I GUESS I WAS NINE YEARS OLD when my friend Jeff Conklin, who, two years later, would find a dead guy, stole two Milky Way bars.

Most days, walking home after surviving another day with our Grade 4 teacher Miss Phelm (we referred to her as Miss Phlegm, given her habit of clearing her throat every twenty seconds), we would pop into Ted’s, a small corner store. We’d buy a bottle of Coke, maybe split a package of Twinkies. Ted had an excellent variety of snack foods. Potato chips, Fritos, licorice, dozens of different candy bars.

One day, Jeff told me to go over to the shelf of Hostess cupcakes, then call over to Ted at the cash register, and ask whether I could buy just one cupcake, even though they came in packages of two.

“Why?” I asked Jeff.

“Just do it. I dare ya.”

Well, that was all I needed to hear. So Jeff hung back as I went deeper into the store to the display of mass-produced pastries, examined the offerings, and then said, “Mr. Ted?”

We didn’t know his last name, but knew it was a mistake, at our age, to call him just by his first name.

Ted, a man in his sixties, round-shouldered, wearing an old cardigan and wire-rimmed glasses, had been reading the Enquirer. He looked up, peered over the glasses in my direction, and said, “What?”

“I haven’t got enough money for a whole package of Hostess cupcakes, so like, can I buy just half a pack?”

“You outta your mind?” He went back to reading his paper.

I met Jeff back outside on the sidewalk. “That was great!” he said. “You were perfect! I almost peed my pants laughing, but I held it all in!”

“Why did you ask me to do that?”

Jeff produced a Milky Way from each jacket pocket. “Look what I got! When Ted looked over at you, I grabbed these.” He handed me one, and at first I tried not to take it, but he forced it into my hand.

“You stole these?” I asked.

“Jeez, could you say it a bit louder so Ted can hear?” Jeff said. He grabbed me by the arm and led me down the sidewalk, walking briskly. “It was so easy!”

Once Jeff felt we were a safe distance from Ted’s, he dragged me into an alley and ripped the wrapper off his Milky Way. He bit off a huge chunk, his cheek bulging out like a chipmunk’s.

“Aren’t you gonna eat yours?” he asked.

I handed my bar to him. “You eat it. I’m not hungry.” Not only did I not want to eat it, I didn’t want to hold on to it.

“Go on, eat it! I got it for you!”

“I don’t want it.” I felt short of breath and a bit nauseous. Sweaty. I thought I might throw up right there, in the alley. I was not cut out for a life of crime.

“God, you’re such a baby,” Jeff said, grabbing back the second Milky Way and stuffing it into his pocket. “Oh well, more for me.”

“You have to go back and pay for those,” I said. “You could say it was like a mistake, you picked them up and then walked out, like you forgot to pay and you remembered when you got down the street.”

I peered around the end of the alley, expecting to see Ted, accompanied by the riot squad, charging down the sidewalk. I was listening for sirens. But there was no one looking for us.

“Yeah, right,” said Jeff, trying to talk through a mouthful of Milky Way. He seemed determined to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible. “Shoulda got a Coke too, wash it down.” I couldn’t believe Jeff had done this. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of such a thing.

I’d never had a thief for a friend before. It was a new feeling, and not an exciting one. It took more than a week of sleepless nights for me to realize that Jeff and I, his unwitting accomplice, were going to get away with this. We were not going to be caught.

I never went into Ted’s again.

This thing with Trixie, well, I’d have to say this was bigger than the Milky Way incident. I couldn’t recall anyone ever confessing to me that they’d shot, and killed, three people. I’m sure I’d have remembered something like that.

“Say something,” she said as we stood out there, alone, in the field. A light breeze blowing from the direction of the Bennet farmhouse carried the smells of chicken and the sounds of a child’s laughter.

“I’m sort of at a loss for words,” I said.

Trixie placed the palm of her right hand on my chest. “You need to know the whole story.”

“Will that make me think it’s okay that you killed three people?”

Trixie pulled her hand away. “Probably not. But I’d like to tell you anyway. All that I’ve put you through the last few days, I think you’re entitled to the truth, no matter what you think of me after hearing it.”

“Sure, then. Go ahead.”

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans, turned her back to me, and took a step away. “You heard a bit, inside, from Claire, about what it was like. With Merker and the rest of them.”

“I got a taste.”

“I didn’t turn tricks for them. Some of the dancers, they hooked too. Made a lot of money that way. Guy sees you onstage, wants a piece of you real bad, he’s willing to pay. And a lot of the girls, they were happy for the extra cash. I won’t tell you I never did things I shouldn’t have. I’d be lying. Especially at first. But I was good, taking clothes off, doing the moves, and I was still a good warm-up for the business upstairs, even if I wasn’t one of the girls going up there. I was still good for getting them in the mood, you know?”

“Sure,” I said.

She turned back to face me. “But once I started giving Merker suggestions, how to make more money, worked my way into the back room and started helping with the books, I didn’t have to flash my tits anymore. But the thing is, with that crew, no matter how smart you are, no matter what other talents you might have, when it comes right down to it, if you’re a woman, you’re just a whore.”

I closed my eyes for a second.

“After Eldon, Katie’s dad, died, they started looking at me differently. No one would have touched me as long as he was around. He’d have beat the shit out of them, killed them, probably. But once he was gone, there’d be comments, little cracks, like ‘Hey, ledger lady, I’ve got six inches for you to calculate.’ Or, ‘Let’s multiply.’ Clever stuff, you know?”

And then she told me about the night of November 18, 2001. The night they took turns.

“They held me down. Like fucking dogs. Everyone except Leo. He just stood off in a corner, shaking his head, whimpering like. Fletcher was first, then Gary, then Smith and Heighton. One after another.”

She waited, wondering whether I wanted to react, whether I had anything I wanted to say, but all I could do was listen.

She told me about Gary’s visit to her apartment two days later. Finding her with her eleven-month-old girl in her arms. Hands her a “Come Back to Work Soon” Hallmark card with $110 inside.

I listened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hawk circling.

“You know the part I can never figure out?” she said, looking at me again. “The ten bucks. A hundred, and ten. Was that the tip? Was the ten bucks for expenses? What the fuck do you think the ten was for? Baby formula, maybe?”

All I could offer was a shake of the head.

“But you know what I did? I went back to work. Went back and did my fucking job. I’d already been planning my move, I was moving the money around, into accounts, skimming off cash where I could, and I wasn’t done yet. I still needed more. I was putting together getting some new ID, in the name of Trixie Snelling. I was putting things into place, to make a new life for myself and my daughter. But I didn’t have enough. So I had to go back there, go back and sit in that room, day after day, putting on my smiley face, with a pack of rapists.”

Softly, I said, “I don’t know how you could do that. It must have been…I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”

“And I carried on, making like nothing happened, like a hundred and ten dollars and a Hallmark card was all it took to make the memory of a gang bang go away. And for a while, they were even a little sheepish. Getting me tea, being real sweet, you know? Like, hey, sorry about turning you inside out, but here’s a cup of Earl Grey.”