Todd Ritter - Death Notice

But this other guy—this Edgar Sewell sitting a table’s length away—he’d had a hard life. Nick was sure of it. Being taunted. Being called names. Heart sinking every time he looked in the mirror. It still didn’t excuse what he did. Nothing could, no matter how ugly he was.

“So, Edgar,” Nick said. “Why did you do it?”

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, the man lowered his eyes to the handcuffs at his wrists and said uncomfortably, “I told you already.”

Edgar’s voice matched his looks—unbearable. High-pitched and wavering, it made Nick’s ears hurt.

“Tell me again.”

“Why do you need to hear it again?”

“Because I want to help you.”

It was a lie. Edgar Sewell, the killer of three little girls, was a lost cause. He would spend the rest of his life in this shithole prison outside Philadelphia. Nick’s true goal was to crawl inside his mind and figure out what drove him to commit his unspeakable acts. Understanding that could possibly help Nick stop the killers who were still out there, still preying on the innocent and unsuspecting. That’s why Nick wanted to know.

“They told me to do it,” Edgar said.

“Who?”

“The voices.”

It was the old voices-in-my-head-made-me-kill excuse. Nick had interviewed four killers in the past week, and Edgar Sewell was the third person to use it. But it was a bullshit excuse, used to hide their true motivations. People like Edgar killed not at the behest of ominous voices. They killed because they wanted to.

“What did these voices sound like?”

“I can’t remember.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “That’s interesting. If voices in my head told me to butcher little girls, I’d remember what they sounded like.”

That made Edgar change his tune. “I do remember.”

“Then tell me.”

Edgar stalled by putting his left thumb to his lips and licking it, his tongue a flash of pink poking around the thumbnail. Nick had seen two other killers do the same thing. It was a trait that signaled maternal issues.

When Edgar became aware of Nick watching him, he jerked his thumb away and said, “Elvis.”

Nick had to give Edgar credit for originality. The others had simply said Satan. But the lie also pissed him off. After an hour, he had learned nothing new about Edgar Sewell. But now it was time to put him on the spot and, hopefully, get some real answers out of him.

Nick reached down and opened the briefcase sitting next to his chair. He pulled out a manila folder that contained three photographs. The first one showed a brown-haired girl who smiled shyly for the camera. Nick slapped it onto the table and slid it toward Edgar.

“This is Lainie Hamilton. Do you remember her?”

Edgar refused to look at the photograph, turning his head until he faced the wall.

“I know you do,” Nick said. “She was eight and lived downstairs from you. Her mother, Ronette, was a prostitute, just like yours was. And on June 1, 1980, you offered Ronette twenty dollars to have sex with you. Any of this ring a bell?”

Edgar popped his thumb into his mouth and shook his head.

“She refused, didn’t she? She laughed at you. Maybe called you ugly. You went back upstairs to your apartment and stewed. Later that night, when Ronette was walking the street, you snuck downstairs, broke in, and killed Lainie.”

The thumb popped out long enough for Edgar to say, “The voices told me to.”

“There were no voices,” Nick said, his own voice growing angry. “It was only you. And you killed little eight-year-old Lainie of your own free will. You even liked it so much that you did it again six months later to the daughter of another prostitute.”

Nick tossed a second photo onto the table.

“Then you did it again.”

A third photo. All three of Edgar Sewell’s victims—the youngest six, the oldest eleven—looked up at their killer with innocent eyes.

Forced to face their stares, Edgar said, “They deserved it.”

“Who? The girls?”

“The mothers. Those dirty, filthy whores. They thought they were better than me. They were rotten sluts who were mean to me and made fun of me and called me ugly, just like—”

Nick finished the confession for him. “Your mother?”

Edgar nodded so vigorously that Nick was afraid he’d bite off part of his thumb, which was shoved fully between his lips. Then, to Nick’s surprise, Edgar Sewell did what none of the other killers he interviewed had done.

He cried.

The tears signaled that the interview was over. Nick knew he’d get no more information out of Edgar. Which meant it was on to the next prison—this one in Centre County—and maybe two more after that, if Nick had the time.

Before leaving, he stopped by the prison’s public restroom, which was one step above a gas station’s. One toilet. One urinal. Permanent grime coated the sink’s basin. Nick tried not to touch it as he splashed cold water onto his face. In the mirror, a hollow-eyed man stared back at him.

Christ, he was exhausted. This was the start of his second week interviewing killers, and all that talk and travel had taken its toll. But it would be worth it in the end, he hoped.

After drying his face, Nick exited the bathroom and then the prison itself, relieved to be free of its walls, its bars, its unrelenting grimness. His mood brightened enough that he could muster a whistle. A little “Folsom Prison Blues” in honor of his location.

The good mood—and the whistling—lasted only until he reached the parking lot, where an unexpected visitor waited for him.

Captain Gloria Ambrose, his boss at the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, leaned against the unmarked car that had shuttled her there. She hugged herself for warmth until she caught sight of Nick. Then her arms dropped to her sides. The move was vintage Gloria—always trying to look tougher than she really was.

“How did you find me?”

“You made an official request to speak to a prisoner of the state,” Gloria replied. “So finding you was easy. I should be asking you why you’re interviewing prisoners when you’re supposed to be on vacation.”

Nick was on vacation. At least officially. And what he did during his time off was his own business.

“Just tell me what’s going on,” he said irritably. “I know there’s a reason you’re here.”

Even more, he knew what that reason was. Gloria didn’t even need to tell him. Her presence alone spoke volumes.

“He struck again.”

“Where?”

“A town called Perry Hollow. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. The rest of your team is already there.”

“I assume you want me to join them,” Nick said.

Gloria, who was done with being cold, opened the car’s rear door and slipped inside. “That’s entirely up to you,” she said, sneaking a glance at the gray-walled prison rising behind Nick. “You are still on vacation.”

She closed the door, leaving Nick alone in the frigid wind with one question still unspoken. He was about to rap on the car’s window, but it lowered before he had the chance, revealing Gloria’s stern gaze.

“And no,” she said. “I won’t tell anyone about your extracurricular activities. But next time you say you’re taking a vacation, do it. You can’t keep pushing yourself like this, Donnelly. It’s not healthy. You really need to learn how to let go.”

Nick drove to Perry Hollow in the company of the Rolling Stones. Nothing was better for a road trip than Jagger’s tremulous voice and the band’s relentless sound. Nick propelled himself along the highway to the strains of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Gimme Shelter,” and “Brown Sugar.” By the time the band was showing some sympathy for the devil, he had reached Perry Hollow, where a devil of a different stripe had just claimed one of its residents.