an innocent boy with this car—Michael Penhale—and no one did anything about it. He got away with it because he was the son of the mayor. But he was guilty, and pretty much everyone knew it. No one would blame the Penhale family for wanting revenge. . . .”
The color drained from Paul’s face, and his husband, Joe, looked like he was about to leap out of his seat. Stevie crossed the front of the room quickly, to stand by Susan Marks.
“Something bothered me about the conversation I had with you,” she said. “I couldn’t figure out what it was until now.”
Susan looked at Stevie, with a glint of interest in her eye.
“There’s a thing that people sometimes do when they make up a lie,” Stevie said. “They make up details, specific ones. Paul told me that he and Shawn were in the lake house that night learning ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on guitar. That made sense. But then you told me the same thing. You were really vague about everything else. You said you did some random checks and went to bed. But you made sure to tell me about the guitar and the song. When I left your house, I ran into Shawn on the street.”
Stevie looked to Shawn, who folded his arms across his chest.
“He didn’t want to talk to me,” Stevie said. “But then he really didn’t want to talk to me when I said I’d spoken to you. All three of you really seemed to want everyone to know that Paul and Shawn were in the lake house playing ‘Stairway to Heaven’—like it was the most important thing that happened
that night. There’s really only one reason you’d all be so specific and all tell that same story over and over in the same way. It’s because it wasn’t true.”
Shawn put his head down and glowered a bit. Paul put his hands to his eyes and wiped away a tear, as his husband patted his arm. Susan continued to look at Stevie with a growing wariness.
“Paul,” Stevie said, “you weren’t in the lake house.”
Everyone in the barn fell utterly silent, so Paul’s reply seemed to boom out.
“No,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t. It’s not their fault. They were helping me.”
“I know,” Stevie said. “Only Shawn was in there that night, watching over the lake. He probably was playing the guitar and learning ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Susan, you did check in there to make sure there was a lifeguard on duty, but I doubt you noticed what song it was. I don’t think you were a big Led Zeppelin fan.”
Susan gave a soft snort.
“Paul,” Stevie continued, “you were somewhere else, but you weren’t murdering anyone.”
“No,” he said, folding his hands on his lap. “No, I wasn’t. It’s been so long. It’s so ridiculous we’ve had to keep this up. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“No,” Stevie said, “you were meeting a boy.”
Paul nodded. “He was from another town. He drove over to meet me in the woods. Then the murders happened and I had to prove where I was. I couldn’t be gay. I would have been
run out of town. I wouldn’t have been allowed to work at a camp, for sure, because they would have believed that a gay guy couldn’t work with kids, because . . .”
“Because it was 1978,” Stevie said. “The same reason you had to keep quiet, even though you’d met your wife and were falling in love.” This was to Susan, whose lip wobbled a little. She gave Stevie a nod.
“So what happened?” Stevie asked gently.
Susan looked at Shawn, who sighed and nodded.
“The morning after,” Susan said, “I spoke to each counselor, one-on-one, to find out exactly what was going on that night. When I got to Paul—he couldn’t really answer. He said something vague about taking a walk. I knew right away what that meant. I knew he was gay. I knew who most of my gay kids were, and I always tried to look out for them. I was gay and closeted too, but I was an adult. He was just a kid, and he’d already been through so much that year. I knew what would happen to him if he had to tell the police he was meeting a boy. He could have lied, made up a girl, but then they might have asked who she was. Then I remembered that Shawn had been all alone in the lake house. Paul and Shawn were friends, and they were both good kids. I realized that both Shawn and Paul might have trouble with this situation—Shawn because of Sabrina, and Paul because of Todd. So I got the idea for them to say they were together. To protect them, you understand. So I brought Shawn in . . .”