Page 43 of A Fabulously Unfabulous Summer for Henry Milch

When Megan walked away, I asked, “What was that about?”

“We went to school together. Megan bullied me for like a decade.”

I had some idea what that was like but decided not to share. I got back to business.

“Why did you want me to talk to Denny? Exactly?”

“Did you get to talk to him at all?” Opal asked.

The last thing I was going to do was tell Opal about my time with Denny in the pole barn. “A little. I hung around until he finished work.”

“And?”

“He confessed to everything,” I said, facetiously. “He said he killed Reverend Hessel with a bludgeon he bought on sale at Home Depot.”

She rolled her eyes. “Did you ask Denny if he knew anyone who might have broken into the church?”

Well, I hadn’t asked it like that.

“He said he didn’t know anyone one who stole. He also pointed out that if you did want to steal something there were a whole lot of empty summer homes to rob.”

“Except that it’s summer,” she pointed out weakly. Not everyone with a summer home spent the whole summer there. She looked dejected, like someone had just kicked her.

Why did it matter so much to her that Denny knew, or possibly was, the killer? I could have asked her that, but my trip to the library was fresh in my mind, so I asked, “I need you to explain something. You said Detective Lehmann told you the murder happened between eight-fifty and nine-twenty. But that’s not the way time of death works. It’s usually a lot less specific.”

“I only know that because he told Ivy and Carl. Reverend Hessel ordered a pizza at eight-fifty. He had to have been alive—”

“What? Wait a minute, you can get a pizza delivered up here?!” This was terribly exciting information. I was desperate to have food delivered.

“No, stupid. You call your order in and then go pick it up. It’s ready when you get there.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, they know Reverend Hessel was alive when he ordered the pizza. But then it was supposed to be picked up around nine-thirty. It’s a ten-minute drive. Since Reverend Hessel never got in his car he had to have died sometime between when he made the call and when he should have gotten in the car. Eight-fifty to nine-twenty.”

That made sense. Except. Well, there was something not right about what she was saying. What was it?

“And so Carl was with you…”

“From seven forty-five until about eleven.”

My next question had nothing to do with Reverend Hessel’s murder. “What’s the deal with you and Carl?”

“What do you mean what’s the deal?”

“I mean, is he your boyfriend?”

“I don’t think every relationship needs to be defined.”

“Well, that’s a definite no.” Then I said, “Ivy Greene said you were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“And you’re still hanging out.”

That made her blush, which frankly clashed with the bright green of her hair. “We have a lot in common. We’re both bisexual.”

I was beginning to put this story together and guessed, “You’re still hot for him, aren’t you?”