Judith put down the mug. She placed her palms flat on the table.
“Thou shalt not lie,” Charlie said. “That’s a Bible verse, right?”
Judith’s lips parted. She breathed out, then in again before she spoke. “It’s part of the Ten Commandments. ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ But I think you’re looking for Proverbs.” She closed her eyes. She recited, “‘These six things the Lord doth hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent—’” Her throat worked. “‘That shed innocent blood.’” She paused again before finishing, “‘An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to evil, a false witness that speaketh lies and he that soweth discord among brethren.’”
“That’s quite a list.”
Judith looked down at her hands, still spread flat to the table. Her nails were clipped close. Her fingers were long and thin. They cast a narrow shadow on the top of the polished walnut table.
Like the spider’s leg that Sam had seen inching its way into the camera’s frame.
Ben had been able to work more wizardry on his laptop once he realized what they were all staring at. It was like an optical illusion. Once you understood what your eyes were seeing, you could never again see the image otherwise.
In that paused frame, the camera had caught Kelly Wilson holding the revolver, just as she had confessed to Sam, but as with a lot of Kelly Wilson’s statements, there was more to the story.
Kelly had worn black that day.
Judith Pinkman had worn red.
Charlie remembered thinking how the woman’s shirt was soaked through with Lucy Alexander’s blood.
The sepia tone of the recording had almost blended the two dark colors, but once Ben had finished on his laptop, the truth was there for all to see.
The black-sleeved arm had a red-sleeved arm alongside it.
Two arms pointing toward the classroom door.
Two fingers wrapped around the trigger.
“The gun was in my hand.”
Kelly Wilson had told Sam at least three times during the interview that she was holding the revolver when Douglas Pinkman and Lucy Alexander were murdered.
What the girl had failed to mention was that Judith Pinkman’s hand was holding it there.
Charlie said, “They tested Kelly for gunshot residue at the hospital. It was on her hand, all over her shirt. Exactly where you’d expect to find it.”
Judith sat back in her chair. Her eyes stayed on her own hands.
Charlie said, “The residue is like talcum powder, if that’s what you’re worried about. It washes off with soap and water.”
“I know it does, Charlotte.” Her voice was scratchy, like the sound a record makes when the needle first hits the vinyl. “I know it does.”
Charlie waited. She could hear a clock ticking somewhere. She felt a slight breeze snaking out from the edges of the closed kitchen door.
Judith finally looked up. Her eyes glistened in the overhead light. She studied Charlie for a moment, then asked, “Why is it you? Why didn’t the police come?”
Charlie did not realize that she was holding her breath until she felt the strain in her lungs. “Do you want it to be the police?”
Judith looked up at the ceiling. Her tears began to fall. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
Charlie said, “She was pregnant.”
“Again,” Judith said. “She had an abortion in middle school.”
Charlie braced herself for a polemic about the sanctity of life, but Judith did not offer one.
Instead, the woman stood up. She pulled a paper towel from the roll. She wiped her face. “The father was a boy on the football team. Several boys had their fun, apparently. She was naïve. She had no idea what they were doing to her.”
“Who was the father this time?”
“You’re going to make me say it?”
Charlie nodded. She was a recent convert to giving voice to the truth.
“Doug,” she said. “He fucked her in my room.” Charlie must have reacted to the fuck, because she said, “I’m sorry for the language, but when you see your husband screwing a seventeen-year-old girl in the classroom where you teach middle schoolers, that’s the first word that comes to mind.”
“Seventeen,” Charlie repeated. Douglas Pinkman had been an administrator. Kelly Wilson was a student in the same school system. What he had done was commit statutory rape. Fucking had nothing to do with it.
Judith said, “That’s why the camera was angled down. Doug was smart about it. He was always smart about it.”
“There were other students?”
“Anything he could stick it into.” She balled the paper towel into her hand. She had become visibly angry. For the first time, Charlie was worried Sam and Ben had been right about how dangerous this could be.
Charlie asked, “That’s why this happened, because Kelly got pregnant?”
“It wasn’t for the reason you’re thinking. I’m sorry, Charlotte. You clearly wanted children, but I didn’t. I never did. I love them, I love how their minds work, I love how funny and interesting they can be, but I love it more when I can leave them at school, come home and read a book and enjoy the silence.” She tossed the paper towel into the trash can. “I’m not some desperate woman who couldn’t have a child so she snapped. Not having a child was a choice. A choice I thought Doug agreed with, but—” She shrugged. “You never know how bad your marriage is until it’s over.”
Charlie guessed, “He wanted a divorce?”
Judith laughed bitterly. “No, and I didn’t want one either. I had learned to live with his perpetual midlife crisis. He wasn’t a pedophile. He didn’t go after the young ones.”
Charlie wondered at how easily the woman dismissed the fact that Kelly Wilson had the emotional intelligence of a child.
Judith said, “Doug wanted us to keep the baby. Kelly was going to drop out of school anyway. There was no way she could graduate. He wanted us to give her some money, make her go away, and raise the baby together.”
Of all the things Judith could have said, Charlie had never suspected this was what had finally broken her. “What changed his mind about wanting a kid?”
“Feeling his mortality? Wanting to leave a legacy? Just so damn arrogant and selfish and stupid?” She huffed out an angry breath. “I’m fifty-six years old. Doug was about to turn sixty. We should be planning our retirement. I didn’t want to raise some other woman’s—some teenager’s—baby.” She shook her head, clearly still furious. “Not to mention Kelly’s mental deficits. Doug wasn’t just expecting me to raise a child for the next eighteen years. He wanted us to be stuck with it for the rest of our lives.”
Any sympathy Charlie could have felt evaporated with those words.
Judith asked, “What else did Kelly tell you?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I was going to play the martyr; the poor widow accused of being complicit by a cold-blooded simpleton. Who would believe her over me?”
Charlie said nothing, but she knew that, without the footage, no one would have believed the girl.
“So.” Judith angrily wiped away her tears. “Is this the part where I tell you how I did it?” She pointed to Charlie’s phone. “Make sure it’s still recording.”
Charlie turned over the phone, though she trusted that Ben had set it up properly. The phone was not only recording, it was transmitting the audio back to his laptop.
Judith said, “The affair started a year ago. I saw them through the window in my classroom. Doug thought I had left. He stayed to lock up—at least, that’s what he said. I went back for some papers. As I said, he was screwing her on one of the desks.”
Charlie pressed her back to the chair. Judith seemed to be getting angrier with each word.
“So, I did what any obedient wife would do. I turned around. I went home. I prepared dinner. Doug came home. He told me he got hung up with a parent
. We watched TV together and I seethed. I seethed all night.”
“When did you start tutoring Kelly?”