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Back We Were Killers Once Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty–one
  25. Twenty–two
  26. Twenty–three
  27. Twenty–four
  28. Twenty–five
  29. Twenty–six
  30. Twenty–seven
  31. Twenty–eight
  32. Twenty–nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty–one
  35. Thirty–two
  36. Thirty–three
  37. Thirty–four
  38. Thirty–five
  39. Thirty–six
  40. Thirty–seven
  41. Thirty–eight
  42. Thirty–nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty–one
  45. Forty–two
  46. Forty–three
  47. Forty–four
  48. Forty–five
  49. Forty–six
  50. Forty–seven
  51. Forty–eight
  52. Forty–nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty–one
  55. Fifty–two
  56. Fifty–three
  57. Fifty–four
  58. Fifty–five
  59. Fifty–six
  60. Fifty–seven
  61. Author’s Note
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. Also by Becky Masterman
  64. About the Author
  65. Newsletter Sign-up

She followed him to the door, where he stepped into the shoes he always left in the front hall at her request. He had always hated doing that but he never objected. She tried to go into his arms, to let him feel her nakedness under the nylon material that covered it. Beaufort put down his suitcase, held her to him, and said, almost tenderly, “I wouldn’t tell anyone else about this. Not even your life coach. You wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

She would know what he meant. She wouldn’t want anyone else to know her shame. Her desperation. Fags, junkies, lonely women. They were all the same, willing to do anything for a little love.

For now he decided to stay.

Thirty–eight

When the framer was finished with it, and Carlo presented it to me with pride and a kiss, I would have hung the sketch of Dick Hickock in a place of prominence in the living room, but I realized there are lines you shouldn’t cross. So I put it on the wall next to my desk and admired it there. I imagined Smith doing it from memory while sitting in his cell on death row. The eyes were almost laughing, and the mouth wasn’t grim, a man in easier times. When were you? I thought to the picture. Was this before or after you killed the Walkers? Because you did kill the Walkers, didn’t you, Richard Eugene Hickock?

The sketch would have been a magnificent gift by itself, but that letter had turned the sketch into what felt like a treasure map. The thought that Carlo and I were likely the only ones, besides Victor Santangelo, who had evidence of a new confession stirred up as nothing ever had my old excitement in the Walker case.

I had spoken to Carlo about my plan to visit Meadows, see what I could find out about the mysterious confession, maybe go up to St. Dominic’s and talk to Abbot Franklin about whether Victor Santangelo had left any effects. No matter how confidential a confession was I couldn’t see him throwing out a historical document. At the same time I could do a little checkup on Jeremiah Beaufort in old records of the sheriff’s department.

Carlo was being very gentle with me, like I might be troubled about what he’d told me about his relationship with Jane. He kept giving me these looks, but we didn’t speak of her, and how she had become so much more than just a ghostly presence with culinary skills. No, I had my feelings well in hand. I didn’t even want to look at their wedding bands to see if there was something engraved inside. I was big-girling all over the place.