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“So Sylvia was running the daycare and you were doing the AA meetings,” Turner said, not missing a beat. “How did you two end up becoming a couple?”

Louis carefully removed the sign advising that the meeting had been canceled, peeling each strip of tape with his fingernail so he left no residue behind. “She took it upon herself to welcome me into the fold a few months after I got here. She stayed many evenings to take part in other programs. We met in this hall, as a matter of fact. I was leaving a meeting—I wasn’t running them at that point, just attending—and Sylvia was leaving an organizing committee meeting.”

Turner followed Fisher through the door first. “What’s that?”

“It’s a group of congregants that organize charity events or any needs the church community has. They work year-round.”

Josie recalled all the flyers posted in the church lobby. Denton East Methodist offered cooling centers for people who needed relief from the summer heat; they hosted a Bible summer camp; and were currently taking donations for a food drive and supplies for a local homeless shelter.

“I offered to help.” Fisher flipped a switch on the wall, flooding the room with light. “That was that. We hit it off.”

Josie scanned the room. It was windowless. The floor was covered with a dull blue carpet. A large pull-down projector screen hung from the ceiling at the far end of the room. Next to it was a sleek black lectern. A dozen or so plastic chairs formed a ring in the center of the room, each one spaced apart so precisely, she wondered if Fisher had measured the distance between them. A table just inside the door held a small one-cup coffeemaker. Beside it was a plethora of supplies and a basket of snacks. Louis folded the handwritten sign and tossed it into a trash bin under the table.

“Did you begin seeing Sylvia outside of the church then?” Josie asked.

“Not at first.” Louis picked up a chair from the circle and carried it across the room to where dozens of identical chairs were stacked against the wall. “But I did join a lot more activities in the hopes of seeing her. I volunteered for everything she was involved in. I enjoyed being around her. She was kind to me and didn’t seem to mind my past.”

“Your past,” said Josie. “You mean the DUI?”

Fisher set the chair on the floor in front of the nearest stack, spending an inordinate amount of time checking to see that it was lined up precisely with the tower of chairs behind it. He moved it a couple of centimeters to the right, then the left, then back to the right.

Josie wondered how badly he wanted to bolt from the room. “Mr. Fisher,” she prompted. “When you say Sylvia didn’t mind your past, you mean your DUI?”

“Uh, yeah.” He went back to the circle, grabbing up another chair, careful to avoid eye contact. It went on top of the first chair. This time, he squatted and moved his head right and then left to make sure his new stack was still in line with the one behind it.

Wanting to see if he’d continue to omit information about his conviction, she said, “Was that DUI your first one? Two years is a lot of time to serve for a first offense. Most people get off with fines and a license suspension.”

His arrest had taken place about five months after Sylvia was attacked by the Last Kiss Killer.

Fisher stood up, keeping his back to them. His shoulders slumped as if the weight of the world was pressing down on him. In a weary voice, he said, “It was my first DUI but I hurt someone. I hit a woman. Caused a traumatic brain injury.”

Josie knew that, despite the fact that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania considered a traumatic brain injury to be a serious bodily injury, judges could take into account other factors when it came to sentencing. Fisher was a first-time offender with no prior record. His blood alcohol content had been just over the legal limit rather than excessively high and he hadn’t been speeding at the time of the crash. All of those things had clearly worked in his favor.

Josie wondered how the woman Fisher had hit felt about the DUI sentencing guidelines and how they had played out in the case, given that she had to live with the deficits of her brain injury for the rest of her life. Two years didn’t seem like much for causing a permanent impairment, but Josie had seen DUI cases in which the offender killed someone and was out of prison in four years.

Turner raised a brow even though Fisher still hadn’t turned toward them. “Did you tell Sylvia about the woman you injured?”

Abruptly, he spun on his heel and returned to the circle. Moving more quickly now, he stacked two more chairs as he spoke. “Of course I did. It’s not something I typically volunteer but I wanted to start our relationship with total honesty.”

Turner strolled over and picked up the next chair before Fisher could, holding it out of reach and forcing the man to make eye contact. “She was cool with it?”

Fisher reached for the chair but Turner, with his height advantage, held it out of reach. He tried to take the chair a second time, but Turner refused to hand it over.

Tension filled the space between the two men. Fisher’s fists clenched at his sides. His features twisted as he spoke. “No, she wasn’t cool with it! It’s not something people are ‘cool with.’ What I did to that woman is the greatest shame of my life. When I got out of prison, I vowed to be a better man. Helping others struggling with addiction became my calling. That’s why I went from attending the AA and NA meetings to running them. It’s my way of giving back. I’d like to think I can help prevent someone else from doing what I did.”

Turner held the chair out to him and he snatched it away. Its metal legs clanged as he shoved it forcefully onto the stack he was building.

“You’ve repented,” Josie said, unable to hide the note of sarcasm in her voice. She had no doubt that Fisher regretted what he’d done but something about his plaintive tone and canned speech made him sound insincere. Did he regret hurting someone, or did he regret having to pay the consequences?

As he went for another chair, carefully sidestepping Turner, a flush climbed up his neck to his cheeks. “I’ve tried to live a life of faith and service. Sylvia understood that and she accepted me despite what I’d done.”

Turner started to weave lazily through the remaining chairs as if he were meandering through an obstacle course. Either he was getting antsy again or he was trying to fluster Louis Fisher. Or both.

While Fisher stood frozen, watching him, Josie said, “How did things with you and Sylvia start? You were here at the church the majority of your time? You volunteered for all her clubs and activities and then one day you asked her out?”

“Sort of.” His eyes followed Turner’s slow movements, the pink at the tips of his ears turning red. “About two years after we met, I asked her out for coffee. That became a regular thing. We’d meet once a week and talk about everything under the sun. We started going to dinner and out to movies, just as friends, and then four years ago, we became more. I made no secret of my feelings for her or my attraction to her from the start.”

Josie asked, “How often did you see one another romantically?”