Charlie stood with her nose a few inches from the television screen. She scrutinized the right-hand corner of the paused school security footage for so long that her eyes started blurring in and out. She took a step back. She blinked to clear her vision. She studied the entirety of the image. The long, empty hallway. The vivid blue lockers rendered navy by the ancient camera. The lens was angled down, capturing the hallway roughly to the middle point. Her eyes went back to the corner. There was a door, possibly closed, a millimeter out of frame, but clearly there. The light from the window cast a shadow onto something that was reaching into the hallway.
Charlie asked, “Is it Kelly’s shadow?” She pointed past the TV, as if they were both standing in the hallway rather than Rusty’s living room. “She would’ve been standing here, right?”
Sam kept her own counsel. She had her head turned, using her good eye to view the image. “What do you see?”
“This.” Charlie pointed to the shadow reaching into the hall. “It’s a blurry, hairy line, like a spider’s leg.”
“There’s something strange about it.” Sam narrowed her eyes, clearly seeing something that Charlie could not. “Don’t you think there’s something strange?”
“I can try to make it bigger.” Charlie went to Ben’s laptop, but then remembered she had no idea what she was doing. She hit random keys. There had to be a way to do this.
Sam said, “Let’s get Ben to help.”
“I don’t want Ben to help.” Charlie leaned down to read the menu icons. “We left it in a really good—”
“Ben!” Sam called.
“Don’t you have a flight to catch?”
“The plane won’t leave without me.” Sam used her hands to frame the upper-right section of the footage. “It’s not right. The angle doesn’t work.”
“What angle?” Ben asked.
“This.” Charlie pointed to the shadow. “It looks like a spider’s leg to me, but Sherlock Holmes over here sees a hound in the Baskerville.”
“More like a Study in Scarlet,” Sam said, but still did not explain herself. “Ben, can you make this upper-right corner larger?”
Ben performed some magic on the laptop and the corner of the frame was isolated, then enlarged to fill the television. Because her husband was not a tech wizard in a Jason Bourne movie, the image did not sharpen, but became more blurred.
“Oh, I see it.” Ben pointed to the furry spider’s leg. “I thought it was a shadow, but—”
“There wouldn’t be one,” Sam said. “The lights are on in the hallway. They’re on in the classroom. Absent a third light source, shadows would be cast backward from the door, not to the front.”
“Okay, yeah.” Ben started to nod. “I thought it was coming out of the open door, but it looks like it’s pointing in.”
“Correct,” Sam said. She had always been good at puzzles. This time, she had apparently figured out the solution before Charlie even understood there was a puzzle to be solved.
“I can’t see anything,” Charlie admitted. “Can’t you just tell me?”
Sam said, “I think it’s better if you both independently validate my suspicion.”
Charlie wanted to throw her out the window like a sack of bullshit. “Do you really think this is the time for the Socratic method?”
“Sherlock or Socrates. Pick one and stay with it.” Sam asked Ben, “Can you correct for color?”
“I think so.” Ben opened another program on his laptop, a purloined copy of Photoshop he’d used to insert Captain Kirk into their Christmas cards two years ago. “Let me see if I remember how to do this.”
Charlie crossed her arms, making sure Sam knew she was displeased, but Sam was watching Ben too closely to take notice.
There was more tapping, more tracking, and then the colors on the screen were saturated, almost too much. The blacks were up so far that gray spots bubbled through the midnight fields.
Charlie suggested, “Use the blue on the lockers as a color guide. They’re close to the same blue as Dad’s funeral suit.”
Ben opened the color chart. He clicked on random squares.
“That’s it,” Charlie said. “That’s the blue.”
“I can clean it up more.” He sharpened the pixels. Smoothed out the edges. Finally, he zoomed in as close as he could without distorting the image into nothing.
“Holy shit,” Charlie said. She finally got it.
Not a leg, but an arm.
Not one arm, but two.
One black. One red.
A sexual cannibal. A slash of red. A venomous bite.
They had not found Rusty’s unicorn.
They had found a black widow.
Charlie sat in Ben’s truck, hands sweaty on the wheel. She looked at the time on the radio: 5:06 PM. Rusty’s funeral would be winding down by now. The drunks at Shady Ray’s would be spent of their stories. The stragglers, the sightseers, the hypocrites, would be whispering gossip into their phones, posting snipey tributes on Facebook.
Rusty Quinn was a good lawyer, but—
Charlie filled in the blank with the things that only the people who really knew Rusty understood:
He had loved his daughters.
He had adored his wife.
He had tried to do the right thing.
He had found his mythical creature.
A harpy, Sam had said, referring to the half-woman, half-bird from Roman and Greek mythology.
Charlie was sticking with her spider analogy because it better fit the situation. Kelly Wilson had gotten caught up in a carefully spun web.
The heat in the truck was on, but Charlie felt herself shudder from the cold. She reached down for the keys. She turned off the engine. The truck shook as it came to a stop.
She angled the rear-view mirror to look at her face. Sam had helped her cover the bruises. She had done a good job. No one would guess that Charlie had been punched in the face two days ago.
Sam had almost punched her again.
She didn’t want Charlie to do this. Ben certainly did not.
Charlie was doing it anyway.
She smoothed out her funeral dress as she got out of the truck. She put on her heels, balancing against the steering wheel. She found her cell phone on the dash. She closed the door quietly, listening for the click of the latch.
She had parked away from the farmhouse, hiding the truck around a bend. Charlie walked carefully, avoiding the pocks in the red clay. The house came into view. Any similarities to the HP were slight. Colorful plants and evergreens filled the front yard. The clapboard was painted bright white, the trim a stark black. The roof looked new. An American flag hung from a swiveling bracket by the front door.
Charlie didn’t go to the front. She rounded the side of the house. She could see the old back porch, the floor freshly painted robin’s egg blue. The kitchen curtains were closed. Not yellow with red strawberries anymore, but white damask.
There were four steps up to the porch. Charlie stared at them, trying not to think of the steps at the HP, the way she had run up them two at a time all of those years ago, kicked off her shoes, peeled off her socks and found Gamma cursing in the kitchen.
Fudge.
Her heel caught on a knotty hole in the first step. She held onto the sturdy railing. She blinked at the porch light, which even in the early dusk was bright white, like a flame. Sweat had dripped into her eyes. Charlie used her fingers to wipe it away. The welcome mat had a lattice design on it, rubber and coir fibers that reminded her of the grass that grew in the fields behind the farmhouse. A cursive P was in the center of the design.
Charlie raised her hand.
Her sprained wrist still felt tender.
She rapped three times on the door.
In the house, she heard a chair scrape back. Light footsteps across the floor. A woman’s voice asked, “Who is it?”
Charlie did not answer.
There were no locks that clicked, no chain that slid back. The door opened. An older woman stood in the kitchen. Hair more white than blonde, pinned in a loose ponytail. Still pretty. Her eyes went wide when she saw Charlie. Her mouth opened. Her hand fluttered to her chest, as if she had been hit by an arrow.
Charlie said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call first.”
Judith Pinkman pressed together her chapped lips. Her lined face looked windburned from crying. Her eyes were swollen. She cleared her throat. “Come in,” she told Charlie. “Come in.”
Charlie stepped into the kitchen. The room was cold, almost frigid. The strawberry theme was no more. Dark granite countertops. Stainless steel appliances. Eggshell white walls. No cheerful, dancing fruit bordering the ceiling.
“Sit down,” Judith said. “Please.”
There was a cell phone beside a glass of ice water on the table. Dark walnut, heavy matching chairs. Charlie sat on the opposite side. She put her own phone on the table, face down.
Judith asked, “Can I get you something?”
Charlie shook her head.
“I was going to have some tea.” Her eyes darted to the glass of water on the table. Still, she asked, “Would you like some?”
Charlie nodded.
Judith took the kettle off the stove. Stainless steel, like everything else. She filled it at the kitchen sink, saying, “I’m very sorry about your father.”
“I’m sorry about Mr. Pinkman.”
Judith glanced over her shoulder. She held Charlie’s gaze. The woman’s lips were trembling. Her eyes glistened, as if her tears were as constant as her sorrow. She turned off the faucet.
Charlie watched her return the kettle to the stove, turn the knob on the Wolf range. There were several clicks, then a whoosh as the gas ignited.
“So.” Judith hesitated, then sat down. “What brings you here today?”
“I wanted to check on you,” Charlie said. “I haven’t seen you since the whole thing with Kelly.”
Judith smoothed together her lips again. She clasped her hands on the table. “That must have been hard for you. I know it brought back some memories for me.”
Charlie said, “I want you to know how much I appreciate what you did for me that night. That you took care of me. Made me feel safe. That you lied for me.”
Judith’s lips were trembling when she smiled.
“That’s why I’m here,” Charlie told the woman. “I never talked about it when Daddy was alive.”
Her mouth opened. The tension drained from her eyes. She smiled kindly at Charlie. This was the caring, generous woman that Charlie remembered. “Of course, Charlotte. Of course. You can talk to me about anything.”
Charlie said, “Back then, Dad had this case, this rapist he represented, and the man got off, but the girl hanged herself in her family’s barn.”
“I remember that.”
“I’ve been wondering, do you think that’s why Dad wanted to keep it secret? Was he worried that I would do something like that?”
“I—” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t answer you. I think that he had just lost his wife, and he thought his oldest daughter was dead, and he saw what happened to you and …” Her voice trailed off. “People say that God won’t give you more than you can handle, but sometimes, I don’t think that’s true. Do you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The verse is in Corinthians. ‘God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with temptation, He will provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.’” She said, “It’s the second part that makes me wonder. How do you know the way of escape? It might be there, but what if you don’t recognize it?”
Charlie shook her head.
“I’m sorry,” Judith apologized. “I know your mother didn’t believe in God. She was too smart for that.”
Charlie knew that Gamma would have taken the observation as a compliment.
“She was so clever,” Judith said. “I was a bit afraid of her.”
“I think a lot of people were.”
“Well.” Judith drank some ice water.
Charlie watched the woman’s hands, looking for that telltale tremble, but there was nothing.
“Charlotte.” Judith put down the glass. “I’m going to be honest with you about that night. I’ve never seen a man so broken as your father was. I hope I never do again. I’m not sure how he managed to go on. I’m really not. But I know that he loved you unconditionally.”
“I never doubted that he did.”
“That’s good.” Judith used her fingers to wipe condensation from the glass. “My father, Mr. Heller, he was devout, and loving, and he provided for me, and he supported me, which, Lord knows a first-year schoolteacher needs support.” She chuckled quietly. “But after that night, I understood that my father did not cherish me the way that your father cherished you. I don’t blame Mr. Heller for that. What you and Rusty had was something special. So, what I guess I am telling you is, that no matter what your father’s motivations were for asking you to lie, it came from a place of deep and abiding love.”
Charlie expected to feel tears, but none came. She was finally cried out.
Judith said, “I know that Rusty is gone, and that a parent’s death makes you think about a lot of things, but you shouldn’t be angry with your father for asking you to keep it secret. He did it with the best of intentions.”
Charlie nodded at what she knew was the truth.
The kettle started to whistle. Judith stood. She turned off the stove. She went to a large cabinet that Charlie remembered from before. It was tall, almost floor to ceiling. Mr. Heller had kept his rifle on top, obscured by the crown molding. The white wood had been painted dark blue in the interim. Judith opened the doors. There were decorative mugs hanging from hooks beneath the shelves. Judith selected two mugs from either side of the rack. She closed the doors and went back to the stove.
“I’ve got peppermint and chamomile.”
“Either is fine.” Charlie looked at the closed cabinet doors. There was a sentence painted in script underneath the molding. Light blue, but not in enough of a contrast against the dark blue to make the words stand out. She read aloud, “‘He settles the childless woman in her home as the mother of happy children.’”
At the counter, Judith’s hands went still. “From the Psalms: 113:9. But that’s not the King James version.” She poured hot water into the mugs.
Charlie asked, “What’s the King James version?”
“‘He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye, the Lord.’” She found two spoons in a drawer. “I’m not barren, though, so I like the other version.”
Charlie felt a cold sweat come over her. “I guess in some ways you’re the mother of your kids at school.”
“You’re exactly right.” Judith sat down, passing one of the mugs to Charlie. “Doug and I spent more than half of our lives taking care of other people’s children. Not that we don’t enjoy it, but when we’re home, we enjoy the quiet even more.”
Charlie turned the handle of the mug around, but she did not pick it up.
“I’m barren,” Charlie said, the word feeling like a rock in her throat.
“I’m so sorry.” Judith stood up from the table. She brought back a carton of milk from the fridge. “Do you want sugar?”
Charlie shook her head. She wasn’t going to drink the tea. “You never wanted children?”
“I love other people’s children.”
Charlie said, “I heard that you were helping Kelly study for some kind of exam.”
Judith put the milk on the table. She sat back down.
“You must have felt betrayed,” Charlie said. “For her to do that.”
Judith watched the steam rise from the tea.
“And she knew Mr. Pinkman,” Charlie said, not because Mason Huckabee had told them, but because Sam had shown Charlie her notes where she had recorded Kelly Wilson’s exact words:
“I heard people say he wasn’t a bad man, but I never got sent to the principal’s office.”
Kelly had managed to finagle her way past Sam’s question. The girl had not said that she did not know Douglas Pinkman. She had said that he was not known to be a bad man.
Charlie said, “I saw the security footage from the school.”
Judith’s eyes snapped up, then back down to the mug. “There was a re-enactment on the news.”
“No, this was the actual security footage from the camera above the front office.”
She picked up her mug. She blew on her tea before taking a sip.
“At some point, the camera was pushed down. The angle stops about two feet away from your classroom door.”
“Does it?”
Charlie asked, “Do you think Kelly knew about the camera? That whatever happened directly outside your door wasn’t recorded?”
“She never mentioned it. Have you asked the police?”
Charlie had asked Ben. “The kids knew that the camera didn’t catch the back end of the hall, but they didn’t know the exact cut-off point. But the strange thing was, Kelly knew. She was standing just shy of the camera’s range when she started shooting. Which is odd, because how would she know where to stand unless she’s been inside the room where the security cameras are?”
Judith shook her head, seemingly bewildered.
“You’ve been in that room, right? Or at least seen inside it?”
Again, the woman feigned ignorance.
“The monitors were kept in a closet right beside your husband’s office. The door was always open, so anyone who went inside could see it.” Charlie added another detail. “Kelly said she had never been sent to the principal’s office. It’s curious that she knew the blind spot without ever having seen the monitors.”
Judith put down the mug. She placed her palms flat on the table.
“Thou shalt not lie,” Charlie said. “That’s a Bible verse, right?”
Judith’s lips parted. She breathed out, then in again before she spoke. “It’s part of the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ But I think you’re looking for Proverbs.” She closed her eyes. She recited, “‘These six things the Lord doth hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent—’” Her throat worked. “‘That shed innocent blood.’” She paused again before finishing, “‘An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to evil, a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren.’”
“That’s quite a list.”
Judith looked down at her hands, still spread flat to the table. Her nails were clipped close. Her fingers were long and thin. They cast a narrow shadow on the top of the polished walnut table.
Like the spider’s leg that Sam had seen inching its way into the camera’s frame.
Ben had been able to work more wizardry on his laptop once he realized what they were all staring at. It was like an optical illusion. Once you understood what your eyes were seeing, you could never again see the image otherwise.
In that paused frame, the camera had caught Kelly Wilson holding the revolver, just as she had confessed to Sam, but as with a lot of Kelly Wilson’s statements, there was more to the story.
Kelly had worn black that day.
Judith Pinkman had worn red.
Charlie remembered thinking how the woman’s shirt was soaked through with Lucy Alexander’s blood.
The sepia tone of the recording had almost blended the two dark colors, but once Ben had finished on his laptop, the truth was there for all to see.
The black-sleeved arm had a red-sleeved arm alongside it.
Two arms pointing toward the classroom door.
Two fingers wrapped around the trigger.
“The gun was in my hand.”
Kelly Wilson had told Sam at least three times during the interview that she was holding the revolver when Douglas Pinkman and Lucy Alexander were murdered.
What the girl had failed to mention was that Judith Pinkman’s hand was holding it there.
Charlie said, “They tested Kelly for gunshot residue at the hospital. It was on her hand, all over her shirt. Exactly where you’d expect to find it.”
Judith sat back in her chair. Her eyes stayed on her own hands.
Charlie said, “The residue is like talcum powder, if that’s what you’re worried about. It washes off with soap and water.”
“I know it does, Charlotte.” Her voice was scratchy, like the sound a record makes when the needle first hits the vinyl. “I know it does.”
Charlie waited. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere. She felt a slight breeze snaking out from the edges of the closed kitchen door.
Judith finally looked up. Her eyes glistened in the overhead light. She studied Charlie for a moment, then asked, “Why is it you? Why didn’t the police come?”
Charlie did not realize that she was holding her breath until she felt the strain in her lungs. “Do you want it to be the police?”
Judith looked up at the ceiling. Her tears began to fall. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
Charlie said, “She was pregnant.”
“Again,” Judith said. “She had an abortion in middle school.”
Charlie braced herself for a polemic about the sanctity of life, but Judith did not offer one.
Instead, the woman stood up. She pulled a paper towel from the roll. She wiped her face. “The father was a boy on the football team. Several boys had their fun, apparently. She was naïve. She had no idea what they were doing to her.”
“Who was the father this time?”
“You’re going to make me say it?”
Charlie nodded. She was a recent convert to giving voice to the truth.
“Doug,” she said. “He fucked her in my room.” Charlie must have reacted to the fuck, because she said, “I’m sorry for the language, but when you see your husband screwing a seventeen-year-old girl in the classroom where you teach middle schoolers, that’s the first word that comes to mind.”
“Seventeen,” Charlie repeated. Douglas Pinkman had been an administrator. Kelly Wilson was a student in the same school system. What he had done was commit statutory rape. Fucking had nothing to do with it.
Judith said, “That’s why the camera was angled down. Doug was smart about it. He was always smart about it.”
“There were other students?”
“Anything he could stick it into.” She balled the paper towel into her hand. She had become visibly angry. For the first time, Charlie was worried Sam and Ben had been right about how dangerous this could be.
Charlie asked, “That’s why this happened, because Kelly got pregnant?”
“It wasn’t for the reason you’re thinking. I’m sorry, Charlotte. You clearly wanted children, but I didn’t. I never did. I love them, I love how their minds work, I love how funny and interesting they can be, but I love it more when I can leave them at school, come home and read a book and enjoy the silence.” She tossed the paper towel into the trash can. “I’m not some desperate woman who couldn’t have a child so she snapped. Not having a child was a choice. A choice I thought Doug agreed with, but—” She shrugged. “You never know how bad your marriage is until it’s over.”
Charlie guessed, “He wanted a divorce?”
Judith laughed bitterly. “No, and I didn’t want one either. I had learned to live with his perpetual midlife crisis. He wasn’t a pedophile. He didn’t go after the young ones.”
Charlie wondered at how easily the woman dismissed the fact that Kelly Wilson had the emotional intelligence of a child.
Judith said, “Doug wanted us to keep the baby. Kelly was going to drop out of school anyway. There was no way she could graduate. He wanted us to give her some money, make her go away, and raise the baby together.”
Of all the things Judith could have said, Charlie had never suspected this was what had finally broken her. “What changed his mind about wanting a kid?”
“Feeling his mortality? Wanting to leave a legacy? Just so damn arrogant and selfish and stupid?” She huffed out an angry breath. “I’m fifty-six years old. Doug was about to turn sixty. We should be planning our retirement. I didn’t want to raise some other woman’s—some teenager’s—baby.” She shook her head, clearly still furious. “Not to mention Kelly’s mental deficits. Doug wasn’t just expecting me to raise a child for the next eighteen years. He wanted us to be stuck with it for the rest of our lives.”
Any sympathy Charlie could have felt evaporated with those words.
Judith asked, “What else did Kelly tell you?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I was going to play the martyr; the poor widow accused of being complicit by a cold-blooded simpleton. Who would believe her over me?”
Charlie said nothing, but she knew that, without the footage, no one would have believed the girl.
“So.” Judith angrily wiped away her tears. “Is this the part where I tell you how I did it?” She pointed to Charlie’s phone. “Make sure it’s still recording.”
Charlie turned over the phone, though she trusted that Ben had set it up properly. The phone was not only recording, it was transmitting the audio back to his laptop.
Judith said, “The affair started a year ago. I saw them through the window in my classroom. Doug thought I had left. He stayed to lock up—at least, that’s what he said. I went back for some papers. As I said, he was screwing her on one of the desks.”
Charlie pressed her back to the chair. Judith seemed to be getting angrier with each word.
“So, I did what any obedient wife would do. I turned around. I went home. I prepared dinner. Doug came home. He told me he got hung up with a parent. We watched TV together and I seethed. I seethed all night.”
“When did you start tutoring Kelly?”
“When she started dressing like a witch again.” Judith braced the heels of her hands on the counter. “That’s what she did the last time. She started wearing black, like the Goths, to hide her belly. I knew the moment I saw her in the hall that she was pregnant again.”
“Did you confront Doug?”
“Why would I do that? I’m just the wife. I’m just the woman who cooks his meals and irons his clothes and bleaches the stains out of his underwear.” Her voice had a grinding undertone, like a clock being overwound. “Do you know what it’s like to not matter? To live in the same house with a man for almost your entire adult life and feel like you’re nothing? That your wishes, your desires, your plans, are irrelevant? That any burden, no matter how great, can be thrown at you and because you’re a good woman, a God-fearing, Christian woman, and you’ll just take it with a smile because your husband, the man who is supposed to be your protector, is the master of the house?”
Judith had clasped her hands together so hard that the knuckles were white. She told Charlie, “Of course you don’t. You’ve been coddled, you’ve been cherished, all of your life. Even losing your mother, your sister almost dying, your father being reviled by everyone in the state, made people love you more.”
Charlie’s heart pounded in her throat. She did not realize that she had stood up from the chair until she felt her back against the wall.
Judith didn’t seem to notice the effect she was having. “You can talk Kelly into anything, did you know that?”
Charlie did not move.
“She’s so sweet. And fragile. And tiny. She’s like a child. She really is. But the more time I spent with her, the more I hated her.” She shook her head. Her hair was coming unpinned. Her eyes had a wild look. “Do you know how that feels, to hate an innocent kid? To focus all of your rage on someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing, what’s happening to them, because you realize that you can see your own stupidity reflected in their behavior? That you see how your husband controls them, cheats on them, uses them, abuses them, the same way that he does with you?”
Charlie scanned the room. She saw the knives in the wooden block, the drawers full of utensils, the cabinet that likely still had Mr. Heller’s rifle on top.
“I’m sorry,” Judith said, visibly working to calm herself. She followed Charlie’s gaze to the top of the cabinet. “I thought I was going to have to make up a story about how Kelly had stolen it. Or give her the money and pray that she could follow the instructions to buy one.”
Charlie said, “Her dad kept a revolver in his car.”
“She told me he used it to shoot squirrels. Holler people eat them sometimes.”
“It’s greasy,” Charlie said, trying to keep her calm. “I have a client who cooks it in stew.”
Judith gripped the back of the chair. Her knuckles were white. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Charlie forced out a laugh. “Isn’t that what people say before they hurt someone?”
Judith pushed away from the chair. She leaned against the counter again. She was still angry, but she kept working to control it. “I shouldn’t have said that about your tragedy. I apologize.”
“It’s all right.”
“You’re saying that because you want me to keep talking.”
Charlie shrugged her shoulder. “Is it working?”
Her laugh was filled with disgust.
Ben had said that Judith Pinkman had been hysterical when the paramedics had taken her out the middle-school doors. They’d had to sedate her to get her into the ambulance. She had stayed at the hospital all night. She had gone on camera to plead for Kelly’s life. Even now, her eyes were swollen from crying. Her face was haggard with grief. She was telling Charlie the truth, the brutal, unvarnished truth, though she knew that she was being recorded.
She wasn’t bargaining, she wasn’t pleading, she wasn’t trying to make some kind of trade. This was how a person behaved when they felt true remorse for their actions.
Judith said, “Kelly wouldn’t pull the trigger on her own. She promised me that she would, but I knew that she wasn’t like that. She was too kind, and she was too trusting, and she would’ve been a horrible shot, so I stood behind her in the hall, and I wrapped my hand around hers, and I fired a shot into the wall to get Doug’s attention.” She tapped her fingers to her mouth as if to remind her voice to stay calm. “He came running out, and I shot him three times. And then—”
Charlie waited.
Judith pressed her hand to her chest. Her anger had gone completely cold.
She admitted, “I was going to kill Kelly. That was the plan: shoot Doug, then murder Kelly and say that I stopped her from slaughtering more children. Town hero. I’d get Doug’s pension, his social security. No messy divorce. More time to read my books, right?”
Charlie wondered if she had planned on shooting Kelly in the stomach to make sure her baby was dead, too.
Judith said, “I managed to hit Doug in all the right places. The coroner told me that any one of the three shots was fatal. I guess he thought that would be a comfort.” Her eyes glistened again. She swallowed, her throat making an audible sound. “But Kelly wouldn’t let go of the gun. I don’t think she knew the rest of the plan, that I was going to kill her. I think she panicked when she saw that Doug was dead. We struggled. The trigger was pulled. I don’t know if it was me or her, but the bullet ricocheted into the floor.”
Judith breathed through her mouth. Her voice was raspy.
She continued, “We were both shocked that the gun had gone off, and Kelly turned, and I—I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. I panicked. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I pulled the trigger again and—” She was cut off by a whimper. Her lips had turned white. She was trembling. “I saw her. I saw her when—while—my finger pulled the trigger. It happened so slowly, and my brain recognized it, I remember thinking, ‘Judith, you’re shooting a child,’ but I couldn’t stop it. My finger kept pulling back, and—”
She could not say the words, so Charlie did.
“Lucy Alexander was shot.”
Judith’s tears flowed like water. “I team-teach with her mother. I used to see Lucy at meetings, dancing around in the back of the room. She would sing to herself. She had such a sweet voice. I don’t know, maybe it would’ve been different if I hadn’t known her, but I knew her.”
Charlie could not help but think that the woman had known Kelly Wilson, too.
Judith said, “Charlotte, I’m so sorry that I made you a part of this. I had no idea you were in the building. I would’ve done it the next day, or next week. I never would have knowingly put you in that situation.”
Charlie was not going to thank her.
“I wish I could explain what came over me. I thought that Doug and I were—I don’t know. He wasn’t the great love of my life, but I thought that we cared for each other. Respected each other. But after that many years, everything is entangled. You’ll see when you get there. Finances, retirement, benefits, cars, this house, savings accounts, tickets we bought for a cruise this summer.”
“Money,” Charlie said. Rusty had thousands of quotes about man’s destructive desires for sex and money.
“It wasn’t just the money,” Judith said. “When I confronted Doug about the pregnancy, and he presented his brilliant plan for us to become geriatric parents, like it was nothing to take on that kind of commitment—and it wasn’t, not for him. He wasn’t going to be the one getting up at three in the morning to change diapers. I know it seems incredible that that was what finally did it, but it was the last straw.”
She searched Charlie’s eyes as if she expected agreement.
Judith said, “I let myself hate Kelly because that was the only way I could talk myself into doing it. I knew that she was pliable. All I had to do was whisper in her ear—wasn’t she a bad girl for what she let Doug do to her? Wasn’t she going to hell for what happened in middle school? Couldn’t she punish Doug for his transgressions? Couldn’t she stop him from hurting other girls? I was amazed by how little time it took to convince another human being that she was nothing.” Judith repeated, “Nothing. Just like me.”
Charlie’s hands were sweating. She wiped them on her dress.
“There’s another verse you probably know, Charlotte. I’m sure you heard it in a movie or read it in a book. ‘Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.’”
“The Golden Rule,” Charlie said. “Do unto others as they do unto you.”
“I did to Kelly what Doug did to me. That’s what I told myself. That’s how I justified my actions, and then I saw Lucy and I realized …” Judith held up her index finger, as if to start counting. “A proud look through the window of my room.” She held up another finger, listing her sins. “A lying tongue to my husband, to Kelly.” Another finger went up. “Wicked imaginations about murdering both of them. Running toward evil when I put that gun in her hand. False witness to the police about what happened. Sowing discord to you, to Mason Huckabee, to the entire town.” She gave up counting and held up all of her fingers. “‘Hands that shed innocent blood.’”
Judith stood there, her hands in the air, palms out, fingers spread.
Charlie did not know what to say.
“What will happen to her?” Judith asked. “To Kelly?”
Charlie shook her head, though she knew that Kelly Wilson would go to prison. Not to death row, probably not for the rest of her life, but low IQ or not, the girl was right: the gun was in her hand.
Judith said, “I need you to leave, Charlotte.”
“I—”
“Take your phone.” She tossed the phone to Charlie. “Send the recording to that woman at the GBI. Tell her she can find me here.”
Charlie fumbled to catch the phone. “What are you—”
“Leave.” Judith reached her hand up to the top of the cabinet. She didn’t have her father’s rifle. She had a Glock.
“Jesus.” Charlie stumbled back.
“Please leave.” Judith dropped the empty magazine from the gun. “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“What are you going to do?” Charlie’s heart quivered as she asked the question.
She knew what the woman was planning to do.
“Charlotte, go.” Judith found a box of bullets and scattered them onto the table. She started to load the magazine.
“Jesus,” Charlie repeated.
Judith paused her work. “I know how ridiculous this is going to sound, but please stop taking the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Okay,” Charlie said. Ben was listening. He was probably on his way, running through the woods, jumping over trees, pushing limbs aside, trying to find Charlie.
All she had to do was keep Judith talking.
“Please,” Charlie begged. “Please don’t do this. I have questions to ask you about that day, about what—”
“You need to forget about it, Charlotte. You need to do what your daddy told you and put it in a box and leave it there, because I am telling you right now that you don’t ever want to remember what that horrible man did to you.” Judith jammed the magazine into the gun. “Now, I really need for you to go.”
“Oh, Judith, please don’t do this.” Charlie felt her voice shake. This couldn’t happen. Not in this kitchen. Not to this woman. “Please.”
Judith pulled back the slide, loading a bullet into the chamber. “Leave, Charlotte.”
“I can’t—” Charlie held out her hands, reaching toward Judith, toward the gun. “Please don’t do this. This can’t happen. I can’t let you—”
Bright white bone. Pieces of heart and lung. Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and life spilling out of her gaping wounds.
“Judith,” Charlie cried. “Please.”
“Charlotte.” Her voice was firm, like a teacher in front of the classroom. “You are to go outside immediately. I want you to get in your truck, and drive to your father’s house and call the police.”
“Judith, no.”
“They’re used to handling these sorts of things, Charlotte. I know that you think you are, but I can’t take that on my conscience. I just can’t.”
“Judith, please. I am begging you.” Charlie was so close to the gun. She could lunge for it. She was younger, faster. She could stop this.
“Don’t.” Judith placed the gun behind her on the counter. “I told you that I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t make me go back on my word.”
“I can’t!” Charlie was sobbing. She felt like razors were pumping through her heart. “I can’t leave you here to kill yourself.”
Judith opened the kitchen door. “You can and you will.”
“Judith, please. Don’t put this burden on me.”
“I’m lifting your burden, Charlotte. Your father is gone. I’m the last person who knows. Your secret dies with me.”
“It doesn’t need to die!” Charlie screamed. “I don’t care! People already know. My husband. My sister. I don’t care. Judith, please, please don’t—”
Without warning, Judith charged toward her. She grabbed Charlie around the middle. Charlie felt her feet leave the ground. She braced her hands against the woman’s shoulders. Her ribs felt crushed as she was carried across the kitchen and thrown out onto the porch.
“Judith, no!” Charlie scrambled to stop her.
The door slammed in her face.
The lock clicked.
“Judith!” Charlie yelled, banging her fist on the door. “Judith! Open the—”
She heard a loud crack echo inside the house.
Not a car backfiring.
Not fireworks.
Charlie fell to her knees.
She pressed her hand to the door.
A person who has been up close when a gun is fired into another human being never mistakes the sound of a gunshot for something else.