“No. I’m just telling you that because that’s how the whole thing started. I told Dale, and we talked about hitting their farm. At first neither of us was serious. We were just a couple of stupid teenagers looking for a thrill, talking about some big score that wouldn’t ever happen. We were going to buy a kilo of cocaine with the money. McCullough knew a guy. He’d cut it for us, and then we’d sell it by the gram. A onetime deal, but we’d triple our money, and that would be the end of it. But Jerrold got pretty excited about the idea. Too excited. He wouldn’t stop talking about it. He fired everyone up, made it sound daring and cool, and we’d make a ton of easy money in the process. I mean, the family was Amish, right? They wouldn’t defend themselves—and no one would get hurt. No one would ever know, and we’d get off scot-free.”

“At some point, you got serious,” I prod, “and you worked out a plan?”

“Go in hard. At night. Intimidate them. Get the cash and then get out quick, and no one gets hurt.”

“What went wrong?”

“Everything. We were nervous. Scared. We’d been drinking. Liquid courage, I guess. We were all pumped up on adrenaline. I was with Jules for a while back then. We’d … been fighting. I was … pissed off.…” His words trail. “God almighty. I can barely remember.”

“All of you were armed?”

“Except for Jules.”

“What happened? What went wrong?”

“We went in. Faces concealed. Got the parents out of bed. We were in the kitchen, getting the cash. We hadn’t counted on all of those little kids showing up. That was when the woman got … hysterical. We were all screaming at her to sit down. We started losing control of the situation.…” A single drop of sweat slides from his temple to a crease in his neck, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “McCullough panicked and … shot him.”

“Willis Hochstetler?”

He nods.

“What happened next?”

“We freaked out. I’d never been so scared, and I mean really scared. All of a sudden, everything was real. I couldn’t believe McCullough had done it. I went after him, and we got into it. But it was done. The guy was dead.”

“What about the woman?”

Blue looks at the wall behind me, as if there’s a window there and he can see through the darkness and rain to the promise of freedom beyond. But there is no window. There’s no escape for him, and he knows he won’t be walking out of here a free man.

“We took her with us.”

“Why?”

He shakes his head, doesn’t answer.

“Whose idea was it?”

He turns his gaze to mine, and in that instant I see the depth of his shame. The breadth of his disgust and self-loathing. “Mine.”