champlain that morning. It snapped in Stevie’s face, making her eyes tear up. The view was stunning, what she could see of it through the tears—a smeared expanse of beautiful water, glorious fall trees bordering the other side. This was where Albert Ellingham sailed away on his final day, from the local yacht club. His boat had blown up upriver a bit—a victim, it was thought, of anarchists who wanted to get revenge for the death of Anton Vorachek, the man arrested for the murder of his wife and the kidnapping of his daughter. The anarchists had come for Ellingham before; this time, they seemed to have gotten him. And it was just up the shoreline a bit, in a place called Rock Point, where Albert Ellingham and George Marsh had lowered the marked bills down to a boat.

The Skinny Pancake was a large, very low-key place with a hippie vibe, a giant menu of coffees and crepes. Stevie was still in a big mood, money-wise, and ordered a large turmeric cappuccino. Might as well look fancy when you’re meeting a professor for the first time.

“Hey, Fenton,” the guy behind the counter said. “Usual?”

A woman of indeterminate age had entered the restaurant. She had a head of corkscrew curls, an equal mix of black and gray, which came to her shoulders. She wore glasses with thick, red frames. She was wearing a bulky purple sweater and a waterproof coat, brown corduroy, and clogs that made a clear, heavy thump on the wooden floor. She had a beat-as-all-hell leather satchel slung across her body.

Stevie recognized her a bit from the author photo, although she had been maybe twenty years younger in it. There was something more . . . haphazard about the person in front of her.

They looked at each other in a moment of mutual recognition.

“Are you Stevie?” she called.

Stevie nodded.

“Put our coffees together,” she said to the person behind the counter. “She’s with me.” Then, to Stevie, “You mind if we sit outside?”

Stevie wanted to point out that it was October. In Vermont. On a lake. Dr. Fenton plucked a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and waggled them.

“Can’t smoke in here,” she said, pointing at the door.

Stevie wound her scarf once more around her neck and followed. Dr. Fenton sat down at one of the tables by the door, seemingly unaffected by the wind chopping at them. She pulled a cigarette from the pack of Camels and cupped her hands over her mouth to light it. Stevie didn’t know anyone who smoked. Dr. Fenton seemed to pick up on this.

“Used to be you could smoke anywhere,” she said. “You’re probably not used to it. They treat us like pariahs.”

She took a long drag, followed by a longer exhale.

“So. I understand that your interest at Ellingham is the Ellingham case. And that you had something to do with figuring out what happened to that kid, Mayes.”

“Hayes,” Stevie said, tucking her arms inside her red coat to conserve warmth.

“Hayes.” Dr. Fenton let out a long plume of smoke, most of which was blown back in her face. “Sorry. You’ve read my book?”

“Of course,” Stevie said.

“Of course!” Dr. Fenton laughed and coughed at the same time. “I like that. Of course. Also, call me Fenton. No ‘Doctor.’ Just Fenton. It’s how I like it. Let’s talk about the Ellingham case. Tell me what else you’ve read.”

“What?” Stevie said. “All of it?”

“All the books, what articles, give me a sense of what you know.”

“I know . . . all of it?” Stevie said.

“We’re here to talk,” she said. “Talk. Tell me about this case.”

Asking someone to just talk about the Ellingham case was like asking someone to “just talk” about the past or “just talk” about science.