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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

Beaufort knew how to do things at this point. He found the closest library and the computer bank therein. He googled Kansas Historical Society Archives. Over seven hundred separate documents covering everything from Hickock’s plea for clemency to an envelope addressed to the warden from Hickock’s mother. Long, neatly handwritten letters from Hickock asking for a radio. For drawing materials. Reading those letters put Beaufort back into the past and he didn’t want to be there anymore. He was reaching the end of a short fuse and was about to pop when he finally found the letters written seven days before Hickcock’s execution:

April 7, 1965

Dear Warden Crouse:

As you know, I am to be executed on April 14, 1965. Before that event I wish to make my confession. As the chaplain in the prison is a protestant minister, and because the protestant religion does not hold confession in the same regard as the Catholics, I request that a Catholic priest be called in to hear my final confession. In addition, I request that no recordings are made and that no one else be allowed to hear what I tell the priest. Our long relationship is nearly at an end and I hope you will grant me this last request.

Respectfully,

Richard Eugene Hickock

Prisoner number 14746

And the very next document after that was the response from the warden.

April 8, 1965

Dear Mr. Hickock:

I am going to grant your request. We have located a priest at a local church who will be here at two o’clock pm tomorrow. He has agreed to hear your final confession and grant absolution. A guard will be posted outside the door, but other than that your time with the father will be private and unlimited.

Warden Sherman Crouse

Is it asking too much that somewhere here there should be a goddamn mention of the goddamn priest’s goddamn name?

The library had a second floor. He ran up the stairs and down the aisles of shelved books until he got to an area that was empty. He drove his fist into a collection of large hard-bound copies of National Geographic. They resisted and gave with just the right balance so as not to damage his fist. The magazines bounced back and hit whatever was on the shelf on the other side, those books spilling onto the floor. He breathed in and out the way they had taught him in prison, and that calmed him. In case anyone might be coming around to check on the noise he moved casually back to the stairs, down, and to the computers.

He needed to approach this from a different angle. Getting control of himself again, he searched Dominican abbeys in Florida. There was only one, about an hour’s drive north of Tampa. And in that abbey he hoped there would be only one very sick, very old priest.

Nine