Skewed

by Anne McAneny

  “So you went to the diner with the haiku in your pocket?”

  “I didn’t know what to do. The haiku was such a powerful piece of information. And”—his brows bunched low, his head sinking into his abbreviated neck—“I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t imagined a scenario where one didn’t exist. My mind didn’t behave so well in those days. Or most days, really. I put the haiku in my pocket, and, quite simply, was hungry. At the diner, I took the napkin out many times, many times, reassuring myself it was real, reassessing the handwriting, deciphering the possibilities—it had so many. I was going to copy it down with my favorite pen, but there was too much commotion and I didn’t want to risk a spill, so I put it away, yes, I did.”

  “And then my mother took it?”

  His eyes narrowed and his head shook a few millimeters to each side, his anger fresh, rekindled. “She took it. Yes. She took it. I wish she hadn’t. But she did.”

  “What must you have been thinking when Grady showed up at the diner?”

  “That, yes, that,” he said, his breathing quick and shallow now. “Well, that was uncomfortable. I already disliked him intensely—I have an immediate sense for evil and he had not treated me well—but then, to discover he was an infamous killer, adored by all, well, you can imagine. He’d never—never—paid so much attention to me as he did that night at the diner. I thought he must know—he must know!—that I’d absconded with his silly napkin. But no, it was all for show, you see, all for show, the big man acknowledging the subservient help so the public could adore his graciousness.”

  “Why didn’t you just go to the police?”

  He guffawed and looked at me like I’d suggested he run naked through town. “Oh, no, Janie, no. Oh, no. Are you quite serious? In fact, I can’t go to them now. Not while Sam Kowalczyk and Grady McLemore are still alive.”

  He seemed to believe Sam was still alive. “What does Sam have to do with this?”

  He paced now, like an enthused but distraught professor delivering a lecture. “Do you really think Sam and Grady would have let me into their little enclave if they didn’t have the goods on me? That quaint story of me knocking on their office door—all well and good, and close enough to the truth—but hardly complete. They hired me for a simple job, yes, but when I asked to be paid in cash and averted my eyes from their gaze, oh, they knew then and decided they wanted to keep me around.”

  “What did they know?”

  “Within days of my arrival in town, Sam confronted me with . . . compromising . . . information from my past. I didn’t really see the value to them, but I soon realized they wanted persons in their employ with . . . marred backgrounds . . . scars on their consciences.”

  I recalled the entry from my mother’s journal: Maybe flawed souls are more indebted and grateful to him—not a bad trait in an employee.

  Leroy’s pacing ceased and he stood rigid and taut. “Perhaps they planned to use me for nefarious tasks in the future. A loyal dark soldier. I don’t know, but those two, quite a pair. And Sam was gifted—gifted!—in extracting information from others.”

  “Leroy, what did they have on you?”

  His mouth clamped shut and his head kept shaking. I feared it wouldn’t stop.

  “Leroy, I’m standing here with you, the most wanted man in town, and I’ve taken the gun away from a man who could have shot you. I think you can trust me.”

  Leroy huffed several times. “I like you, Janie. I do. Hm. Well, if things go as planned, it won’t matter. I’ll tell you.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but I listened anyway.

  He resumed pacing, his words rapid-fire, rising and falling like celebratory bullets.

  “Four days out of high school, a friend of mine asked for a lift to Toby’s Convenience Store. I obliged, of course, him being my only friend but not a very likable fellow. Unbeknownst to me, he robbed the store and upon exiting, fired his gun back into a random aisle—the dairy section, it was—to emphasize his point to the owner about not calling the police. The shot killed a customer—no milk for him—a professor from a local community college whom I’d once had the pleasure of helping change a flat.”

  He’d tried to lighten the incident, but its recounting was taking a toll. Every tic he’d ever harbored seemed to come to the fore. From a twitch beneath his right eye to the corners of his mouth widening and narrowing like a horizontal line in flux. The hand that held his gun tensed and released, tensed and released, his words coming in bubbling spurts—a graceless unburdening of guilt delivered in unseemly packets.

  “My friend hopped in the car and insisted I drive away. Fast, fast, fast! I took him to a dilapidated warehouse, but no, he was arrested within hours. Miraculously—miraculously, Janie!—he never ratted me out, as they say, but there were rumors, vague witness statements, and a scratchy surveillance video from a nearby bank. If anyone had wanted to pursue it and make a case against me, it was just possible enough. As the driver, I’d have gone to jail, as responsible as my friend who pulled the trigger, unless the jury believed me, and why would they? They wouldn’t! My own father never believed a word I said.” With his free hand, he pounded his chest. “And I simply did not—do not—will never!—have the constitution for prison, Janie. No, no, no. I paid a heavy price in the war—my penance, if you will—for any dairy aisle sins in which I may have been complicit. My conscience is clear on that front. But even today, unlike your friend Grady here, I’d sooner die than go to prison. Do you hear me, Janie? Sooner die.”

  “You’ve lived your whole life under the radar because of that robbery?”

  He pulled back, defensive. “I’ve lived a life where I rarely give out my name or take a formal paycheck. I returned to Ridge to live with my sister a few years after Grady’s sentencing, the convenience store episode long forgotten by then. And with Grady behind bars, I knew the world was better served. I saw no reason to share the secret of the haiku. Not that I stopped looking for it, mind you. I knew he’d get out eventually. That’s why I took the pictures. I wanted to remember the house and figure out where it was. Oh, how I wanted to search that night—and help your mother—but someone was coming, someone was coming. Your grandfather, I surmise.” He looked up at me without raising his head, the bottom half of his eyes cast in shadow, framing his stubby nose. “I came back here over the years, you know. Even sneaked in once while you and your brother were on the roof.”

  Chills raced through me and I glared at him. All those years I’d sensed a foreboding presence lurking and stalking, I’d been right. But it hadn’t been the Haiku Killer coming back to finish the job. It had been an unbalanced little man trying to find his treasure and maybe protect the world from Grady McLemore.

  “But Sam wouldn’t let me live in peace,” Leroy continued. “He and Grady had put two and two together immediately. They knew it was me who’d swiped the haiku—”

  “Hold on! Did Sam know Grady was the Haiku Killer?”

  “Of course. Probably not until after Grady had killed the priest, but he knew by the time I came along. Come now, Janie. Why do you think Grady paid Sam all these years?”

  “He was buying Sam’s silence.”

  Leroy smiled and I’d never felt more disconcerted. “He did have Sam conduct actual investigations, just to make it look good. But it was all a game, all for show, like everything in Grady’s life.”

  “Was my mother just for show?”

  Leroy hesitated, not sympathizing, but assessing the possibility. Then, very plainly, he spoke. “I assume so. The pregnancy may have been a rare misstep for the gifted sociopath, but once Grady accepted it, he turned it to his advantage. I’m sure he whiled away the hours imagining his perfect imitation of a life: the handsome politician, the beautiful wife, the successful twins. Probably spent oodles of time constructing the façade in his head, certain, as always, that things would go his way.”

  “Th
at night at the diner, why didn’t you just warn my mother?”

  Leroy’s demeanor took its most abrupt turn yet, and it had taken several already. “I didn’t know she had the haiku until it was too late! Understand my condition, please.”

  I was beginning to think I understood it all too well.

  “They’d put me on dozens of medications, strapped me to a table and sent bolts of Satan through my soul, and then they labeled me! Me! The one they’d done that to. Delusional, depressed, manic, you name it. Half the doctors wanted to commit me and the others wanted an empty bed so they could churn through yet another victim. Today, they’d call it PTSD, but back then I was just another mess back from war, hearing voices and reacting to loud noises like a beaten pup.”

  “Leroy,” I said, wanting to hug him. “I am so sorry.”

  He wheeled on me, his eyes narrow, almost threatening. “You’d be the first.”

  I felt both frightened and crushed inside for the life that had been thrust upon the shy, motherless boy from Ridge.

  “Don’t you realize I’d only had the haiku for a couple of hours?” he shouted. “If I had trouble convincing myself about it, do you really think I could have convinced someone as beautiful as your mother?” He looked ashamed again, punishing himself for admitting to her beauty. “Besides, if she was foolish enough to love that creature”—he gestured to the still-prone Grady—“do you really think she possessed the wits and wherewithal to understand the truth? At one point, I was certain the haiku was about her—that he was scheming to take her out. And if not, she was planning a life with a serial killer. Your mother was doomed either way.”

  He’d hit a nerve now. My mother was not foolish. She’d been sucked in like everyone else. “Maybe, Leroy. But it was you who kicked Grady’s hand in order to save your own life. Maybe she wouldn’t have been doomed.”

  He looked at me aghast, his lower jaw going slack. “And this is why I couldn’t trust you, either, Janie. Not until I had the haiku in my hands.” He changed tone and mumbled, “I’m sorry about the incident in the storage locker, by the way. I do like you, but I couldn’t trust anyone who bonded with that man, even if hesitantly.” His rage returned. “Oh! His spun tales are maddening, and he is masterful, but really, Janie? Really?” He grabbed hold of his own head as if to keep it from shattering.

  I was sure of one thing: all of Leroy’s mental challenges were not yet behind him.

  “Janie!” Leroy shouted as if I’d gone somewhere.

  “Yes, Leroy? What?”

  His words came fast, high-pitched. “I injected Grady, yes! I couldn’t believe how well I placed the syringe—dumb luck—but wouldn’t you know, the insane are highly resilient. He fought that tranquilizer harder than any sow I’d ever slaughtered under duress. He fell to the floor, yes, but—miraculously—he had the strength to raise his gun—directly at your mother.”

  I felt my own head jerk forward and shake in denial. “No. No. He was trying to shoot you. He . . . why would he—”

  Leroy huffed, short quick bursts. “She knew the truth. When he entered the room that night, she stood there like a mute idiot, the hurt and accusation screaming out from her face as plainly as a haiku on a napkin. It was only seconds earlier she’d realized who and what he was, and he saw it immediately. It was no doubt a look he treasured on the faces of his victims as they comprehended his inhumanity. I tell you, when he walked in, the horror just shined in her eyes—her brain and heart still fighting it out, her heart losing the battle . . . and the war. That’s why I plunged the syringe so quickly. I knew his first instinct would be to eliminate her, the most powerful witness, without a single thought for you or your brother.”

  “But why would he want her dead more than you?”

  “He still had leverage over me, but he had nothing over her. Better to take her out for certain than to allow the possibility that she would produce the haiku and the proof of his guilt. And he certainly didn’t want to spend a lifetime being blackmailed by her, receiving threats and ultimatums. No, Grady McLemore would be beholden to no one. You see, Janie, he has always cared first, foremost, and only . . . about himself. He even accepted life in a dirty cell as a martyr because he was still pulling the wool over the world’s eyes. Every day in that prison, with his unstable base of groveling fans proclaiming his innocence, with your brother forging a worshipful relationship with him, it fed the voracious ego that consumed him. Rather the nature of the beast, I’m afraid.”

  Leroy, in another dramatic shift of moods, shuffled over to the couch, took a seat, and slouched back, exhausted. “When Grady raised the gun at your mother, I kicked his hand—that much is true—to try to save her. But she, seeing Grady’s muzzle pointed at the very heart that had loved him so foolishly, leapt out of harm’s way. And the bullet’s path, altered by my kick, found your mother’s head. I am more sorry than you’ll ever know, Janie.”

  “It’s not your fault, Leroy.”

  “At least now,” he said, his voice barely a whisper, “I’ve finally, finally set things right.”

  Grady stirred. I kept my gun on him. He sat up, confused. “Janie, what’s going on?” He reached around frantically. “Where’s my gun?”

  “Out of your reach.”

  Grady spotted Leroy the same moment he realized my gun was on him. He looked so scared, sad, and confused. It was pitiful.

  “Janie, what are you doing? What has he been telling you?”

  “Isn’t this adorable?” Leroy said quietly, staring through and above us. “A reunion of sorts, if we allow Janie to stand in for her deceased mother.”

  “I know everything, Grady,” I said.

  “Everything? What are you talking about? What has he been telling you? How long have I been out?”

  “I know you killed my mother. I know you’re the Haiku Killer.”

  Grady guffawed, an expression of genuine shock and disbelief on his face. “What?”

  “It was your haiku in Leroy’s pocket. When my mother called you from the diner, you put it together immediately, realizing Leroy had taken the haiku from your bag.”

  “Janie, this is insane. Put the gun down.”

  “I don’t think so . . . Daddy.” I took several steps back, eliminating any chance of him knocking the gun from my hands, while Leroy stayed on the couch, entirely detached, finally unburdened. “You failed to mention one aspect of the shooting—that while you were staring at your thumb knuckle on your gun, with glutton juice coursing through your veins, your gun was aimed at my mother’s head the whole time.”

  “I don’t know what he’s told you, Janie, but you can’t possibly believe I would hurt your mother.”

  Looking into his eyes, it was difficult to elicit the hatred I should be feeling. I tried anyway. “My mother took the key from the Aberdeen, from the night you two stayed there. It was engraved with an A, precisely matching the A on the napkin where the haiku was written.”

  “Napkin? The haiku was written on a napkin?”

  He was so . . . believable. I had to remind myself of the monster Leroy claimed him to be.

  “You said so yourself,” he continued. “Abner Abel was at the Aberdeen all the time. Leroy could have been there, too. It would have been nothing for either of them to grab a handful of napkins.”

  “It was in your handwriting.”

  He looked confused. “How would you even know what my handwriting looks like?”

  “There’s a letter from you to my mother, upstairs in her journal.”

  Grady looked up and to the left, his signature look of concentration. Then his face grew stern and he gazed at me. “How long has Leroy been here?”

  “Since before me.”

  “Don’t you see what he’s doing? Please, Janie, step away from him. I can’t watch you get hurt. Not here, not in this room. Please!”

  I stole a quick glance at
Leroy, who was muttering to himself. “What is it that Leroy is doing?”

  Grady’s beautiful eyes pleaded with me. “He’s had thirty years to perfect a story.”

  “So has he,” Leroy said in a singsong tone.

  “Think, Janie,” Grady said. “He must have found Bridget’s journals and copied my letter in his own handwriting so it would match the handwriting on the haiku. His handwriting on the haiku. Who knows how many times he’s been in this house? He could have done it years ago.”

  “He took the napkin from your bag, Grady.”

  “There could have been an Aberdeen napkin in my bag, sure. I stayed there a lot. But he wrote the haiku on it, not me. Think about his victims. He was a vagrant handyman. He could have gotten into a church or a college professor’s office, at any hour, under the guise of being there for a repair.”

  Leroy spoke up in a bored tone. “Look at his campaign stops, Janie. They match up perfectly with the time and location of each murder.”

  Leroy’s assertions made sense, but so did Grady’s. Then I cleared my head and swam parallel to the shore before getting sucked in any farther. I already knew the truth. Why was I still dawdling?

  “Tell me something, Grady. When you got out of prison, you went straight to Jack’s, but then immediately came to see me, right?”

  “Yes, I left with one of the guards at six a.m., along with four decoy cars. The reporters followed the decoys, thinking that the guard was simply leaving after her shift. She dropped me at Jack’s.”

  “Very clever. But in reality, none of the reporters followed you because you left the prison in Lenora Dabney’s car—at midnight, six hours before the decoy cars.”