AS TINY WAS PULLING UP to Will’s Corvette in downtown Delphi, he was suggesting something to his passenger.
“Look, I’ve got a room in a motel here, but maybe I’d better stay on the houseboat where you are. You may need a bodyguard.”
“Bodyguard? Where were you when I really needed you?” Will asked with a chuckle.
“I’m serious,” Tiny protested. “Look, can’t you tell I’ve dropped twenty pounds? I’ve been trying to exercise—get back into shape. You know there was a time in my former life, when I was a cop in the military—you know, I was a lean, mean, fighting machine!”
“Thanks anyway,” Will replied. “I really don’t need a bodyguard. On the other hand, if you like the Huckleberry Finn life of living on a high-class raft, why don’t you join me? There’s only one bed, though—you may have to try to make yourself comfortable on the couch.”
“Me on a couch?” Tiny said with a laugh. “Look, if you don’t need protection, I think I’ll pass on that and stay at the motel.”
Tiny headed off while Will climbed into his Corvette and gunned it off in the direction of Eden Lake. It seemed as if he had been gone for weeks. He recognized the familiar “Tex, the Flying Cowboy” sign and the road that led down to the water.
It was late afternoon, and the sun was getting low on the horizon over the quiet surface of the lake when he pulled up to the dock, looking forward to getting settled back into something normal.
He unlocked the houseboat and threw open the windows to get fresh air. Suddenly feeling exhausted and a little dizzy, he thought he would lie down for a minute. Although his skull wasn’t fractured, as the doctors had originally feared, he had had a serious concussion and a broken nose. He stretched on the couch in the small living room that overlooked the lake.
He was just dozing off when the phone rang next to him.
“Is this Will Chambers?” a young female voice said on the other end.
“Yes, it is. What can I do for you?”
“You can’t do anything for me, but I might be able to do something for you.”
“Like what?”
“You represent a woman by the name of Mary Sue Fellows?” the young woman on the phone asked.
Will sat up quickly—so quickly that his head gave him an immediate reminder of his injuries.
“Yes—do you know her?”
“Never met her in my life.”
“Alright—do you have some information on her case?” Will asked.
“I am the anonymous caller.”
“Okay—can you explain that?”
“I’m the one who called the Department of Social Services. I told them about Mary Sue Fellows poisoning her little boy.”
“I am sorry, I didn’t catch your name…” Will prompted.
“You’re not going to get my name. I want no part of this case. And I don’t want any trouble.”
“Then why are you calling me?”
“Because someone did me wrong. I had a perfectly good job, and now I’ve been fired. He’s mistreated me and taken advantage of me—I’ve been harassed and treated like dirt. I don’t appreciate that. So I took the information about how to contact you with me.”
“Wait a minute,” Will said, trying to put the pieces together. “Who did you wrong?”
There was silence at the other end. Will decided to probe a little further.
“You said that you made the phone call. But you’ve never met Mary Sue Fellows. Why did you accuse her of poisoning her child?”
“I was told to. He told me that I could make the phone call—no one would have to know who I was—and the law protected me as an anonymous caller reporting a child-abuse incident.”
“When you made the phone call, you knew that those allegations were basically untrue?”
“Look, like I said—I know nothing about Mary Sue Fellows. I don’t know anything about her poisoning her kid. I was told to say those things and that’s it.”
“Why would you have made a false allegation against someone you didn’t know?”
“Very simple—money. And there were other issues. Anyway, I’m sorry I did it and I wanted you to know. I’m hoping this could be helpful.”
“It isn’t going to be very helpful,” Will replied, “unless you give me a name and give me some way to contact you so I can interview you. I need to find out who put you up to this and why. And then I need to convince you how important it is to be a witness in this case.”
“Oh no,” the young woman said, “there’s no way I’m going to get involved in this case. I’m not going to give you my name and I can’t afford to testify. You’re just going to have to run with the information I’ve given you.”
“I don’t think that’s enough,” Will said gently but firmly. “An innocent woman may lose custody of her child. And there’s still a criminal case pending against her—she may even go to prison when this is all over. Can you live with that?”
There was a tense pause at the other end. Will continued to push.
“Can you tell me who put you up to this?”
“I…I don’t think I can tell you that. I really don’t want my life destroyed. He can really mess up your life.”
“Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?” Will asked, passion rising in his voice.
He heard noise in the background as the woman remained silent. It might have been as long as a minute. It sounded like she was calling from a telephone booth or a store, or perhaps a restaurant.
Finally she spoke. “Do you ever give confession? Are you Catholic?”
“No, I’ve never given confession to a priest, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Well, ask a guy named Henry Pencup. He gave a confession. I can guarantee you that.”
“And what does that have to do with Mary Sue Fellows?”
“That’s what you’ll have to figure out,” the young woman said. Then she hung up.
Will quickly jotted down the name she’d given him on a magazine, spelling it several different ways—Pencupp—Pencup—Penkupp—Penkup.
Then Will noticed the telephone number on the caller ID and called it immediately.
After a number of rings, a man answered the phone.
“Delphi Café.”
“I think a young woman just called from your phone. Is she still there?”
“Haven’t got a clue. If she is, I don’t know what she looks like. We’ve been real busy here.”
“Do you think you could find her in there in the restaurant?” Will asked.
“Locate who—what’s her name?”
“That’s just the problem—I don’t know her name. She just called me from your telephone,” Will said.
“Look—we’re real busy here. Sorry I can’t help you.” The man hung up.
Will quickly plugged in his laptop and went on-line. After searching a few news sources under various spellings, he came up with a small article in an Atlanta newspaper. It was an obituary.
Henry Pencup had been the president of the Delphi National Bank. The obituary indicated that he was memorialized in a service at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Delphi.
Following the obituary, Will also located a number of articles mentioning an ongoing investigation into several million dollars missing from the Delphi bank. Auditors had so far failed to uncover the reason for the missing funds. The death of Henry Pencup, who had suffered a massive heart attack, had become a major obstacle in the investigation.
That was when Will remembered the sign outside the St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Church.
Confession is good for the soul, the attorney thought to himself.
He decided he needed to visit the church.
It was time to find out whose confession.
And—whose soul.