Chapter 8: Public Shame, Private Doubt

Back then, after the photos were discovered, what I didn’t expect was that Derek Lane actually confessed.

He admitted it in a cracked, tired voice—his words hollow, as if he’d already given up.

He said that during the day, he assaulted Lila, and that all those photos were taken by him.

No hesitation, no protest. He seemed almost relieved.

At that time, if a suspect confessed, there was often no need for further investigation.

It was a different era—one where a confession and a little circumstantial evidence could seal a man’s fate.

But after all, Derek Lane was someone I knew, and he had a grandmother who depended on him. How could he have done such a thing?

I couldn’t shake the memory of him as a boy, running barefoot through the fields, Mrs. Lane calling after him.

I quickly reported to my superiors, gathered my colleagues for a meeting at the scene, told everyone not to leak anything about the photos, and asked the task force for a few more days to review the case.

I tried to buy him time, to dig deeper. Something in my gut just didn’t sit right.

But unexpectedly, the next day, the photos were leaked everywhere.

It was chaos—local radio stations, bulletin boards, even the library had copies. There was no containing it.

Many places in town were plastered with Derek Lane’s obscene photos, with captions beneath:

The words were damning, the ink barely dry before the public decided his guilt.

"Corrupting young girls—Heaven cannot tolerate."

It felt medieval, a public shaming with no room for mercy or doubt.

Now, Derek Lane’s crime was exposed to the public.

He was guilty in the eyes of everyone who mattered—neighbors, pastors, even strangers from the next county over.

Given his idle reputation, the townspeople were convinced he was the culprit.

People always need a villain, and Derek fit the bill too well.

No one dared to speak up for Derek Lane.

Fear and outrage drowned out everything else. If you defended him, folks looked at you like you were crazy or worse.

Every morning, Mrs. Lane would cry her heart out at the police station, begging us to help Derek.

Her pleas echoed in the hallway, ignored by most. I remember watching her from my office, feeling powerless.

But no one dared to pay attention to her. At night, the police would send someone to take her home.

It was the least we could do, though it never seemed to comfort her much.

In the winter of 1999, Derek Lane’s death sentence was approved and carried out.

The coldest January in memory, snow piled high along the roads. I stood in the yard, listening to the news on my radio, numb and hollow.

After that, I never saw Mrs. Lane again.

Some said she moved to a cousin’s in Spokane. Others claimed she died of a broken heart.

Everyone knew that Derek Lane was brought in by me, so I became the one who contributed most to the case.

I got awkward pats on the back, thank-yous I didn’t want. The burden sat heavy, no matter how folks tried to spin it.

The police used this as a reason to promote me to Boise.

It was supposed to be a fresh start, but some stains never wash out.

Even then, I repeatedly reported to my superiors:

I kept badgering them, asking for an internal review. Nobody wanted to listen.

Why were Derek Lane’s photos posted everywhere? It must have been leaked by someone in our department.

I still have a list of names, scratched out in a drawer somewhere. Nobody was ever punished.

There was also an unresolved issue: Lila Brooks herself.

For all our digging, she remained a ghost—her past and her secrets locked away.

Most members of the circus were drifters, with no records to check.

They left no forwarding address, no next of kin, just vanished into the night.

Where was Lila from? What was her background? We had no way of knowing.

No birth certificate, no social security number, no trace beyond that one terrible summer.

On the day Derek Lane was executed, I took leave and went to the scene.

The field was empty, silent except for the crunch of my boots on snow. I watched the clouds drift over the mountains and tried to make sense of it all.

It was from that moment that I suddenly felt Derek Lane and Lila Brooks must have known each other.

The way their fates had twisted together, it was too much to be coincidence. Maybe they were both victims in their own way—a town eager for closure, a secret that refused to stay buried. And now, after all these years, that secret was clawing its way back into the light—starting with me.