“You know I was! You were with me.”

“I was out for more than ten hours. And there are a hundred more miles on my car now than there were yesterday afternoon.”

“Some kids must have borrowed it. Get away from me. I don’t want to be interrogated.”

He went, but he wasn’t satisfied. The next day he said, “Did you ever show those glasses to Duff, the ones I found?”

“Yes, I gave them to him.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing that I recall.”

Then I had a horrible thought. If I was guilty of the murder of Stephanie—and now of Mrs. Reddy and Mrs. Weber—was I also responsible for leading Duff into evil? Could he have taken the sleeping pills knowingly because of that?

The next day I asked Father Jackson if I could go to confession. He looked at me for a while, then nodded and went to his car and got his stole. He put it around his neck and sat on the bed while I knelt beside it and told him about setting fire to the Weber house. It disturbed him, but he didn’t say anything. I also told him it was possible I had killed Stephanie, since it was my glasses he had found. I didn’t remember going out of the house that night, but I did remember a terrible dream that was somehow related. Then I said I was sorry for having attempted suicide.

“Is there anything else?” he asked.

“No.”

“About you and your son?”

“I had intercourse with someone several times, but I swear it was not my son.”

I said the Act of Contrition. He sighed and made the sign of the cross over me and pronounced the words of absolution. Then he took off his stole and sat for a while without speaking.

“You ought to go to the authorities and tell them what you’ve told me about the Weber house and about Stephanie,” he said finally. “But I can’t make you do it or even penalize you spiritually for not doing it. I also think you should go back to the hospital or to some institution where you can get help. But I can’t make you do that either.”

“I’m not crazy, Peter! I was made to do those things!”

“That, I would think, is as good a definition of insanity as any other.”

Whatever it was, I was sure that if my enemies were really dead, I would never be afflicted again. After a while I would even be able to get along without Duff. I would take Franny and we would go somewhere and live again.