Page 39 of Girl, Accused

‘Alone?’ Ripley asked.

'Alone, but… I was streaming. Live streaming on my channel. I do late-night prayer sessions every Wednesday. It went from midnight until almost 3 AM.'

Ella's eyebrows lifted slightly. If true, it was the kind of alibi that came with dozens of digital witnesses and an unalterable timestamp. ‘Your channel has viewers at that hour?’

‘Between sixty and a hundred usually. Insomniacs, night shift workers, people in different time zones.’ A hint of pride crept into his voice. ‘I keep the chat open, respond to prayer requests in real-time. The whole thing is archived on the channel.’

‘What's the channel called?’ Ripley asked.

‘New Light Ministries. It's on YouTube and ChristianConnect.’

Ella committed the names to memory. Digital alibis were becoming increasingly common, and without them, there’d be a lot more wrongful convictions out there.

‘We'll verify that,’ she said. ‘The streams can't be pre-recorded or edited?’

‘Not livestreams. I'm responding to the chat the whole time. You can see the timestamps of the questions and my answers.’ Caldwell sat back slightly, a fraction of tension leaving his shoulders. ‘You can’t fake them.’

Ripley made a skeptical sound. ‘Technology makes anything possible.’

‘Even Jesus couldn’t be in two places at once.’

Ella studied Caldwell with renewed interest. Two solid alibis. Combined with his apparently genuine shock at seeing the photographs, the case against him was beginning to fracture.

But before she went to check out his alibis, Ella was going to milk everything she could from this man.

‘Jeremy, let’s say we believe you. I need to ask; do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Dr. Summers?’

Caldwell shook his head, vehement. ‘I don’t know anyone else who knows her. She’s science, I’m faith. Our paths never crossed outside her office.’

‘Think harder,’ Ripley interjected. ‘Did she ever mention feeling threatened? Uncomfortable with anyone?’

‘We didn't talk about her life. She kept it professional.’ Caldwell shifted in his seat. ‘Our sessions were about my problems, not hers.’

Ella trackedhis subtle movements as he accessed different memory centers. He seemed to be genuinely searching, not constructing or deflecting.

‘What about your circles, then? The revival crowd, your prison ministry. Anyone there seem a little too eager to cast the first stone?’

Caldwell twitched. ‘No. They’re good people.’

Ella hadn't played this game for as long as she had without learning to spot the tells. The way Caldwell's gaze slid left, the tic in his jaw. He was holding something back.

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yeah.’

She sized him up, then leaned across the table. ‘Jeremy, one of the first things they teach you in the FBI academy is how to spot a liar.’

Caldwell pushed back on his chair. ‘And?’

‘And all signs point to you telling the truth – at least up until now. There’s a twitch in your jaw that wasn’t there earlier. Your feet just shifted to face the door. Your shoulders have tensed up. Hell, my partner here can tell everything about you just from your thumb.’

Caldwell turned to Ripley, then inspected his thumb like he was just seeing it for the first time. ‘Really?’

‘Really,’ said Ripley.

He spread his hands on the table. ‘What’s my thumb say about me?’

Ripley barely glanced at it. ‘The toughened skin at the tip means you used to work a manual job once upon a time. Welding, maybe. You’ve trimmed your nails on every other finger except your thumbs, which means you get anxious when you’re alone. And something about it tells me you used to play the clarinet. But not anymore.’

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