“You look like your online pictures, Trinity Scott.”
“You have access to internet, then?”
A slow, sly smile. “You’d be surprised what inmates can access.”
His gaze moves to my notebook and the recording device on the table.
“Mr. Pelley, Clayton . . . Can I call you Clayton?”
“Be my guest. Did you have a good trip?”
I’m cognizant of my twenty minutes sifting away.
“Fine. Do you mind?” I nod to the digital recorder. “I’d like to have your voice on air. When you’re ready, of course.”
He moistens his lips, his gaze going to my mouth. “Go right ahead.”
I click the recorder on. The red light glows—a tiny cyclops observing, documenting. I become acutely conscious of my potential audience’s point of view, and of the need to frame my questions to solicit the responses I hope for. I’m alert to different narrative arcs that might present themselves, and how best to run with them. I’m aware of the fact that I am an actor in this production.
I clear my throat. “As I mentioned in my letter, my podcast is—”
“I know about your podcast,” he says in his low, scratchy voice. “I’ve listened. I know about you.”
“I, yes, I . . . wasn’t sure that you could get access to things like that.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know yet, Trinity Scott.” He leans forward suddenly and slaps his palms on the table. I jump.
He grins. Then laughs. A hoarse, whispery sound. “But, young Trinity Scott, I will do my best to educate you.”
Resentment swells in my belly, twisting into anger and then fingering down into something much deeper and darker and more complex. My mind steels.
“Like you ‘educated’ Leena Rai?” I say, my gaze locked on his. “You were her guidance counselor, and you tutored her after school. English literature.”
He runs his tongue along his bottom lip. “I did indeed. A rewarding student. So tell me what you want to know.”
I shift slightly in my chair, pick up my notepad and pencil, and glance at my list of questions because they’ve fled my mind. I’m running out of time already, and I need a quote. I go straight for the big fruit.
“Why now, Clayton? Why’ve you never spoken a word of your crime, and why are you choosing to do so now?” I pause. “And it’s not like you haven’t had plenty of requests over the years, from academics to journalists to writers of true crime. So why me?”
He leans back and hooks his hands behind his head. It shows his muscles. The body language screams dominance. “You mean why this green and pretty little podcaster? Is it because old Clay Pelley wants to look at some fresh, live female, have her come to him, because he’s bored in his prison cell after all these years—because he’s had nothing since fourteen-year-old Leena?”
Heat flares into my cheeks.
He leans forward. “Why do you think?”
Careful now.
“Power,” I say. “Your silence was your last hold on some kind of power, control, over Leena and her parents. You denied them their day in court. You denied the press answers. Your silence was some kind of last bid for control over the community of Twin Falls, over the school, the students. Over the detectives who went after you, arrested you, and locked you up.” I pause. “But over time that power has waned, because no one is coming to you anymore with hat in hand, begging for you to talk. You’ve been forgotten. Lost in the monotony of incarceration. Then suddenly true crime podcasting finds its day in the limelight, and you get my offer. And . . . well, it offers a diversion. It once more promises you a degree of control over something.” I narrow my gaze. “Control over a young woman.”
A smile quirks across his face. He angles his head. “But you also get something in return, no? Tell me, Trinity, what is your goal? Ratings?”
“More people listening to my podcast. Bigger audience. And . . . this case intrigues me.”
“My case is not that unusual. Male sexually assaults and kills young female. It happens. All the time.”
“It’s not every day that the assailant is a teacher. A husband. A father. It raises your stock.”
“I think I’m going to like you, Trinity Scott.” He smiles. Deeply. The sexual undertones are thick. And suddenly I feel ill. Too much coffee, not enough sleep, too much adrenaline. And I don’t like him. Disgust rises in my throat, and for a rare, wild moment, I question what I’m even doing here. But time is ticking. I’m committed. I have sponsors. I need to see this through for so many reasons.
“Let’s start with Leena,” I say firmly. “Why her?”
“You mean why pick her out of all the other girls at school?”
“Yes. I’ve obtained copies of all your case files, and from the police transcript of your confession, Leena wasn’t just an opportunity that presented itself on Devil’s Bridge that night. Drunk and alone. In the dark with no one to see. You cultivated her. You targeted her. The finale beneath the bridge was the result. So why Leena?”
“She wasn’t like the others.”
“How so?”
An odd look changes his face. He lowers his scratchy voice. “Why wasn’t she like the others? I think you know the answer to that. I think everyone knows. Leena wasn’t one of the sexy, pretty girls. She was . . . Plain would be an understatement, right, Trinity?”
I feel my blood heat. “So her looks made her an outsider? Did this make her an easier target?”
“Go on, say it,” he taunts. “Leena was ugly. That’s how she used to refer to herself, anyway. It’s what other girls and boys at school called her. They called her names. Fatso. Biggo. Weirdo. Freak.” He watches my eyes. “She was bullied.”
“So this made her easier to manipulate, because she was starved of affection? An outcast?”
“Leena was socially awkward, and yes, hungry for affection. Needy for it. But she was also gifted. It’s why she was moved two grades up in her English class, and it’s why I was helping tutor her. I think these days she’d probably be diagnosed on the autism spectrum. Talented poet. Beautiful soul deep inside. People couldn’t see past the rest into that beautiful soul.”
Shock ripples through me.
“So you killed her? Because she was an outsider and a beautiful, gifted soul?”
Silence. A vein pulses at his temple. He’s weighing me, perhaps reevaluating what he’s going to tell me, changing his mind.
I aim for the chink that I glimpse in his armor.
“Did you like Leena?”
A flicker of emotion darts through his eyes. It strikes me like a blow—Clayton Pelley actually liked the girl. I’m intrigued, and my fear filters away.
“She liked you, Clayton. According to the handful of pages of her journal that were found. She wrote that you counseled her on the concept of a Jungian shadow. She wrote that both you and she had dangerous shadows.”
He fiddles with the edge of the table.
I lean forward and say, “She had dreams of getting out of Twin Falls. You were the only one who understood her, according to her words.”
Silence.
“She trusted you, Clayton.”