“She lied to the police about the ring.”

Maggie moistened her lips. “She loves you.”

“She didn’t know—I’d never told her all these years. Then, when I finally had to, she stood by me. A man can’t ask for more than that.” He paced again, so that the soles of his shoes hitting hardwood and rug were the only sounds. “I didn’t murder him,” Stan said flatly. When he looked at Maggie, his eyes were glazed with fatigue. “It was an accident.”

She gripped that, clung to that. “Then if you go to the police and explain—”

“Explain?” Stan cut her off. “Explain that I killed a man, buried him and drove his car into the river?” He rubbed the heels of his hands over his face. “I was only twenty,” he began. “Joyce and I’d been in love for two years. Morgan had already made it clear that there couldn’t be anything between us, so we saw each other in secret. When Joyce found out she was pregnant, there couldn’t be any more secrets.”

He leaned against the window and stared into the room. “We should’ve known there was something wrong when he took it so well, but we were both so relieved, both so thrilled at the idea of being married and starting a family, that we never caught on. He told us to keep it quiet for a few weeks while he arranged for the wedding.”

Maggie remembered the stern face from the photograph. “But he didn’t mean it.”

“No, both of us were too wrapped up in each other to remember what kind of man he was.” Stan kept moving in the same line, to the window, back to the center of the room, to the window again. “He said he was having trouble with groundhogs up at his old place. I was young and eager to do anything to keep on the right side of him. I told him I’d bring my shotgun one evening after work and take care of them.”

He saw Maggie shudder and glance at the pistol on his hip. “It was dusk when he drove up. I didn’t expect him. When he got out of the car, I remember thinking he looked like an undertaker, all in black with shiny shoes. He was carrying a little metal box that he set down on the stump of a tree near the gully. He didn’t waste any time,” Stan continued. “He told me outright that he’d never let a small-town nobody like me marry his daughter. He said he was going to send her away. Sweden or somewhere. She’d have the baby and give it away. He didn’t expect me to keep quiet for nothing. He told me he had twenty-five thousand in the box. I was to take it and disappear.”