Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

An expression of pity crossed her face. “You don’t understand, Terry.”

She wasn’t bothered at all by my outburst. “Well, no shit, lady! I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you.”

She took my hand and rubbed my wrist softly, the way you might touch a traumatized child. In a strange way it helped.

I managed to force the words out. “He kissed them. His victims. That day. On the forehead. He put his lips to their foreheads.”

Nodding, she said, “I know.”

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“But Becky wasn’t kissed. There’s evidence of that. That works in his favor, I think. Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“It’s in the files. I thought you understood.”

“I thought you talked to Gilmore.”

“I did. I begged him to check the evidence. He said he had but that he still wasn’t convinced. He’s… personally invested. He feels very betrayed by Collie. And by you, for that matter. I think… he almost wishes he was a part of your family. That he was your brother as well.”

“He acts like it. Collie always stabbed me in the back. Gilmore goes for my kidneys.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You don’t need to. So Collie told you? About him… putting his lips on his victims?”

“Kissing them. Yes.”

“When did he do it? When did he kiss them? Before or after he murdered them?”

She took a deep breath. “After.”

“That rotten prick. That insane scumbag prick.”

She kept rubbing my wrist. “This isn’t good for you, Terry. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

I snapped my arm away. “Oh, shut up! You’re calling me sick? You?” I dodged toward the door like I was going to run, then I turned and got up in her face again. “You? Your bridal suite was an eight-by-ten cell. Your husband ices little girls.”

Again, that look of sympathy swam in her eyes. “You try to hide your pain by being as abrasive as you can.”

I lifted my hands as if to put them on her shoulders. Or around her neck. She didn’t flinch. My hands got closer. The pulse in her throat was in sync with my own heartbeat. I hissed, “You could have done it yourself. You could have snuffed those girls.”

Her jaw muscles tightened. Her eyes lost that profoundly sad sheen. “That’s ridiculous!”

“You could’ve done it just to help him out. Just to make the cops think there was another murderer out there. Drug users, meth-heads, prostitutes. Those sound like the kind of people you’d run into while working Child Services. How many crack babies were you visiting on a daily basis? How many skells did you run into out in Riverhead?”

Nothing I said rattled her. Maybe she really was an icy-blooded psycho like Collie. She said, “These other murders aren’t helping him. Nothing can help him. He’s doomed. He’s going to die for what he did. He’s all right with that.”

“And are you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you care about Becky Clarke? And these others, assuming they are connected?”

“Because there’s someone else out there killing women. It has to be stopped. You looked at the data I’ve collated-”

She grabbed for the folder again. She smacked it against my chest. She reached for my hand and forced me to take it.

“There’s nothing here.”

“They’re going to murder him,” she said.

I’d used the same word while I’d stood in line to get into the prison to see him the first time. “It’s not murder. Murder is an unlawful killing. He’s the murderer. This is an execution. He deserves to die.”

“He’s your brother.”

“He’s an asshole. And you worked Child Protective Services? You should be mortified. Hang your head, lady. Put your nose to the ground.”

“He wants you there, Terry. At the execution. He wants you to be a witness. Maybe he’ll give you the reason you need then. Maybe they’ll be his last words.”

“Fuck the both of you.”

I threw down the paperwork and beelined out the door. I swept past her garden, got in my car, and tore ass o9;vut of the lot with the tires smoking and squealing. I went over the curb and the shocks took such a hit that my head bounced hard off the roof. I saw white stars that turned red and ran into the gutters.

I went home and Gilmore was sitting out on the porch with my father. I was surprised to hear my old man laughing, but there it was. It sounded real.

I knew that Gilmore’s romanticized concept of family, twisted by his youth, had somehow led him to us. I wondered what would have happened if he’d been lucky enough to live in middle America with a boring-as-fuck-all family perched on a plastic-covered couch, watching Lawrence Welk repeats. Would he have been better off or worse? Would we?

“Hello, Terrier.”

“Gilmore.”

My father took a deep pull on his beer, then said, “We were just talking about that time Gramp got caught on the bay with a stolen kayak and some silverware. His car died over on Oak Beach. Thought he could land the kayak at Fire Island and instead got caught in the ferry channel-”

Gilmore showed a lot of teeth in his smile. It wasn’t nearly as bad as his grin. “-and almost wound up pulled into the props of a boatload of gay activists planning a parade at Cherry Grove.”

“He spent the day with them, said they had good barbecue and knew how to laugh.”

“I arrested him after he stole a clam boat and tried to make a getaway.” Gilmore swung himself aside in his seat to face me. He leaned in and motioned for me to do the same. “He didn’t realize it had no motor and he had to pole himself back to the mainland. He got tired halfway across and sent out an SOS. He didn’t know the water was only three feet deep and he could’ve walked back. Not one of your better-planned jukes.”

“Old Shep was never much for ocean activities,” my old man said.

I didn’t remember the story. It sounded made up. It sounded like my father was being ingratiating, using Gramp as a punch line just to keep Gilmore smiling. I wondered why he would bother.

I wondered if Gilmore was here to square off with me again, in some way using my father as leverage against me. I sat, took a proffered beer, and waited for the questions. I was surprised when the men continued passing anecdotes. Stories of stupid burglars and cops on the take who got nailed with their hands in the evidence locker. They didn’t try to engage me in any way. I even found myself joining in a bit. Finally I wished them good night.

I stepped inside and went up to my room and then padded downstairs and took up a perch by the front window, where I could listen to my old man and Gilmore talking. The night-light over the kitchen sink didn’t reach my dark corner. I sat on the floor and dropped my head back against the cold wall.

“He looks well,” Gilmore said. “He say anything about his time away?”

“Not much. Just that he was enjoying himself.”

“That’s good. Anything about where he settled?”

“A farm,” my father said. “Milking cows, feeding chickens, all that. Raised corn.” My father cracked open another bottle, took a sip. “Can’t picture him doing iidtcdotestit, but he’s healthy, and that’s what matters.”

“You don’t think he’s back simply to get into trouble, do you?”

“No, I don’t, Gilmore.”

“Good, that’s good to know. But there’s something about home that brings it out in him again, huh?”

“I don’t think so.”

“All right, then. But I wish you hadn’t called him.” Gilmore sounded wistful. “I wish you would’ve let him go.”

“I did,” my father said, “but his brother needed him.”

“Collie’s going to get him involved in something bad.”