Beneath Devil's Bridge(66)

“One of the day nurses was telling me about it. It got me hooked. Everyone is listening. I think Clayton Pelley is telling the truth. I bet those cops were hiding something. I bet they forced his confession or something, and it’s going to come out.”

Jocelyn doesn’t even consider the words before they tumble out of her mouth—she just says them, needs to say them. “Lacey was married to him.”

The nurse’s hands go still. She flicks her gaze to Lacey in the bed, then back to Jocelyn. “Are you serious?”

She nods.

The nurse stares. “I . . . Wow, that must have been so difficult. How . . . I mean—”

“It’s okay. You don’t need to say anything. I . . . I’ve just never spoken about it. And now . . .” Her voice fades as she looks at her daughter. Now Jocelyn just needs to feel a connection. To somebody, anybody. Even if it’s just the night nurse.

“So Clayton Jay Pelley . . . he’s your son-in-law?”

“Was. He and Lacey met in Terrace, where we used to live. They met at a Christian youth camp Clay was helping run. Lacey was nineteen at the time, just out of school, basically, and she was smitten by him. My husband and I—we worried about the intensity of the relationship. But like the girls said on the podcast, Clay was a charmer. I mean, like Ted Bundy was a charmer. These narcissistic sociopaths with paraphilia . . . they can make you see and believe things that are totally false. They make you trust.”

“Was Clay an alcoholic back then?”

“He occasionally drank heavily at social occasions—barbecues. A picnic. A country fair. But a lot of people in our community at that time did. We never worried that it had become a real problem at that point.” Jocelyn sits silently for a moment as she watches her daughter breathe in her sleep. “It all got bad in Twin Falls. I guess a human being can only pretend and hide a sickness for so long until things start to devolve.” She clears her throat. “After Clay was arrested and charged, we took Lacey and the baby home to Terrace, and then we packed up and all moved east. To start over.”

“Wow. I . . . I’m sorry.” The nurse glances at Lacey again, and Jocelyn wonders if the woman is thinking that Lacey could have lost her memory, her mind, because of all she has gone through. Perhaps it is the case. Perhaps early dementia is just Lacey’s way of finally escaping.

The nurse says, “When I said I think he didn’t do it, I—”

“I don’t think he did it, either.” Jocelyn falls quiet. The nurse doesn’t leave. It’s as though she senses there is something more that Jocelyn wants to get off her mind.

“Lacey lied,” Jocelyn finally says, very quietly. “She told me that she lied to the police.”

“What do you mean?” The nurse sits down slowly on the edge of the chair beside Jocelyn. She’s hooked. She leans forward with interest.

“Clay gave Lacey as his alibi. He told the detectives he was home around nine on the night of the bonfire. And he was. He got drunk at home. In his shed. Lacey lied when she told the detectives he only arrived home at 3:42 a.m. the following morning.”

“But . . . if he was home, he couldn’t have killed Leena.”

“I know.”

“Why did she lie?”

“She needed to protect herself. She needed him taken away.”

The nurse stares. A gust of wind ticks snow pellets against the window. Softly she says, “Have you told anyone?”

Jocelyn looks down at the rosary in her hands. She’s convinced God will smite her for this secret she’s kept all these years. But Clay Pelley is a sinful man with evil desires. It was right he went to prison. Even if the reasons for it were not exactly right.

The nurse presses. “What about the baby—Lacey’s little daughter, Janie Pelley? Does she know? I mean, this podcast—everyone’s talking about it. If she doesn’t know, it could come out who her mother is, and that her mother lied about her father.”

“If it comes out, then maybe that’s the Lord’s will.”

The nurse sits in silence, watching Lacey in the bed. Time seems to stretch. “The truth always has a way of coming out.” She glances at Jocelyn. “Why did you tell me?”

Jocelyn inhales a deep and shaky breath. She’s not sure why. She just did.

“Sometimes,” says the nurse, “secrets are too great and too heavy to keep inside forever. The body needs to release them. The body finds a way even if the mind is unwilling.” The nurse reaches for Jocelyn’s hand. Her touch is soft. “We all need to do what we can to survive and to protect our daughters. In the best ways we can at the time.”

“You’re a mother?”

She nods. “Two girls.”



Liam Parks fetches a box of negatives down from his attic. He carries the box into his photographic studio. He clicks the light on in his light box and sits at his bench. He takes out a strip of film, reaches for his loupe. He puts the little magnified lens on the film, bends over, and puts his eye to the loupe. Slowly he moves it across the strip of film. The past comes to life in negative shades. A group of boys in front of a bonfire. Images of a moon over Diamond Head. Comet-like streaks from the Russian rocket that hit the earth’s atmosphere at 9:12 p.m. on Friday, November 14, 1997. The night of the Ullr sacrifice. The night Leena died.