Page 59 of Girl, Accused

Dammit.She’d tried to catch him out. It had been crude bait, admittedly. ‘What’s the G stand for?’

‘You haven’t figured it out?’

‘Of course. I just want to hear it out of yourmouth.’

‘Art should be interpretive, detective.’

‘Tell me about the church.’ Ella said. Time to swerve the conversation, because looking at Canton, a new theory had taken residence in her head.

'What about it? It's my home in more ways than one.'

‘You live there. Why’s that?’

‘Why wouldn’t I live there?’

‘Because most people don’t live in churches.’

Canton looked confused. ‘It’s just an apartment that’s in a church. Why does it matter?’

‘Torres was going to knock it down, wasn’t she?’

‘Not was. Sheisgoing to knock it down.’

‘And you own the church, so you must be getting some good compensation.’

Canton swallowed hard. Ella could see the need consuming him now – this frantic, desperate urge to explain thathewas the one who killed Rebecca Torres.

‘I don’t own anything. I’m getting nothing. Torres deserved everything she got.’

‘And you protested hard, didn’t you? I heard you and Torres got into quite the fight.’

'Yes, we did.'

‘And that’s when you began your surveillance? After that?’

‘No. I’d been watching Torres for alongtime. The bitch has been milking this town dry since she got into office. Did you know that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And it doesn’t bother you?’

‘A little bit, but I’m not from here,’ Ella said.

Canton shuddered. ‘You’re the police. You don’t live in the town you protect?’

Ella could almost hear Ripley’s frustration through the glass. She’d want to zone in on Canton’s confession, but Ella had other plans. ‘Didn’t you listen to anything we said back in the church? Me and my partner out there. We’re not the police. We’re the FBI.’

Canton looked out at Ripley. The first time his head had swiveled since they locked him in here. ‘Of course. Torres gets the special treatment even in death.’

‘No. It’s because Rebecca Torres is the third murder this week. You didn’t think we were investigating a single homicide, did you?’

Canton’s jaw dislodged just enough to suggest his mental narrative had suddenly veered off its course. Watching him process her comment was like witnessing a computer forced to divide by zero. It was a system crash in human form.

'Yes. No. I didn't think that.' Canton's voice became stripped of its sermonizing cadence. Now, it sounded like what it truly was: a middle-aged man with delusions of divine mission suddenly confronting the abyss between his fantasy and reality.

‘Chester Grant. Evelyn Summers. Both branded on their foreheads, just like Rebecca Torres. Any of those names mean anything to you?’

In the years Ella had been interrogating killers, she'd developed a mental catalog of reactions, from sociopathic amusement to narcissistic pride to tearful remorse. Canton's expression belonged to none of these categories. This was the face of a man who'd jumped from a plane only to discover mid-fall that his parachute contained dirty laundry.

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