The Last Kind Words

by Tom Piccirilli

  “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?”

  “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. 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 was 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 co
uld 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.”

  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 out 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 it, 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.”<
br />
  “I did,” my father said, “but his brother needed him.”

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

  “Collie’s gotten us all involved in something bad already. Terry’s just doing right by his family.”

  I got the sense that they both knew I was listening. I kept waiting for Gilmore to mention my taking the files and the incident at the Elbow Room.

  My mother came out onto the porch to ask them if they wanted anything to eat. She didn’t notice me there in the dark corner of the kitchen. I felt like a kid again, playing a child’s game, hiding from the grown-ups and having difficulty understanding their intentions. Mal came in and got himself some leftover fried chicken, nodded to me, then went off to eat in front of the television.

  Gilmore and my father continued talking about small somethings and next-to-nothings. Finally I heard Gilmore stand and move to the porch steps.

  “You have a good evening, Pinsch.”

  “You too.”

  “Thanks again for the photos.”

  My father kept up the geniality, but his voice sharpened the smallest degree. “Don’t mention it. Drive safe now.”

  I got up and glanced out the window. Gilmore got into his car and waved. I was surprised to see my father lift his hand in response. After Gilmore drove off down the street, my old man stepped into the house. He immediately turned his head to where I sat. I asked, “What photos?”

  “You shouldn’t have been listening, Terry.”

  “You knew I was here. You wanted me to listen, Dad.” We stood in the shadows and faced each other. “What photos did you steal for him?”

  “I didn’t steal any.” My old man sounded a little strained, maybe a little embarrassed. That worried me worse than almost anything that had happened so far. “I took some of his kids.”

  “You staked out his ex-wife’s house?”

  “It’s his house.”

  He opened the fridge, drew out another beer but didn’t open it. The refrigerator light showed me a hint of his hidden pain. “Why would you do that? What’s he got on us?”

  “Nothing. I did it because I know what it’s like for a man to lose his family. You think I wouldn’t have asked someone to take pictures of you on your ranch if I could’ve? Or Collie, even now?”