Baptism in Blood(119)

“Oh, Jesus,” Clayton said. “He’s going to an insanity plea.”

“I don’t think ‘the devil made me do it’ is going to go over very well in North Carolina, Mr. Harrow,” Minna Dorfman said crisply.

“Carol wasn’t there when the baby died,” Gregor said, calmly, softly, gently, insistently, willing all the rest of them to shut up. “Who was there when the baby died?”

“Carol saw me with the candles,” Stephen told him. “Before the hurricane. She saw both of us. She thought we were committing an act of desecration. She thought we were blaspheming against the Goddess.”

“And later she changed her mind?” Gregor prompted. “Later she put two and two together?”

“Later she wanted to know why I hadn’t told you about the candles,” Stephen answered. “Carol was never any good at putting two and two together. I told her it was private. I asked her to come and meet me behind the rec­tory. Lisa had to go into Raleigh for something. I don’t remember what.”

“You killed Carol Littleton here? At the rectory?”

“I killed her in my car,” Stephen said. “I had to get her around, you see. I had to get her body up to the clear­ing. I had a big rubber sheet that I used for camping and I put that in the backseat before she came, and then when I got her in there I just—”

“Cut her throat?”

“Broke her neck,” Stephen said. “I cut her throat later. I think she was still alive then, but I’m not sure. I didn’t think anybody could still be alive after they’d had their neck broken, but I think she was.”

“It happens every day.”

“You can’t cut the throat of a grown person the way you can with a baby,” Stephen said. “They won’t stand still for it. I drove the car around to the back of Zhondra’s property. There’s a dirt road up there and not much else. There’s not even a real fence. Nobody ever thinks of going in that way.”

“And you put the body in the clearing,” Gregor said.

“That’s right. I threw it on the ground and dumped a bunch of things on top of it. It was very early in the morn­ing. Lisa had just left, right before I called Carol to come over, and Lisa always likes to leave early when she’s going to Raleigh. And it was hours and hours before the body was found, too, although it was earlier than I thought it would be.”

“Earlier? Why earlier?”

“I thought I’d have a couple of days,” Stephen re­plied. “I knew they weren’t going up there to worship the Goddess anymore. Zhondra put a stop to it after Tiffany died. I thought she would just lie up there for a couple, of days and decompose.”

“And all this because she saw the candles.”

“They were very special candles,” Stephen said. “They were for worshipping the Goddess and only for wor­shipping the Goddess. I had them right before the storm, and I was bringing them out the side of the house, through the kitchen. She saw me, you see. Clayton didn’t do a very good job with the searching. I don’t think he ever got to that terrace. There was blood all over that terrace when it was finished.”

“When what was finished?” Gregor asked evenly. “Do you mean after the baby was dead?”

“The baby cried and cried and then it stopped. That’s all I remember about that. There was the rain and the light­ning and the thunder and the baby was wailing on and on and on and then it was dead, lying right there in my hands pumping blood all over me, all over us both.”

“Dear sweet Jesus,” Minna whispered. “If it was pumping blood, it was alive.”

“You remember killing Carol,” Gregor said. “Do you remember killing Zhondra?”

“I broke her neck, too,” Stephen said. “That was a woman who could put two and two together. She had ev­erything all figured out. I was only coming up to get the candles. I would have left her alone after that. I didn’t want to go wandering around her camp. What did she take me for?”

“You typed the suicide note?” Gregor asked. “You got her hanging with the rope over the chandelier hook?”

“I used the chandelier hook as a pulley. It wasn’t hard. It was easier than killing her.”

“We would have figured it out in the end, you know,” Gregor told him. “There are ways to tell, during an au­topsy, whether a person died from hanging or not. There are ways to tell even before an autopsy.”

“But you didn’t have to figure it out,” Stephen said. “I told you all of it. I told you all of it myself.”