"Three. Swoozie and I had been dating since we were kids. I knew we'd get married and then I'd never have a chance to be with anyone else. I didn't want to live my whole life only knowing one girl."

"And afterwards?"

"I wasn't sorry I'd done it, but I was scared Swoozie would find out. I already had a job lined up with her dad."

"You must have been relieved when Charisse disappeared."

"Well, hey, sure. I'll admit that, but so were a lot of guys, including Mr. Clean."

I smiled. "Mr. Clean?"

"Sure. Cornell. We called him that because he worked for his dad and his hands were always dirty. He used to scrub 'em with lye soap, but it never did any good."

My smile had faded because I'd blocked out his explanation and tuned into what he'd actually said. "Cornell was screwing Charisse?"

"Sure. Justine was holding out for marriage. She came up from nothing. And I mean her family was for shit –"

"I know about that," I said, cutting him off.

"She saw Cornell as the answer to her prayers. She wasn't about to put out unless he married her."

I thought about that. "I did hear Charisse had the hots for him."

"Oh, sure. She was also jealous of Justine. Compared to her life, Justine's already looked better, so she got competitive."

"And Justine knew about this?"

"Oh, no. No, no. Charisse knew better. After all, she was living at Justine's. She wasn't about to get herself thrown out on the street."

"You're telling me Cornell was in the same jeopardy you were."

"Big time. Even more so. He was everybody's hero – scholastics, sports, student government, you name it. We all looked up to him."

"Who else knew about this, aside from you?"

"Adrianne, I guess. She walked in on 'em once over at the Tuley-Belle. That's how she found out."

"How do you know that?"

"Because she told me."

"Why? Were you a close friend of hers?"

"No, not really. We were in the same church youth group. We went on a weekend retreat and I could see she was upset. I asked and she told me what was going on. She thought she should talk to our pastor, but I disagreed. I said it wasn't her job to save Cornell's soul. He was a big boy and he could work it out for himself."