Beneath Devil's Bridge(11)

“More people listening to my podcast. Bigger audience. And . . . this case intrigues me.”

“My case is not that unusual. Male sexually assaults and kills young female. It happens. All the time.”

“It’s not every day that the assailant is a teacher. A husband. A father. It raises your stock.”

“I think I’m going to like you, Trinity Scott.” He smiles. Deeply. The sexual undertones are thick. And suddenly I feel ill. Too much coffee, not enough sleep, too much adrenaline. And I don’t like him. Disgust rises in my throat, and for a rare, wild moment, I question what I’m even doing here. But time is ticking. I’m committed. I have sponsors. I need to see this through for so many reasons.

“Let’s start with Leena,” I say firmly. “Why her?”

“You mean why pick her out of all the other girls at school?”

“Yes. I’ve obtained copies of all your case files, and from the police transcript of your confession, Leena wasn’t just an opportunity that presented itself on Devil’s Bridge that night. Drunk and alone. In the dark with no one to see. You cultivated her. You targeted her. The finale beneath the bridge was the result. So why Leena?”

“She wasn’t like the others.”

“How so?”

An odd look changes his face. He lowers his scratchy voice. “Why wasn’t she like the others? I think you know the answer to that. I think everyone knows. Leena wasn’t one of the sexy, pretty girls. She was . . . Plain would be an understatement, right, Trinity?”

I feel my blood heat. “So her looks made her an outsider? Did this make her an easier target?”

“Go on, say it,” he taunts. “Leena was ugly. That’s how she used to refer to herself, anyway. It’s what other girls and boys at school called her. They called her names. Fatso. Biggo. Weirdo. Freak.” He watches my eyes. “She was bullied.”

“So this made her easier to manipulate, because she was starved of affection? An outcast?”

“Leena was socially awkward, and yes, hungry for affection. Needy for it. But she was also gifted. It’s why she was moved two grades up in her English class, and it’s why I was helping tutor her. I think these days she’d probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Talented poet. Beautiful soul deep inside. People couldn’t see past the rest into that beautiful soul.”

Shock ripples through me.

“So you killed her? Because she was an outsider and a beautiful, gifted soul?”

Silence. A vein pulses at his temple. He’s weighing me, perhaps reevaluating what he’s going to tell me, changing his mind.

I aim for the chink that I glimpse in his armor.

“Did you like Leena?”

A flicker of emotion darts through his eyes. It strikes me like a blow—Clayton Pelley actually liked the girl. I’m intrigued, and my fear filters away.

“She liked you, Clayton. According to the handful of pages of her journal that were found. She wrote that you counseled her on the concept of a Jungian shadow. She wrote that both you and she had dangerous shadows.”

He fiddles with the edge of the table.

I lean forward and say, “She had dreams of getting out of Twin Falls. You were the only one who understood her, according to her words.”

Silence.

“She trusted you, Clayton.”

“I’m a bad person, Trinity.”

My gaze holds his. I sense something has changed. The atmosphere in the room presses in. It’s hotter. Airless.

“Is that what you want to hear? That I am sick? Because I am. I’m a sick, sick man. And I belong in here.”

I regard him. Slowly, quietly, I say, “At what point did you formulate the idea to sexually assault and kill Leena? Or did you initially just want to rape her? But then, as you confessed to the detectives, you hated what you’d done, so you bashed her away, out of your life? A form of projection?”

Silence.

The guard taps on the window and holds up two fingers. Two more minutes.

“Not pretty, is it, Trinity?” he rasps.

I need a sound bite. I need a cracking hook. Time is leaking through my fingers. Quickly I say, “What do you want the world out there to know about your crime? What should listeners take away after the first episode of the podcast on killer Clayton Jay Pelley?”

The door opens.

“What I want the world to know, Trinity Scott, is yes, we all have our darkness. That shadow. Even you. But I did not sexually assault Leena Rai.” He watches me. My pulse quickens. My mind races.

He lowers his voice.

“And I did not kill her.”

Excitement knifes through me. I have my sound bite, my hook. I can play this like an unsolved cold case, pose the question: Did the wrong man go to prison? I force myself to remain calm, to not break his gaze, to not even blink. I don’t even want to begin to acknowledge what this means to me personally. My eyes water.

“If . . . if you didn’t, who did?”

“Time’s up, Pelley,” says the guard. He takes hold of Clayton’s arm and brings the inmate to his feet. “Come on, let’s go.”

Clayton resists. Quietly, with a glint in his eyes, he says, “Whoever did, her killer is still out there.”

The guard ushers him out. The door swings shut.