It was as if time had stopped when the body was dragged from the ocean. The intervening years erased, the clock frozen on the moment that shattered the tranquility of their sleepy hamlet all those years ago. Folks rushing to the beach the minute the news hit. The onlookers gathering at the shoreline, awaiting their first glimpse of the victim, same as back then. Not that everyone remembered. Some folks had died. Or moved away. For those who remained, it was too long ago, and memory not being what it is. Or ever was. Stories changed. People changed. What happened back then filtered through the distorted lens of grief. Regret. Anger. And guilt. Of course, there were differences between the two tragedies. The time of year, for one thing. Back in '84, it was one of those nights you waited for all summer. Stars filling the sky. The moon casting a shimmering golden light on the ocean. Waves lapping gently on the shore, a perfect backdrop to the most anticipated event of the season. The beach packed with people, mostly teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. They were among the first to reach the scene. In contrast, tonight was dark and cold. No stars in the leaden sky, a harbinger of the storm predicted to arrive tomorrow. The holiday season had just ended, leaving everyone with nothing to look forward to but a long, bleak winter. That didn't stop townsfolk from bundling up and coming out in droves, despite the inhospitable weather. A hush fell over the crowd as the medical examiner made his lumbering way across the snow-covered sand. The same forensics expert who gave the official cause of death in the '84 case, now four decades older and slowed by arthritis and gout. Gasps of recognition went up and down the beach when the waterlogged corpse was laid on the sand and everyone got a look at the victim's face. A face many thought they'd never see again. Which only deepened the mystery and set minds racing about the meaning of this shocking turn of events. Questions once again on everyone's lips. Questions that had never been answered. All these years later, no one really knew what happened up there. The best anyone could say for sure was that when the night was over, somebody was dead. And now death had claimed another one of their own. The crowd parted to make way for the chief of police, who'd just pulled up in his four-wheel jeep. In 1984, he'd been a wet-behind-the-ears sergeant who many had thought was in over his head. Community outrage pressuring him to make an arrest. Lacking the experience to deal with a violent crime in what had always been a peaceful fishing paradise. Before then, the worst crime that summer was someone stealing a bicycle off of someone else's front porch. A few pointed out that in the same year there was the tragedy of the four fishermen lost at sea after their boat went down, never to be found. But that wasn't murder, least as far as anyone knew. It wasn't the deliberate and savage snuffing out of the life of one human being by another. The murder was never solved. Depriving the town of justice. And closure. Leaving a black stain on their community. As the medical examiner and the chief of police conferred over the corpse, a silent question rose up from the crowd. Would this new tragedy finally bring resolution? Or bury the truth forever? Excerpted from The Man on the Train by Debbie Babitt All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
