It's crazy how quickly a person can put twenty years behind them. Whether you take the time to savor it or not, each day slips into the next, another yesterday until suddenly you stand back and look at your life and realize how long it's been. For me, it had been twenty-two years. Twenty-two years of running from the pain.
I did the math. That was exactly two-thirds of my life. I was thirty-three, and for two-thirds of my existence I'd been struggling with the wreckage Roger left behind, the abuser who slipped in and out of our lives with no consequences of his own. I never wanted to see the day when three-fourths of my life had been wasted on the pain.
I didn't think of my revenge as a murder, but instead, as saving a life. My life. Whatever’s left for me now—even if it’s a lifetime spent locked behind a guarded metal door—I can face it knowing that he didn't get the best of me, not in the end. Call me juvenile. Call me spiteful, unstable, cold. I'm not going to pretend I don’t feel better with him dead.
One thing they will call me is crazy. Batshit crazy for how many pieces I cut him into. Well, maybe I am. A court-appointed shrink is looking into it. One thing’s for sure, though: Roger is not the charming professor the public will mourn.
You know better, don't you, Kimmie? You haven't forgotten about the chains. Not with those scars on your wrists and the way you sometimes recoil from your husband's embrace, even though you love him with all your heart, because something buried deep inside you forgets that a man’s touch can be welcome. Admit it. There’s an instinct in your gut, one that tells you to disconnect from the moment, to play dead at the feel of warm flesh against yours.
You love your husband, Kimmie, but it's hard for you to be loved, to accept it. He did that to you. And it's okay to despise him for it. It's okay to forget this bullshit about “moving on”. We are what we are. Just like Popeye, huh? If only we had been more like Popeye back then, but there was no magical spinach for us, was there?
Remember the shed where he took us? The rusty padlock, the splintered door, the sound of that awful lock clicking into place? He made sure we were always alone, apart from one another during the visits to our own private Hell. What he did to each of us, we knew he did to the other, and that made it hurt all the more.
Let the fools mourn him. Let them call me crazy. He deserved worse than he got, and I refuse to waste my time trying to expose his dark secrets or justify my actions. Vindication is not my concern.
His blood is on my hands. I'm at peace with that. Hell, I even smile when I picture his bug-eyed whimper as a torrent of blood poured from his neck. The memory of his slit throat, his larynx gurgling and choking... it soothes me as I lay on my cold metal plank in this lonely cell.
The day they caught me, they tackled me to the ground and scraped my cheek so badly that—I have to admit—the vain part of me wants to cry knowing it'll probably leave a scar. The scab is so thick, it’ll take weeks to heal, but I consider it a battle scar. I’m the victor in a war waged long ago. And it was a victory not only for us, but for all of Roger's victims.
Did you think we were the only ones? Did you think you and I were a drunken mistake he made while down on his luck in a go-nowhere town, shacked up with a bipolar wife? Yeah, I used to tell myself that, too. Until I found his notebook, where he had kept track of every single girl he abused. But I'll get to that in a minute.
First you need to hear how it went down so you understand I never wanted things to go this far. I never planned on a blood bath, and I especially didn't want to make headlines. It doesn't matter to me if the rest of the world thinks I'm the next Lizzie Borden or Aileen Wuornos, but I need you—and only you—to see things my way. Yours is the only forgiveness I seek.
I thought Roger would be easy to find. I was wrong. He'd long ago left Orson County, and according to everyone I asked, he’d only stuck around for three-and-a-half years while he was with mom. Before that, nobody knew him, and after that, nobody heard from him again. You see, Orson was a staple of our existence, the place our lives began, the backdrop of all our childhood memories, but for Roger, it was just a brief stop on his self-serving journey.
All I had was his name. It took some time, but I found him living seven states away. And you'll never believe this... Well, actually, you'll hear about it on the news before this letter reaches you. That son of a bitch was a teacher! That monster was molding young minds.
I found him teaching community college in a Northern California suburb. I tracked him a long time, observing his strolls around the campus. He looked so smug in his starched slacks, shirt unbuttoned just enough for a tuft of hair to poke out. He donned a fake smile, scoping the female students like a lion, eyes peeled for the kill.
As I watched him engage with his students, I was dumbfounded, recalling the tortures he inflicted on us. His hair was sprinkled with gray, and he'd lost some pounds, but his dark eyes still chilled me to the marrow. By all appearances, he was a clean cut, passionate professor. He had a dress shirt in every color, but never a tie. He was too cool for that.
I kept a lot of distance between us when I followed him. I’d been approaching my twelfth birthday the last time he saw me. I had changed a lot since then. Still, I feared he would recognize me if I got too close. I decided to change my appearance.
I checked into a motel near his work. I drove until I found a department store. I bought chestnut brown hair dye to cover my blonde curls and ordered green contact lenses for my baby blues. I found a pair of binoculars to help pass the time. It would take five business days for the contacts to arrive on special order, but that was okay by me. I watched him and plotted, plotted and watched.
He worked hard to charm the female students. It made me physically ill. I wanted to scream, He is a monster! A rapist! But I had to remain silent until the moment was right. Anticipation burned in my stomach. I couldn't eat for days.
I paced my motel room. I played with my butterfly knife. Anything to pass the time.
One thing became obvious the more I spied on Roger: his libido was as strong as ever. He went out every night, even during the work week. I watched him from the shadows of my parked car, lights off, head low. Sometimes he came home with a woman, and other times he ended up by himself, but he always tried to satisfy his urges.
I never trailed him after his departure. I wouldn’t risk being noticed. But on the nights he came home alone, disappointment was evident on his face, and I decided it would be easy enough to bait him. I’d put up a neon “fuck me” sign—heavy makeup, a skin-tight dress, a flirtatious wink—and lure Roger in.
To pull it off, I’d have to follow him in my car without being seen. If Roger caught on to me, things could turn sour in a hurry. Forget his upstanding exterior. I knew the devil beneath the facade.
Sitting in my car, plotting that man’s death, I could still feel the way his hands used to press against my mouth, not because I cried out for help, but because he liked the control. He liked to muffle my speech, my breathing… my sobs. I knew the darkness inside that man, and I’d take extra precaution to avoid meeting up with it again.
I decided to do it the next night after watching him return home empty-handed. I knew he’d be extra eager, having failed at his sexual endeavors the night before. I was right. Baiting him was a piece of cake. I simply walked into the bar a few minutes after he sat down, chose the bar stool beside him, and made my interest as obvious as a schoolgirl with a crush. I suspect he liked that very much. It wasn’t very long before he invited me to his place.
Once I got him alone, all flirtation ceased. I had no desire to toy with Roger. I only wanted him dead.
He led me to his bedroom, then turned around to size me up. “There's something so familiar about you.”
“Oh?” I smiled, trying not to look nervous. “Maybe you know my sister. We're only a year apart.”
“Ah, never mind. ‘There's enough of me to go around,’ as a cheesier man might say. Oh, damn... I just said it, didn't I?” He chuckled, like it was funny. I di
dn’t think so.
I reached behind me, undid the zipper on my dress, and pulled the knife from my satin corset. He didn’t realize what was happening until the blade was plunging through the air toward his neck. He swung and tried to hit me. He would have succeeded if he’d been two seconds faster. Lucky for me, the blood was leaving his brain and coursing to his groin when I struck, impairing his reflexes. The knife entered, sinking deep. His skin grazed the handle.
I pressed hard and traced the curve of his throat, slicing his Adam’s apple. Blood gushed out, and I gagged. I wasn’t prepared for all the blood. Hot and sticky, it poured all over us. I almost dropped the knife.
I did it quickly and took no joy in the killing, only in the knowledge of revenge. He gripped me by the hair and thrashed at me with his other hand, but it was useless. The life drained quickly from his eyes.
He slumped to the floor, and I realized his hand was still tangled in my hair. I knelt down beside him. A death rattle quivered his lips. I untangled his fingers and let him drop to the carpet, and I cried for a moment. I think they were tears of relief.
It wasn’t until after the murder, when curiosity overtook me and I began rooting through his things, that my hatred for Roger grew. The three-ring binder in his desk drawer wouldn’t have caught my attention if not for the title scrawled on it with permanent marker. “Damaged Goods”.
I flipped it open. Inside were four notebooks of handwritten journal entries. The first three were filled. The fourth notebook had been left incomplete when its author unexpectedly died.
“Damaged Goods” was written like a memoir, but I’m sure Roger never intended for anyone else to lay eyes on it. It was for him and him only, his little trophy. In it, he detailed his sexual exploits, some of which were very illegal. There was a chapter for each period of his life since he started keeping the journal, and guess what, Kimmie? We got to be in Chapter One.
I ground my teeth as Roger detailed his obsession with “damaged” girls. “I like the ones who are broken. They let me do whatever I want.” No doubt that’s why he worked so hard to become a college professor. What better place to scope out victims he might be able to further abuse?
No one sees that side of him, though. Roger will be the media’s undeserving victim. I could expose him. I could admit my motive. But that would expose you, too, wouldn’t it? I burned those notebooks, anyway. There’s no proof. I couldn’t stand for the women he abused to be mocked in those sordid pages any longer.
Roger never planned to stay with mom. She likes to think she forced him into a speedy divorce and expelled him from our lives as a punishment for his deeds, but she is wrong. That divorce was not a punishment for Roger. He was more than happy to leave us in his dust and move on to his next play thing. He'd had his fun.
The more I read his filthy book, the harder it was to keep my eyes in focus. My blood boiled. Tears blurred my vision and my heart hammered out a war song. I wanted to kill him again, but I couldn’t. His death hadn’t lasted long enough. I had taken revenge for the two of us, but what about these women? They deserved revenge, too, and the bastard had been in pain for only a couple minutes.
I went to his kitchen. I found the biggest knife I could. And I began to hack Roger to pieces.
Did I go crazy? Perhaps. Will I pay for my sins? Maybe. The truth is, I don’t know what to believe. A part of me hopes Hell is real so that Roger can rot there. But if Hell is real, aren’t I damned?
“Thou shalt not kill” makes no sense in a world where murder isn’t black and white. There is a vast gray area, a place where victims who seek their own brand of justice dwell. How can the commandments condemn me when they failed to protect me? What about “Thou shalt not rape”?
No one on the outside looking in can understand how rape and murder are so very much alike. He killed the child in me, so I killed him. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but most people are blind to abuse sufferers anyway.
Dear sister, I hope you live a long and happy life, as happy as a person can be after their sister makes national headlines for a crime that turned the stomachs of investigators. For what it’s worth, I only wanted him dead. It wasn’t until after… when confronted by the magnitude of Roger’s evil that I decided I would chop him to pieces. My mind, like an old, tired rubberband, stretched too thin for the last time and snapped.
I was filled with only rage as I sawed into him, breaking bones where the knife got stuck. Half of me pleaded with the other half to stop, but the knife just kept on carving. If there was a craziness in me waiting for release, I guess “Damaged Goods” was the trigger.
Give my love to Kayla and Tommy. I love them and I’ll miss them. I love all of you so much. Of that you can be certain.
And I apologize if I’ve written too small. One of the guards told me to make this paper last, but I wanted you to know the whole story. My side of it, anyhow. If you had difficulty reading my handwriting, I hope you can at least read my heart. I won’t say “I did this for us” because I didn’t. I did it for me… but he hurt you, too, and I think that’s what has tortured me all these years. I’m your big sister, your protector, and I couldn’t save you from his darkness. That’s my only regret.
The cops are still looking for the missing pieces of Roger, but I refuse to cooperate. Until I start talking, they say, I won’t receive any privileges. But I’m not spoiling the fun. They’ll find him soon enough.
Remember how Roger said, ‘There’s enough of me to go around’? Let’s just say I took him up on that offer. He used women and threw them away. He wrote disgusting things about them in his memoir. And sometimes he wrote their full names. In my manic state, that gave me an idea. Finding addresses for some of those names was easy enough, and besides, after the way he treated us, I thought we all deserved a little closure.
A madness was triggered in me the night I read his journals. Maybe that’s why I’m still smiling about his gory departure from this world. The memory of his eyes rolling in their sockets, it comforts me.
For being a bad aunt, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t think about Tommy and Kayla getting mixed up in all this when I did it. I especially wasn’t thinking of them when I sent the packages, including the one I mailed to you. Please, don’t let them open any boxes that arrive! I’m sorry! I shipped everything at the slowest postal rate, but still… Roger should be turning up any day now.
Forgive me.
Much love,
Your Sister
The Gift
“Who did you buy this for?” Tears shimmered on Ty's chocolate brown eyes as she held the tiny gift box with the gold and silver bow. Trevor studied her face as he cleaned his harpoon. This was the first time he had seen her cry. Six weeks they'd been dragging dead bodies from the building by day, hiding in his apartment by night. Six weeks and Ty hadn't shed a tear. Until now.
She looked at her feet, eyelids heavy with makeup, and Trevor had to stifle a chuckle. Even in times of crisis, Ty found the time to apply eyeliner and mascara. Fresh gloss shined beneath the sterling silver hoop in her lip.
When she spoke, her voice was shaky and demure, nothing like her usual tone. “If there was someone else, I need to know.” She wiped at the moisture on her face with the sleeve of her black cotton jacket and turned to gaze at the dark sky full of pinprick stars. The lights of the city used to drown out those stars, but now she could see them all, thousands of them.
“Who was the present for? Who did you love before the world turned to shit?”
Trevor's heart broke at the sight of her quivering lips and the wetness that formed on her cheeks. Then a thought occurred to him and he blinked, shaking away the stupor. “Wait a minute. Why were you going through my stuff?”
Ty looked at him, a guilty wrinkle forming in her brow. Worry lines creased her forehead. The truth was written all over her face: She had been snooping, found the box, and jealousy got the best of her. She hadn't taken the time to formulate an excuse before storming up the staircase to
confront him. She stood, doe-eyed in the headlights of Trevor's questioning glare as the moon glowed bright overhead.
After a moment of silence, Trevor smirked and shook his head. He wiped the last smear of blood from the pointed tip of his harpoon and gestured behind him. “C'mon. I need your help.”
The Tooth Collector (and Other Tales of Terror) Page 13