“This guy offer you something? Pay you?”

“No.”

I squinted. “Nothing?”

“I didn’t think anyone would get hurt,” she said. “The guy made it seem like Jed was a danger.”

“To you?”

“To himself.” Kelly raised her voice.

“But you just said Jed wasn’t dangerous.”

Kelly’s eyes flitted left. Was she lying? None of this made sense.

“Jed never did anything with this research,” she said. “He was fanatical. And then that day at the school, he showed up.”

“The day of the shooting?”

“Leaf and I were talking in the back room during our free period, and there was a knock on the door.”

“You let Jed in?”

“I opened the door, and there he was. This crazy look on his face. I told him I didn’t have the papers anymore.”

I pictured Jed Harrington, unhinged.

“Things escalated,” Kelly continued. “Leaf told him to take it easy. ‘Chill out, Cochise,’ Leaf said. And Jed took out a gun. And shot him.”

Kelly went silent then, but tears ran down her cheek.

Was she faking?

Was she pathological?

“I don’t want to lose what we have,” she said to me. “That’s why I stayed.”

“Stayed” meaning what?

I stared at Kelly.

Was any of what she was saying true? I mean, we’d been together for three days at Schaeffer Lake, and she never mentioned any connection to Jed.

“So that’s your story?” I said. “Dark-haired white guy in an SUV asked you to steal from Jed. Jed got mad and shot Leaf with a gun he brought to school.”

“It’s the truth.”

“And you thought you’d be in a Law & Order episode if you told us.”

Kelly’s face was angry now, and she violently wiped at the tears on each cheek.

I wasn’t sure what to believe. Maybe she shot Leaf Tanner. Maybe she and Jed planned it together. And then I’d shot Jed, leaving her to invent any story she wanted.

I pulled out my phone. Called for a black and white to take her to the station house.

“Are we finished?” she asked. “You and me?”

I wondered when and where I’d missed something. At the lake, Kelly had mentioned how fast she could leave town. Pack everything in one carload.

“We never got started,” I said. “This whole thing was built on a lie.”

I walked out to the street and called Abe. Let him know what had happened.

“Jesus H. Christ on a grain of rice,” he said.

It was impossible not to look like a fool on this one. But it wasn’t just me. Kelly had been the chief’s guest at the police banquet. She’d sat between Chief Senza and Mayor Stems. Abe and Merle had interviewed her. Even the GBI in the last week. And poor Leaf Tanner, who we initially had suspected of being involved . . . he’d done nothing.

A black and white rolled to the curb as I finished up with Abe.

I helped Kelly into the squad car. Told the blue-suiters that Abe Kaplan was waiting for her on the other end.