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Summary

PART VII: Self-Reliance (continued)

Victor: 1961–Louise, August 1975: Day Six

Victor: 1961

Vic and Peter II place Bear’s body in a canoe, and Vic watches as Peter III, shaken up, emerges from the boathouse and walks away. The two do not speak, but Vic takes the canoe onto the lake and avoids looking at the boy’s body beneath a blanket. 

Once across the lake, he carries Bear’s body inland and begins digging. Meanwhile, at Self-Reliance, the Peters prepare to inform the guests that Bear has gone missing at the beginning of a hike, creating a cover story. As Vic finishes burying the boy, he decides to build a cairn over the grave and wishes to visit Bear’s resting place one day with Tessie Jo.  

Victor: 1961  

A young Tessie Jo unknowingly witnesses her father’s role in Bear’s death. She sees the overturned rowboat, overhears Victor’s conversation with the Peters, and watches as he rows the canoe across the lake and returns. Vic pleads with her to stay silent, and he warns her that telling the truth would ruin their future. Though hesitant, she agrees to keep it a secret since she trusts her father.  

Victor: 1961  

As assigned, Victor spends the night watching over Alice in her temporary room above the slaughterhouse. His job is to ensure she remains isolated and quiet. Sedated with pills, she wakes intermittently, repeatedly asking, “Where’s Bear?” Each time, Victor feeds her the same false reassurance that Bear went for a walk with his grandfather, and he’s gone.  

In the morning, he prepares to repeat the same lie to a larger crowd of searchers. He convinces himself that withholding the truth spares Alice from grief, just like he believes it protects his own daughter’s future. He will tell the same lie the Peters made up: Bear went for a hike with his grandfather, turned around to get his pocketknife, and was never seen again.  

Alice: 1961  

Alice drifts in and out of sleep, haunted by memories of the accident. She recalls Bear opening the boathouse door, their boat on the water, and the approaching storm. As rain pours down, their boat fills and tips, throwing them into the lake. She reaches out, but the boat crashes down on something solid: her son’s body. Desperate, she screams her son’s name. 

Judyta, August 1975: Day Six  

Judy and Hayes watch T.J. Hewitt from outside the interrogation room and wait for her to sign a statement. Judy shares how she heard noises above the slaughterhouse, and T.J. admitted in her interrogation that it was the Hewitts hiding there: first, Charlie before he died and now Vic.  Hayes questions why T.J. would confess now about the Bear Van Laar case after years of secrecy. 

Judy suspects T.J. feared the Van Laars were about to frame another innocent person, just as they had with Carl Stoddard.  

Continuing her theory, she explains that John Paul, the Van Laars’ godson and future bank heir, had the power to shift blame onto someone else. T.J. likely came forward to prevent Louise from being accused. Judy realizes the Hewitts will be fine without the Van Laars, for they always had self-reliance. 

Judyta,  August 1975: Day Six 

Judy reflects on the case as she drives toward the inn, feeling that despite the arrests and revelations, something is still missing. She thinks that the evidence clearly points to John Paul in Barbara’s disappearance, but without a body, they can’t make an arrest. She replays the details, searching for the final piece to complete the puzzle, but nothing comes to her. Frustrated and hungry, she stops at Driscoll’s Pub for dinner.  

Louise, August 1975: Day Six  

Louise takes Jesse to dinner at Driscoll’s, and she makes him wear a collared shirt instead of his worn Led Zeppelin T-shirt. He doesn’t own one, so she gives him a white Camp Emerson polo to wear. 

At the restaurant, Louise and Jesse have a heart-to-heart, and he reassures her that he’s fine. Their mother is hard to deal with, but he has friends and teachers who look out for him at school. Louise tries to believe him, though she knows their mother will never protect him the way Louise does. 

As they eat, Jesse suggests that Louise should go back to school or find a better job, and for a moment, she is hopeful about her potential. Their conversation is interrupted by a tipsy woman, Investigator Lupatck,  who studies Jesse before pointing at his Camp Emerson. She looks at Louise and tells her she recognizes her.  

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