Eight Perfect Murders(49)

Her eyes were looking at me but not looking at me, landing somewhere around my chin. “How did you know Claire?” I said.

“I knew her because my father was one of her teachers, in middle school. Steve Clifton.”

I needed to make a decision. I needed to decide whether I was going to play dumb, or if I was going to tell her the truth, most of it, anyway. I think the look on her face was what made me decide that I needed to be truthful. She looked terrified, and I realized that if she’d made a decision to be honest with me, I should return the favor.

“Yes, I know all about him.”

“What do you know?”

“I know that he molested Claire over the course of two years while she was in middle school. He screwed up her life.”

“She told you about it?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say about it? If you don’t mind my asking. I understand if you feel . . .” She broke off, and I realized how hard this was for her.

I said, “To tell the truth, we didn’t talk much about the details. She brought it up early on in our relationship, said it was important for me to know, but she always downplayed it. At least to me.”

Gwen was nodding. “You don’t have to tell me exactly what she told you. I understand.”

“Why don’t you have his last name?” I said. “Why aren’t you Gwen Clifton?”

“I was, of course, for years, but I had my name legally changed. Mulvey is my mother’s maiden name.”

“That makes sense,” I said. Then I added, “Did you actually know Claire?”

“Yes, I remember her. I was younger than she was, by about five years, but she used to come to the house—several of my father’s students used to come to the house—and I remember her because she played Boggle with me a bunch of times. And then, later, when I was in high school my father confessed to me what he’d done, and hers was one of the names he told me.”

“He told you what he’d done?”

Gwen pursed her lips and breathed out. “At this point Claire had already graduated, but another student, or two students, maybe, had come forward and accused him of inappropriate touching. Everyone knew. We lived in the same town that he taught in. It was one of those already awkward situations where he was a teacher at the same middle school I attended, although he was never my teacher. He resigned—he was forced to resign—and there must have been some kind of legal settlement because it never went to court. Or else there wasn’t enough evidence. One night, he came to my room . . .” She stopped speaking and pressed her index finger against her left eye for a moment.

“You don’t have to tell me all this,” I said.

“He came to my room and told me the names of the girls he’d molested, including Claire’s name, and he said he did it to protect me. That he never wanted to do anything to me, so he did it to other girls.” She shrugged and pressed her lips together into something that looked like a half smile.

“Jesus,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “So I never forgot Claire’s name, and I remembered later hearing how she died, and looking up her obituary and finding your name. So I knew about you, as well.”

“What about you and your dad?”

“That time he came and talked to me was the last time we ever talked. He left the house after that, and my parents divorced, and I never saw him again. He was killed, you know.”

“He was murdered?”

“Not officially, no. But, yes, I believe he was.”

“How?”

“Don’t you know?” she said.

I was drinking from my bottle of beer even though it was empty. “You think I killed him?” I said.

She shrugged again and gave me that odd smile. The color had disappeared from her cheeks and from her nose, and, as usual, I found it hard to read her face, the paleness of it, the flatness of her eyes. “I don’t really know, Mal, but at this point I don’t know what to believe. Do you really want to hear what I think?”

“I do.”

“Okay. Eric Atwell was murdered, and I know that you weren’t in the state, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have arranged it. My father was run down by a car when he was on his bicycle. It was a hit-and-run, but I always assumed someone had killed him for what he’d done. It would make sense. Both of those killings would make sense, would be justified, really, especially for the husband of Claire Mallory.”

“I will admit that I don’t feel bad for either of them,” I said and tried on my own smile that I’m sure looked as awkward as hers.

“But that’s all you’ll admit?”

“What does either Eric Atwell or your father have to do with my list, and the other murders?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. After my father was killed, I did think about you again. I’d also heard about Eric Atwell’s death, and I figured you might have something to do with that, as well. I didn’t care, even though I was training at the time to be an FBI agent. I knew someone had killed my father, and I actually hoped that it was someone with a reason for doing it, not someone who just accidentally ran him over, and then took off. I wanted his death to be revenge. And I assumed that it was. Honestly, it’s something that helps me sleep at night. And in my mind, I thought that it was probably you. There were other girls my father victimized but Claire is the one I always remember, probably because she was kind to me and I’ll never forget that.