“And you really think this boy Chuck killed himself so you’d find the other boy?” Stuart asked for the fifth time.

I shrugged. “I don’t know what was going through his mind.”

“He could have written a note, he could have called us, he could have called you, for that matter, and said, ‘My dad has put a boy in a hidden room,’ and that would have solved the problem.”

“That wouldn’t have solved the problem for him,” Tolliver said.

“He was an adolescent boy,” I said. “He was full of drama and horror and guilt and sorrow. I guess he was trying to atone for himself and his father.”

“So what do you think, Ms. Connelly? Do you think he tortured the animals willingly?”

“If he did, that enjoyment horrified him.” I didn’t think there was a simple explanation of Chuck Almand’s behavior. I thought at the end he’d tried to do the right thing, but his thinking processes hadn’t foreseen the possibility that he could come out the other side of the horror of his situation, come out and heal and recover. He just hadn’t lived long enough to believe that he had a future after his dad’s arrest, and he wanted his dad to stop killing. At least, that was the way I interpreted Chuck’s actions.

They talked at us for a long time, trying to pry things out of us that weren’t there to be gotten. “And don’t tell anyone anything you saw in the barn,” Klavin said. “Not until we get the case completely locked.”

That was easy to promise. We had no desire to talk about what we’d seen.

I had some doubts that the case was all wrapped up, but I kept them to myself. After all we’d done, they still weren’t going to listen to my speculations. But doubt niggled at me, and I had that feeling of incompleteness.

Now we had to find Manfred and his mother, who must be wondering what she’d done in her previous life to merit the punishment she was taking.

I asked the sheriff where Manfred was, and she surprised me by telling me he’d been kept here at the Knott County Hospital. He’d asked to stay here, she said.

“I can understand that,” I said to Tolliver as we climbed into Rob’s patrol car again. He’d finally been detailed to take us back to the cabin. “Otherwise, it would complicate his mom’s life so much, and if he can get the care he needs here, that’s better than moving him up to Asheville.”

“The doctor said he’d be okay here,” Rob said from the driver’s seat.