When Willie is in seventh grade a killer starts hanging around. Bodies wind up beside the creek that runs through the low parts of town. The victims are mostly young women and girls, but not always, which is unusual, she hears. They are found with one arm up and one arm down, as if struck while hailing a cab or doing a funny little dance. The news goes crazy—in love with the milky white dead. The newscasters call them tragedies. The townspeople go crazy, too. They are used to small violences. The kind that come from inside the house, the chamber of their skulls.
