“Why all the drama, Miss Cherie?” Jeremy asked.
“If Taithering’s the guy who tore into Burton’s dead body with a ball bat, he might come out with guns blazing.”
Jeremy frowned. “Why would a man who already killed and tortured a victim – slowly and ritualistically, with time to perform every gruesome need – risk his reputation to publicly inflict destruction on the dead man?”
“Maybe the killer needed more.”
“I suspect Mr Burton’s killer got all he needed in the woods.”
Cherry looked unconvinced. She drove on, passing Taithering’s house. I saw her head whip to the side as she stood on the brakes.
“I see a guy out back, burning trash or something. It could be evidence.”
She jammed the wheel hard, spun in the street, thundered into Taithering’s drive. “Cover me, Ryder,” she yelled, sprinting around the side of the house. I scrambled out, smelling smoke in the air.
“Police!” I heard Cherry yell. “Drop the pages and keep your hands away from your body.”
I rounded the corner to the back yard as a man turned, confusion in his face. He was standing beside a rusty burn-barrel, feeding sheets of paper into a fire. I ran to the barrel and kicked it over, sending a few singed pages rolling over the grass.
“William Taithering?” Cherry said.
“That’s me,” Taithering said, voice flat, hands held out like bird wings.
“Is this the guy from the church, Ryder?”
When I nodded, Cherry pulled her cuffs from beneath her jacket. “William Taithering, you’re under arrest for—”
From nowhere, Jeremy was between Cherry and Taithering. He held up his hand to cut Cherry off.
“It’s rather warm out here,” my brother said pleasantly, like we were a foursome on a golf course, ready to go club-housing for cocktails. “How about stepping inside where things are cooler, folks?”
And then my brother had his arm around Taithering and was guiding him toward the patio door. Cherry stared, open-mouthed, cuffs dangling in her hand.
We reconvened in Taithering’s living room. Cherry and I did a quick search of the furniture and closet to assure ourselves no Uzis were planted. Taithering sat on a chair dragged in from the dining room.
The man was thirty-four and looked a decade older. Part of it was his carriage, holding himself close and hunched over, like a frail elder walking on ice. His eyes were tight and lined, the kind of eyes I got when a case kept me awake for days. His mouse-brown hair was speckled with gray. Taithering was staring at the floor and seemed numb. His hands shook and he held them in his lap to staunch the motion.
Cherry pulled a chair in front of Taithering as I stood to the side and Jeremy relaxed on the couch. “Let’s start with Sonny Burton,” she said. “Is that all right, Mr Taithering?”
He nodded, not meeting her eyes.
“Tell me about what happened,” Cherry said. “From the beginning. Why did you put Sonny Burton under the truck?”
Taithering’s eyes went wide. “What? NO! I didn’t do that.”
“You didn’t lower a truck on to Burton’s chest?”
“No!”
“You didn’t kill Sonny Burton?”
“NO!”
“What about Tandee Powers?”
Taithering stared at Cherry. I swear his short hair was standing on end. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”
“Mr Taithering, you need to calm down and answer my—”
My brother was suddenly standing beside Cherry, his hand in the pockets of his jacket.
“I believe this might be a propitious time for us to trade places for a minute or two, Miss Cherry.”
Cherry looked up, surprised. “Uh, I—”
My brother was smiling gently, his words so perfectly weighted they offered no option of refusal. It was a strange and potent effect that seemed to border on hypnosis, a master manipulator’s skill honed over decades. Jeremy looked to Cherry and me.
“Could you folks please give us a few minutes together? Alone? I think it would be most helpful here.”
Cherry shot me a glance. I nodded toward the kitchen and we retreated out of sight.
“What’s Charpentier doing, you think?” Cherry asked, perplexed.
“I expect he’s gaining Taithering’s confidence and getting a read on the man’s mental state,” I approximated. It’s said that Alcoholics Anonymous works because the only person capable of reaching an alcoholic is someone with the same affliction. I suspected my brother was meeting William Taithering in some strange land of dysfunction, trading images and symbols incomprehensible to the normal mind.
Called back ten minutes later, we found Jeremy standing behind the sitting Taithering, hands resting on the man’s shoulders. Taithering looked alternately ready to flee or burst into tears.
“William would like to speak with you, Miss Cherie,” my brother said. His eyes and voice said go easy.
Cherry got the message, positioning her chair not in the confrontational front and center, but canted to the side, conversational. “Tell us about Sonny Burton, William,” she said. “Explain yesterday. Take all the time you need.”
Taithering’s face screwed up in misery. “Every … day … he …” The man’s mouth made several missteps, chokes and swallows. He tried again.
“E- Every day for twenty years he … Burton … was in me. I’d wake up and he was there. I’d take a breath and feel him stealing part of it. I could feel him squirming inside me.”
“You were in Burton’s truck, right, William?” Jeremy said, his voice as soft as cotton. “Things happened there. Started there.”
“He p-pushed INSIDE ME. He got stuck there and I couldn’t g-get him out. I moved away. But he stayed in me. I went to college. But he stayed in me. I been in Augusta for years but he was always on top of me with his fingers in my hair and his tongue in my … I tried BUT I COULDN’T GET HIM OUT OF ME.”
“Easy, William,” Jeremy said. “You’ve thought about yesterday a long time, haven’t you?”
Taithering thrust out a forceful jaw. “I got FREE of him. For the first time ever. I took his face out of mine. I took HIM out of ME.”
“But Sonny Burton was dead, Mr Taithering,” Cherry said.
“HE WAS STILL ALIVE INSIDE ME.”
Taithering began weeping uncontrollably. I felt claustrophobic and went to the back yard. I retrieved a sheaf of photos only touched on the edges by fire. I stared a long time and returned to the house.
Cherry was in the kitchen. I heard a toilet flush and my brother came down the hall from the bathroom and joined us. Taithering was still weeping, and I took it they were giving space to his grief. I set the rescued photos on the cheap table.
“What was Taithering burning?” Cherry asked.
“Pictures from his youth.” I tapped the top photograph. It was similar to a photo I’d seen earlier at the visitation: Sonny Burton with his hands