They took Father Coyle's collar two winters ago, but no one ever took back his key. The old church sat dark and empty now. He let himself in the side door, looking for the leftover wine. Instead he heard a rattle behind the confessional wall. He pried off a strip of rotten wood and found a reel-to-reel recorder hidden inside, the tape labeled in the dead sexton's shaky hand: 1971 to last March. Coyle pressed play. A woman's voice filled the booth: "I killed him, Father. And no one ever knew."

Coyle's hands shook. He rewound and listened again. The woman kept talking. She described a man's body, a frozen pond, a winter long ago. He knew the voice but couldn't place it. He grabbed the whole box of tapes and carried them home to listen to every one.

One tape stood out. The same young man confessed three winters in a row, each time to a different killing. The last one was dated only last March. Whoever he was, he was still out there, still doing it. Coyle had to find out who.

Coyle played the last tape one more time. In the background, faint but clear, a clock chimed and a train passed. He knew that sound. It only happened at the old depot at midnight. The killer had taped his own confession there, alone, in a place Coyle could find tonight.

Coyle drove to the depot at midnight and waited in the dark. A young man came in, sat by the recorder, and started to confess again. It was Danny Voss. Coyle stepped out of the shadows. "It's over," he said. Danny froze, then broke down crying, and walked with Coyle to the police himself.