“I did it,” she said. “I got out of my bed one night and I set fire to the damn barn. Just like that. Good-bye, barn.” She waited for Stanley’s comment, but he waited for her to continue. “I wanted,” she said, “to drive the stepfather out into the open. The barn was too convenient a cover for the bastard. Sister Mary Catherine just stood there that night, watching the flames. The mother told her to go into the house, bring out anything she wanted to save. They were afraid the house would burn, too.” “Where was the woman, my client, all that time?” “When the first-born died at two years old,”
...more
