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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

And left. Had he felt pleasure in the killing? It was hard to remember how he felt then. There was no pleasure in the recollection now. He felt more like an observer, distinterested. If he felt anything, it was that it hadn’t happened. The important thing is that he was a killer then, but he wasn’t now. Now he only killed when there was no other option. Now he—

He heard, “Jerry? Jerry, are you all right?”

Beaufort looked at Carlo and wondered how much he had said and when he had stopped talking. From Carlo’s face it didn’t appear that he had said very much. He heard himself say, “If a person does something bad, but they never do anything that bad again, then is the person still bad all through?”

Carlo tilted his head and looked puzzled at the question, was about to ask one of his own when Beaufort shook himself out of the strange mood he’d been in and changed the subject. He had realized he was about to get into worse things that maybe it wasn’t wise to reveal, especially as he was looking for that confession. Maybe someday he’d have more opportunity to talk with Carlo.

Forty–seven

Here is a good question. If Perry Smith was so much smarter than me, why was I the one who knew how to grift, and I had to coach him how to do it? And if he was so tough, why was he such a “scaredy pants” when it came to walking into a shop and scamming an ignorant sales clerk?

We got a lot more money from cashing bad checks than from picking up bottles, let me tell you. Every shop we went into I got an extra twenty-five dollars or so. The checks were fake. When you go from town to town, a couple shops here, a couple shops there, this adds up.

This was before we went to the Clutters, when we needed money. I just wanted to mention this to show that Perry was not as smart or as tough as he looked in photographs in the newspaper.

Back to my story now. The shotgun I took from the house was intended to frighten the Clutters. Also a hunting knife. Now this is an important point. Perry told in his confession that I was the one who said we would not leave any witnesses, meaning that we would kill the family with the gun. He said I brought the gun with the express purpose of killing the family. But if I said we would kill the family so as not to leave any witnesses, then why would Perry think of getting stocking masks to wear? We would not need masks if we were going to kill the Clutters. You see, it does not add up. Do not believe everything you read.