Free Arrowood by Laura McHugh Page B

He took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. “Everybody asks. Completely gray before I turned twenty. Runs in the family.”
    “Oh.”
    “Anyway, it’s great to finally meet you,” he said, putting his cap back on. “I’m glad you agreed to do it.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I’m curious to know why you think I’m wrong.”
    He gestured toward the picnic table, and we sat down across from each other. He leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “Well, you know I interviewed Harold Singer. And I’m guessing you’re familiar with that whole part of the case? With his story?”
    “I know the police searched his house and found those pictures. Places he was casing to rob, supposedly. But they didn’t find anything connecting him to my sisters. I think that’s only because it took them so long to search his car.”
    “So you probably also know that he said he wasn’t parked in front of your house at four. He claimed he was parked there earlier in the day, around one o’clock.”
    Out on the river, a barge sounded its air horn, and gulls swooped low over the water.
    “That’s what he said, but he had no witnesses. No alibi. Two people saw him there at four, including me.”
    Josh stuck his hands in his jacket pockets. “I think I found proof that he wasn’t lying about the time. But I need your help to be sure. I was hoping you’d take a look at something for me.”
    “I don’t mean to sound skeptical right from the start, but what kind of evidence could you have possibly found after all this time? That was missed by everybody else?”
    “I got it from Singer,” he said. “Some pictures. From that day.”
    “I’ve already seen the pictures,” I said. “They’re not even sure when he took them. There’s no way to know.”
    “Not those. Not the pictures of the houses. Those were from the film police found at his place, under the floorboards. There were other rolls of film, other pictures. When he saw they were looking for a gold car, he got nervous. He bundled anything he thought might be incriminating into a garbage bag, and he buried it out in the woods. It would have been smarter to just burn everything, but he wanted to keep the photos. That’s how it is with guys like him—they get a thrill out of something and they don’t want to give it up, even if it might get them in trouble.”
    I was fairly certain I knew where the conversation was leading, but I had to ask. “What’s in the pictures, then?”
    “Kids.”
    Ice spread through my chest. “My sisters?”
    “In one picture, yes.”
    “If he has a picture of my sisters, why didn’t you go to the police as soon as you saw it?”
    “Because I won’t know whether the pictures mean anything until you look at them.” His glasses had slid down and he pushed them back up. “Like I said, I think these images could prove his innocence. Or at least put his guilt in doubt, for you, anyway. They’re not…pornographic, or explicit in any way. Just close-ups of kids, playing. Riding their bikes, stuff like that. Your sisters are in one of them. Some are of you.”
    My stomach twisted.
Some are of you.
I had always wondered why I had been left behind. Maybe he had planned to take me, too. Maybe he would have, if I hadn’t run to the backyard to get the dandelions.
    “And how does that prove him innocent?” I asked. “Because if anything, it makes him sound worse than before.”
    “If these were taken the day your sisters disappeared, I think there’s a way to determine what time of day he took them. I brought them with me—they’re in the van.”
    I studied his face. The sun glared against his glasses, so that I couldn’t see his eyes. “Why did he show them to you?”
    “Because I told him I wasn’t convinced he was guilty, that I was trying to find out what really happened. There was no physical evidence tying him to the disappearance, and I wanted to hear his side of things. I think I was the first