My eyebrows flatten. “I thought you said no feelings.”
“Yes, of course.” He rummages in his bag, pulls out a sheaf of paper. “The autopsy came back the other day, and it’s basically not worth the paper it’s printed on.” He reads from the paper in his hand. “‘The deceased was badly burned. Most of the trunk, neck, and face were totally compromised. Inadequate lung tissue remains to confirm smoke inhalation. As a result, it is unknown whether the deceased died before or after the fire.’ And the arson investigators haven’t done much better. They found traces of accelerant, though they say that may have been the weatherproofing on the thatch roofs, which won’t stand up in court.”
My muscles grow light listening to this. “So, you’re not even sure a crime was committed.”
“I am sure,” he insists.
“How?”
He extracts a small manila envelope from his bag and starts pulling out photos.
“Part of my job is to analyze crime scenes,” he says. “I haven’t made it up to the Community yet—the snow is so deep, the investigators have had to snowshoe in—but I’ve seen the pictures they brought back.”
The photos show the Community as it must’ve looked after the fire was extinguished, empty black husks on a backdrop of snow, a gauze of smoke graying the air. I remember the smell, burnt-off grain alcohol and sagebrush, the bugs and beetles that lived inside the dung-and-mud walls squirming to escape the heat.
The doctor places the photos in a circle on my mattress.
“Twelve structures encircling a courtyard,” he says. “After the fire started, everyone escaped their houses before they collapsed. Every single person—old men, infants. Everyone,” he repeats. “Everyone, it seems, but the Prophet. There was plenty of warning, so why didn’t he?”
I try to arrange my features normally, as though I don’t know the answer to his question.
“I think he was already dead when the fire started,” the doctor continues. “The Prophet’s body was found lying on the floor next to his bed, facedown. The soft tissue was largely destroyed, but murder usually leaves its thumbprint and the medical examiner found no evidence of knife wounds, no gunshots, no blunt force trauma. They examined the contents of his stomach and found no poison. So how did he come to be lying on the ground?” He throws his hands in the air. “The question you always ask after someone dies under suspicious circumstances is ‘Did they have enemies?’ We don’t even need to bother with that question because of course he did.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask. “Nobody in the Community ever disagreed with him.” No one but me.
“He systematically brutalized an entire population,” the doctor says. “Even if they didn’t advertise it, it’s very possible someone out there wanted him dead.”
“You didn’t know them.”
“Maybe it’s possible you didn’t really know them, either.”
I set my jaw. I want to tell him that these are the people who lashed their children with switches thick as forearms when the Prophet commanded, married their daughters off at sixteen to men generations older. These are the people who beat Jude until there was nothing left but a mess of blood and bone. They had to cover him in a sheet because it made the women sick to look at.
I lean back so my spine presses against the concrete wall behind my bunk. “Why do you want to know the truth so badly?”
“Because I believe nobody benefits when the truth is buried. Lies have a way of turning poisonous over time. I want justice. And for purely selfish reasons, I want to solve this. But I also want to help you. I wasn’t lying about that.”
I rest my chin on my breastbone, staring abstractedly at the floor. “What would you do in exchange for the truth?”
He cocks his head to the side. “What are you offering?”
“My parole meeting comes up in August, when I turn eighteen. I need someone to recommend my release.”
“And you want me to be that person?”
“Maybe we could work out an arrangement,” I say.
His eyes narrow. “And what happens if no one speaks up for you?”
“Maybe they consider good behavior and let me go free anyway. But maybe I get transferred to the adult facility to serve the rest of my sentence.”
“Sounds like you have a lot to lose.”
“Sounds like you really want answers.”
“Your information in exchange for my recommendation?”
I nod. He watches me a moment, and I wonder if he can read in my expression that I will never tell him the truth. I’ll give him a version of events, a half-truth, but I haven’t told anyone what happened in those smoke-filled moments in January when I stood over the Prophet’s body and watched him breathe his last ungodly breath. And I never will.
“All right, then,” Dr. Wilson says. “It’s a deal.”
I sit up straighter. “I’d shake your hand, but . . .”
He smiles.
“So,” I say. “Where do we begin?”
Chapter 9