Page 79 of Blood Moon

“Well, you’re more than three years too late for regrets, aren’t you?”

“Too late for Crissy, yes. Too late for Billy. I don’t want to be too late for someone else.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you get absolution or not, Mr. Bowie.” She sneered, “You all were so proud of yourselves, waving around that false confession.”

“I wasn’t proud of it, Carla. I think Billy was bullied into writing that confession by the men who interrogated him.”

Her eyes narrowed with malicious satisfaction. “Billy didn’t write that confession at all, you fool. He couldn’t have. He was dyslexic.” She snickered, adding, “Surprise!”

Chapter 22

With dismay, Beth said, “Billy couldn’t read and write?”

“Enough to get by,” Carla said, “but he would freeze up when he was stressed. Whenever his frustration reached a boiling point, he’d act out.”

John was so angry with the woman, he was on the brink of acting out.

“Why wasn’t Billy placed in special classes?” Beth asked.

“They didn’t figure out the problem until he was around ten. By then Gracie had been homeschooling him for several years. She read up on dyslexia and learned ways of helping him.”

“She dealt with it on her own?”

“Tutors cost money she didn’t have, and she didn’t want to put Billy back in school and have him made fun of.”

Turning to John, she said, “Under the pressure you police were applying, he sure as hell couldn’t have writtenanything like that confession. His letters would’ve been all jumbled up.”

John unclenched his jaw. “This confounds me. Absolutely confounds me. Why in God’s name weren’t we told?”

“Gracie did tell.”

“She didn’t tell Mitch Haskell and me. We thought hearing about the suicide was enough for one night, so we didn’t mention the note to her.”

“Well, Barker came along behind you and told her. She insisted that Billy didn’t write it, couldn’t have. You know what Barker did? He laughed at her and said, ‘Nice try, lady.’

“He accused her of making up the dyslexia only to clear Billy’s name. She had no way of proving he was dyslexic because he’d never been officially diagnosed, and it wasn’t in his school records.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, someone,anyone, Carla?”

“Gracie begged me not to. After being humiliated by Barker, she caved in. She was grieving. Besides, a woman of her generation ‘knew her place.’ It wasn’t in her nature to fight back. Not like me. I fight back, and I fight dirty.”

“Real dirty, Carla. Real dirty.”

“Damn right, Detective. You’re stuck with an unsolved crime that you’re trying to pin on a villain that’s into moon worship.”

She snorted with contempt, then turned to Beth. “Yourtruecrime TV show is about to air a program that’s pure fiction. That presents you with a problem, too, doesn’t it? For the next few days, you two are gonna be awful busy. Now, get out of my house.”

She left the room, went to the front door and pulledit open, then slammed it behind them as they crossed the threshold.

Without a word being spoken between them, they got into the car. John drove to a municipal recreational complex where he parked facing a sodden soccer field dotted with puddles of rainwater.

Staring out across it, he said, “When we were talking to Carla about Billy’s difficulties in school, why didn’t she tell us then? Why did she let us go on about the moon, etcetera, then smugly play the dyslexia like a winning ace?”

“She wanted to hit us hard with it.”

“Which is probably the only reason she allowed us inside.”

“Maybe,” Beth said, “but I think she wanted us to know about Billy so we would keep looking for the real culprit.”