Beneath Devil's Bridge(77)

TRINITY: In our previous session, Clayton, you claimed Maddison Walczak lied about seeing you and Leena having sex in the woods. You were referring to the fourteen-year-old daughter of the detective who was investigating Leena’s homicide, Rachel Walczak.

CLAYTON: She did lie.

TRINITY: If Maddy Walczak did lie, why did she do it?

CLAYTON: Oh, I had sex in the little clearing all right, off the tiny trail near the outhouses. But it wasn’t with Leena. It was with Maddy. The cop’s daughter fornicated with me. She wanted to. It was consensual. And it wasn’t the first time.





SILENCE


SOUND OF TRINITY CLEARING THROAT


TRINITY: This is . . . Could you repeat this? Because I’m not sure I heard you right.

CLAYTON: I was seeing Maddy Walczak. We were having . . . an affair.

TRINITY: An affair? With a fourteen-year-old girl? One of your students?

CLAYTON: She was almost fifteen. She was hungry for experience. She was older in many ways than a lot of other girls her age— TRINITY: That is not consensual. She was fourteen. A child. She wasn’t capable of consent. You were an adult, and one who was in a position of dominance, of power. Legally, that’s rape. That’s sexual assault.

CLAYTON: . . . Do I disgust you, Trinity Scott?

Rachel’s color drains. She fists her hands, and her knuckles whiten. Her jaw goes tight. She stares at my phone. Unblinking. Transfixed as she listens.

I felt just as shocked when my father said those words. Because he was my dad. And now I also know that he was aware I was his daughter when he said them to me.

TRINITY: I . . . I’m just processing, that’s all. I . . . So your story is that you were not having sex with Leena Rai in the bushes, but with Maddison Walczak.

CLAYTON: That’s correct. It was Leena who spied us in flagrante delicto. Who interrupted us. Maddy and I were going at it hard . . . and that’s how I reopened the cut on my hand. I had already hurt my hands stacking logs, but I was leaning them hard into the dirt as I . . . She was under me. I was on top. And there was some broken glass in the pine needles. Suddenly we heard a noise, a cracking sound in the brush. And I looked up. Maddy looked, too. Right into Leena’s eyes. Leena had a small flashlight. Leena bolted. Maddy scrambled out from under me and yelled for Leena to stop as she pulled up her pants. Then Maddy chased down the trail after Leena. She brought Leena back to me, and I saw how drunk and upset she was. Maddy told Leena that she had to promise not to tell anyone. Leena was crying. I told Maddy to go back to the fire. To act normal. That I would take care of Leena, take her home, talk some sense into her on the way. Leena was malleable. She . . . she loved me. I knew this. I used this. I put my arm around her, and I helped a sobbing Leena to my car, which was parked on the logging road.

Rachel’s eyes shine. Her stillness is almost terrifying. Sinister. Her whole face has changed. She seems to have aged an additional ten years as she listens.

CLAYTON: I drove back toward town. Leena and I argued on the way. See? I told the detectives this. That part is all true. I was fond of her, but she’d misinterpreted my kindness and attention. She was utterly broken by the fact she’d seen me with Maddy. It was like I’d betrayed Leena personally. I told her how much I believed in her, and how she would become somebody important one day. And that I would continue to tutor her, and help her become great. But she must not tell anyone what she saw. She said she hated me. Started hitting at me while I was driving. She insisted I drop her off near the bridge, and if I refused, she would rat Maddy and me out. She was drunk, getting hysterical. So I took my chances and pulled over. I reached into the back with my bloody hand and grabbed her pack. I handed it to her and drove off.

TRINITY: She was still wearing your jacket?

CLAYTON: Yes.

TRINITY: You never drove to a lookout?

CLAYTON: No.

TRINITY: Weren’t you still worried she would tell?

CLAYTON: Yes. Very. And if she did, I was done for. But I gambled with a belief she might keep her mouth quiet once she sobered up. That she would try to protect me.

TRINITY: You were accustomed to the female students doing your bidding.

CLAYTON: I got off on it.

TRINITY: What time did you drop her off near Devil’s Bridge?

CLAYTON: I’m not sure. But I did leave the grove before the rocket. And it used to take about twenty minutes to drive from the grove to town. And after I dropped Leena off, I did go straight home. Lacey lied.

TRINITY: So where did Leena go, before she was seen by Amy Chan crossing the bridge around two a.m.?

CLAYTON: I don’t know. Maybe she just hung out under the bridge smoking. Maybe she went somewhere else.

TRINITY: So Lacey lied. And Maddy lied. Why would Maddy claim you and Leena had sex?

CLAYTON: By that time Maddy had learned about the murder. Maybe she believed I had done it, I don’t know. Maybe she believed with all the questioning that one of the kids was going to slip and reveal I was at the bonfire, and up to no good. And maybe she was scared her mother would find out what she did with me. So she threw me under the bus first. To save herself. Because then it would be her word against mine, because Leena was gone.

TRINITY: What about Beth Galloway’s statement that she saw you with Leena going back to your car?

CLAYTON: Well, I did go with Leena back to my car.

TRINITY: Beth stated that Maddy told her she’d seen you having sex with Leena.