Beneath Devil's Bridge(65)

She put everything she owned into buying that piece of land out in the valley and building Green Acres with blood and sweat into an organic farm. She started selling vegetables at farmers’ markets in the summer. She began to find peace from whatever inner demons taunted her. Granger asked her out for a drink one hot summer’s day when he came across her stall at the farmers’ market downtown. He’d fallen for her during therapy, but had refrained of course from acting on it. But their doctor-patient relationship was over. She looked tanned and so naturally beautiful that day. Happy. One thing led to another. Eventually Granger partially retired and moved out to Green Acres to live with her.

And right now, in his inebriated state, it feels like it was all just hanging there on a thread, waiting to be crushed by Trinity Scott’s knock on the farm door and the resurfacing of the Leena Rai case.

Rex is called into the pub kitchen, and Granger sinks deeper into his morose thoughts.

His mind tunnels back to that day he found his son washing a military surplus jacket that wasn’t his. Johnny was putting it into the washing machine on the Monday afternoon after the bonfire weekend, the day after news broke that a student, Leena Rai, had gone missing. There was blood on that jacket. Mud and blood.



When Johnny arrives home that night, Beth is asleep. He climbs into bed and snuggles close, putting his arm around his wife.

“Did you listen to episode three?” she says into the darkness.

Johnny is quiet for a long while. Outside, the wind blows. He wonders if it will bring snow by morning. Finally he says, “Did Maddy lie, Beth?”

He feels his wife’s body tense. She remains silent in the darkness. Wind whistles louder outside. A shutter bangs somewhere.

“Did you actually see Clay Pelley having sex with Leena?”

“Fuck you, Johnny,” she whispers.

Shock ripples through him.

She turns onto her back, glares up at the ceiling, her eyes shining in the darkness. “How dare you even ask me that?”

“I mean, maybe Maddy lied to you. Or—”

“Or what? We both made it up? Do you honestly think I would lie about something so very serious? That I’d sit here all these years knowing a man went to prison in part because I fabricated something with my friend?”

“Mr. Pelley went to prison because he confessed, Beth. Not because of you. And now everyone is talking about whether it was a false confession, that’s all. Maybe he never slept with Leena in the woods. Maybe Maddy did lie.”

“He was a pervert. He was—is—a pedophile. A kiddie porn addict. A sex offender. You heard him say right there in the podcast that he’s aroused by girls and young teens. He . . . he made a pass at me once.”

“You never told me.”

“I wanted to forget it.”

“Did you ever tell anyone?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Not even Maddy?”

“Especially not Maddy. But Leena? She was easy. She needed love. She needed to be needed, and that creep took advantage of that. I totally believe the confession was true. Word for word.” She’s quiet for a while. They listen to the wind. “But you know that Leena was easy, don’t you, Johnny?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She was so desperate to be liked that she’d do anything, open her legs for any boy who was so hungry to lose his virginity that he didn’t care who he did it with.”

Johnny feels sick. “I cannot believe you just said what you did.”

Silence.

He closes his eyes. His world seems to be spinning in a slow black spiral. He feels like he’s a piece of debris in water swirling around a sink, being sucked toward a drain, whirring in ever-tightening circles as he nears the plughole.

He thinks of the day he realized his father was watching him from the doorway as he stuffed the military surplus jacket covered with mud and blood into the washing machine.



Meanwhile, across the country, in a town along the sprawling outskirts of Toronto, Jocelyn Willoughby, a woman in her early seventies, sits with her daughter, who is in her late forties. The senior fingers a rosary as she listens to the Leena Rai murder podcast. She’s always been addicted to true crime. The rosary beads are just there for comfort, something to do with her hands as she listens.

The younger woman—her daughter, Lacey—is in the latter stages of early-onset dementia. She’s in a care home now. Lacey no longer recognizes members of her own family. She’s having trouble swallowing and eating. She can no longer walk. Outside the home, a blizzard rages and piles snowdrifts against the low windows, which is why Jocelyn is staying overnight in her daughter’s room. Public transit stopped running hours ago.

A nurse enters the room. She murmurs hello to Jocelyn and goes over to check her patient. She takes Lacey’s pulse.

Lacey doesn’t respond. She’s sleeping soundly. Jocelyn removes her earbuds and musters a smile for the nurse. The nurse checks the drip feeding into Lacey’s arm.

“What’s that you’re listening to?” asks the nurse in a friendly, conversational tone.

“Podcast. True crime. The killer of a young teen is in prison, and he’s finally talking about the case.”

“Oh, you mean that murder out west? In Twin Falls?”

Surprise washes through Jocelyn. “Yes. The Leena Rai murder.”