“Let’s talk about Jeremiah. You told Shelby on Friday that you saw Jeremiah Sloan on your property several times this year. He would come up to the house and the barn.”
“That’s true.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I have no idea.”
“But you knew the boy.”
“Of course.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing of consequence. He said he was out exploring. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Did he mention anything about the Ursulina?”
“The Ursulina?” Keith shot me a puzzled look. “No.”
“Did he say anything about being near your house on the night your wife was killed?”
Keith’s eyes widened with concern. “No.”
“And yet Shelby says you were afraid you would become a suspect in Jeremiah’s disappearance.”
“Yes, I did say that.”
“Why would you be afraid of that if you did nothing wrong?”
“Well, here we are, Adam. Does that answer your question?”
“We’re getting a warrant to search your property. What are we going to find when we do that?”
“Nothing.”
“Are we going to find Jeremiah?”
“No, that’s crazy.”
“If the boy’s here, it would be better to tell us now.”
“I don’t know what happened to Jeremiah. I had nothing to do with his disappearance. You can look all you want.”
Adam stared down at a folder in his lap. “I reviewed the notes from when we talked after Colleen’s murder last fall. Do you still take psychotropic medications in conjunction with PTSD from your military service?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take any of those medications on the day your wife was killed?”
“I’m sure I did. I take them every day. I told you that.”
“Do you still suffer from night terrors?”
“Yes.”
“The leg you lost. Does it hurt? Your back, your neck?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, you’re in almost constant pain, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Does that take an emotional toll on you, too?”
“Yes.”
I felt as if I were watching the drip-drip-drip of a water torture. Keith was calm, but each question chipped away at his psyche, which wasn’t all that strong to begin with. He needed this interview to end. I could see him glance at me in frustration as if I could rescue him from this, but I couldn’t.
This would only end with him telling us what he’d done. When I looked into his eyes, I knew he was hiding things. That was the problem I’d had from the beginning. I knew him too well.
Adam shook his head in sympathy. He was Keith’s friend now. He scooted his chair closer and leaned forward.
“Look, Keith, I know the burden you’re carrying. You went through hell overseas, physically and emotionally. I get it. I respect it. Like you say, you’re in pain every day. All kinds of pain, the kind that the rest of us can’t appreciate. Colleen couldn’t appreciate it, could she? She didn’t understand. She wanted to, but she didn’t. And you wanted to be the husband she needed, but you couldn’t do that either, could you?”
Keith didn’t take his eyes off me. Adam was talking, but Keith was looking at me. Like he needed me to offer him some kind of absolution. I found it hard to stare back at him, but I did. I knew I was the one who could break him, and I had no choice.
I mouthed: Tell them.
Then again: Tell them.
And he did.
“Okay,” Keith murmured, opening up the floodgate. The water came crashing through. “You’re right. I couldn’t be the husband that Colleen needed. I never could. She was never happy.”
“Because of you.”
“Yes.”
“You had a bad marriage, and it was your fault.”
“Yes, it was.”
“You blamed yourself for putting your wife through hell, and then you went and cheated on her.”
Keith blinked over and over. “Yes, I did.”
“That made you feel guilty.”
“Of course.”
“Did you lose sleep over it? Did you lay awake thinking about it?”
“Yes.”
“It was like a constant weight in your gut making you sick.”
“Yes, it was.”
“So what did you do?”
Keith said nothing. His breathing came faster and faster.
“Did you tell her?” Adam asked.
I saw sweat on Keith’s face. He still said nothing, but his emotions began to come apart.
“I think you told her,” Adam went on. “Come on, Keith. November fourteenth. You told Colleen what you did. You told her about the affair. You couldn’t stand the burden anymore. You couldn’t keep the secret. So you told her. Right?”
Keith inhaled and held his breath. The seconds ticked by, and he didn’t breathe.
Then he finally spoke.
“Yes, I told her.”
I looked away in disgust. With him. With myself. Of course he’d told her. Of course he’d lied about it to me. He’d lied about everything.
“You admit you told her about the affair,” Adam went on coldly.
“Yes.”
“Was it that day? November fourteenth?”
“Yes.”
“The two of you argued.”
“Yes.”
“She was hurt. Devastated.”
“Yes, she was.”
“She went to Stanton. You were apart all day.”
“That’s right.”
“And when she came home, you kept arguing, and you lost control, and you shot your wife.”
“No, I didn’t do that.”
“You took the gun — your gun — and you killed her.”
“No.”
“Did you see Jeremiah? Did you know he was watching?”
“I didn’t see him, because I wasn’t there.”
“When did you find out that he knew what you’d done?”
“I never found out anything like that. That’s not the way it happened.”
“Keith, you’ve told us the truth about everything else. Why lie to us now?”
“I didn’t kill Colleen!” Keith’s voice rose as he denied it again. I couldn’t resist staring at him. I had to see his face. “Look, I know you don’t believe me. Yes, I had a bad marriage, it was my fault, I cheated on my wife. She was going to leave me and divorce me. All of that’s true. But I didn’t kill her. It wasn’t me. I came home from the lake and found her dead.”
Adam shook his head, as if Keith were a child making up a lie. “A burglar shot her? Really? You’re sticking with that?”
“It’s the truth,” he told us, and his eyes begged me to believe him.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t believe him.
All those months later, I finally accepted what had been in front of me from the beginning.
I’d slept with a man who killed his wife.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next day, we searched under a sky blanketed with clouds. We searched for Jeremiah.
The FBI canvassed Keith’s house, barn, and land. Dozens of agents hunted for DNA, blood, hair, fiber, and fingerprints that would tell us whether Jeremiah had been there. They looked for freshly turned earth and the ash of fires that could be sifted for bones. Dogs traveled the land with their noses to the ground, sniffing for the smell of a body buried underground.
Keith limped back and forth throughout the search, wearing a path in the damp grass. Every now and then, he looked at me, and I looked back at him. Whatever feelings we’d had for each other were gone.
We’d cordoned off the road to Keith’s house. Beyond the police tape, dozens of people spied on the search. There had been no official announcement, but news of what was going on spread faster than a virus here. The whole town had gotten the word that Keith Whalen was a person of interest in the murder of Colleen Whalen and in the disappearance of Jeremiah Sloan. Ellen and Dennis were among the crowd outside, holding a vigil for their son.