J. Rain: Hail Mary

“ Where’s your son?” I asked.

“ At home, I presume.”

“ He killed my mother.”

“ I understand you might think that.”

With the headlights shining into the clearing, the scene looked a little like something out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Rain crossed through the lights, slashing like silver daggers. The whole setting looked surreal.

“ He also raped two other women.”

Tomlinson was shaking his head. “No.”

“ And you got him off. Every time.”

“ I think you overestimate the reach of a simple homicide detective.”

Except my father had looked into this. I said, “The assistant DA at the time was an ex-partner of yours. In fact, the two of you had been partners for nearly ten years before an injury forced him to pursue a law degree, a degree that eventually landed him in the district attorney’s office.”

“ You’ve got it wrong, Knighthorse.”

“ So, how many innocent women has your piece of shit son killed, Detective?”

With the glow of the headlights illuminating just one side of his face, the retired homicide investigator looked impossibly old. A living corpse. His hands were clenched into fists, the backs of which were covered with age spots. He was an old man who should be playing with his grandchildren or relaxing poolside on a cruise ship…anything other than sitting in the rain and staring down the barrel of a gun.

“ He’s a good kid,” he said.

I stepped closer to the table, ignoring the rain, ignoring the bright headlights. “You’ve spent your entire life protecting him, haven’t you?”

He hadn’t stopped shaking his head. “He’s a good kid.”

“ Your son is a killer, and as far as I’m concerned, so are you.”

Beyond the surreal light, the geese stopped honking. I heard the lapping of water along the sandy shore. The jostling of boats tied together. The wind in branches, and another sound, too.

Whimpering. Coming from the old man.

“ You’ve bailed your son out of so much trouble, he probably thinks he’s bulletproof. Immune. A god among men. He could take what he wants, when he wants, and dear ol’ dad will always get him off. Always.”

“ No, no. You’re wrong,” he said, and his voice sounded strangled, and I saw that he was weeping now. He covered his face with his hands.

“ He’s a killer, and you’re his accomplice.”

I heard the noise behind me, coming up from the lake. As I spun toward it, a nearby voice said, “Drop the gun, Knighthorse.”

Under different circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have dropped the gun. I would have started firing and kept on firing until all of us were dead.

Instead, I tossed my gun aside and there, silhouetted in the headlights of my van, was a figure I had come to recognize.

Gary Tomlinson.

He stepped forward through the short grass, his facial features hidden in shadow. He was holding what appeared to be shotgun. Pointed directly at my chest.

“ Get on the ground,” he said.

“ Go fuck yourself.”

He stepped closer, and the closer her got, the more I could make him out. His nose was still a little swollen. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows. He was a few inches shorter than me, but he didn’t look it. There was a lot of muscle around his shoulders, and his forearms rippled as he gripped the shotgun tightly.

“ Then put your hands up.”

“ Go fuck yourself. Again.”

Gary was now standing near his father, who was still sitting at the table, holding his head in his hands. The old man looked traumatized, bewildered, and I realized now that this whole nighttime set-up had been Gary’s idea, not his father’s.

Gary glanced at his father. “You believe this guy, Dad? You would think he was the one holding the gun.”

Dad didn’t say anything. He just continued to hold his head in his hands. The picture of denial.

“ I swept the area. Twice. We’re all alone. Park’s closed. No rangers, no campers. Nothing.” Now he looked at me. “You’re not in a very good position.”

“ I’m always in a good position.”

Gary shook his head and walked carefully around the table. He kept the weapon loosely trained on me. That was a good decision on his part.

“ Doesn’t matter,” he said. “This ends now, anyway.”

“ For some of us.”

Gary looked at me curiously from above his still-swollen nose. Curiously, because I wasn’t acting the part of a scared and cornered victim. He shrugged. “So you found me, Knighthorse. After twenty years. Funny how I always knew you would. So how did you find me?”

“ I Googled ‘murderous scumbags.’”

Gary tilted his head slightly. “I’m not as murderous as you think, Knighthorse. Sure, there was your mother and another woman who shall remain nameless. But that’s it. Just the two of them. You see, killing is more troublesome than it’s worth. There’s the cleaning and the hiding and the worrying. Not to mention I happen to like my current lifestyle…although things can get a little boring.”

“ So you mix things up with a little rape and murder?”

“ Actually, yes, although I’ve discovered other…outlets.”

“ Spoken like a true psychopath.” I didn’t want to know about his other outlets.

He shrugged, then nodded toward me. “You wired?”

“ No.”

“ Prove it.”

I needed him to believe I wasn’t wired. So I made a show of irritably pulling up my shirt and turning around. He seemed satisfied.

“ You’re a big boy, Knighthorse.”

I dropped the shirt, ignored him. “So why my mother?” I asked.

“ Why not?” he said. “Before your mother, there had been another girl-”

“ The girl you raped.”

He shrugged. Rape. Murder. It was all the same to him. “Anyway, I had found that experience…unfulfilling.”

“ So you wanted to rape and murder.”

“ Not in so many words…but I wanted to take things…further, if you will.”

“ But why my mother?” I asked again.

He shrugged. His gun shrugged with him. It was all I could not to lunge at him. I knew lunging at him would probably not end up very well for me.

He said, “She seemed…vulnerable. She was cute. She was an older woman. I was, what, nineteen or twenty? Her hubby, your dad, I guess, didn’t seem too interested. Sure, they were holding hands, but she seemed to be trying twice as hard as he was. I thought I would…satisfy her.”

“ So you followed them home.”

“ Not at first, but something odd happened. As they were leaving, I was leaving, too. And we all just sort of headed out to the same area. And when they exited just a few streets from my own…it was like…destiny.”

He trailed off. I waited.

“ So I circled around the street a few times. It was a quiet street. A quiet time of day.”

“ And then my father and I left.”

He nodded. “And then you left…and she was alone.” As Gary spoke, he did so in an emotionless monotone, a strong indication of psychopathy. That his words might have an effect on me, did not occur to him. Or, if it did, he didn’t care. “I knocked on the door and she answered. I told her my car had broken down and asked if I could use her phone. She said sure without thinking. Stupid of her to let me in.”

I briefly closed my eyes. That sounded like my mother. So trusting.

I nearly told him to stop, but I needed his confession on tape. Gary Tomlinson went on in agonizing detail. Once or twice he paused when he saw me wince or take in some air, and he looked at me curiously. Lacking real emotions himself, he would find my own display as something strange, something to be studied and processed.