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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

The monk came over to the side of the bed and seemed to lean over Santangelo, though from his position, and holding his breath, Beaufort couldn’t be sure. The three men, two living and one dead, were separated by less than three feet. After a few moments—perhaps he was trying to rouse the man, or at least determine if he was sleeping comfortably—or feeling for his pulse—the monk ran out of the room.

There was no time to see how long it would take for him to rouse the other monks and bring a whole troop of them into the room. Beaufort stood up and sped out, closing the door not as quietly as he would have liked, and ran left down the hallway toward the pilgrims’ quarters. There was noise in the hall behind him, so he didn’t bother to relock the outside door.

Running back to his car, past the statue of Mary, he thought about how good he had felt arriving here this night, and how unexpectedly bad he felt now even though he had a decent lead on where the confession was. Santangelo’s last words, about Beaufort being in hell, kept repeating … he couldn’t stop those words. How did the priest know?

But then if Santangelo were still alive Beaufort would tell him that it wasn’t hell he was in. Hell was permanent. This was purgatory because he was finding a way out.

Eleven

My questions about Jane weren’t the only things fired up the night that Gemma-Kate interviewed Carlo. I remembered mentioning to Carlo that night in bed how I’d checked from time to time about whether there’d been any progress on the Walker family murder case. So here I was sitting at my computer on a slow day, googling. I also made a mental note to get back the book I’d loaned to Gemma-Kate.

That copy of In Cold Blood? My father gave me that first edition for my twelfth birthday. I read it then and several times since. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Truman Capote’s masterwork, here’s the story according to Capote: Two guys, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Smith, meet in prison where they’re doing time for petty crimes. Hickock tells Smith that another prisoner, Floyd Wells, has told him of a well-to-do Kansas farmer named Herb Clutter, for whom Wells has worked. Wells says that Clutter keeps ten thousand dollars in a safe in his house office. Hickock gets Smith to help him rob Clutter. In Cold Blood relates their adventures, on road trips from Mexico to Florida, passing bad checks for cash, including the night when they go to the Clutter place in Holcomb, Kansas, and with a knife and shotgun slaughter Mr. and Mrs. Clutter, and their two teenage children.

They find less than one hundred dollars.

Ultimately, the two men are captured by the FBI in Las Vegas on December 30, 1959.