The Last Kind Words

by Tom Piccirilli

  He said, “So who did you two kill?”

  I told Gilmore everything. It was nearly word for word what I’d said to Dale only an hour earlier. All that I knew and all I suspected. It fit together and made perfect sense, if you were willing to go along with it. Gilmore wasn’t. He didn’t believe me. He hadn’t seen Grey’s face as he’d tried to strangle me. Whatever I said sounded like a coward’s lie. His disgust was written in his face. I was no better than my brother. He kept looking at Dale, and I could practically hear the sound of his heart breaking. It was no different from my own.

  We brought him to Grey’s grave. Gilmore huffed air and said, “Jesus fucking Christ. You buried him in your own backyard. You both want to wind up in the chair too? That what this is about?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Your mother. She came to your brother’s trial. Think she’ll show to yours? Or will she finally wash her hands of you once and for all?”

  I remembered him saying that my mother had wept the whole time but had still tried to put in the righteous word for Collie. I wondered what she would say about me.

  “I did it,” Dale whispered. “It was me. I stabbed him. I had to. Grey was strangling Terry. He was out of his head. He didn’t even recognize me. He would’ve killed both of us. It’s the truth. I had to do it.”

  I wasn’t certain when Gilmore had drawn his gun but he held it loosely in his hand. So we were heading down that road already. He was going to call in backup.

  I pleaded with him. “At least leave her out of this.”

  “How can I?” he asked.

  He stared at Dale for a very long time. In her he saw a younger sister. In her he saw his own daughters. His expression was heavy with tragedy. She couldn’t bear up under the burden of her guilt and the force of his reproach. She wavered where she stood. I watched her folding, inch by inch, but I was too slow to catch her. Gilmore spread his arms and she dropped into them, sobbing, but he kept a grip on his gun, pointed at my chest.

  It was true, he knew I’d never punch a cop, not even in self-defense. Not unless I had to, in order to save my sister. He watched me warily. I could tell he wanted to pat Dale’s back, do something to soothe and placate her. I wasn’t going to be fast enough, but I’d have to try, no matter the cost.

  I shifted my stance.

  He shook his head slowly and said, “Don’t, Terrier.”

  His eyes remained dark and lonely. All he had in the world were the Rands. We both realized it. I could see that he was trying to imagine his own empty future now.

  “I ought to take you apart,” he said. “I ought to take you apart and bury you next to him.”

  “It was Grey,” Dale said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Terry didn’t—”

  “Shut up,” Gilmore snarled. “Both of you shut the hell up for a minute.”

  I thought about what he had said when we’d first met up again outside the Elbow Room. There are lines you cross and those you don’t.

  I told him, “This wasn’t a line, Gilmore. It was something that had to be done. It wasn’t his fault. He was ill. You were right, there was no serial killer. There was just Grey, drawn along in Collie’s wake. If Collie hadn’t gone mad dog, neither would Grey. He wouldn’t have crossed paths with Rebecca Clarke and she wouldn’t be dead. This is what’s best. Just turn around and walk away.”

  “I can’t do that. I’m a cop.”

  “You’re on the Thompson payroll.”

  “That’s minor shit.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s nothing like this. I’ve never done anything like this.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Leave her out of it. You can do that much.”

  “It was me,” Dale said. “I did it. I stabbed him. But I had to.”

  Grey probably would’ve survived the knife wound in the back if I hadn’t strangled him. I knew Dale was protecting me just like I was protecting her. Or maybe we were both intent on blaming ourselves.

  Gilmore backed away toward the house. He gestured with his free hand for Dale to follow him and motioned with the gun for me to do the same. I did. I was limping now. The pain was quickly becoming agony. I could barely maneuver the back porch stairs. I got to the door and Dale hung my arm across her shoulder and led me inside. JFK stayed close by. He sensed the danger to our family. I thought he might go for Gilmore’s throat. One of us might have to.

  We all stepped into the living room. Gilmore still hadn’t gone for his phone. He turned and stepped backward. I could rush him. JFK would probably do the rest. But Gilmore eyed me again and I had trouble seeing the outcome. I didn’t think I had it in me to murder him, not even to save Dale. I’d failed my family again. What in the hell was the point in coming back, I thought. I’ve done nothing but kick our home off its foundation.

  Gilmore wagged the gun at me to get me moving again. At the edge of my vision I saw a flash of metal in Gramp’s hand. Some instinct was pushing him along as well, taking on the responsibilities I couldn’t handle. Beside him, JFK crouched like he was ready to leap.

  I shoved Gilmore out of the way. He spun around and stuck the gun under my chin just as I plucked the switchblade out of Old Shep’s hand. I said, “Thanks anyway, Gramp, but we’re not going to do that.”

  He blinked at his cartoons.

  Gilmore pulled that tight, nasty grin again. He held a hand open and I put the knife in it. He snapped the blade shut and stuck it in his pocket. The false chuckle rang hollow in his chest. He said, “You know what this is going to do to your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t even care, do you, you little bastard?”

  Enough was enough. I made my move. I lunged forward, swung wild, and connected with his chin. It was a beautiful shot, one I’d been waiting to give him since he’d sucker-punched me in the parking lot of the Elbow Room. It was the last bit of reserve I had. I went down on my face on the rug, groaning and panting.

  I started to puke but Dale got a wastebasket and helped me to my knees. When I could breathe again, I reached into my pocket and took out the photo of the woman who had jilted Grey forty-five years ago and put the splinter in his mind that had gone deeper and deeper until it cut him in two. I hoped she was alive. I hoped she hadn’t been Grey’s first victim.

  I handed the photo to Gilmore and said, “I don’t know her name or anything about her, but check on it. See if she was murdered. Grey … he might have …” I looked down and streams of blood were pulsing down the front of my jeans. Dale pushed her way in and said, “Oh God, Terry, you’re—” She grabbed more towels from the kitchen and pressed them to my stomach. My mother was going to wonder where the hell all these towels went.

  Dale started tying off my wounds. Gilmore said, “They won’t hold.”

  “Do something,” she begged. “Help my brother.”

  He winced as he rubbed his jaw and finally came to a decision. Covering over Grey’s murder was the lesser of two evils. It was between that and the promise of a completely empty life. We Rands were all he had.

  “All right,” he said.

  “We have to get rid of some other things,” Dale told him.

  “I know a place.”

  We were going to be seeing a lot more of Gilmore from now on. He owned us, and we owned him.

  He and Dale helped me to my feet. Maybe I would die anyway. Maybe I wanted to die. Maybe that was the perfect choice to make.

  I visited Collie one last time. I requested that we meet in the area where I’d first spoken with him, where we could talk on the phone and there would be reinforced glass between us.

  The screws brought him in and took their time unlocking his chains. He must’ve come straight from the gym. He was still sweaty and the veins remained knotted all across his arms, twisting red and black in his throat. He smiled at me through the glass but he knew something was wrong. I was a little heartened to realize he could still worry about something ev
en now.

  The screws left and Collie spun his chair around, sat backward as usual, and snatched up the phone. I took a breath and reached up to mine. I moved stiffly. It had taken twenty staples to close the jagged tears in my side. The emergency-room docs had done an excellent job patching me up. They told me the scars wouldn’t be bad. The dog tattoo would need some touching up, though.

  “I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again,” my brother said.

  “I didn’t plan on coming back,” I told him.

  “So why are you here?”

  I could feel that old singular pain rising once again. My foolish mantra returned to me. It beat along with my pulse. I can do this. I can do this.

  “You were right,” I said. “Someone else snuffed Becky Clarke.”

  He let go with a chuckle that grew wilder until it became a whoop. It got the screws looking in at us. “I knew it. Lin was right. My girl is sharp as hell. Idiot cops couldn’t figure it out, but she did.” He raised his chin and eyed me. “Did you find him?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He waited for me to continue. I didn’t. I decided there was no need to tell him that I thought Lin had been wrong too. I didn’t believe Grey was a serial killer. Instead, there was a world of mad dogs like him, husbands and boyfriends who couldn’t contain their rage, whose hands had learned how to batter and strangle. The world was littered with dead young brunettes.

  His face emptied of its usual high-strung emotion. He looked at me with some real attentiveness. “Did you take care of it yourself? There’s been no word here. Nothing on the circuit. Lin hasn’t said anything.”

  “I handled it. Nobody else knows.”

  “Right. But I can see you’re holding back. You’ve got more to say.”

  I nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me about how you kissed them?”

  Collie looked away in embarrassment. His face flushed until it glowed pink. I had never seen my brother embarrassed about anything. It was a revelation. I had learned something new about him on the eve of his death, and that disturbed me. I didn’t want to believe that there was more I might learn about my brother, if we had more time.

  “I didn’t know they knew about that,” he said.

  “Forensics did their job. Did you really think they’d miss that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It was in the files. Your attorneys should have used it.”

  “I didn’t care. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want them to fight for me either.”

  “You should have told me anyway. Maybe it would have helped convince me that you hadn’t iced Rebecca Clarke.”

  “Nothing was going to convince you one way or the other. You were either going to help or you weren’t.”

  He was right. I couldn’t argue the point. Right from the beginning I knew I was going to help. Even before he asked me. Despite my own protests. He called me and I had come running home.

  “Why’d you put your lips on them, Collie?”

  “I just did, Terry.”

  We were bound by our rituals. The underneath forced him to kill with viciousness, but perhaps it couldn’t steal all of his love from him. Maybe it was his way of begging forgiveness from them. Or him forgiving them for allowing themselves to become his victims and the impetus for his own destruction.

  “So tell me,” he said. “What happened? Who was it?”

  I leaned so far toward the glass that he actually drew away on the other side. “I want the truth from you, Collie, do you understand? Don’t run any kind of a game on me. Don’t hold back. Don’t lie. Talk straight. If you’ve got any kind of a heart, use it now. You owe me that much.”

  “What the hell do you mean, Terry?”

  I enunciated every word very clearly into the phone. “Did … you … know?”

  “Did I know what?”

  “Did you have any idea at all who it was?”

  He shook his head. “No, of course I don’t know who it was. If I’d known I wouldn’t have needed you to check into it. What happened? What did you do?”

  I said, “Does it really matter?”

  He glanced away again. “No, I suppose not.”

  I looked at my brother for so long that his expression shifted several times. He smiled, then frowned, then a hint of real concern began to ply his features.

  “What is it, Terry? What do you need to say?”

  My throat was raw. I swallowed several times. I looked at my reflection and then realized it wasn’t my reflection. I was staring at my brother. We were the same. Maybe it was the onset of Alzheimer’s, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there really was no reason. Maybe Grey had none either. It might not have been the girl who broke his heart. It might have been anything at all. And me. And me. Was I going to wind up collecting Toby mugs or would I murder young women who reminded me of Kimmy? I was already a murderer. I should be sitting on the other side of the glass. I had a premonition that I would be someday.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  I sucked air like I was suffocating. “Collie, I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay. That’s okay, Terry. You can tell me anything you need to. Go on. What is it? Tell me.”

  I said, “I love you.”

  He couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d opened all the doors and ushered him to a limousine and driven him out of there. His face grew a healthy, youthful pink again. It took ten years off him. He looked like a kid again. “What?”

  “You’re my brother and I love you. But I can’t forgive you. Do you understand? I’ll never forgive you. When they put you on the table, when they put poison in your blood. When they murder you, Collie … I’m sorry, but I’m going to be glad. What you see when you look at me that last time? You’re going to see someone who’s wishing that you burn in hell. But I’m not lying. I love you.”

  I put my hand to the glass and fanned my fingers. His eyes were wide and his mouth had dropped open. He looked frozen in the glare of open emotion. He didn’t respond to my gesture. I hung up the phone. The screws came and put chains on my brother and led him out. I watched him shuffle through the door. He started to turn his silver head and look back at me but didn’t complete the motion. I sat there until one of the screws told me to leave.

  The next day Collie gave it one last romp for posterity’s sake. He was going to go out having some fun. He fought them with a huge smile on his face. I knew he wasn’t really trying to hurt anyone. He was just putting on one last show for his own entertainment. The screws wrestled him down to the floor and fell over themselves. The priest stepped away and kept reading from the Bible in a shaky voice.

  I concentrated on Collie. I put my will into it. I focused all my attention and directed it with all my mental wattage and tried to find him in the distance between us. I thought maybe it would be enough for him to make a last-ditch effort to connect with me.

  Collie glanced up once and grinned at me through the window even while they swung their billy clubs at his back.

  They strapped him down to the table and stuck the needle in. He had no last words. Not even for his wife. Lin sat expressionless beside me. I wanted to jump out of my skin but she seemed relaxed, almost serene. She’d married him knowing this would be the final outcome.

  I didn’t know any of the other witnesses. I had wondered if the Clarkes would show up. I wondered if anyone else here was a relative of one of Collie’s other victims. I tried to read their expressions. I couldn’t. We all looked about the same kind of haunted.

  His eyes were stone, but I imagined what it must be like staring at a group of pitiless people who all wanted you dead. Even your own brother. It felt like they wanted me dead too.

  The machine took no time at all.

  Collie shut his eyes and then it was over.

  As we were leaving Lin folded up and almost fell. I reached out and took her in my arms and turned her to my chest. I let her sob for both of us. It went on for a long time. When she was done she pushed off me and walked a
way.

  There was cheering outside. People hooting and flashing their headlights. Protesters were holding candles and singing hymns. It was an emotionally charged moment. I didn’t know which camp I fit into more. Vicky and her news crew were interviewing folks. I thought Eve would be on hand but she wasn’t. Maybe she’d already moved off to a new story.

  Gilmore stood out beyond the gate. I walked over to him. He was smoking a cigarette. He was a touch pale. It only peripherally had to do with my brother. I knew he was thinking about family again, the family an orphan like him had never had, and the family that he couldn’t hold on to himself.

  He said, “I don’t know what to say, Terrier.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Your mother, she—”

  “What happened between you and Phyllis?” I asked.

  He looked down and let a stream of smoke out. When he looked back up it was like he’d forgotten I was there. It took him another moment to respond. “She left me.”

  “Any chance you can win her back?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Is it what you want? To have her back?”

  He paused. He wasn’t thinking about the answer, just whether he should tell me. “More than anything.”

  “Then do whatever she needs you to do, right? Quit the force if it’s that. Be a straight arrow if it’s that. Be a better father if it’s that. Spend more time with the family, whatever it is she needs. Do it.”

  “It’s easy advice but hard to change.” He shook his head. “She won’t take me back.”

  I thought about him bringing my father into his ordeal. My old man breaking in to houses again, but not to juke the places, just to snap photos or to stand among the dreams of what might have been, the wreckage of our reality. “Then move on. Stop hanging around executions and people like the Rands.”

  His lips crimped into that fucked grin again. I wanted to slap it off like it was an insect that had landed on him. “Why are you saying this? You know how ridiculous you are, Terry?”