“And he admitted to killing both women? Madeline and Sophia?”

“No, he didn’t. But he didn’t deny it either.”

“Why not just admit it if you were going to jump off the building?”

“Why jump off the building if you didn’t do it?” I ask.

“Good point,” Diana says.

Bowman taps the papers in front of her. “And this tipped you off. This story Madeline left in your house after she beaned you with the bourbon bottle.”

“It’s a story about a young woman coming back to the town where she went to college in order to confront a professor who not only sexually harassed her but who also knew very specific details of the murder of her friend. And the description of the college and the town and the professor match real life here exactly. It’s Gatewood and Commonwealth and Lance. To a tee. She spelled it out. So she came back to confront me, but also to confront Lance and leave this story behind. And Lance killed her over it. Madeline said she thought someone was following her. Lance knew I went to the cemetery, and so did Madeline. The night Madeline was killed, I wasn’t home. Maybe she went looking for me. At my house and then at the cemetery. If Lance was following her, he ended up there as well.”

“Madeline told you she was being followed?”

“Yes. You see, Madeline was acting skittish. That night when I was knocked out . . . someone came into the house after Madeline left. A man. He stood over me. The door was open . . . and then it was closed when I woke up. I assumed it was Zach. Grendel always barks if he doesn’t know somebody, but he didn’t bark that night. At least not enough to wake me up. So maybe it wasn’t Zach in the house. Maybe it was Lance, and he found her the next night and killed her.”

Bowman scratches her chin. One side of her mouth goes up. “Let me ask you something—why didn’t Madeline just tell the police herself? Or the administration? Why communicate with a short story?”

“She was a writer. And a good one. That was the way she expressed herself. Fiction writers do that.”

“Why give it to you? Why not to us?”

“She didn’t think people in authority would believe her. Her experience in life had been that women aren’t listened to. And I didn’t help things much. I told her she might get in trouble for faking her disappearance. Resources were expended in looking for her. I know cops don’t like that.”

“We don’t. We used some manpower looking for her. I don’t know if she would have faced any charges for it, but we would have expressed our displeasure with her, that’s for sure.”