“But it couldn’t have been my son. Why would he have mentioned you at all, if he did what you say? Wouldn’t it have been more natural to avoid saying anything about you?”

Father Fogarty sighed and took another cigar from a box on the desk. “You’d better tell me all about your troubles with Duff,” he said.

So I told him everything. When I began, I intended to hold back some of it and tell only about the attack on the boy at the high school, the car accident, and the attack on the police, but then I decided to include the rape of Stephanie (I didn’t use that word but said something about making love brutally) and hesitated for only a moment before going on to tell of Duff’s molesting Franny.

“What else?” asked Father Fogarty when I paused.

“Isn’t that enough?”

“I get the impression there’s more.”

I definitely hadn’t intended talking about what might be my own lunacy, although I had mentioned the seeming change, at times, in Duff’s physical appearance. Now I told the priest about the man I had seen in the car and later in the kitchen. Then to bring the story completely up to date, I mentioned Stephanie’s disappearance and my fear that Duff might have had something to do with it. I also said that Stephanie’s mother and grandmother didn’t seem at all worried about her.

“They’re bad news, those people,” said Father Fogarty. “The old one especially.”

“Why?”

“She’s a Satanist, a devil worshiper. She’s been at it for a long time, long before that kind of thing became popular with the hippies and such. Some people say she’s a witch, and her daughter too. I’ve had trouble with both of them. I tried to get your husband’s Aunt Hannah away from Mrs. Reddy, did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It’s true. First I tried to get Miss Caine to pension off the old biddy—give her a couple of thousand and get her out of the house. I could’ve gotten a decent Christian woman to go in there and take care of your aunt, but she wouldn’t have it. Then I wanted her to go into a nursing home, but she wouldn’t agree to that either.”

“My husband told me of your efforts to have Aunt Hannah buried in a cemetery here.”