by E. R. FALLON
“Which newspaper do you write for?” Alice asked.
I knew she was well-read and I didn’t know what kind of access she had to newspapers in there so I chose my words carefully. “I’m freelance.” I adjusted my eyeglasses. They were too small and squeezed my nose.
“I see. Did a newspaper assign the story to you, or did you come up with the idea yourself and then pitched it to them? Which newspaper? Usually, freelance writers work for a couple newspapers at once. I won’t speak to just anyone these days, you know. Lots of media people want to gain access to me. However, most of them don’t know friends of detectives who worked on my case. Maybe you’ll get lucky, handsome.”
I should have known she’d be too clever to outwit easily. “I plan to shop my story around once it’s been written. I have a few places in mind.” I hadn’t corrected the guards or Alice when each presumed she would be the focus of my story. “It’s not you in particular I’m interested in for my story, if that’s your concern.”
“I’m disappointed.” She smiled. “Isn’t that unusual, to write something without pitching your idea to them first?”
“That’s what I’ve chosen to do.”
“Fair enough. If you aren’t here to talk only about me, then what’s there to discuss? The weather? Tell me, what’s it like outside, before you came into this concrete wasteland, what was it like?” She tapped on the partition and I jumped in my chair.
“I would have thought touching that glass would set off some kind of an alarm,” I said.
“You overestimate the prison system,” she laughed softly.
I regained my self-control before she could see how much she’d startled me. “They don’t let you outside?” I asked in a neutral way.
“If you can call being allowed out of my cell for a half hour once a day to take a shower or walk in a circle around the barren courtyard being outside, then yes. In reality, they buried me along with my victims.”
I looked directly at her and didn’t blink. “No. It isn’t the same. You’re alive and they aren’t.”
“True. I’m buried in here to keep the world safe from me.” She moved her hand over another speaker built into the concrete wall at her shoulder. “See this right here? This is so I can call the guard early in case I want to leave. All I have to do is press this button and they’ll come get me. I’m going to call him. Lovely to have met you.”
I thought of something fast, to stop her. “You wanted to know what it’s like outside? It’s all right outside. It’s getting cooler this time of the year. There wasn’t much sun when I came inside. It looked like it could rain. You aren’t missing anything.”
Alice seemed to stare right through me into my soul when I spoke to her. A small smile played at the corners of her full, pale lips, and she gradually lowered her hand from the wall. “That’s easy for you to say, handsome.”
The repartee between us felt strangely normal and casual, like we were at home years ago having a parent-to-child chat.
“You look good,” I said.
She cocked her head and narrowed her gaze at me. “Compared to?”
“I’ve seen old photos of you in the press.” I breathed faster.
“You must have been quite young when my case broke.” For a moment, I fretted she would question me. “You aren’t so bad after all. I think I kind of like you. I think I’m going to allow you to stay. ” Alice patted her dark hair, which was much shorter than it had been. “ . . . possibly.”
“You’ll speak to me, then?” My breathing somewhat returned to normal.
She shrugged. “Oh, why not?” Then she said, “For a little while,” as though she wanted to put me in my place.
I cut right to the chase. “I’m here to talk with you because I’m from a place where murders are occurring.”
That got her to pause, and her silence lasted for so long I feared she’d changed her mind.
“You aren’t from around here,” she said, looking me over. “I thought you were a local, because what you mentioned about your friend knowing that detective. Where are you from? No one forewarned me that you’d be coming to see me. Judging by your clothes, I’d say you are a city fellow. Those are expensive looking shoes.”
I uncrossed my legs. “I live in Seven Sisters.”
“A big city. It’s not too far from here but I’ve never been there myself.”
“What do you do there?”
“I’m a freelance journalist.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Alice slapped her thigh and her laughter thundered out. “For a moment I thought we were old friends. Funny how it feels that way, when we’ve never met before, or have we?” She tilted her head and smiled, her teeth shiny and wet.
Emotion drove me to silence, and I didn’t look at Alice for a moment or two but could feel her gaze on me. I set my notepad on the small counter in front of me and leaned in to write down our interview, but throughout the visit I rarely looked at the questions for her that I’d composed. Once I was there with her, I didn’t need reminders of the questions I wanted to ask.
I found it strange she hadn’t asked questions about the murders in Seven Sisters. “Aren’t you going to ask me about the murders I mentioned?” I said.
“Is that a trick question?”
“No.”
“I’m not committing them, if that’s what you’re getting at. Trapped in here, how could I be? What’s this got to do with me? You want my expert opinion? You want to work together to solve it? I don’t know who is doing it, that’s my damn opinion.” She gave a dry laugh and looked very pleased with herself.
I didn’t overlook how she’d referred to the murders in the present tense. “The murders are similar to yours, that’s why it should interest you.” I’d abandoned the travel writer bit entirely.
“It’s not every day I get visitors. Thanks for stopping by,” she said.
I was determined to leave there with answers and didn’t rise. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Fine. You stay, then. I’ll go.” Alice started to move.
“You’re not as intimidating as I’d thought you’d be,” I said to challenge her.
“In which ways are they, the murders, the same?” she asked. On the other side of the glass, her presence didn’t appear as meek as it once had.
Serial murderers enjoyed hearing the grisly details of fellow killers’ crimes, and I didn’t want her getting off on a victim’s demise. Blood pounded relentlessly in my head and burned my ears. I reminded myself that I was a new person and had shaped a new existence with Sammie, but there were moments in my life I doubted I’d ever overcome, and I held on strongly to the memories of them, for they’d become as tangible a part of me as loving Sammie was.
Alice Lane had uprooted me in my early years and stolen Ben from me, the one true friend I’d had in life before I met Sammie, and I never forgot her crimes and who she was to me. My mother, yes, but a monster too. A monster both to the outside world and to me, and an unimaginably cruel being with a hankering for flesh, blood, and bone. It struck me then that I’d never really known my mother. Even with me she’d feigned being someone other than her true self, or could a person have had two detached sides to them: Loving mother and sadistic killer?
Alice’s pink tongue darted around the corners of her mouth like her appetite had been whetted. I longed to push my hand through the glass panel somehow and slap that smile off her face. Had Alice Lane wanted to murder me, what she’d seen in front of her right then, a young man, a stranger to her? But didn’t she, my mother, deserve to smile? Perhaps she wasn’t hungry for flesh and blood but content at having a visitor. That begged the question, did a killer have the right to be happy when their victims no longer could experience the same?
A promise I’d made to myself before I journeyed to Freedom Village had been that, if I got to see Alice, I wouldn’t view her as my mother, and no matter what she said or did, I’d view her for what she was: a heartless killer. One doesn’t often associate t
hose words with one’s mother, but it was the only thing I’d felt I could do to prevent myself from breaking down in sobs and telling her how I’d missed her over the years, and that I loved her.
“I can’t give you details of the crimes,” I said.
“No problem. I’ll have my lawyer bring me a newspaper and find out that way. What do I need you for anyway?”
I maintained my composure despite her insolence. “I’m privy to details the press wouldn’t know.”
“How come?”
I didn’t wish to give too much away so I explained, “I have a friend who works with the police.”
“You have very beneficial friends,” she remarked. “What details did your friend tell you?”
“I can’t say.”
Alice sighed. “Then what am I supposed to get in return? You want to hear my opinion but you want me to ask for nothing in exchange. Doesn’t seem very fair to me, considering I’m in here and you’re free.”
How manipulative she could be; a sweet-looking lady with a steely core.
“I promise to portray you in a fair light,” I said. “I won’t intentionally make you look like a ghoul.”
In Alice’s presence, I’d completely dropped the idea of being a lifestyle writer. Locked away in prison, how could she have known what I’d told the townsfolk? And on my way inside I’d only mentioned to the guards something about being a journalist, not what kind of journalist.
Alice leaned toward her means of escape, the call button by her shoulder. “That’s still not a fair trade.”
“Then what do you want, a gift?” I kind of wished I’d bought her one.
She toyed with the button.
“Stop,” I said. “I’ve come this far. Tell me what you want, and I’ll . . . see what I can do.”
“I want you to get in touch with my daughter and tell me how she’s doing.”
I restrained a gasp. It would have been so easy to declare right then, “I’m your child,” but I said casually, “What’s her name?”
“Evelyn. Last I heard from her, which was years ago, she was not married, so her last name’s probably still Lane. We lost touch.”
“I’ll try. Does she live in town?”
“No, I don’t think so. My lawyer said she didn’t. My baby stopped writing to me years ago. It breaks my heart.”
How could she not have recognized my eyes or my smile? “I’m . . . ” It was on the tip of my tongue, and I’d almost revealed my identity to her.
Alice looked at me, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I’m sure I’ll find her,” I said to appease her. “But it could take some time. In the meantime—”
“Why should I do your favor before you do mine?”
“Finding your daughter’s whereabouts will take time. It’s not like I can walk into town, grab her, and bring her here to you. You said so yourself that you don’t know where she is.”
“You’re going to bring her to me? That’s wonderful. I would have settled for hearing how she’s doing, but I like the sound of her visiting me in person better.”
I’d dug myself in deep but couldn’t renege then. “If I can find her, and if she wants to come here.”
“There is no if. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I expect you to keep your word, and I’ll do the same. I’ll make it worth your while, believe me.”
“What you’re asking for is more complicated. Besides, you might not have the information I need. I could be wasting my time here.”
“And you might not find my daughter and could be wasting my time. Ask me what you want to know and then you can see if you feel the same way, that I might be ‘wasting’ your time.”
“Do you receive letters from anyone?” I asked.
“You mean, from the media?”
“No, but has anyone from the press tried to contact you lately?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if Alice answered yes, given how far the Crime Man post seemed to have spread.
“Besides you?” She had a ‘got you!’ glimmer in her eyes, and I wondered if she was onto me, if I’d slipped. “No, in the past few months, there’s been no one except you,” she said.
“You’ve mentioned you have fans. A fan of your work has tried to contact you, perhaps?”
“I’m insulted you think I’d help out an amateur.”
“Did you work with a partner?” I said. Although that was unlikely, it had occurred to me.
“Even if I had, what makes you think I’d tell you that?”
“How about someone who you’re . . . instructing?”
“Are you suggesting that I’m giving orders to someone from inside this place?” She twisted around and knocked on the cement walls surrounding her. “That’d be a pretty hard thing to do, don’t you think?” she winked.
I didn’t laugh at her joke. “No. I was thinking more along the lines of a copycat, someone who has reached out to you in admiration, and who is trying to replicate your murders in my city, possibly to please you.”
“Why on earth would anyone want to do that?”
“I don’t know your kind. You tell me what they’re like.”
“I wouldn’t have an answer, either.”
Her statement caused me to pause.
“No one like that has been writing to me,” she said. “The few letters I get in here are from my lawyer and hate mail telling me I’m an awful kid killer and will rot in hell.” She glanced around at her steel and cement surroundings. “Seems like I already am rotting in hell.” Alice yawned and covered her mouth, a habit I recognized from my youth. “Excuse me, I’m a little tired. The hate mail’s thinned out over the years.”
“Your family doesn’t write?” I’d been estranged from the rest of our family and wasn’t aware whether they were in contact with Alice.
“My daughter doesn’t write to me. I think she hates me. It won’t be easy getting her to come here to see me, but if anyone can do it, I know you can.” Her eyes held a naïve admiration for me, then I grasped that it wasn’t appreciation of me but for herself because she’d managed to trick me. I’d consented to assist her if she spoke to me, which, in theory, she had.
She’d dodged the real question, the one I’d asked about our family in general. But she wouldn’t have expected a small-time journalist, like I pretended I was, to know who our family encompassed. Yet, if I pushed her, it could make her vanish into her apathetic shell again and I’d never get a taste of the answers I sought.
“Thanks for having so much faith in me,” I said bitterly. “But you can’t do that, you can’t give me so little and expect more from me than you give me in return. I won’t help you unless you give me more.”
“I said I would talk to you and I am. That was our deal. You liking what I have to say wasn’t part of our deal. You have to carry out your end of our bargain, that’s how it works. I told you no one like that’s been writing to me. I’m not even considering telling you anything else until you can give me your word you’ve found my daughter.”
“I’m not going through the trouble of bringing her here if you have nothing significant to tell me.”
“I didn’t say you had to bring her to visit me right away, I said I need some kind of indication you’ve located her and then are able to bring her here when the time comes.”
“Why do you want to prolong seeing her?”
“Mind your own business,” she said, and I swore she shed a tear.
My mother loved having the last word, and that hadn’t changed during the years we’d been separated. Time might have changed me but it hadn’t moved her. It must be hard for a prisoner to advance inside a place where time often remained still, a place that never moved despite the world constantly evolving outside its doors. Alice might have seen her lawyer’s smart-phone but she’d likely never held or used one herself.
But I was grown, and I couldn’t let my mother have the final word. “If I agree to do that, will you talk to me some more now?”
“I’m going to need your w
ord you’re working on finding her, which obviously you aren’t at the moment, so, no, not until you leave and get cracking on finding my daughter, will I tell you anything else. You can come back when you have something about her, then we’ll continue this conversation.” Her gaze lifted to the clock at my back. “It’s almost time for dinner in here, and if I’m not in my cell by the time they’re serving, they won’t leave a tray for me.” The word cell gutted me into inertia, and before I could reply, she’d pressed the button to make the speaker at her side work. “Guard, we’re done here,” she said. “We’re done. We’re done.” The repetition made her sound like the madwoman she evidently had always been except through my younger, too-trusting eyes.
A female guard came to collect Alice on the other side. Alice waved to me when she was being led out.
The door opened behind me and Karl’s friend, the other guard, entered the room. I stood up.
“How did you know I was finished if I didn’t ring you?” I asked.
“I happened to be near this wing.” He touched the two-way radio clipped to his belt. “I was notified that the prisoner was being removed and I came to collect you. I didn’t think you’d want to stay in this pit a second longer than you need to, or am I wrong, do you like it here?” He gave me a sly grin. I avoided his gaze. “How did your chat with the resident cannibal go?” he asked. “You get enough stuff for your article? Just what is it that you’re working on?” He stared at the notebook I held. “I might not look like much of a reader but I am. I also happen to know the guy who helped you get in here—Mack?”
Could it have been that I’d taken his presence too lightly? “What’s your name, again?” I asked.
“I never gave it to you, but it’s Eddie.”
“They should make you wear nametags,” I said. Eddie grimaced like he didn’t fancy the idea, and I sensed neither of us favored shaking hands. “By the way, I’m a travel writer.”