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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

That was six years ago. How funny that, as I write this, the kid is not a kid any longer. He must be at least twenty, fully grown. It’s all I can do to write it here now, I’m so afraid, and I can’t even provide the boy’s last name because he never told us. His first name was Jerry. That’s all I know. Oh, and he said his grandfather’s name was Bert, short for Bertrand. But other than that, I do not recall that his grandfather ever came up in conversation after he was left in the field.

What I remember about how Jerry looks is when he came out of the river that night, naked, his wetness reflecting the moonlight a little. He was small, with an out-sized bottom, not like a boy’s, but like a little girl too young for breasts. When he got into the car I could see his goosebumps all over. He looked so vulnerable to me, and not like someone I could grow to hate.

Forty–eight

The first thing I thought, of course, was this could not be. There had been only two people involved in the Clutter murders. Not three. Not three. This document was just one more made-up version of the many, this one made up by Hickock himself, for what purpose I couldn’t tell.

That wishful thinking was followed rapidly by a sudden flash of what definitely was. The only name I had, Jerry, and the odd description of that physical anomaly that a pedophile like Hickock would notice. Not enough on their own, certainly, but added to a long string of suspicious occurrences: Santangelo’s convenient death. Finding that Carlo had a sketch of Hickock. The burglary that was similar to others in the neighborhood except that in our house alone the burglar had searched through file cabinets and the library where there would be no valuables. Meadows getting shot just after he spoke with me. The possibilities fell together in what Carlo would call an epiphany, and following that, the shock that I had left Carlo unprotected in Arizona. That he was alone and that his life might depend on Jeremiah Beaufort thinking that what I had could convict him.

Forty–nine

The phone rang again.

Beaufort’s mouth went dry, thinking more about what he really wanted from this visit, and he took a sip of his bourbon while the phone rang. Six times. Then silence. He took a deep breath.

Then the message.

“CARLO!” the voice shouted. “PICK UP THE PHONE!”

“Ah, it’s Brigid,” Carlo said, standing and moving in the direction of the phone. “And she sounds very Brigiddy. You’ll have to ex—”