Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“Terry,” Lin said. “Your face.”

“My face?”

“You’re very flushed.”

“Right.” I shut the folder. “Why these women?”

“Pardon?”

“Why only these particular women? What’s the connection between them?”

“They fit the profile. Young. Late teens to early twenties. Pretty. Brunettes.”

I snorted. “Is that all?”

“We haven’t discovered anything else to connect them.”

I nodded and couldn’t seem to stop. It was like the tendons in my neck had been cut. My chin hit my chest and it rattled my teeth. I couldn’t catch enough air. “What about all the others?”

“What others?Ȋw 1D;

“The blondes. The ugly ones. The fat ones. The forty-year-olds. What about all of those women who’ve been choked or beaten in the last seven or eight years?”

“That’s not-”

Gilmore had been right. It all looked like bullshit. The young women all bore a vague resemblance but other than that, there was nothing that tied them together. Maybe they were strangled, maybe not. I could almost hear Gilmore’s finger coming down on the tabletop, click click click .

“This isn’t evidence.”

“It’s part of the profile.”

“You watch too much fucking television.” I slid the folder aside. “You can force the facts to fit any profile, that doesn’t mean it’s real.”

“But this-”

“What do you do?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your profession. What do you do?”

“Oh. I’m currently unemployed.”

“You have a nice place. What were you before you were unemployed?”

There was the dull light of discomfort in her eyes, quickly replaced by defiance. “I worked for Child Protective Services as an investigator.”

It struck me hard. I shuddered with the urge to laugh. I tried choking it back but a weird little giggle escaped my lips. I stood and thought, What the hell am I doing here? I took a step toward the door and the laughter came bubbling up, hot and wet, and I couldn’t stop. She didn’t know what to do. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. I leaned over and propped my hands on my knees, gasped until tears filled my eyes. I wiped them away and they kept coming. Then I wasn’t sure if I was laughing anymore. Abruptly, I knew I wasn’t. I faced her calmly and said, “You’re goddamn kidding me.”

“No, I-”

“They fired you when they found out you had married a mass murderer convicted of killing children.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Let me guess. You’re suing them for losing your job. You consider it prejudice.”

“No. I knew what I was doing. I realized I would be discharged.”

I stepped away from her. “There’s nothing here. My brother iced Becky Clarke. He’s still running a game on me. And you too.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. I didn’t expect you to be so… combative.”

“It’s the nature of my family. We’re all contrary.”

“Collie isn’t.”

That nearly got me laughing again, but I managed to curb it. She pulled the accordion folder closer, then sipped her wine. She didn’t appear to be upset, merely disappointed.

I got to the door but couldn’t make myself leave yet. I turned and asked, “Why did you write him in the first place?”

She looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t think you would believe me.”

“Tell me anyway.”

She considered it.ing I drifted back toward the settee but didn’t sit. I was drawn to the picture of Hong Kong. I’m not sure what there was about it. Maybe simply the openness of it. Talk about a city of thieves and murderers, corruption and money and beauty. Lin looked at me like she was looking at Collie. There was the light of love in her eyes, or maybe it was only self-deception.

“I wrote him,” she said, “to tell him that I would be sitting in the dark, saving electricity to make sure there was plenty of voltage for his electric chair. I was one of those people. He killed a child. A little girl. A harmless old woman. All those poor people. I found him irredeemable.”

“And now?”

She lifted her chin as if exposing her throat for the kill. “He’s still irredeemable. But I love him.”

I thought about it. “That’s not why you wrote him. There had to be a reason. Something that set you off.”

She held her glass of wine but didn’t sip it. She looked like a mannequin posed in a beautifully mannered way. “Oh, that’s right, you’re someone who needs reasons. So I’ll tell you honestly. I think it was his face. In the paper. His expression. He was handsome but unrepentant. He wasn’t smirking like some of them do. He wasn’t embracing the spotlight. And yet he also wasn’t ashamed. He wasn’t weeping. He didn’t look suicidal. He didn’t look like someone who would enjoy prison. He didn’t look like a killer, but he was one. He wasn’t terrifying. He also wasn’t pathetic.”

“What was he?”

“Himself. That’s all he was. He was merely himself.”

How profound. How authentic. Heartfelt, penetrating. The laugh was there in my belly, wanting out. I thought, And if he was terrifying or pathetic or suicidal he wouldn’t have been himself? No wonder they’d found each other. They were both seriously nuts.

“He responded to my letters. They were… genuine. He takes the world on its own terms. His letters are direct but conscientious. You can read them if you like.”

“Christ, no.”

“I began to visit him. Due only to curiosity, of course, at first. I thought I might submit an article for a magazine. I dabble with journalistic writing. I was full of hate. I wanted to vent it. I wanted to put it down on paper, but more than that I wanted to show him for what he was, whatever that might be. I decided I should face him. I craved a chance to dig into him and make him feel something. I didn’t realize that he felt everything, just like the rest of us. I’ve never met a man more emotionally honest and accepting.”

“You don’t get out much, lady.”

She looked at me evenly. “It took months before the hate dropped away. I eventually began to look forward to seeing him. I fell in love with him. We can’t ever truly know when it happens or why. We don’t choose who we love, Terry.”

“You’re too easy on yourself.”

She lowered her eyes. “Trust me, I’m not.”

Trust was too hard to come by. I went to the painting again. I thought, Maybe that’s where I need to go. That’s where a man could get lost. They had world-class pickpockets there. I’d promised everyone in my family that I’d never run again, but maybe it waht s the only answer.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“What?”

“You whispered something.”

I cleared my throat and coughed up the question. It was the same question. It was the only question.

“Why did he do it?” I asked.

There was a lengthy pause. “He doesn’t know why. He just did. That’s all there is.”

“You sound exactly like him. He bought his gun the day before, did you know that? You don’t plan something spontaneous and irrational. He must’ve said something about what happened that night.”

“No,” Lin said, and she watched me like she was watching a little brother who’d skinned a knee, as if she wanted to put a bandage on a little scrape, give it a kiss. “He never has. He simply says he did what he did and that’s all.”

“That’s not good enough. Not nearly.”

“It doesn’t have to be good enough for you, Terry. You can keep asking, keep looking for answers, but you’re only going to be hurting yourself. Don’t you see that?”

“He’s lying.”

“Collie doesn’t lie.”

I rushed forward, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her out of her seat. The glass went flying and hit the floor but didn’t break. The spilled wine almost looked like it could be blood in this light. “You don’t know shit about my brother. You’re just one of those nutso fans who dig on serial killers because you think they’re romantic outlaws. Marriage behind bars to a convicted murderer-do you know how pathetic you are? I know your kind. Every asshole on death row has fifty of you writing him every day, espousing love.”