Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels)

by Kimberly A Bettes

  Assuming the police ever did come to see me, it wouldn’t be to arrest me. It would be to let me know that Ron was dead. That is, if they did their job. I didn’t expect to see or hear from them, but if I did, I would act surprised and grateful, maybe even relieved, which wasn’t a stretch of the imagination. I really was relieved. So relieved in fact that as I drove across the city, back home to where Wade and Mason were waiting for me, I actually smiled.

  There would be no more panic attacks now. No more sleepless nights. No more looking over my shoulder. He was gone for good. I had made sure of that. I could finally put the trauma behind me and move on with my life. The first step was to have dinner with my husband and son. The second step was to return to the fire station in which I’d left Austin and do everything I could to find him and bring him home, where he belonged.

  Where we all belonged.

  THE END

  About 22918

  Lester Wine is a serial killer. Having brutally murdered dozens of women, he serves out his final days on death row. As his execution date nears, he recounts his story to a young journalist and budding author, telling every gory detail of his life and of the crimes he committed, all while fantasizing about the chance to do them one more time.

  REVIEWS:

  “Bettes writes suspense and horror like no other.” – Independent Review

  “It is amazing how Kimberly A. Bettes can write from anyone's point of view ... woman, man, or in this case, a crazy psychopathic killer.” – Independent Review

  “I always expect the best from Bettes and she always delivers.” – Independent Review

  22918

  The Interview, Part 1

  July 13, 1991

  Potosi Correctional Center

  Potosi, MO

  With a racing heart the young journalist waits, his stomach a heavy mass of tangled nerves and frenzied butterflies. He watches in silence as the shackled prisoner is escorted into the small interview room and takes a seat in the chair directly across from him. Secured to the floor, a plain steel table separates the two men. On it lays a spiral notebook, open and ready to have its pages filled, and a tape recorder containing a blank tape. Behind the journalist stands a video cassette recorder on a tripod, recording the entire interaction.

  This is the most important interview of his career so far and he doesn’t want to screw it up, especially because he missed something. Not a word that is spoken, not a subtle gesture or facial expression that’s made. He wants to capture it all, and in his mind he can never be too careful. If the video equipment fails, he can fall back on the tape recorder. If the tape recorder fails, he will still have his notes and his memory. But if all goes well, he’ll have a treasure trove of accurate recordings from three separate devices.

  Since he’s the journalist, the interviewer, by all rights he should be the first to speak. He should have the entire conversation mapped out in his head, at least his part of it. But he’s left with nothing to say, temporarily rendered speechless at the sight of the man who now sits across from him, the man so many people fear. The same man whose hands have ended the lives of so many others.

  He shouldn’t be scared. He knew what the job entailed before he scheduled the interview. Though he thought he’d prepared himself mentally for the challenge, now that he’s here, sitting within arm’s reach of a convicted serial killer, the only thing he feels prepared to do is vomit.

  For a moment, he can only stare at the man before him, drinking in his features. His faded hair—once a bright red but now a dull orange, his scruffy white beard, bushy eyebrows, and the many wrinkles deeply embedded on his pale, freckled face. However, it isn’t the man’s grandfatherly looks that bother the reporter. It isn’t even the prison-issued outfit—gray slacks and matching button-down shirt with a white identification patch sewn over the pocket on his chest which reads in black letters: WINE, L. 22918. No. More than his appearance, it’s the things the man has done, the things that landed him behind bars, on death row, sentenced to be executed by lethal injection. Something that will happen only days from now.

  Finally finding his voice, the journalist clears his throat and says, “Hello.”

  The man nods.

  “I’m glad you could meet with me today.”

  Stony silence from the inmate.

  “My name is Ronald Huffman. This is my first time interviewing someone of your…well, it’s my first time interviewing an inmate.”

  Still nothing from the man across the table.

  With damp palms, the journalist continues. “As I said in my letter, I have a weekly column in The Daily Journal. This interview will be mentioned in the column next week because as I stated in my letter, one of your victims was a resident of our town. And as I also said, this isn’t just about that. I’m here for the whole story. I want to write a novel, and I have some questions for you.”

  The inmate continues to stare.

  Ronald’s nerves are beginning to get the better of him. He quickly adds, “In your response letter to me, you said you were fine with the interview going to press and with me asking questions for my book. Are you still okay with it?”

  A slight nod of agreement from the prisoner.

  The journalist glances at the prison guard standing behind the old man, expecting to see a look of surprise, or maybe even a smile at the awkwardness of the situation. Instead, the dark-haired thirty-something guard with the broad chest and the thick mustache stands still as a statue and keeps his attention focused straight ahead.

  “Good.” He removes the cap from the end of the ink pen he holds in his hands and shoves it onto the opposite end. His hand hovers over the blank page of the notebook, ready to write. “I suppose we should get started then,” he says with a smile. It feels wrong to smile at a prisoner. Especially one that is so near to death. It’s almost as if he’s laughing at the doomed man, rubbing it in his face that he has no freedom left and that in only a matter of days, he will be dead. To offset the ineptness of the smile, he adds, “If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.” The inmate holds up his hands, revealing the shackles that bind his wrists to his waist, his waist to his ankles. “What the hell else do I have to do?”

  On some level, Ronald had expected the man to sound evil, to have some sort of demonic voice, something to suggest he was more monster than man. But there is nothing more to his voice than what Ronald would expect to hear coming from someone on the street. A neighbor, a friend, a father, a grandfather, or an uncle. Anyone other than a cold-blooded killer. He sounded normal.

  Taken aback by the regular voice of the man across the table, the journalist can only stare, unable to recall a single one of the questions he plans to ask. He spent the previous night awake, rehearsing his questions, planning everything he was going to say. Now, with the man’s words bouncing around in his head, it proves to be time well wasted.

  Several seconds tick by as Ronald wrestles with his heavy tongue. It’s the inmate himself who finally speaks.

  “I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at me and wondering how I got here. You’re not the first. There have been plenty of people before you that have wondered the same thing. I don’t mind telling you my story. It’s a hell of story to tell, that’s for sure.

  “I’m not going to sugarcoat anything for you. I assume you can handle the truth. All the dirty facts and intimate details. If you couldn’t, I don’t suppose you’d be here. See, I think you’re a lot like me. You have an interest in the subjects most folks consider taboo, the things they don’t understand. An attraction to the dark side of life. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everybody has it, but most push it aside and try to ignore it. Pretend it doesn’t exist. But it does exist. It’s inside us all. The difference between you and me is I embraced that curiosity. You haven’t. I have a feeling that you will. Maybe not anytime soon. But you will. I can see it in your eyes.”

  The journalist is suddenly self-conscious. He quickly breaks eye contact wi
th the prisoner and looks away, training his attention on the pen in his hand as beads of perspiration pop out on his upper lip.

  “You have your reasons for being here today, just as I have mine. I’m here because of things I’ve done. A group of people decided my fate, decided that I wasn’t fit to live among them out there. So they locked me away in here with others like me, people also labeled as miscreants. Believe me, if I could leave I would. But it wouldn’t take long for me to pick up right where I left off, to fall into my old ways. There are nights I lie awake and fantasize about it. I imagine the door of my cell sliding open, imagine myself walking out of this hellhole a free man. I imagine the smell of a woman’s hair, the softness of her skin, and the sound of her screams as the blade of my knife plunges into her body.”

  The inmate pauses to reflect on his memories, memories that have now become fantasies.

  The journalist waits, shocked by the man’s blunt words. He glances at the guard once again, expecting a grimace at the very least, but just as before the man is made of stone. In his line of work, he’s probably heard it all.

  “Maybe it’s best they keep me here.” He pauses to chuckle. “You’ve chosen to interview me and that’s fine. I don’t mind. But you should know this. Once you get into my mind or the mind of anyone like me, there’s no going back. People like you, people who come in here thinking we’re an easy study, thinking we’re fixable if only we have a little guidance, leave here with wide eyes knowing they’re wrong. But it’s too late by then. They’re plagued with a lifetime of nightmares, unable to ignore the things they’ve been told.

  “See, we’re not just case studies. We’re real people with real histories. We’ve done horrible things to other people, and usually have no remorse for it. We’re killers. We’re broken and unfixable. We don’t feel what regular people feel. We don’t have the same thoughts or ideas. We don’t have emotions. Not unless you count the elation we feel as we stand over a fresh kill. You want to know about me, about the things I’ve done, and I plan to tell you all of it. I won’t leave out a thing, won’t censor my story so you can sleep at night. You want to know, and I’ll tell you. All of it.”

  The journalist stares at him with wide eyes, mouth agape. Realizing how foolish he must look, Ronald quickly composes himself. He closes his mouth and sits up straighter in his chair. He holds the pen tightly in his trembling hand, the ballpoint tip hovering just above the white page of the notebook.

  “Okay, um, I guess we should start with—”

  “Hang on. I think this is a story that’s best told by just telling it. How about instead of you asking me questions, I just start at the beginning and tell you everything, every sordid detail? After all, that’s what you want, right? You’re looking for the real story so let me tell it. You can ask your questions when I’m done.”

  The journalist nods and sits back in his chair, ready to hear the man’s tale.

  1

  Some folks are born to bad families. They’re raised in abusive homes. Maybe their father is an alcoholic who likes to smack around on the kids. Maybe their mother turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to what’s happening right under her nose. Hell, maybe the mother is the one with a love for the bottle. Or maybe it’s pills. And perhaps it’s not the parents at all. Maybe it’s the strange uncle with wandering hands and a lust for young flesh. Either way, it happens every day. Babies are born into families that are comprised of bad people. They’re raised in violence, accustomed to horrors that other folks can’t even begin to imagine.

  That’s not what happened to me.

  I was born in Kansas City, MO on the sixth of January, 1944 to a couple of high school kids who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Neither one of them was prepared for a child. Hell, they were still kids themselves. But ready or not, there I was. A plump nine-pound eleven-ounce baby boy, with rosy cheeks and a tuft of fuzzy red hair.

  There probably wasn’t much of a discussion as to what they should do about me. After all, they had their whole lives ahead of them. College, marriage, a career, a home, and finally a real family. I simply didn’t fit into their plans. Of course they should’ve thought about that before they got naked and climbed all over each other in the backseat of my father’s car or wherever the hell they did it. But like most teens, they didn’t. In the heat of the moment, their physical urges outweighed the risks. Next thing they knew, they were listening to a baby cry at two in the morning.

  When I was a month old, I was adopted by a childless couple who actually wanted kids. They’d tried and failed at having their own child for years before deciding to adopt. If they couldn’t have their own children—and it was clear that they could not—then they would take in the children no one else wanted and they would love them. They started with me.

  John and Linda Wine were their names. They were good people who never hesitated to show their affection for me. They tucked me in at night, kissing me on the forehead before turning off the light and closing the door. Before I left the house for school and as soon as I returned in the afternoon, my mother would wrap her arms around me and give me a big hug. My father opted to tousle my hair instead of hug me, but the love behind the gesture was the same.

  My father was a tall man with a thick waist and broad shoulders. When I was little, he seemed much taller than his six and a half feet. To me, he appeared eight feet tall with hands as big as a catcher’s mitt. I often stood at his feet with my head tilted all the way back, staring up at him and wondering what it was like to be that big, hoping I would one day find out.

  A foot shorter than my father, my mother was much smaller. She wasn’t petite, but she certainly appeared to be while standing in her husband’s shadow. She wore her hair short, a crown of auburn curls that never quite touched her shoulders. Her lips were pulled back into a virtually permanent smile, an accurate representation of her chipper personality. Ever the upbeat optimist, I didn’t see my mother cry until I was twelve years old.

  My mother woke at five-thirty every morning. She dressed and did her hair and make-up before going into the kitchen to cook breakfast. That was before microwaveable meals and drive-thru sandwiches. Before folks got up early just to stand in line at a coffee shop and overpay for a cup of the black brew. In those days, a home-cooked meal was what you started and ended your days with, and any coffee you had was coffee you made. To this day, I can’t smell coffee without being transported back in time, back to the comfort and innocence of my youth. The thick aroma of coffee brewing hanging heavy in the air, the sound of bacon sizzling in the pan on the stove, and the clank of utensils as my mother cooked, pouring her heart into every morsel.

  My father got up at six every morning, donned his suit and tie, ate the meal my mother had prepared with love, and then he headed out to work, driving his 1946 Nash Slipstream across town to a small brick building where he sat for eight hours a day selling insurance to anyone interested. At the end of the day, he returned to our two bedroom bungalow with a smile on his face and a kiss for my mother. He’d hang up the suit jacket and tie, kick back in his chair with his feet up, and relax while reading the paper.

  Dinner was ready at precisely six o’clock every evening. The three of us sat down at the table and discussed the details of our day over a delicious meal. A lot of laughs were passed around the oak table in that little house on Pine Avenue.

  I learned I was adopted when I was six years old. My parents decided they wanted another child, a girl this time. When they sat me down to tell me I was going to have a sister, I had a lot of questions.

  “Is the baby in your belly now?” I asked, knowing that when my friend Tommy’s mother had a baby, it had come from within her.

  “No,” my mother answered awkwardly.

  “Then where is it?”

  After an uncomfortable look passed between my parents, my father told me the story of how I came to be their son. It was the same way my sister would become their daughter two months later.

  At the time,
I thought it was neat. Everyone else’s parents had to wait almost a year for the baby to be born, but not mine. They just went and picked one out from the baby store or wherever the hell it was that they got the babies. At only six years old, I didn’t quite understand the logistics of the matter.

  During their explanation of how I came to live with them, my parents told me that they chose me. It was something they emphasized heavily, probably in an attempt to make me feel better about being adopted.

  “We chose you,” my mother said with a smile. “Out of all those other little boys, we chose you.” She touched her finger to my chest, just over my heart.

  It worked. I felt special knowing that out of all the other kids they could’ve picked, I was the one they wanted, the one they just had to have and couldn’t live without. But I could never figure out why they wanted my sister. Sure, she was adorable with her blond curls and her rosy cheeks, but she was mean from day one.

  Her name was Cathy Ann. She was almost a year old when my parents brought her home. Like the proud and curious big brother I was, I rushed over to her, dying to get a glimpse of the little girl. She smiled at me, showing two pearly white teeth, brand new and razor sharp. Having seen others tickle the underneath of a baby’s chin, I assumed that was what I was supposed to do so I replicated the move, holding out my index finger and lightly touching her chin as I cooed to her. In a flash, she tilted her head down and chomped onto my finger.

  My parents laughed, but it wasn’t funny. While they fawned over the girl, my finger throbbed with pain. The bite really hurt. And more than that, it hurt my feelings. I was the one on which my parents doted. I was the one who made them laugh. Now here she was, the center of their attention, causing them to laugh at me. I didn’t hate her. Not yet. But I did resent her for coming into our lives and for forcing me to share the spotlight.