Girl One(57)

“We’re fine,” I said brusquely. “Don’t waste time worrying about us.”

“But I do. Because I’m not a bad man, Josephine. And the real killer is still out there.”

As a child, I’d known Ricky less as a person and more as a disembodied threat: a distant voice leading rhythmic chants at the edge of the compound, the anger flattened out by repetition until it was no more remarkable than birdsong. I’d only seen him in person a few times, on the rare occasions when we left the grounds. Those faces clustered at the edges of our property, all those grown-ups turning to stare at me, jostling for a better view. Most of them were angry—gazes so hard and cold I had to look down at my own arm, sun-freckled, to remind myself I was there. That I hadn’t actually turned into a monster. But there were other faces, curious or kind.

Later on, I’d been baffled when I’d first identified Ricky Peters as the ringleader, the one who’d murdered Bellanger. I remembered him as one of the friendlier faces, a man who’d sometimes smiled at me. Now those smiles took on a slippery quality in my memory, more threatening than the scowls.

“If you’re not guilty, why did you accept the plea deal?” I demanded. “Why let yourself rot away in here for something you didn’t do?”

“You have no idea,” Ricky said softly. “I was proud, back then, and idealistic. I wasn’t going to waste my best years in prison when I was an innocent man. You better believe I was full of fire. They’d slapped me with so many trumped-up charges. Trespassing, aggravated assault, arson, two first-degree murders. I’m not from Vermont, you realize. I traveled here all the way from Alabama. I had to come here once I saw that doctor on the news. After the fire, though, they painted me as an outsider who’d brought scandal and death to this nice little state. They were out for my blood. My lawyer counseled me to take the plea bargain. One charge of second-degree murder, one charge of manslaughter for the little girl. I refused. I wanted to bring the real killer to justice, you see. So I brought it to trial. I trusted that the world would be on my side. I’d shown the world what you were. I told the world what it meant for women to have babies on their own—what it meant for us men, if it kept on. And what good did it do? Nothing.” He leaned back. “People get too distracted by the shiny and the new, and you girls were shiny and new. There were baby dolls of you girls in the stores, for little Suzy to get under the Christmas tree. Like it was something little girls would want for themselves one day.”

I’d seen my baby doll in old ads. A generic doll, bubble-headed, tufty-haired, with a ONE on her bib. It had been discontinued, but apparently the dolls sold for a lot on underground markets now as novelty items.

“The world was on your side,” I said, my heartbeat gathered in the spot where my cheek pressed into the receiver. “They did hate us.”

“As it turns out, they were not on my side,” Ricky said, his voice holding long-ago bitterness. “You should’ve seen that trial. Those young women weren’t the enemies anymore. They’d turned into victims. As sweet as could be. The world looked at me and saw a man who’d murdered a little girl. They forgot who that girl was, and they forgot what she stood for. They just imagined one of their own little girls burning in a blaze set by a monster like me and they wanted justice.”

The world on our side. I was a little sorry I’d missed that.

“I had my evidence and I was going to remind the world what Dr. Bellanger had actually done. I was just biding my time. But then your mother took the stand—oh, your mother took the stand! You should’ve seen her. A girl you’d take home to your mother. Pretty dress. Nice hair, la-di-da. She sat up there and she talked about how I’d threatened all of you. She talked about how scared she was. Everyone in that room was in love with her. It was after her testimony that I went to my lawyer and said we should take the plea bargain. ‘I can’t do it,’ I said. ‘Nobody will believe my evidence, coming on the heels of that.’”

“What was your evidence?” I asked, riveted in spite of myself.

“The evening of the fire,” Ricky said, “your mother came to talk to me. Usually the ladies steered clear of me, and I steered clear of them, but here she came, out of the shadows. She was jumpy, like she had bugs under her skin. She got real close, whispering. ‘You’re right about Bellanger,’ she said. ‘You’re the only one who saw it all along. He’s a bad man.’ It felt like a miracle. I’d been waiting for those girls to recognize how much they’d debased themselves by aligning themselves with the doctor. All my hard work was finally paying off.”

“That’s it?” I asked, ignoring the chill down my spine. “My mother telling you that she hated Bellanger? That’s nothing.”

He held up a hand, a simple command: Wait. His skin was surprisingly smooth, almost poreless, protected from direct sunlight for years “She showed me a gun. She was carrying it with her. A handgun. She said, ‘Let’s you and me do this, Ricky, end it all now. Don’t let him get away with it. He has my girl under his spell, and he’ll never let her go.’” He locked eyes with me and he didn’t look away.

End it all now.

“Bullshit,” I said. “There was no gun found in the wreckage. No gunshot wounds.” But there was a slick of betrayal in my belly, this image of my mother wielding a gun, wild-eyed, willing to ally herself with a man who’d dedicated his life to destroying us. And it had been because of me. Her jealousy over Bellanger’s role in my life.