The color drained from Paul’s face, and his husband, Joe, looked like he was about to leap out of his seat. Stevie crossed the front of the room quickly, to stand by Susan Marks.

“Something bothered me about the conversation I had with you,” she said. “I couldn’t figure out what it was until now.”

Susan looked at Stevie, with a glint of interest in her eye.

“There’s a thing that people sometimes do when they make up a lie,” Stevie said. “They make up details, specific ones. Paul told me that he and Shawn were in the lake house that night learning ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on guitar. That made sense. But then you told me the same thing. You were really vague about everything else. You said you did some random checks and went to bed. But you made sure to tell me about the guitar and the song. When I left your house, I ran into Shawn on the street.”

Stevie looked to Shawn, who folded his arms across his chest.

“He didn’t want to talk to me,” Stevie said. “But then he really didn’t want to talk to me when I said I’d spoken to you. All three of you really seemed to want everyone to know that Paul and Shawn were in the lake house playing ‘Stairway to Heaven’—like it was the most important thing that happened that night. There’s really only one reason you’d all be so specific and all tell that same story over and over in the same way. It’s because it wasn’t true.”

Shawn put his head down and glowered a bit. Paul put his hands to his eyes and wiped away a tear, as his husband patted his arm. Susan continued to look at Stevie with a growing wariness.

“Paul,” Stevie said, “you weren’t in the lake house.”

Everyone in the barn fell utterly silent, so Paul’s reply seemed to boom out.

“No,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t. It’s not their fault. They were helping me.”

“I know,” Stevie said. “Only Shawn was in there that night, watching over the lake. He probably was playing the guitar and learning ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ Susan, you did check in there to make sure there was a lifeguard on duty, but I doubt you noticed what song it was. I don’t think you were a big Led Zeppelin fan.”

Susan gave a soft snort.

“Paul,” Stevie continued, “you were somewhere else, but you weren’t murdering anyone.”

“No,” he said, folding his hands on his lap. “No, I wasn’t. It’s been so long. It’s so ridiculous we’ve had to keep this up. I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

“No,” Stevie said, “you were meeting a boy.”

Paul nodded. “He was from another town. He drove over to meet me in the woods. Then the murders happened and I had to prove where I was. I couldn’t be gay. I would have been run out of town. I wouldn’t have been allowed to work at a camp, for sure, because they would have believed that a gay guy couldn’t work with kids, because . . .”