“What was he like to you?”

Jay stuttered. He began to flounder. “I mean, she knows we don’t get along. Didn’t get along.”

“You and your father argued all the time.”

“Yeah. I already told you that.”

“Gordon yelled at you? He verbally abused you?”

“Sure he did.”

“Did the arguments get physical?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did your father hit you?”

Jay frowned. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

“How often?”

“Well, all the time, in fact. Pretty much every day. He was a violent son of a bitch.”

“Did you ever hit back?”

“No.”

“But you wanted to.”

Jay’s hand curled into a tight fist. “Yeah, sure. I wanted to.”

“You hated him,” Darrell said, stating it matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t even a question.

I watched Jay’s eyes flash with anger. “Yeah, I did. So what? He was a pig.”

“There were days when you wanted him dead.”

“You want me to say it? Fine. Okay. I’ll say it. Sometimes I wished he was dead. You bet.”

Darrell was good at what he did. Admitting you wanted your father dead was a terrible thing, and even if you didn’t kill him, nobody was going to believe your denials after that. Norm obviously thought the same thing.

“We’re done, Darrell,” he interjected firmly. “No more questions.”

Jay continued, still not realizing the danger he’d put himself in. “You don’t know what Gordon was like. I told you he was a monster, and you wouldn’t listen.”

“Jay, not another word,” Norm murmured. “That’s enough.”

The boy slammed both fists down on the schoolroom desk. “No, I’m done pretending about him. Yes, I hated that son of a bitch. He beat the shit out of me whenever he wanted. He told me I was nothing. He called me—”

“Stop,” Norm insisted.

“But it wasn’t me!” Jay shouted at us. “I didn’t kill him!”

He sounded like a kid with chocolaty hands telling his mom he had no idea who ate the Hershey bar.

I had to do something. I couldn’t watch this kid incriminate himself any further, so I threw Jay a lifeline. No matter what the sheriff wanted, no matter what Darrell thought his duty was, I needed to give Jay a chance to tell us the truth.

“Jay, where were you on Sunday night?” I asked sharply.

The boy stared at me, and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. “What?”

“Where were you?”

“At the house. I told you that.”

“Yes, but I think you were lying. Where were you?”

“I was in my room the whole night. I didn’t hear anything.”

“You didn’t hear anything, because you weren’t there,” I insisted.

“Rebecca,” Darrell hissed at me. “What the hell are you doing?”