Of course, I learned all this later after spending almost two days bouncing back and forth from a cell to an interrogation room where I answered questions. Lots and lots of questions. The only highlight of this being none of them were asked by Detective Spanner. It seemed his outright dismissal of my call of alarm prior to going up to the church and his refusal to follow up on it didn’t sit well with the powers that be. Not well at all. I saw him once during those two days of questioning. He looked even worse than he had at the hospital, and that was saying something. I had trouble gathering much sympathy.
Regardless, I was put through the crucible. How had I come to know about Father Mathew and David’s scheme? How had I known Mary Shelby’s death hadn’t been an accident? I was again in the middle of a minefield. Each and every step could create an explosion that would destroy my chances at seeing anything other than the inside of a cell for the foreseeable future.
So I told them the truth. Or at least as much of it as they needed.
I said I’d never believed Mary’s death had been an accident （I hadn’t）。
I said I’d gone to her house to gather some pictures out of sentimentality and gotten curious, then searched through her computer （I had）。
I told them that the discovery of the spreadsheets had led me to question Jill Abernathy （it had）， which in turn led me to deduce that Father Mathew was involved somehow with the diminishing payments and ultimately Mary’s demise （he had been）。 I also said I’d heard rumors that David and Ryan’s business had been floundering and theorized their deaths had tied into the church donations after speaking with one Mrs. Tross, who had told me she’d seen Mary Shelby meeting with David shortly before her death.
I learned something else, too, as I was interrogated—cops did not like being one-upped. Especially in an investigation where they’d been stymied. I tried downplaying my involvement to the very basics, telling them I was simply concerned about Rachel and the boys since they were my friends.
“Friends, huh?” a detective by the name of Daern said in one of the longer questioning periods. He had removed his jacket, and there were little half-moons of perspiration in the armpits of his shirt. “That it?”
“That’s it,” I said. “My nieces play with her boys pretty often. She checks in on my dad from time to time. Neighbor stuff.”
“Neighbor stuff,” Daern repeated, and looked at me like I was a pane of glass. But that was all that was said.
The central issue the authorities were concerned with was Elliot Wyman’s death.
Just like I’d guessed, Father Mathew had cracked with a little pressure and the fact that over two dozen members of the church had heard his confession through the sanctuary’s speaker system. He’d spilled his guts about everything—Joey’s molestation, David’s blackmail, Mary and Ryan’s murders, Elliot’s accidental involvement and how he’d used the impressionable man to do his bidding, including but not limited to following me after I’d asked Father Mathew about his phone call with Ryan Vallance. In regard to Elliot’s death, he eventually confessed about the struggle and the gun going off. He hadn’t meant for Elliot to die, just like he hadn’t meant for any of the other things to happen. Even after admitting to them, he still couldn’t take responsibility for his actions. I wasn’t surprised.
Though they couldn’t hang any of the deaths on me, I was formally charged with assault, breaking and entering, interfering with a criminal case, and several other crimes that escape me now. I was allowed bail since my record was clean other than the vandalization charge from when I’d broken the church’s window, which had ultimately been dropped anyway.
When I was released, Kel picked me up outside city hall, where the jail was located, hugging me hard, then punching me even harder in the shoulder. She said I was a stupid, stupid person and she loved me very much. Dad said about the same when I got home and visited him—he’d been discharged from the hospital the day before and had been issued a canister of oxygen—but all in all, they understood better than anyone why I’d done what I’d done.
I sat alone by the big windows that first night back in my house. Sat looking up the street at the darkened shape of Rachel’s home. I’d heard she and the boys were staying at a hotel and thought it very telling they weren’t at her parents’ house. I thought maybe a reckoning was taking place within the Barren and Worth households. The allegiance between the two power families was suddenly and rapidly dissolving, and I wondered how everything would wash out. In any case Rachel and the boys were safe now, and that was all that mattered to me.