I look at him and take care to choose the words I'll say next, because I know what I say next is very, very important. I opt in the end for good old-fashioned bare naked honesty. I grab his hands in mine. I want the contact.
"I do need time. I wish I didn't, but I do. That doesn't mean I'm saying I don't feel the same way. It just means . . ." I search for the words that fit what I'm feeling. "I'm scared."
He brings my hands up to his mouth. He gives each one a soft kiss, two benedictions. His eyes are full of a gentle compassion that I've never really seen in him before. I have seen kind Tommy, angry Tommy, thoughtful Tommy, deadly Tommy. This is a new Tommy; understanding and empathy without the sometimes saccharine falseness of sympathy. Ahh, I realize, this is loving Tommy.
"You loved one man, Smoky. You met Matt when you were both still teenagers, and you knew he was the one. You never doubted it, you never wondered about it, you never longed for something else. You lost him because of a tragedy, not by choice. It makes sense that this would knock you for a loop. I can understand you not having an answer right now. I just need you to think about it and figure out what the answer is."
The words, their compassion, their complete lack of agenda, are a punch to the gut. They squeeze the breath out of me. A lone tear rolls down the unscarred side of my face. Tommy reaches out a thumb and wipes it away as gently as he can.
"Don't cry, baby."
He's never called me that before, baby, never used such a personal term of endearment, and it undoes me for reasons I can't quite grasp. I have no idea why. I move into his arms and bawl my eyes out against his chest. It's not a bad grief, there's no despair in it. It's a thunderstorm that's rolled in, clouds that have to cry. I pound against his rocks for a few moments, he takes it, the tears eventually stop and turn into sniffles, he is quiet and strokes my hair. It occurs to me that I could stay right here forever, if this moment was all he wanted from me.
But there's the rub. He doesn't just want this, he wants everything. I pull away from him, and wipe my cheeks with the palms of my hands.
"Where does that leave us in the meantime?" My voice is husky from the tears.
His eyes are a little bit sad. "We need to spend some time apart. You need to process this and I need to not sleep with you until you do."
"What? Why?"
It's the question of a child. The truth is, I know why.
"I can't sleep with a woman after I've told her that I love her until I know she feels the same way. It's not a punishment or an ultimatum, Smoky. I just can't be with someone who feels less for me than I feel for her."
I stare at him for a long time and then I sigh. "Yeah. I couldn't be with you either, if the shoe was on the other foot."
He leans forward and he takes my face in his hands. They are strong hands, rough hands, soft in places, callused in others. He brings his lips to mine and the kiss is perfection. Deep, passionate, Casablanca all the way. It leaves me breathless and teary-eyed again. He stands up.
"You know where to find me."
"Hey, Tommy," I call after him as he walks toward the door. "That integrity thing? You're right, it's a real pisser."
No reply.
"Tommy?"
He stops, turns his head to look at me.
"Yeah?"
I manage a smile.
"I still think it's a good quality."
He returns the smile, tips an imaginary hat with his fingers, and then he's gone.
I am left alone again with all my contrasts. They're like bats that chuckle as they tangle in my hair. I pull my knees up to my chin and wrap my arms around my shins. I rock back and forth.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck." The tears are coming again, hot galloping horses behind my eyes. And me without any ice cream.
Hey, that inner voice says, a little sly. You still got some Jose Cuervo hidden away in the upper kitchen cabinet. I ignore myself and stick with my most faithful friend: the good cry. AMA--After Matt and Alexa--I've spent a lot of time with my good buddy grief. We hang out together for a few minutes, a worthy jag, and then I send him on his way.
I lean back on the couch and stare at the ceiling while I sniffle. I feel drained and miserable.
What is your problem, anyway? Tommy's a good man. No, scratch that--Tommy is a great man. He's honest, he's loyal, he's sexy as hell, he loves you. Like you have so many other choices?
But it's not about Tommy, I know this. It's not about the present. It's about the past.
Sure, there was a time when the idea of being with another man felt like a betrayal of Matt. Matt's ghost used to be everywhere; here in the living room, standing in the kitchen, lying in bed next to me. But Matt's just a lovely memory now, not a phantom.
Besides, I know Matt would want me to be happy again. So? Then what?
Well, there is Bonnie . . .
I shake my head.
No. Don't you put it on her.
One of the last holdouts of Bonnie's childhood is her penchant for Saturday morning cartoons. She never misses them and when Tommy is here, he gets up and they watch them together. I don't share their love of early mornings, but I have stumbled down the stairs toward the coffeepot on a number of occasions to find them laughing together as horrible things happen to Wile E. Coyote. I don't know if I would call it a father/daughter bond that they have, not yet, but Bonnie cares for Tommy, and she knows that he cares for her.
The truth is, I realize, I can't pin this terror on anyone but myself. So why?
A word bubbles up from the darker parts of me, like brimstone from a crack in the earth.
Punishment.
I turn the word over in the mouth of my mind, tasting its bitterness and wondering at the slight hint of terror it seems to bring. Punishment? For what?
You know what. For that unforgivable thing you did after Matt and Alexa died. That thing that no one knows about, not even Callie. I clap my hands together. The sound is startling in this quiet house. A rifle crack. I do it again. Crack!
We're not thinking about that right now! Not now, maybe not ever. NO way.
Inner me pauses. I sense sadness now, not slyness. Well, fine. But it's why you're afraid to love him: you don't think you have the right to love anybody.
I have no reply to this; none is needed. Truth tends to get the last word.
I stand up and head for the kitchen. I need a distraction, now now now. Jose Cuervo will do just fine, thank you.
I grab the bottle from its hiding place in the upper cabinet and I pour myself a shot. I lift the glass in an angry toast.
"To the truth that the truth doesn't always set you free."
The tequila goes down like the paint stripper that it is. The heat blossoms in my belly and brings a rush of focus and contentment with it. I put the bottle back and clean the shotglass, making sure to leave no trace of this little secret. I'm too disciplined to be a drunk, but I only drink tequila in such moments of weakness. This never fails to deliver a prick of shame and a need to conceal. The bitterness, that jittery taste of terror and dismay, has not been so much expunged as blurred. Its sharp edges are now covered in foam rubber and that'll work for now.
"For my next trick," I mutter, padding back to the living room, "I will turn to my most long-term and beloved addiction."
Work.
Work, work, sweet glorious work. One of the fine things about having a job with real purpose is that you can use it to replace yourself when you need to. That cicada buzz can be seductive as well as stressful.
I grab the yellow legal pad and pen from the coffee table. I keep this pad there for one of my own rituals. Late at night (like now) when I am alone, I curl my feet under me and try to bring order to the jumble of data in whatever case I'm working on. It helps me focus and has led to any number of useful epiphanies over the years. It's also a pretty good talisman. Scratching away on that yellow pad helps beat back thoughts I don't want around.
There are certain axioms I've developed over the years about homicides. Pragma
tisms. Insights. I concentrate on these and jot them down to get the wheels turning in their grooves and dispel Tommy and the ghosts he brings.
The Victim is always everything. Even when the murder is a random event, remember: the thing we choose on the spur of the moment can be the most revealing.
A killer once told me he chose his strangling victims by watching for the first woman who made eye contact with him. I pointed out that, somehow, these first women were always blonde. He thought about this, laughed, and admitted that his mother had been a blonde. ("Mom was a real cunt," he had added without prompting.) Method tells us what drives him, or what he wants us to think drives him.
Another killer I caught beat his victims until they had no face. He had been driven by a hatred so intense that it could actually induce a minor fugue state. "A couple times," he'd told me, "I remember starting to hit a whore, but I don't remember nothing else till it was over. Which is a real shame. 'Cause honestly, that's the best part." He really had been regretful about it.
Insanity is not the same as stupidity.
The truth is, they're all crazy in their own way, but some of them are also brilliant.
Sex as a component, or the lack thereof, is key when considering motive.
This last one gets me thinking.
Both victims we know of--Lisa Reid and Rosemary Sonnenfeld--
were murdered but not sexually abused. Lisa was a pre-op transsexual, which in itself points toward a sexual component. Rosemary's past points to sex as well, and yet he didn't abuse her. I chew on the pen, thinking about this. I come to the same conclusion as I had earlier. It's not about sex for him.
This is rare. It's almost always about sex.
Not this time.
Okay, then what's it about? Victims are everything. What are the commonalities?
Both victims were women.
I scratch that out. Lisa Reid was not a woman. The distinction might be unfair to her, but it would have been significant to the killer. This is not a commonality.
Look for similarities in method then.
Both victims were killed in the same way. A sharp object was thrust into their right side and angled up and into the heart. Both victims had a cross placed inside the resulting wound. I consider the cross. After sex and general insanity, religious mania plays a big part in serial homicides. Only parents get hung with more blame than God. Satanic elements are a popular choice, but there are plenty of instances where the killer felt that he was saving his victims, that he was working for the man upstairs, not the one in the nether-basement.
Is that the deal here? Is he saving his victims from something?
I doodle on the pad:
What do you save someone from?
One answer:
The consequences of their actions.
From a religious standpoint, you save them from damnation. Yeah.
What damns someone?
I rattle my brain, trying to jar loose old memories of catechism. Something about mortal sins, venial sins . . .
I take my notepad with me as I pad up the stairs and into my oftused home office. I sit down in front of my computer and open the browser to a search engine.
In the search field I type: mortal sin defined. The first choice is Mortal Sin--definition
"Ask and ye shall receive," I mutter. I click the link. The American Heritage Dictionary definition of mortal sin appears: A sin, such as murder or blasphemy, that is so heinous it deprives the soul of sanctifying grace and causes damnation if unpardoned at the time of death.
There is a treatise farther down on the page that relates to Aquinas.
A mortal sin destroys the grace of God in the heart of the sinner. In order for a sin to be mortal, it must meet three conditions: A. Sin must be of a grave matter.
B. Sin is committed with the full knowledge of the sinner. C. Sin is committed with the full and deliberate consent of the sinner.
Thus a mortal sin cannot be committed by accident, as two of the qualifying components are knowledge and consent. In other words, the sinner knows what he or she is doing is an offense against God, but does so anyway, and with premeditation. The sinner is aware that he is rejecting God's law and love.
In Galatians 5:19-21, St. Paul gives a list of grave sins: "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, em- ulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunken- ness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not in- herit the kingdom of God."
And in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: Paul also tells the Corinthians,
"know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God?
Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the ef- feminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunk- ards nor railers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God."
It continues in this vein. I go back and click some of the other links the search engine gave me. I'm not surprised to find that the specifics of what constitutes a mortal sin is a widely debated subject. The Catholic Church has views and definitions that are distinct from Protestants. Orthodox churches in places such as Eastern Europe have different views than those in the west. Strict traditionalists classify the so-called Seven Deadly Sins as mortal, while others dispute this.
There are definite points of agreement. Everyone allows that murder is pretty bad. Homosexuality is universally considered to be a quick ticket into hellfire.
"Sorry, James," I murmur. "No one likes a godless sodomite."
The most general consensus, from what I can see, is: you know it is a grave sin, you know it denies God's love and law, and you do it anyway. If you don't take responsibility for that mortal sin prior to death, you're fucked. Get ready to burn like an indestructible marshmallow over an eternal campfire.
I lean back in the chair and consult my notepad again. Okay, let's roll with this. So . . . if he's saving them from damnation then--what? He gets them to confess before he kills them?
The other and obvious possibility occurs to me.
Maybe he is not saving them. Maybe he is damning them. If he's aware of something they've done, something he considered a mortal sin, and he kills them before they have the opportunity to repent, then, within his paradigm, he'd be sending them straight to hell.
Why would he want to do that? I doubt it's based on a personal connection with the victims, so direct revenge is out. It would have a broader base. Vengeance in absentia? Sending a message?
Will of God?
"Are you saving them, or damning them? Do you care about their souls?" I toss the pad down on the desk in frustration. "Do I have any idea if I'm even on the right track?"
I think about this. Yeah, I do. It's not something I can prove, it is something that I feel. This is the way it goes.
He is not killing them for sexual gratification. He is killing them because their deaths matter in a religious sense, and sin is the hub of the wheel on which all religion turns.
I grab the notepad back and return to the living room. I stare at it as I think and I begin to write again.
He asked us a question: "What do I collect? That's the question, and that's the key."
I'm pretty sure I know the answer, or at least the answer for now, based on the information I have and what my gut is saying. Sins. He collects sins. That's the victimology. That's the commonality. Not hair color or boob size or maybe even gender. His victims are sinners (or he thinks they are). This feels right. It resonates. The tuning fork inside me quivers, telling me that I've hit the right note.
One question, though, remains.
Does he think he's sending sinners to their just rewards, or the redeemed to sit at the hand of God?
The next question comes without my wanting it to, a return of the yammering I've been trying to quash.
What about yo
ur sin? Does it qualify as mortal?
Oh yeah. You bet. Good thing I don't believe in heaven or hell. Right?
Silence to that, blessed silence.
"Praise God," I mutter, with all the sarcasm and bitterness I can muster.
God does not reply, as is His wont.
A wave of exhaustion hits me like a truck, so fast and heavy that my eyelids close of their own accord. I let the notepad slip from my fingers and curl up on the couch as sleep drags me down into darkness.
15
THE PHONE WAKES ME UP AND I WAKE UP HARD. I FEEL hungover, though it's not a result of last night's alcohol. This is about my age. In my early twenties I could pull an all-nighter or two, sleep for one night and wake up refreshed. Now it can take me days to bounce back. The crick in my neck tells me that sleeping on the couch hadn't helped.
I pull myself to a sitting position and groan. Last night I was lonely. Right now I'm just glad that no one is here to witness this. I push away the fog through sheer force of will and answer.
"Barrett," I croak.
"You sound chipper, honey-love."
"What time is it?"
"Eight-thirty A.M."
"What? Dammit."
I stand up and rush to the kitchen while I hold the phone against my ear. I forgot to set the timer for the coffee last night, so I hit the button now and wait for the blessed brown nectar to start flowing. I have the patience of a junkie when it comes to getting my first cup of coffee in the morning. Bonnie always wakes up before me and knows this; she starts pouring a cup for me the moment she hears my feet hit the stairs.
"Lazy, lazy," Callie teases. "Up too late having various forms of acrobatic sex?"
She means well, but the question brings back memories of last night.
"No."
The terseness of my answer makes her pause.
"Hmmmm . . . is that bark of a no due to a lack of caffeine or problems on the home front?"
"Both, but I don't want to talk about it right now. What's up?
Where are you?"
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