Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“How about if the child-killer doesn’t fucking analyze me, huh?”

“Hate me if you want but-”

“What, you think I need your permission to hate you? You think this is something new?”

“No.”

A vacationing family of five shot to death in a mobile home, a gas-station attendant knifed in a men’s room, an old lady beat to death outside a convenience store, a young woman strangled in a park.

“The little girl. Say her name, damn you.”

“Susan Coleman.”

“Suzy.”

“Suzy Coleman.”

“Say the rest.”

“There’s no point to this, Terry.”

“Say them or I’m out of here forever.”

He spoke without expression. The words dropped from him like he was reading a baseball lineup. “Paul Coleman. Sarah Coleman. Tom Coleman. Neal Coleman. Suzy Coleman.”

“The rest.”

“Doug Schuller was the guy I knifed in thvacnifed in e gas station. Mrs. Howard I pummeled with my fists. I hit her four, maybe five times.”

No remorse. No scourging of conscience. It wasn’t hidden in the folds of his face, it wasn’t hovering beneath the surface of his calm. His eyes were the eyes of my brother, no different than they’d ever been.

“None of them was robbed, Collie. You didn’t even take anything from the register at the gas station.”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“There is no answer. I just did it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

Gramp Shepherd had called it going down into the underneath. That moment when desperation, rage, or momentary madness drove you out of your head and forced you to do something stupid and terrible. He’d always warned us. He told us to be aware of it, to watch for it, to know that when that trapped feeling hit, you couldn’t let it make you lose control.

“What made it happen? What provoked you?”

“There was no provocation, it just happened.”

“You went mad dog for nothing?”

“It just happened.”

“Suzy Coleman. The girl in the mobile home-”

“Why are you hung up on the girl? Not the old lady? Nobody else? Only the girl, huh?”

Saying it like I should be ashamed.

“You told me you were making ghosts. What’s that mean?”

“Don’t talk about them. Don’t think about them. That’s not what you’re here for.”

“Don’t think about them?”

“No. It’ll just be distracting for you. There’s only one person you need to wonder about, that you need to ask about. Rebecca Clarke.”

“Why only her?”

“Because I didn’t kill her.”

I rubbed my eyes. I made a scoffing sound.

“So why didn’t you say anything about it before now?” I asked.

Collie looked at me with a mischievous expression, almost wearing a sad grin. He said nothing.

“What? You thought maybe you didn’t remember strangling a teenager?”

He said, “I wasn’t sure.”

“Then how can you be sure now?”

“There have been more.”

“More?”

“More young women who look an awful lot like Rebecca Clarke have been killed.”

I couldn’t look at him anymore. I stared over his shoulder at the wearisome white stone walls and tried to make sense of what he was saying. “How do you know that?”

“Lin’s been doing research. There have been other women murdered in similar ways since I’ve been in here. And at least one that happened about six months before I-”

“Tell the cops.”

“They don’="jdonȁt believe me.”

“I don’t either.”

He paused and the pause lengthened into a heavy silence, and finally he snapped his fingers to get my attention again. “I want you to look into it.”

“Look into what?”

“Becky’s murder. And the others.”

“Becky?”

He pursed his lips and turned away to say something to his audience. His stony eyes focused on me again. His tongue prodded the inside of his cheek. He cleared his throat.

“Talk to Lin, she has notes for you. She’s been investigating.”

“Oh, Christ, Collie.”

He started getting excited. The jazzy bop rhythm worked back into his voice. “Young women strangled around the island. Some even near the park, like Becky was.”

“Stop calling her Becky as if you were friends.”

“There’s been at least three more since I’ve been in here.”

“Collie, what the hell are you saying?”

“Someone else murdered Rebecca Clarke. And it looks like he’s been snuffing others. As many as five in the last six or seven years, maybe more, I don’t know. But the others, they all looked like her. Brunettes, pretty.”

I couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter. “That’s the description? Pretty brunettes? Someone’s killing pretty brunette teenagers?”

“They weren’t all teenagers. But they all looked similar, from what they tell me.”

“From what who tells you?”

“Lin.”

The new wife. The new psycho wife. If it was true and other women were being murdered, I figured that maybe she would be doing it. Trying to put the whole case in doubt. Strangling young girls because she’d always been turned on by the thought of murder. It was why she married a murderer. And now she had the perfect reason. She was killing for love.

“Fuck this,” I said.

“Listen to me, Terry. You’ve got to listen.” He pawed at his face but he wasn’t sweating. I was. “Someone’s out there snuffing women.”

“What do the cops say about all this?”

“They still think I did her.”

“So do I.”

“Check with Lin.”

“Check with Lin?”

“Stop repeating everything I say, Terry. Just do it.”

“Why? Why should I?”

“Because I’m asking you to.”

I slumped back. “You haven’t actually asked me anything, Collie. And that’s how I know you’re bullshitting. You’re giving orders, you’re pushing me around the way you always do. Fuck this nonsense.”

“Please, Terry. Please. I’m begging you.”

“You’re not begging me. You’re simply saying that you’re begging me. But why? Why do you care so much?”

Collie leaped up in frustration and I slipped out of the chair, put some space between us, got my fists up. My brother could be a fearsome sight, the way he moved like a caged beast waiting for the proper moment to strike. His eyes settled on me and he frowned, like I was an idiot to be afraid of him. He was detached from the horror of his own crimes. He had no idea how intimidating it might be for me to sit across from him, from those hands. They were powerful and menacing. They could strangle a young woman easily. They could do the same thing to me.

“Why wouldn’t I care?” he asked.

“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

“I did. But no one believed me. Look, you’ve got to trust me on this.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Wait. Wait.” I mouthed the word again but nothing came out. Then there was a trickle of sound that turned into a chuckle thick with revulsion. “I have to trust you? And what the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Ask questions.”

“Ask questions? That’s what you’re telling me to do? What does that even mean?”

“Find out who did it. Stop them.”

“Why do you care? What difference does it make now? Five years later?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a long time.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense. You iced one young girl but you want to see justice for another you claim you didn’t kill?”

“It’s not a claim, Terry. I didn’t kill her. I man up for my own crimes.”

“You’re not even sure!”

“I am sure now. Find Gilmore. You remember Gilmore?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I remember Gilmore.”