“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.” She glanced at a wall clock. “And I can’t sit here any longer jawing about it. If I’m not on time, it’ll piss off the person I’m relieving.”
When she made a move to get up, Beth raised her hand to stay her and pressed on. “For the moment, let’s assume the same individual took all four girls. Let’s assume that the eclipses were significant to him, that he was adhering to a superstition, or observing a religious ritual. Was Crissy acquainted with anyone who had a fascination or preoccupation with anything like that?”
“Most of her friends go to mass.”
Beth fought to contain a smile. “What I had in mind was a ritual that’s a little more untraditional.”
“Stargazing? Moon cycles? How about voodoo? Now, there’s a preoccupation.”
John said, “Carla, please. I know this sounds off the wall, but—”
“Sounds plumb crazy. I’ve got better things to do than listen.” She stood up.
A second later, Beth was also on her feet. “What about zodiac signs?”
“What about them?”
“Did Crissy read her horoscope?”
“Lots of people do.”
“So she did? Was she obsessive about it? Did she plan around it? Had she had someone prepare her natal chart?”
“What the hell is that?”
“It shows the position of the sun, moon, planets at the exact moment of a person’s birth. Some believe it’s a forecaster of—”
Carla waved her hand in front of her face as though swatting at a housefly. “I never heard of such, and if Crissy had a chart like that, I didn’t know about it. Frankly, Ms. Collins, this all sounds like hocus-pocus you cooked up for your TV show. Which, by the way, I didn’t want any part of, and resented my tragedy being turned into entertainment for couch potatoes.
“The only reason I consented to giving that interview was to get you people off my back. I wouldn’t watch that program if you tied me to a chair and propped my eyelids open with toothpicks. And you.” She turned to John. “You had your chance to find the person who took my girl. But you didn’t.”
“That’s right,” he bit back. “I was pressured to stop looking, and I did. It was a self-serving decision that I’ll regret forever.”
“Well, you’re more than three years too late for regrets, aren’t you?”
“Too late for Crissy, yes. Too late for Billy. I don’t want to be too late for someone else.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you get absolution or not, Mr. Bowie.” She sneered, “You all were so proud of yourselves, waving around that false confession.”
“I wasn’t proud of it, Carla. I think Billy was bullied into writing that confession by the men who interrogated him.”
Her eyes narrowed with malicious satisfaction. “Billy didn’t write that confession at all, you fool. He couldn’t have. He was dyslexic.” She snickered, adding, “Surprise!”
Chapter 22
With dismay, Beth said, “Billy couldn’t read and write?”
“Enough to get by,” Carla said, “but he would freeze up when he was stressed. Whenever his frustration reached a boiling point, he’d act out.”
John was so angry with the woman, he was on the brink of acting out.
“Why wasn’t Billy placed in special classes?” Beth asked.
“They didn’t figure out the problem until he was around ten. By then Gracie had been homeschooling him for several years. She read up on dyslexia and learned ways of helping him.”
“She dealt with it on her own?”
“Tutors cost money she didn’t have, and she didn’t want to put Billy back in school and have him made fun of.”
Turning to John, she said, “Under the pressure you police were applying, he sure as hell couldn’t have written anything like that confession. His letters would’ve been all jumbled up.”
John unclenched his jaw. “This confounds me. Absolutely confounds me. Why in God’s name weren’t we told?”
“Gracie did tell.”
“She didn’t tell Mitch Haskell and me. We thought hearing about the suicide was enough for one night, so we didn’t mention the note to her.”
“Well, Barker came along behind you and told her. She insisted that Billy didn’t write it, couldn’t have. You know what Barker did? He laughed at her and said, ‘Nice try, lady.’
“He accused her of making up the dyslexia only to clear Billy’s name. She had no way of proving he was dyslexic because he’d never been officially diagnosed, and it wasn’t in his school records.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, someone, anyone, Carla?”
“Gracie begged me not to. After being humiliated by Barker, she caved in. She was grieving. Besides, a woman of her generation ‘knew her place.’ It wasn’t in her nature to fight back. Not like me. I fight back, and I fight dirty.”
“Real dirty, Carla. Real dirty.”