Because I knew I’d been wrong about one thing—the most important thing. Rachel and the boys weren’t in the basement. They might’ve been there at one time, but they weren’t there now. I didn’t know where he’d taken them, where he’d put them.
He’d eventually break, just like he had in the basement. Because he wasn’t used to being held accountable for anything. Not for a young girl’s suicide and not for the tangled web he’d woven for himself by giving in to his illicit desires. Soon he’d tell them where Rachel and the boys were, and the waiting and wondering and guessing would be over. For now he simply lied.
“He and Elliot Wyman were in on it together,” Father Mathew said to the cops leading us out through the church. “They planned everything. They’ve been taking money from the church donations, and David Barren finally caught on to them.”
I raised my head from looking at the floor. We were nearing the sanctuary, and something strange was happening. A few dozen people milled around in the atrium, parishioners here for their Wednesday night worship, which should have started a while ago. There was a weird reverberation in the air, and for a moment I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was hearing Father Mathew’s continued liturgy of lies both from him and from somewhere else ahead. From the sanctuary speakers.
He sputtered out a few more words, then realized he was hearing it, too, and slowly quieted.
My eyes went down to his waist, to the microphone pack he wore there for Mass, to the little green light glowing beneath his gown.
It must’ve gotten turned on during our initial scuffle.
Though the police kept us moving, it felt like we were wading through amber. Everything slowed down.
The parishioners stood watching us being led out, arms crossed over chests, expressions aghast at what they’d heard. Their eyes were pinpoints, focused on the father as he was escorted past. He tried saying something but stopped as some people turned their backs. Others murmured to themselves.
None of them spared me a glance.
Outside, the parking lot was alive with red-and-blue lights. Police cruisers were parked askew of each other, doors still flung open, radios chattering away. The cops holding my elbows guided me over to one of the cars and put me in the back. The seat was hard plastic and uncomfortable. Two cars away Father Mathew was placed in the back seat of another cruiser. I could only see the crown of his crew cut. I wondered if he was praying.
Sometime later, could’ve been two minutes or twenty, Spanner rolled into the lot and climbed out of his sedan. He stood talking to several uniforms, and one of them gestured at the church, then at the cars where Father Mathew and I sat. Spanner threw me a look, then turned and went inside the church. He came back maybe fifteen minutes later and opened the door beside me.
I looked out at him through one eye. My other was swelling shut. We sat that way for a few seconds, just studying one another. Then he shook his head and told me I was going to the station. I didn’t say anything; it could and would be held against me and all that. He shut the door, and a uniformed cop eventually climbed in the front seat, and we drove away.
The church and the Loop receded from view. The last evening light snagged on the church’s steeple, and I thought of a day a million years ago when I’d told Rachel I loved her. Asked if we could be together someday. Even though she hadn’t said it back, I’d held on to hope, all the way from then until now.
They found her and the boys the next morning.
31
I was in lockup when it happened, so I didn’t hear about it until later.
But it went something like this:
Around ten in the morning, about the same time I was listening to Kel berate the city jail officer regarding my bail, Rachel’s car pulled onto the Loop and glided to a stop in the Barrens’ driveway. It sat there idling for a few minutes, then Rachel climbed out and looked at the house. Asher and Joey tried getting out from the back seat, but Rachel said something to them and they got back inside and shut the doors. She made her way slowly up the front steps, stopping to look at the broken window in the door, which had been covered over with a piece of cardboard. Then she went inside.
Mrs. Tross, unsurprisingly, was on her front porch with her binoculars and witnessed this new development in the development. She immediately called the police. So did Mrs. Pell across the street. All in all, the Sandford PD received no fewer than ten calls that morning regarding the woman and children who had been missing for a week.
By the time the first cruiser rolled onto the Loop and came to a stop before the Barrens’， Rachel had exited the house and was standing in the driveway as if she were lost. The responding officer came up to her, and they spoke. Several people said later that Rachel pointed at the house and shook her head. Then her voice rose loud enough for most listening out of open windows or gawking from porches to hear. Only one word, but it conveyed plenty. What?