Tears spilled onto Colton’s cheeks. “I was only fourteen. Do you know how young that is?”
“He had just turned fourteen,” said Kathy.
“Mother, please. This is hard enough,” he said. “Tyler Walters was my best friend.”
He stood up and walked around and rested his forearms on the back of the chair, as if he couldn’t sit down, but needed to be propped up.
“Mother told me what happened with that girl, Stacy Dance, Ryan Dance’s little sister. She told me how Marsha Carruthers has been acting-the anger and the drinking. I got afraid for Mother. She didn’t know what really happened, and it’s gotten so mixed up.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” suggested Diane.
He nodded. “I’m not sure what the beginning is anymore,” he said.
His mother sobbed into her handkerchief.
“Just start from the first thing you remember,” said Kingsley.
“I was in my room listening to NSYNC, and Tyler came to my window and knocked. I let him climb in. He was really upset. He kept pacing and saying, ‘Oh, man, oh, man. I really did it this time.’ ”
Colton paused and looked away from Diane and Kingsley, his face screwed up into a grief-stricken mask.
“He was only a kid like me. He told me he had just killed El-Ellie Rose. I thought he was kidding. I mean, who comes in and says they just killed someone? He said he’d been wanting her for a long time but he couldn’t get her alone. She kept avoiding him. He had told me already that one day he was going to jump her and I told him he couldn’t do that. He didn’t listen to me.”
Colton Nicholson sat back down in the chair. His mother reached over and touched his hand.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he whispered. “Tyler said she started screaming and he put a hand over her mouth. Tyler was really strong. His grandfather made him work out all the time.”
Diane thought that was a strange way of putting it, but she didn’t want to interrupt him.
“Everett Walters, Tyler’s grandfather, took him to some hookers as a birthday present when he turned thirteen,” continued Colton. “Tyler said his grandfather told them to make a man out of him. After that, he was kind of crazy, if you know what I mean. At the time, I was really interested in hearing about his experience with the hookers, but it kind of scared me too. His grandfather scared me. He encouraged Tyler to be a bully at school. He got into trouble more than once for it. He kept telling Tyler he had to be a man. That’s hard when you are just thirteen.”
Colton paused again and put his head in his hands. He straightened up after a moment and continued. “He said he did it to her. He said his grandfather was right-she was better than a hooker. But she bit him and started screaming, and he choked her. He said she was in the woods in back of his house, that he had covered her body with branches. I told him he had to go tell his father. He shook his head and said he was going to tell his grandfather, that he would know what to do.”
“Did he?” asked Kingsley.
Colton nodded. “Yes. When it was all done, Tyler was calm about it all. He said his grandfather fixed everything. He told me never to tell anyone. If I did, his grandfather would kill me. He wasn’t threatening me or anything. It was just a fact. He said he didn’t tell his grandfather I knew because he would have killed me. I believed him. I was scared.”
Colton waited a moment. His eyes were glossy with tears. He had been living with this for nine years, dreading every time he came home. Diane couldn’t blame him, even though he should have come forward much earlier.
“That man Dance is innocent. Tyler’s grandfather, Everett Walters, framed him. Tyler said Dance was some no-account and it didn’t matter. But Mother tells me that someone killed his sister, that she was trying to free her brother. I know it was Everett Walters who did it.”
“What about Tyler?” said Diane. “You don’t think he could have killed Stacy Dance?”
“El was an accident. He wouldn’t kill somebody on purpose.”
“He raped Ellie Rose on purpose,” said Kingsley.
“Don’t you think I know that? El was my friend too. I told Tyler he needed to talk to a counselor or something, but-he was all different after he met his grandfather. Tyler’s grandfather wasn’t always in the picture. He and Tyler’s grandmother divorced when Tyler’s father, Gordon Walters, was a kid, and she got custody and raised him in another state without Everett. Everett had businesses here in Georgia and didn’t travel, I guess. Anyway, Tyler said Everett didn’t try to see his son, Gordon, growing up and regretted it. Everett Walters sought his son out when Tyler was a kid-it was several years after Gordon Walters moved back to Georgia.”
“Why did he wait?” asked Kingsley.
Colton shrugged. “I think Everett read something about Gordon in the newspaper-when he became head of oncology or something-realized that that was his son.” He shrugged again. “Wendy hated Everett, but Gordon, Dr. Walters, was happy to have his father back in his life. Wendy said Gordon had blinders on when it came to his father. But she did too. She had no idea about the things that Everett was teaching Tyler. She sure didn’t know about the hookers. She’d have had a fit. Tyler said that his mother and father argued about Everett a lot. Everett had no respect for women and that included Wendy. Gordon was so clueless about his father. But, to be fair, he did work all the time.”
Colton talked to them for an hour. It was sometimes disjointed and Diane had to make the connections in the right sequence. She imagined he was about talked out. He and his mother had apparently talked all night. He stood and looked at his mother.
“I have to tell Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers what really happened. They deserve to know. Then I’m going to get you to move out to California with me. You don’t need to live here any longer. Not across the street from the Walters. Not after today.”
Mrs. Nicholson looked at Diane and Kingsley. “What will happen to Colton? What will the police do?”
“He will have to answer questions,” said Diane. “Get a good lawyer to go with him to the police station. He was a minor and he was scared. He didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Ellie Rose until after the fact. But he still needs to have a lawyer with him.”
“Oh God,” she wimpered.
“Mother, this has defined my life for nine years. My childhood ended that day. I can’t have a relationship with anyone until I resolve this. Tyler won’t like it, but he was a minor too. It’s his grandfather they need to put in jail.”
Light was starting to filter through the crack between the drapes. Daylight was finally here. Diane imagined that it was a long time coming for Colton and his mother.
He headed for the door.
“Colton, you need to call first,” said his mother.
“No. I need to go over and do it. I need to get this done,” he said.
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “Please let us go with you.”
Kathy Nicholson had said us. She apparently wanted Diane and Kingsley to go along too. Well, thought Diane, this ought to be fun. She looked at Kingsley, who was getting to his feet.
“Son,” said Kingsley,“you need to wait and do this another way. You don’t know what Mrs. Carruthers’ reaction will be. She probably won’t believe you at first. She may blame you. She needs people around her when you tell her.”
“I’ve thought it through. Marsha knows me. When I come home I always go see her. Samuel will be there. He doesn’t go into his office this early. I know them. They need to hear this and I need to tell them, and I’m going to.”
Ross sighed. “Very well,” he said. “Then all of us will go with you.”
The four of them walked over to the Carruthers’ house. Colton Nicholson rang the doorbell. It took a couple of minutes before anyone answered it. Diane and Kingsley stood back so that whoever answered the door, or looked out the peephole, would see the Nicholsons first. Diane didn’t think Marsha Carruthers or her husband would let them in otherwise.
It was Marsha who opened the door. She was in a robe. She didn’t have on any makeup and her hair was up in a ponytail.
“Kathy? Colton?” she said. “I didn’t know you were home. Is anything wrong?” Then she saw Diane and Kingsley. “You! What are you doing here?”
“I asked them, Marsha,” said Kathy Nicholson. “Colton needs to tell you and Samuel something.”
“This early? Can’t it wait?” she said.
“No, Marsha, it can’t,” said Colton. “I should have come a long time ago.”
“Honey, who is it?” Samuel Carruthers came to the door in a bathrobe. “Colton. It’s been a while.” He looked at Diane and Kingsley and pointed a finger at them. “I told you never to come onto my property again.”
“Please, Samuel,” said Kathy. “Please, let us come in.”
Dr. and Mrs. Carruthers looked confused. They stood there making no decision for several moments. Then Marsha stepped back and let them come in. They all went into the living room, where Ellie Rose’s portrait hung over the mantel. The stuffed chair was sitting facing it. An empty drink glass was on the side table where Marsha had left it the evening before. Diane wanted to go home and get into bed.
Marsha and Samuel sat in the leather chairs. Kathy and Colton sat on the sofa. Diane and Kingsley stood off to the side, near the wall. Diane hoped she blended into the wallpaper.
“What’s this about?” asked Marsha.
Colton took a deep breath. For all his insistence on coming over right at this moment, he was losing his nerve. He blurted it out. No preamble or explanation, just, “Tyler Walters killed El. His grandfather framed that Dance guy. Tyler told me it was an accident.”
Marsha and Samuel sat there as if they hadn’t heard. They stared at Colton, then at Kathy, then at Diane and Kingsley.
“They told you to say this,” said Marsha. “You sons of bitches.”
“Marsha, I called them early this morning after Colton and I talked all night. I’d told Colton about the murder of Stacy Dance, and he got on a plane and flew here. These people had nothing to do with it. I called them, well, because they were nice to me and aren’t the police-though I know we’ll need to talk to the police after we talk to you.”
“I don’t understand,” said Samuel. “Are you saying that Tyler Walters killed my baby girl? That he raped her? He was just a kid then.”
Colton laid out the whole story just as he had for Diane and Kingsley.