I arrived while they were arguing.
The crew had already unloaded plywood and a drill.
I asked who had requested the work.
The supervisor said the instruction came from the facilities department.
I asked for the name of the person who approved it.
He pointed to a signature I could not read.
Priya photographed the order and called the city manager.
The manager confirmed that the work had not been authorized through the normal process.
He told the crew to leave the materials where they were and return to the depot.
The supervisor looked relieved.
He said he had never wanted to work at that building.

We stood beside the abandoned plywood after the trucks left.
Owen said somebody was still trying to make the gate disappear.
Priya warned him not to confuse a suspicious work order with proof of a coordinated coverup.
I agreed with her, but I also understood why Owen was angry.
Every new obstruction forced the families to spend another day defending the simple right to ask what happened.

That night Vivian called my phone.
I let it ring until it stopped.
She left a message asking to meet at the arena without anyone else present.
She said she wanted to tell me what had happened after the children were taken to the hospital.
I listened twice.
Then I sent her a message saying I would meet in a public place with a witness.
She replied that she would speak only to me.
I did not answer.

Chapter Twenty: The Room Behind the Rink

Two days later, Vivian arrived at the library carrying a cardboard box.
She asked the librarian to call me.
When I entered the reading room, Vivian was sitting beside the display about the accident.
Her face looked older than it had on my porch.
She said she had brought something the investigation should have received decades earlier.
I asked whether it belonged to the town.
She said she had kept it in her garage since the arena closed.

Inside the box were several plastic badges, a broken stopwatch, and a bundle of paper wristbands.
At the bottom lay a photograph of the carnival committee standing beside the rink.
Raymond Pike appeared at the edge of the group.
He held a coil of chain over one shoulder.
Vivian said the photograph had been taken on the morning of the event.
She had not noticed the chain when she first saw it.
She noticed it after the accident, when Pike told her the gate had always been closed.