Page 91 of Coram House

“Well, I’d like some. Go ahead in. Be there in a moment.”

He disappears in the direction of the kitchen. I notice his clothes are rumpled in the back, like he just woke up from a nap.

In the living room, I find the same subtle disarray. A stain on the coffee table drying to mud. Smudges on the sliding doors that frame the apple tree out in the garden. The way the branches are pruned to curvedown makes the tree look hunched and twisted. Tortured to make the apples easier to reach.

A few minutes later, Stedsan reappears with two cups of coffee on a wooden tray. “In case you change your mind,” he says. The couch sinks beneath his weight. “Well, now, your message made this meeting sound very urgent.”

“Fred Rooney is dead.”

It just comes out. Like there’s so much building up inside me I needed a pressure release valve. Something passes across his face—not sadness, weariness maybe. He sighs deeply and looks out at his garden.

“You don’t look surprised,” I say.

“I’m not. Fred was old and sick and taking God knows what on top of that.”

“He was murdered.”

Stedsan looks at me sharply. “You’re sure?”

An image flashes into my head of Rooney’s age-spotted legs, his blue lips, the red welt on his neck. I nod.

“It could be a coincidence,” he murmurs. I can almost see the gears turning in his head, thinking of Sister Cecile, trying to make sense of it. This is as off guard as I’ll ever get him.

“Alan,” I say. “Did you know that Bill Campbell paid people off to settle the case back in 1993?”

The silence stretches out. He sips his coffee and then nods at the other cup. “It’s going cold.”

“Alan—”

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

Fury surges through me. My fingertips tingle with it. It feels good. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It’s called attorney-client privilege, Alex,” he says sharply. “If you haven’t forgotten, Bill Campbell was my client too. At least at the beginning.”

He places the cup carefully back on its saucer.

“And by the end, the case was such a goddamn mess that it didn’t matter anymore. It was never going to go to court. We were never going to win. Settling was the only way. The only question was how muchmoney we could wring out of them. I didn’t see the harm in letting Bill add his money to the pot too.”

“So Bill Campbell gets to make millions off developing the property while Karen Lafayette gets a down payment for a truck.”

I expect him to meet my anger with his own—or at least with defensiveness—but he just shrugs. If anything, he looks sorry for me.

“That’s the way these things work sometimes. Bill always did play the long game. Always knew what he wanted.”

There’s a note of admiration in Stedsan’s voice that makes me sick.

“It was a different time, Alex. Everyone wanted the case to go away. Not just the church. No one wanted to think about it anymore.”

“So why bring me here? Why write this book at all? You must have known I’d find out.”

“Well, no,” he says and gives me a sad smile. “I didn’t. Based on your last book, I rather hoped you wouldn’t.”

I knew it was coming, but the sting is real. My last book. All the sloppy research and mistakes, but still a bestseller. He assumed I’d take only what I was given, wouldn’t dig any deeper. I was perfect for the job. Still, he must have known I might find details that would make him look bad. So he needed a writer desperate enough to sign the NDA.

He sighs. “I’m retiring this year. I suppose the idea of this book—of leaving a legacy—was too tempting to pass up. And I had faith in your ability to write a great story. I still do.”

If he’s trying to mollify me, it’s not working. “You failed them.”

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