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she see that the
faces in the classroom had changed?   Wouldn’t she notice that no one has been inside this school for a
decade?”
    “I’m not sure how cognizant they are of life around them,”
Mary said. “Sometimes it seems like their life is just a playback recording of
what they did just before they died.   So,
perhaps in their mind, they see the things around them as if it were that day.”
    She shrugged. “It’s not a perfect science,” she admitted.
“And I’m only putting together my own theories from the limited time I’ve spent
with ghosts.   Some of them are really
aware they are dead and are trapped here until something gets resolved, but
some are totally unaware of their situation. For them, the knowledge of their
death generally comes as a big surprise.   They keep living their life and going on with whatever was important to
them when they died.”
    “So, does that mean she’s gone? For good?” he asked.
    “No,” Mary replied, shaking her head and standing up. “It
just means she needs a little time to deal with the reality of her
situation.   I’m sure now that she and I
have met, she’ll contact me. But until then, we just wait.”
    They both walked back to the hallway and stared at the
staircase. “Did she know who did it?” he asked. “Did she remember who killed
her?”
    Turning to him, she met his eyes and sighed. “She never saw
him,” she explained. “Someone came up to her as she was leaving, grabbed her
from behind and started forcing her towards the stairs.   It sounded like it was supposed to have been
an abduction or rape, but she fought back and he pushed her down the stairs.”
    “Rape?” he asked, incredulous. “This is Polo. People didn’t
get raped in Polo when I was a little kid.   That just didn’t happen.”
    Mary smiled sadly. “Oh, it happened,” she said. “But victims
didn’t talk about it because they were ashamed or thought in some perverse way
that it was their fault. So many rapists got away with it.”
    They started to walk towards the stairs. “Yeah, I understand
how they wouldn’t want to talk about it,” he said. “Especially
back then.”
    Mary stopped at the top of the staircase and turned to
Andrew.   “The problem with that secret is
the darkness. Just like a drop of ink in water, it spreads throughout the rest
of your life and darkens everything else,” Mary replied. “Unless it’s revealed,
unless light is shone upon it, it doesn’t go away.”
    They stood in silence for a moment, staring down at the
steps. “So, how are we going to help Miss Banks?” he asked. “If she didn’t see
the man who did it, how can we possibly solve her murder?”
    “Well, I guess we take it a step at a time,” she said, and
then she grimaced. “Excuse the horrible pun. I really didn’t mean it.”
    Andrew actually smiled. “No problem,” he said.
    “Besides, we are closer to solving her murder,” Mary said.
“Because we finally know that it was a murder. And we wouldn’t have known that
if you hadn’t saved the building.”
    They climbed down the stairs in silence, each lost in their
own thoughts.
    “Thank you, Mary, for coming out tonight,” Andrew said when
they reached the first floor and were walking towards
the entrance, “even if we never see her again.”
    “You’re welcome,” she replied. “But don’t give up; I’m sure
we’ll see her again. In the meantime, perhaps you could think of some people we
could speak with who knew her and might know if she had an admirer.”
    “That’s a great idea,” he said. “Her parents are gone, but I
can ask around and see if anyone remembers her and would be willing to talk. I
have to admit, though, lately people in town aren’t talking to me. I think some
of them think I should leave the past in the past.”
    “They might be afraid,” Mary warned. “Even though it was
forty years ago, there’s probably still a killer out there who doesn’t want his
secret revealed,