painting me as the self-absorbed one here, but then I recall how when we were housemates Jill would spend many an evening alone, drinking wine and surfing through dating sites. It’s hell being single in the boondocks, she would complain. I can imagine how flattering Luther’s attentions could be.
“I’m sorry, Jill, I didn’t mean . . . it’s just that Luther and I have a history—”
“I know,” she cuts in. “He told me all about it. Honestly, Tess, how could you keep a father from his own son all these years? It explains so much about Rudy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Jill,” I say, trying to keep my voice under control.
“Don’t I? I lived with you for six years, remember. I watched that poor boy playing make-believe games that were always missing a father figure. He was isolated, moody, and violent even as a boy and I’ve watched him grow into a maladjusted teenager hungry for love and acceptance.”
“And did you also introduce Luther to Lila?” I ask.
“Did he?” She’s trying to act nonchalant but I can tell that this has taken her by surprise. “Well, I suppose he saw Lila’s tweets on my feed and followed her. He must have offered to help with her research. He’s quite a brilliant historian. He’s writing a book on the Maiden Stone disappearances.”
“You don’t think it’s a little creepy that a fifty-three-year-old man befriended an eighteen-year-old girl online and offered to meet her? Has it occurred to you that he might be the one who killed Lila?”
“What a terrible thing to say about your own son’s father!” Jill is so loud that several of the girls in the wings look up from their phones and turn in our direction. “Luther said you were weirdly overprotective. I offered to talk to Rudy about him—”
“You stay the hell away from my son,” I say, stepping toward Jill. She steps back and bumps into the gallows, causing the wood to creak and the nooses to sway.
Rachel Lazar comes running across the stage like she’s afraid I may be assaulting her drama teacher. She’s holding up her phone. Maybe she’s planning to take a picture for evidence. I turn to her, ready to seize the phone, but then I see she’s holding up a picture for Jill and me to see.
“Look! They’ve got Lila’s killer!” she cries.
I am terrified for a moment that it will be a picture of Rudy, but it’s a picture of Woody Hull being led out of his house by Officer Gough. He’s scowling at the young female officer as if he can’t quite believe he’s being arrested by a woman. Although I still have my doubts that Woody Hull killed Lila I can’t help but feel a teeny twinge of gratification that the miserable old misogynist is getting taken down a peg.
Any satisfaction I might feel at Hull’s downfall, though, is punctured by an icy splinter of fear when I see that IceVirgin33 tweeted the picture. Luther was at Woody’s house—only two blocks away from mine—taking that picture today. Where is he now? Is he with Rudy?
“You see,” Rachel says, “it’s like I told you. Lila was being sexually assaulted.”
I look at Rachel. She’s scrubbed her customary kohl and blue lipstick off, leaving her face unnervingly naked and exposed. “Mr. Hull is just being questioned,” I say, hardly believing that I’m speaking up for Woody Hull. “We don’t know anything yet. We certainly don’t know that he assaulted Lila.”
“What else could it be?” Rachel asks, her blue eyes wide and earnest. “That guy is a creep.”
The rest of the girls have gathered around, drawn by Rachel’s exclamation. “My cousin who went here?” Samantha Grimes says. “She had a friend who said he groped her during an assembly. He’s an old pervert.”
I look around the circle of girls. With their faces scrubbed clean of makeup and their hair pulled back under close-fitting bonnets they all look alike. All I have to do to join them, I realize, is tell them my story. Woody Hull called me a slut when I tried to tell him I was being assaulted by a teacher here. I would not be surprised to hear that he’s assaulted other girls.
But I can’t do it. And it’s not because I think Woody Hull deserves due process or that I’m frightened by how quickly everyone has jumped on this bandwagon that was set