'I never touched my children,' Fine insisted. 'I never hurt my boys.'
Nick said, 'You understand we can't take your word for that.'
Fine seemed shocked that someone would not trust him. 'I would never touch my sons,' he said. 'I would never do that.'
'We know you're not into little boys.' Nick told him. 'But, you gotta understand. Preacher, we gotta check it out.'
Fine stared at the Bible. 'I would never have acted on my feelings if she hadn't approached me.'
'Dottie Weaver?' Nick clarified.
'Jenny was such a sweet child. She had a light in her. A true light that God put there.' Fine's lips curved up in a smile. 'She sang like an angel. She really did. You could hear God coming through her voice.'
'Yeah,' Nick said. 'I bet you could.'
Fine gave him a sharp look, as if he deserved more respect than this. The man seemed not to realize that he was in a police station, about to be sent to jail for a long time.
Jeffrey said, 'How did Dottie approach you?'
Fine seemed relieved that Jeffrey was taking over. 'She didn't exactly approach me so much as lure me,' he said. 'Adam never thought to eat of the forbidden fruit until Eve tempted him.'
Nick said, 'Seems to me Adam's snake had something to do with that.'
Fine frowned. 'It wasn't like that. It was never about sex for me.'
'But, you did have sex with her,' Nick said.
Fine chewed his lip. 'Not at first,' he said. 'I just wanted to spend some time with her.' He paused, and took a deep breath. 'Dottie let me take her to the movies, and sometimes we would go into Macon to get her some clothes.' He looked up at Jeffrey and Nick, obviously needing their approval. 'Her father had abandoned her,' he told them. 'I was just trying to fill in, to make her feel loved and wanted.'
Nick was silent, but Jeffrey could see the muscles in his arms tense.
'I just wanted to nurture her, to give her some guidance.'
'Did you?' Nick asked, not bothering to hide his hostility.
'I know what you're thinking, and it's not like that, it's not like that at all.'
Jeffrey tried to remain calm, asking, 'What's it like?'
'It's like…'-Fine made a wide gesture with his hands-'it's about love. It's about listening to children, and trying to understand their wants and their needs.'
'Did she want sex from you?' Nick asked.
Fine dropped his hands. 'I never would have touched her that way. I was content just to have her company.'
Jeffrey asked, 'What changed that?'
'Dottie.' He spit the word out of his mouth as if it was poison. 'I had always thought about it, always. Not with Jenny, but with other girls. Some girls that I saw just around town.' He blinked his eyes several times, and Jeffrey was struck by how easily these men cried for themselves. They never seemed to cry for the children they hurt.
Fine said, 'But I've always been content with my fantasies. That's always been enough for me.' His voice rose. 'I'm a happily married man,' he told them. 'I love my wife and my sons.'
'Sure you do,' Nick said, the flippant tone back.
Fine shook his head. 'You don't understand.'
Jeffrey leaned over the table. 'Explain it to me, Dave. I want to understand.'
'She was such a smart girl, and so well-spoken.' He picked up the Bible. 'She read the Book with me. We prayed. We understood each other.'
Jeffrey glanced at the Bible. While at some level Jeffrey had always believed in the presence of good and evil, he had never really attached a biblical significance to it. Seeing Dave Fine's hand on the Bible, hearing his tale of se-ducing Jenny Weaver through prayer, struck him as the highest form of blasphemy.
Nick said, 'Okay, you prayed with her. What happened to change that?'
Fine set the book back on the table. 'Dottie changed that,' he said. 'She called me in the middle of the night.'
'When was this?'
'Around Thanksgiving,' he said. 'This past Thanksgiving.'
'Then what?' Jeffrey asked, thinking the bastard was probably lying.
'I went to her house, because she said that Jenny wasn't doing well. She said she was upset, and that she needed to talk to me.' His eyes filled with tears again. 'I was her friend. I couldn't ignore a plea for help.'
Jeffrey nodded for him to continue, trying to block the image that came to his mind of Sara pointing out the pelvic fracture in Jenny Weaver's X ray. The girl had been brutally raped. Dave Fine could have been the man who did it.
Dave cleared his throat. 'I had never really been inside the house before. Jenny always waited for me on the front steps.' He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. 'When I got there, Dottie led me upstairs. Upstairs to Jenny's room.'
Fine fell silent, and neither Jeffrey nor Nick prompted him to continue. After what seemed like a long while, he picked back up where he had left off.
'We did things,' he said, his voice low. 'I'm ashamed to say that we did things.'
'
'Yes,' Fine agreed. 'I did things.'
'Did the acts only take place in Jenny's room?' Jeffrey asked, thinking that this would explain why Dottie would risk not stripping Jenny's room. The only evidence they found would point back to Dave Fine.
'Yes.' He swallowed hard. 'Only in her room.'
The men were silent as Fine seemed to get his thoughts together. He was certainly good at painting himself as a helpless victim. A thirteen-year-old girl might have bought his act, but the more excuses Fine made for his actions, the more Jeffrey wanted to kill him.
Finally, Fine said, 'Dottie took pictures. I didn't know until later.' He gave a humorless chuckle. 'She brought them to the church the next day, and threatened to expose me if I didn't do what she said.'
'What did she want you to do?'
'Make those deliveries,' he said. 'I used the church van.' He put his hand over his mouth. 'God forgive me, I used the church van.'
Jeffrey crossed his arms, willing himself to calm down. Nick Shelton was so angry there was almost a heat coming off of him. How this sick fuck could cry for himself was beyond him. Dave Fine felt sorrier for himself than he did for the kid he raped.
Jeffrey asked, 'Where's Dottie now?'
