I looked back at Ben and Shelia and they gave me a wary look before looking at each other. With slow headshakes and sighs, they followed me into the house anyway.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Calvin didn’t have much in his home, but he kept it tidy and clean, which I could appreciate. Shelia, Ben, and I sat bunched together on his only sofa and he brought a chair over from his dining area to sit on, then looked at us as he lifted his leg and placed his ankle on top of his knee.
“So you say you went to school with Melanie?” he asked.
“I did,” I murmured.
“Were you good friends with her?”
“No. Not really. She never really noticed me.”
He scoffed. “She never cared to notice anyone but herself... that is, unless you had something she wanted.”
“What did she want from you, Mr. Thompson?”
“Wasn’t about what she wanted. It was about what she couldn’t have.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean she lied on me.” He frowned then and looked at my empty hands. “Shouldn’t you be recording this or somethin’?”
“Yes, right. Sorry.” I whipped out my phone and went to the voice recording app. “Please continue.”
“I never raped that girl,” he stated. “She wanted me and she came on to me. In the beginning, I always turned her down. Told her she was naïve, crazy. But one night, I got too drunk around her, and her mama had gone off to work, and she led me into her room. One thing led to another and then it all went to shit after that.”
“So, the whole time, it was consensual with Melanie? You never took advantage of her?” I asked, stunned. I don’t even know why I was stunned. After reading her confessions, this seemed exactly like something she would have done, but still—she was a minor when it’d happened. He was older and knew better and had taken full advantage of the situation.
“No. Never.”
“So, what about her sister? Miley?”
He dropped his leg and sat up straight. “Never did anything to her either. That was a full-blown lie, but Miley went along with it, of course, to save her sister’s ass. Them two were like peas in a pod. Melanie always plottin’ and destroyin’ everything she touched and Miley always tryin’ to fix it.” He sighed and bent down to rub his dog on the top of the head.
“Why would Melanie lie about something like that?”
“She got mad because I told her it wasn’t right what we were doin’. I told her I couldn’t even look at Pauline no more and that I was leavin’. She tried gettin’ me to stay, told me she’d do anything. I’m assuming when I told her no, that hurt her or somethin’ but she didn’t reveal that hurt to me. Instead she started groping me, asking me for one more time. So I gave it to her, but that was my mistake. After we finished, she told me if I didn’t stay, she’d tell the cops I raped her. I told her she was full of shit and that I was leaving anyway, but that was my mistake. Never should’ve underestimated that girl. She ran off to the police station that same night, lied on me, had me in prison for nine years ’til I got out on parole. Prison got overcrowded and I had good behavior, so it was pretty much like a second chance for me. My life has never been the same since then, though.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” I looked at his dog. I couldn’t tell what breed he was—he looked like a mix of a boxer and a Labrador.
“Mr. Thompson—”
“Just call me Calvin.”
“Right. Calvin. Did you ever see Melanie again after getting out?”
“No. Didn’t want shit to do with that girl ever again.”
“What about Miley?”
“Her either.”
“Do you know she died? Melanie?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Oh?”
He stopped petting his dog to give me his attention. “Just ’cause I never saw her again, doesn’t mean I didn’t look her up to see whose life she was currently wrecking. She married some golfer, right?”
I tensed at the thought of Roland, who was now my golfer. “She did.”
“Rolled off a cliff.” Calvin huffed a laugh and I glanced at Shelia, whose face was warped with confusion.
“Probably sucked the man dry. Same way she did me, her mama, and even her sister. I don’t even think she’s the one who went over that cliff.”
I frowned and cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
He folded his arms, and I could tell my time with him was coming to an end. “I mean Miley was the druggie, not Melanie. She did drugs all through high school from what I remember. Drugs always made Melanie cringe. I know because I tried to get her to smoke weed with me once and she refused.”
“So what are you saying?”