Mara had written that a playground could not truly be called public if residents were denied information needed to judge its safety.
It was an argument about responsibility, not fear.
I thought of Sophie asking whether she could play under the willow tree.
I wanted her to inherit that kind of ordinary confidence, supported by honest information rather than silence.
ADDITIONAL CHAPTER SEVEN: THE SECOND VISIT TO THE DEPOT
The bus depot had been renovated twice since Mara left town, and its current waiting room contained vending machines and a small information desk.
I went there with Frances after investigators confirmed the approximate date from Beatrice’s appointment book.
We had no authority to demand passenger records or private camera footage.
We wanted only to understand whether the old route numbers matched the letters in the note.
A transit supervisor named Colin Jarvis showed us a public timetable archive stored in the station office.
The route marked B4 once departed before sunrise and connected with an interstate bus at a larger terminal.
The notation in Beatrice’s book was consistent with that route, although it could not establish that Mara boarded it.
Colin showed us a photograph of the old platforms taken before the renovation.
A narrow side gate opened directly onto a street used by local taxis.
I imagined Margaret waiting there with a frightened young woman and then caught myself turning imagination into memory.
I had never been present, and neither had Colin.
Frances asked whether any retired dispatchers might remember the period.
Colin said one former employee attended a monthly breakfast at a nearby church.
He offered to pass along our contact information without sharing anyone’s private address.
Two days later, a retired dispatcher named Lyle Abbott called.
He remembered a woman who purchased two tickets but boarded the bus alone.
He could not identify the woman from an old photograph, and he was unsure which year the event occurred.
He did remember that someone had left a small blue suitcase in lost property around the same time.
The suitcase was eventually donated because no one claimed it.
His memory could not prove a link to Mara.
Nonetheless, he agreed to give Calder the details and explain their uncertainty.
I thanked him for resisting the temptation to provide a perfect answer.
During the drive home, Frances said that a mystery was often a collection of partial statements that never became a single clean picture.
I told her I was beginning to prefer an incomplete truth to a satisfying invention.
