Beneath Devil's Bridge(62)

“Coming?” he asks softly, near my ear.

And I go.

I cross that line.

I go with Luke to the cheap motel on the highway. The same bloody motel where Jake used to cheat on me.

Perhaps that’s why I go.

Perhaps it’s an unconscious form of revenge. Or proving to myself I can do what Jake did.

Perhaps it’s because I know I won’t see Luke again. And I can’t quite let him go. Or maybe I need to tap into his solid energy, feel loved, feel desired, just one more time. And I need sex. I need to feel human, like a beautiful woman again. I need to make love in the face of the death and ugliness we’ve witnessed on this case. And he’s an opportunity that presents. An ally. No complicated strings.

As we back into his motel room, kissing, stripping the clothes off each other’s bodies, and as we make hot and desperate love, I know I must never see Luke again. Not like this. Because it will take apart what is left of my marriage. And the good girl in me knows I should do what I can to save it.

For Maddy.





TRINITY


NOW


Friday, November 12. Present day.

“Clayton, I obtained all the police transcripts along with other case records, and I have a copy of your confession right here with me.” I push the copy toward him. The digital recorder rests on the table between us. “Can I ask you to read this part of the transcript of your confession for our listeners? If you could start from where you said that you did it, that you raped and killed fourteen-year-old Leena Rai.”

“I didn’t.”

“That’s what you claim now, but it’s not what you claimed then, in 1997. Can you read what you said, word for word, so our audience can hear what the two detectives heard in the room that day?”

He pulls the document closer.

“Please start from the part where you say to Detective O’Leary and Detective Walczak, ‘She woke up and seemed more reasonable.’”

I watch him as he scans the text, finding the right point. A strange look overcomes his face. His energy changes. I feel the atmosphere in the room shift, and for a moment I feel scared, and I’m acutely aware of where the exit door is in relation to my chair in case I need to bolt or need help. Because Clay suddenly seems to be becoming someone else.

He begins to read in a scratchy monotone. Slowly. Quietly. It sounds unreal. Like he’s rehearsed it for all the years that he’s been in prison, and he’s sort of dissociated from it.

“‘I then started to drive her home, but when we reached the intersection near Devil’s Bridge, she got riled up again and asked to be let out. I handed her her backpack, watched her go, then panicked . . . I grabbed her again and dragged her back down along the trail under the north end of the bridge this time. I hit her head with a rock. I stomped on her back. I grabbed her by the collar, dragged her over the stones and boulders. The jacket came off while I was dragging her, and her shirt, too, because I was pulling the sleeves, tugging, and she was fighting me . . . Then I straddled her, and sat on her, using my body weight to press her down into the small stones on the bottom of the river. I used my knees, forcing them into her shoulders. I held the back of her head underwater with both hands. Until she was gone. I killed—I drowned—Leena Rai.’”

He looks up.

“And you left her there, floating in the reeds, beneath Devil’s Bridge. ‘Floating in the eelgrass . . . The forgotten girl.’”

He shakes his head. His eyes hold mine. I feel more than see the little red light blinking on my recording device. I feel my future audience listening, expectant.

I prompt him. “Detective O’Leary asked you exactly how you did it, Clayton.”

“It . . . I made it up. It’s not true.” For a moment he actually looks confused. And I think I know what’s happening. He’s not so much lying to me about not having killed Leena. He’s deluded himself. And now he’s being confronted with the black-and-white printed reality of what occurred in that interrogation room twenty-four years ago.

“You told the detectives, with your lawyer present, exactly what the autopsy report also told them.”

“It’s not true.”

“Clay, how did you manage to make up information—forensic details—that only those close to the investigation knew?”

He stares at the printout.

“Go on, Clayton,” I urge gently. Adrenaline zings through my blood. This is awesome. Ratings will be insane. But beneath my excitement, another sensation is building. Something I don’t want to—can’t—think about right now.

Suddenly Clayton seems to go utterly vacant. He’s a shell, just sitting there. Empty. His eyes have gone distant, as though his whole being has slid down a wormhole in time to a place in the dark and cold under Devil’s Bridge twenty-four years ago.

“Clayton?”

He blinks. Then rubs his chin.

“How could you have known all those details if what you said wasn’t true, if you didn’t do it?”

“It . . . just came to me like that. Came into my head. And I wanted to say it. All of it.”

I glance at my recorder to make sure it’s still working, and say, “Why did you want to say it? What made you plead guilty? Why no trial?”

“I wanted to go to prison.”