PART 7 – “Ellie and the Carpenter’s Hands”
The letter arrived on a Thursday.
Tomás found it tucked among the usual bills and flyers—nothing special about the envelope. No return address. The handwriting was shaky, like someone wrote it with a hand that had forgotten steadiness.
He stood at the kitchen table, Ellie at his side, and stared at the thing for a full minute before opening it.
The paper inside was thin and folded twice. A faint perfume clung to it—lavender, maybe. Something old. Familiar.
He unfolded the page slowly.
Mr. Rivera,
I don’t know if you remember me, but I was Maya’s first-grade teacher. My name is Evelyn Walker. I taught at Copper Ridge Elementary until I retired in 2014.
After the accident, I moved away. Couldn’t bear walking those hallways anymore. But recently, I saw a news article about the mural. About the dog. About you.
And I remembered something.
The day before Maya died, she brought in her red wagon for show-and-tell. Said it was “going to the moon,” and Ellie was her co-pilot. She said she and Ellie had a secret mission. I laughed. We all did.
But after school, she stayed behind. Waited until the others left. Then she showed me something.
A little notebook. The cover was glittery, and inside she had drawn maps. Streets. Arrows. And a car with a green roof. She said she was going to catch “the scary man” who always parked near her bus stop.
I told her to give it to the principal. She said she would.
But when I asked the school about it after she passed, they said no notebook was ever turned in.
I’m writing because I’ve never stopped wondering.
And because maybe… maybe you’ll know what to do with that memory.
Tomás set the letter down gently.
The room felt smaller.
Ellie nuzzled his leg, sensing the shift in him—alert now, watching his face the way she always did when something stirred beneath the surface.
He whispered, “A notebook…”
He hadn’t thought of the school.
Hadn’t asked what Maya might’ve seen.
But now…
Now there was more to the story.
—
He called Elaine.
Read her the letter over the phone.
She listened in silence, then said, “Copper Ridge closed the year after the accident. Got absorbed into the district in Sierra Vista. Most of the records probably went to storage.”
“Think the notebook could still be there?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe someone never turned it over because they didn’t want it seen.”
Tomás stared out the window, the wind pushing gently against the swing in his yard. “You think there’s more to this than the hit-and-run?”
Elaine exhaled. “I think Maya saw something she shouldn’t have. And I think Ellie’s been trying to tell us that all along.”
—
Two days later, they drove to Sierra Vista together.
Ellie rode in the back seat, her chin resting on Tomás’s shoulder. The locket swayed gently from her collar with every bump in the road.
Elaine had already arranged access to the school district’s storage unit—a converted library basement stacked with boxes, each labeled in fading black marker: STAFF FILES 2005–2007, CUSTODIAL LOGS, STUDENT ARTWORK.
They split up.
Tomás went box by box, the air thick with paper and time.
Ellie stayed close, her nose twitching with each opened lid.
Then, just past noon, she stopped.
Box labeled: LOST & FOUND – 2013
She placed a paw on the side of it and let out a single sharp bark.
Tomás froze.
Elaine came over, heart in her throat.
He opened the box.
Inside: a tangle of scarves, a pencil pouch, a small pair of sneakers with light-up soles.
And at the very bottom… a glittery-covered notebook.
Tomás lifted it gently.
The name on the inside read: Maya Alston – Top Secret
Drawings filled the first few pages—maps, symbols, a series of cars drawn in green crayon. One page stood out.
“Scary man always parks by the big pole. Ellie growls every time.”
A child’s sketch of a car. A stick-figure man. A dark X over both.
Elaine leaned in. “That’s the corner of Havasu and 3rd. Right near her bus stop.”
“Same spot where she was hit,” Tomás whispered.
They looked at each other.
This wasn’t just an accident.
Maya had known something.
And someone had known she knew.
—
Back home, Tomás sat on the porch with the notebook in his lap.
Ellie lay beside the wagon, the locket glinting in the golden light.
He stroked her head slowly.
“You remembered, didn’t you?”
She closed her eyes.
Not asleep.
Just at peace.
For the first time in years.
PART 7 – “Ellie and the Carpenter’s Hands”
The letter came on a Thursday, tucked between a furniture catalog and a water bill, plain white and addressed in looping cursive.
Tomás almost didn’t notice it. Almost tossed it into the “read later” pile by the breadbox. But Ellie nosed at it gently, pawed at the envelope like she knew something waited inside.
He sat at the kitchen table, unfolded the paper carefully.
The handwriting was unsteady, but precise—each word formed like it mattered.
Mr. Rivera,
You don’t know me, but I knew Maya. My name is Evelyn Walker. I was her first-grade teacher.
I moved away after the accident, but I never stopped thinking about her. And lately, I’ve been seeing her name again. The mural. The story. The dog.
I remember something that’s been sitting heavy on me for years.
The day before she died, Maya stayed behind after school. She had something she wanted to show me—a little glittery notebook. Inside, she’d drawn a map. Streets. A green car. She said someone parked near her bus stop every day and Ellie didn’t like him.
I told her to show it to the principal. She said she would. But after she passed, no one ever mentioned that notebook again.
I’m writing to you because maybe you’ll know what to do with this memory.
Evelyn Walker
Tomás sat still for a long time.
The room around him blurred at the edges. Light from the window moved across the floor. Ellie came and lay her head against his leg, as if to remind him she was there. That she always had been.
“A notebook,” he whispered.
Twelve years. Twelve years, and only now the pieces were moving.
—
He called Elaine Vega.
Read her the letter word for word.
She didn’t interrupt. When he finished, she let out a long breath. “Copper Ridge Elementary closed after the district merger,” she said. “That stuff—if it exists—it’s probably in storage. You want to look?”
“I do.”
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll make the call.”
Ellie was already standing at the door.
—
The next morning, they drove to Sierra Vista, the sun just brushing the ridgeline.
The school district kept its archives in the old East Library—converted into a massive records basement, stacked with rows of gray shelves and mismatched file boxes. Elaine met Tomás there with a flashlight and a short list of possible box numbers.
They split up. Tomás searched the section marked Copper Ridge – 2013. Ellie followed close behind, nose twitching, tail low.
Most boxes held forgotten math homework, art projects, discipline reports.
But then Ellie stopped.
A low whine escaped her throat.
Box 47-B. LOST & FOUND – Spring 2013.
Tomás pulled it down gently.
Inside: a tangle of scarves, a half-used glue stick, and at the bottom, wrapped in a child’s drawing of a star, a small glitter-covered notebook.
He opened the first page.
Property of Maya Alston – Top Secret
He kept turning pages.
Maps. Stick figures. Street names. A green car circled again and again. One sketch showed a tall pole next to the sidewalk. Another, the words: “Ellie growled at the man in the green car again.”
On the last page, scrawled in crayon:
“I think he’s bad.”
Tomás handed the notebook to Elaine.
She didn’t speak for a long time.
Then she said, “That corner was right by her bus stop. The same corner where she was hit.”
Tomás’s voice was barely a whisper. “She wasn’t just imagining things.”
“No,” Elaine said. “She saw something. Maybe someone didn’t want her to say it.”
They stood in the stillness of the library basement, the past settling around them like dust.
Ellie sat quietly between them, eyes fixed on the little notebook, as if she’d known all along.
As if she’d been waiting not just for justice—
But for the truth.
—
Back in Bisbee, Tomás placed the notebook on his workbench beside the red wagon.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he lit a small candle.
Not for closure.
But for courage.
Because sometimes justice takes more than evidence.
It takes a girl, a dog, and someone willing to listen to what was never said out loud.
And finally—someone brave enough to remember.
PART 8 – “Ellie and the Carpenter’s Hands”
Two days after they found the notebook, Elaine called again. Her voice, usually measured and dry as desert sand, held an edge Tomás hadn’t heard in years.
“I got something,” she said. “You sitting down?”
“I am now,” he said, lowering himself onto the porch swing. Ellie lay curled at his feet, her locket glinting softly in the morning light.
Elaine paused. “I pulled the school’s surveillance archives. Most were corrupted. Old digital tapes—cheap systems. But I had someone in Sierra Vista recover what they could.”
Tomás’s fingers tightened around the armrest.
“There’s footage,” she said. “From the day before the accident. The timestamp’s fuzzy, but it’s there.”
“And?”
“Maya was right.”
—
He met Elaine that afternoon in her office, a cramped backroom behind the county courthouse, walls lined with yellowed case files and a dusty coffeemaker no one used anymore. She had the video cued up on her aging laptop.
“Watch,” she said, turning the screen toward him.
The grainy footage showed the sidewalk near the corner of Havasu and 3rd. Maya stood just off the curb, her red wagon beside her, Ellie on a leash, tail up, body stiff.
A green Buick rolled into frame and parked across the street.
Maya froze. Ellie lunged forward, barking furiously.
Tomás leaned in. “That’s her. That’s Maya.”
Elaine nodded. “And that’s not just any car. It’s the same model Mark Alcott had. Same busted tail light.”
The driver didn’t get out. Just sat there.
Watching.
“Maya didn’t cross the street,” Elaine said quietly. “She turned around. Went back the way she came. Smart girl.”
“But the next day…” Tomás said.
“She never had the chance,” Elaine finished.
Tomás stared at the paused frame. “You think someone knew she saw him?”
Elaine’s eyes met his. “It wasn’t just a drunk hit-and-run. Someone panicked. Someone silenced her.”
—
They reopened the case that same week.
With the notebook, the wagon, the plate, and now the footage—it was enough.
Elaine tracked down Mark Alcott in holding. Brought the evidence into the room. Let him see it, piece by piece. Watched him fold under the weight of what he’d tried to forget.
He broke.
Confessed.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered. “I didn’t know she wrote anything down. I just… I saw her looking at me. Like she knew. Like the dog knew.”
He’d been watching Maya’s bus stop for weeks. Not even sure why—some impulse, some sickness. The alcohol hadn’t helped. The guilt, even worse. He told himself it wasn’t wrong if he didn’t act.
But Maya had drawn attention. Talked to adults. And that terrified him more than anything.
So the next day, he followed her.
Waited.
And when he saw her walking alone, he pressed the gas.
Not fast.
Just enough.
Then kept driving.
As if forgetting could erase what he’d done.
—
The county pressed charges again.
This time, not just for the hit-and-run.
But for intent.
Premeditation.
Cover-up.
Tomás sat in the back of the courtroom during the arraignment, Ellie at his feet.
When the judge read out the charges, Mark Alcott couldn’t look at anyone.
Especially not at Ellie.
—
That night, Bisbee was quiet.
The kind of quiet you only get after something has shifted. Like the wind had finally changed direction.
Tomás sat on the porch with the notebook in his lap.
He read every page again.
Ellie lay beside the wagon, the locket on her collar resting against her fur like a medal earned in silence.
He looked at her.
“You saved her story.”
She blinked slowly. Tired, maybe. Or content.
For the first time in twelve years, Maya’s voice had been heard.
Not through sirens.
But through crayon maps, a broken wagon, and a dog who never gave up.