Deputy Logan continues to stare at me. I cannot tell what he’s thinking other than he is contemplating what I have just said.

“You would maintain this under oath if it came to it?” he asks. “That you have done nothing wrong?”

“I would.” By all that is good, I would.

He pauses for a moment and then turns to the woman. “I think it is time we give Mrs. Hocking a break, Mrs. Fielding. I will call you back in when I resume my questioning.”

Mrs. Fielding’s fingers become still over the funny-shaped keys on her machine. She seems a bit surprised, but then she stands and walks from the room, closing the door behind her.

“I don’t want a break,” I tell him. “I want to go. I have nothing else to say.”

Deputy Logan regards me silently for a moment. “I want to believe you, I do,” he says, “but I think you know what happened to Martin Hocking, despite you having told me that you don’t. I think you know where he is. And considering what you and I both know about him, I want to know why you won’t tell me.”

I swallow hard and say nothing.

“I’ve got quite the predicament,” he continues. “I think Martin Hocking well deserves whatever fate might have befallen him, because, like you, I think he killed Annabeth Bigelow Grover. I think he killed her mother. I think he forced Candace’s father’s car off the road.”

He pauses for a minute, studying me. Then he continues. “And I know things about Martin Hocking that you do not. I know that his parents are not dead, as he no doubt told you. I know that when he was a child he hurt animals just to see them suffer, and I know that when he was sent away to a boarding school he was expelled for insubordination and verbal abuse against his fellow classmates. I know that when he was sixteen and his older sister confided in him that she wanted to kill herself because she’d had her heart broken, he offered to help her do it. I know that he swung the rope over the barn rafter, made the noose, and helped her into it. I know he watched her hang and did not try to help her when she regretted her decision immediately and tried to pull the rope off. She was saved at the last moment by their father.”

My heart is pounding and I feel nausea rising from the very core of me as I picture Martin doing this terrible thing. I see a young woman—his own sister—hanging and her feet wildly kicking and her hands grasping at her throat and Martin just standing there. Just standing there watching her die. I see their father rushing in, screaming at Martin, What have you done! I can’t stop seeing it. I made for Martin a cozy home and tasty meals, and I laundered his clothes and brought him tea. I shared his bed. I let him share mine. I did all of this for a monster. I put my hand to my mouth to quell the queasiness, and the marshal just barrels on.