“Didn’t they? They got you to tell a lie. That’s perjury, Elizabeth, and perjury is a felony. Same as rape.”
“Not quite. Not at all.”
“Still, it’s wrong to lie in court. I don’t think you lied consciously, but you were wrong. She really did fall, Elizabeth. I didn’t push her. Even if you did see me chase her—and you couldn’t because I didn’t—you couldn’t see what happened, how far I was from her when she fell.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe you.”
For a moment, he looked angry, and Eliza could feel the deputy tightening, coiling, ready to leap in, although she was still on her mark, several inches behind it, in fact. Walter had planned out a version of this conversation in his head, and it wasn’t going his way, any more than any of his conversations with grown women had ever gone his way. She wasn’t a girl anymore, and she was thwarting him. It felt good.
His voice tried for a cajoling tone. “That’s your right, isn’t it? To believe me or not believe me, based on the facts. That was my right, too. To have a jury hear the facts. To have them decide, based on the facts, if I did what I was accused of doing. My rights were denied me, because of your testimony. My lawyer wouldn’t put me on the stand, wouldn’t let me contradict the star witness, because you were so convincing.”
“Walter—I told the truth.”
“You thought you did, but it couldn’t be.” He lined up his left forearm on the bars. “There’s the truck, see? With the headlights where my fingers are.” He wiggled his fingers. “The tent was behind it. Holly ran in the other direction. Barbara drove to the campsite, and it’s the same, after all these years. She even went at the right time of year, last fall, almost to the day, so everything lined up. You couldn’t have seen what you said you saw.”
“Last year—you’ve been looking for me all this time, haven’t you? It wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just find me in the pages of Washingtonian. It wasn’t destiny, or serendipity.”
“Well, yes and no. I mean, yes, we were looking. But it was an accident, how I found you, and that’s a kind of serendipity. That’s how I knew you were supposed to help me. I turned the page, and there you were.” He paused. “You got so pretty, Elizabeth. I always knew you would. You weren’t my type, when you were young. I liked those tall blondes. Can you blame me? That’s what a young man likes. But it’s right, about beauty being skin deep. You’re beautiful inside, and it finally got to the outside. And you’re too good inside to let the lie stand. Not when it could cost me my life.”
“The governor doesn’t want to issue you a stay under any circumstances.”
Walter raised his eyebrows. “Funny that you should know that. I mean, I know that. Barbara and Jeff know that. This governor would prefer not to be dragged into this at all. But how do you know that, Elizabeth?”
She looked at the floor, at the masking tape, reminding herself that she was safe. She would not cross the creek again. He could not grab her wrists, force her into a truck. So why were her knees shaking?
“Just common sense,” she said. “He almost never does.”
“You still can’t lie. That’s why I’m not mad at you.”
He wasn’t mad at her? That was rich.
“I know you believe what you testified to. At any rate, you’re right. He’s not going to commute my sentence unless something really big happens. Like, the star witness against me recanting her testimony. I wouldn’t get a new trial, under Virginia law. But if you told him that you had come to realize you were mistaken, or that the prosecutor put words in your mouth—he would have to listen, give me a stay.”
“Why would I do that?”
“I can think of three reasons. One, it’s the right thing to do. Can’t believe I need to give you more, but here goes.” He had been holding up his index finger, and now he added the middle one. “Two, I don’t see why I should share any information with you unless you prove you’re a trustworthy person. Truth for truth, Elizabeth. If I owe those other families the truth, then you owe me the same.”
“I have always been truthful.”
“Okay, then three. I still have time to give Jared Garrett an exclusive. I’ve written pages and pages and pages, which are in Barbara’s possession. He always thought things were different with us. Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s a truth that needs to go out there in the world, that we were boyfriend and girlfriend and you got jealous when I fell for Holly.”
There it was, the thing she feared most. She would be outed. Her past would become present, truth and lie would mingle, and she would spend the rest of her life explaining herself. She would have to explain to her children what happened to her, yet persuade them that they could still feel safe in this world, that their parents could protect them. Albie’s nightmares, Iso’s secrecy—this wasn’t going to help. And if Jared Garrett published Walter’s version of their relationship, how would she convince Iso that her clandestine flirtation with a seventeen-year-old was out of bounds? It was everything Eliza had feared—and, she realized, she could handle it.
Still—she was disappointed in Walter. She really had wanted to believe that he had changed. And she didn’t feel naive or stupid for the hope he had stirred up in her, the ruses he had used to lure her here. This was the way she wanted to be, the way she would continue to be. Like her college-essay role model, Anne Frank, she believed that people were basically good. Most people, at least.
“You’re not going to tell me about the others, are you?”
“I will if you call the governor and my sentence is commuted to life. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
“No you won’t. Because even if you failed to rape them, you tried, and that would mean the death penalty in those cases, too.”
“Let me worry about that. Isn’t living with my crimes, as an aware and remorseful person, more of a real punishment than killing me? Every day I’m alive, I have to think about what I did.”
“But do you?”
“What?”
“Do you? I mean, yes, every day is an opportunity for you to think about your victims, that doesn’t mean it happens. I have a feeling, Walter, that the only person you’ve ever really thought about is yourself.”
He lowered his voice, and she almost crossed the invisible barrier despite herself.
“I think about you. Every day. The time we spent together—that’s about as happy as I ever was.”
“Then I’m sorry for you. Because that was not a happy time, Walter.”
“You’re the only woman I ever made love to.”
“I was the fifteen-year-old girl you forced yourself on sexually. It’s not the same thing.”
“I cared about you. I still care about you. This is as much for you as for me, Elizabeth. I know you. You always did the right thing. You couldn’t tell a lie to save your life. They tricked you into believing their lies.”
“Walter, I believe you killed Holly.”
“But do you believe that I deserve to die for that? You and your family, that’s not your way.”
“It wasn’t our choice. The prosecutor asked the Tacketts what they wanted. He asked twelve citizens of Virginia if they thought it was fair. They said yes, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But there is.” His voice scaling up, strangled. “All you have to do is pick up a phone, say you’ve realized, talking to me all these weeks, what you got wrong. I’m not asking to go free, Elizabeth. I’m asking not to die. You can save me. Only you can save me.”
“No, I can’t, and I never could. I’m sorry, Walter, I really am. But you’re asking me to lie.”