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“’Kay,” she says. “But can you bring me a doughnut?”

Nine

Bristal still has icing on her face when I pull into the gravel lot beside the shelter house at the park. There are a couple of young kids on the swing set, and I see a few pairs of shoes lined up beside the path that leads down the bank to the river. But there’s only one person in the shelter house, and I double-check the blonde’s profile with a pic from Facebook.

“That’s Bailey,” I confirm to Bristal as she pops her door open. “And here.” I hand her a disinfectant wipe. “Check yourself.”

“Good catch,” Bristal says, taking a glance at the visor mirror. “Don’t want to make a bad impression, even if I do have to introduce myself as a Jamison.”

“Bailey, hello,” I say as we approach her, and the woman puts down her phone.

“Lydia,” she says, reaching out to shake my hand. “And you are . . . ? Oh, never mind,” Bailey says after giving Bristal a once-over. “You’re a Jamison.”

“The oldest,” Bristal says. “And no, I’m not pregnant.”

I flinch, not realizing that Bristal knew the saying about Jamison girls.

“Thanks so much for meeting with us,” I say, keeping it light. “I was so glad when my mom said she’d found you on Facebook and that you’d moved back home.”

“Yes, well”—Bailey’s finely lined face pulls into a forced smile—“divorce does tend to send us running back to our roots.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say smoothly, pulling out my notebook and pen. “Mom said your husband was military?”

“Yeah, and I’m here to tell you, don’t let a uniform turn your heads, girls,” Bailey warns us. “They can make a man look pretty, but they can’t change what’s inside. Just look at what Lytle—well, never mind.” Bailey shakes her head, her eyes dropping. “Sorry. I know your father is his lawyer.”

“Yes, he is,” I say matter-of-factly, keeping my tone neutral.

“So, your mom said that you’re doing a podcast about Henley?” Bailey says.

“Yes,” I tell her. “I’m working on something about the long stretch. I read in the paper that you took all the phone calls coming into the police station after the tornado?”

“Yeah,” Bailey says, and a little bit of the light goes out of her eyes. She’s tall and well-built, muscular where my mom is soft, but the mention of the tornado has her slumping in her seat. “That was rough.”

“Do you mind?” I whip out my phone and open a recording app.

Bailey nods her assent and sits up straighter, tugging on the front of her shirt where the buttons had gapped. I recite the date, time, and Bailey’s name, then jump in with my first question.

“What was your own experience of the tornado, as a sixteen-year-old girl suddenly asked to field all the incoming emergency calls?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Bailey says. “People were frantic. We didn’t have nine-one-one yet, so everybody wanted to talk to my dad. They all wanted up-to-the minute reports about what was going on. The Guard had blocked off the roads into and out of town, but some people just came in on foot to look for their loved ones.”

“People didn’t have cell phones yet?” Bristal asks.

“No.” Bailey shakes her head. “Mary Jennings had one, and she loved to tell people about it. I worked at the Grill and Chill, and she would call and say, ‘This is Mary Jennings, I’m calling from my cellular phone.’” Bailey pipes her voice high and wheedling, making air quotes with her fingers.

“Then she’d order a fish sandwich and a cup of coffee and want it to be ready when she got there. Like she had something more important to do than get home and smack her kids around.”

“Uh . . .” I glance down at my phone, where the recording app exhibits a stream of the sound wave.

“Shit,” Bailey says. “Can you not use that part? Or maybe erase it?”

“Statute of limitations,” Bristal says. “It’s six years for a felony, two for a misdemeanor in Ohio. Mary Jennings is in the clear. Besides, I got hit plenty as a kid and I turned out okay.”

She follows this up with a belch, and Bailey sends me a pleading look.

“Mary finds out I said something, and she’ll be on me like a tick on a coon hound.”

Bailey’s right. Only about half the justice in Henley goes through the courts; the rest is settled in backyard brawls and intense social media posts. But Bailey did agree to go on the record, and my app is rolling.