Pudgy little brat. There had been more than disgust at Erik’s pudginess, Liam thought. The reason Hilary Houten had left Erik where he had fallen was that Houten knew he couldn’t fit him through the crack. Liam willed his imagination away from that image only to be immediately assaulted by another.

The Shawshank hammer. Houten would have used it to break up the boy’s body enough to feed it through the crack. “And then?” was all he said.

Jefferson, eying him with caution, said, “And then he left. He didn’t even take the things he found in the cave with him, which mighta saved Erik’s life that time around. And he never told anyone. Until last night.”

A brief silence. “Where is Mr. Houten now?”

The old fart stared at him. “Didn’t I say? He’s dead. He only had the one drink but it made him sick as a dog afterward. I had to hold his head over the toilet and muscle him into bed. He passed right out.” He shook his head. “He always gets up when he smells the coffee. This morning he didn’t. I went in and he was dead. Already cold. His heart just gave out, I figure. Confession ain’t always good for the soul, you know.” He shifted in his chair. “I brung his body back in the boat, and called Fiona. He’s with her now, waiting on your call.”

He nodded at the cane. “I expect those voodoo techs you law enforcement types got nowadays can find traces of Berglund’s blood on the handle.”

Liam had recorded Jefferson’s entire statement on his phone. He gave it to Ms. Petroff to transcribe. Jefferson balanced a pair of cheaters with purple plastic frames on the very end of his nose, read it through carefully beginning to end, and signed.

He pulled himself to his feet with his walker and resettled the Blewestown Ballers ball cap more firmly on his head, causing the white tufts of hair at the sides to stand straight out perpendicular to the cap’s edge. Unlike Sybilla Karlsen, he’d aged beyond vanity. He stared out Liam’s window and spoke in a reminiscent voice. “You should have seen this place back in the day. Bay was filled with shrimp and salmon and king crab, canneries on both shores, fishing boats all over the damn place. Bars busting out all up and down the streets and young men flush with cash blowing it all on girls and booze. Japanese buyers lining up all the way to Soldotna to buy anything we could pull out of the water.” He looked in the direction of RPetCo’s rig. “And now it’s gonna be oil wells and rigs up and down the Bay, and probably spills, and no self-respecting fish is ever gonna want to spawn in a stream in these parts ever again.”

He turned and looked at Liam. “What happens now?”

Blue Jay Jefferson was a man who took his medicine straight, no chaser. “At best you’re guilty of obstruction of justice. At worst, you’re an accessory after the fact.”