She's drawing in breath for it now. She'll hit him, and call him a sick lying son of a bitch. You were a murderer all along, and you let me think you were my friend.
Sitting on the floor with the sweat turning cold and clammy on his back, he's ready for it.
Instead, she just asks.]
You wanna know the funny thing? I don't really know.
[His arms are draped over his knees. His bones are leaden.]
...not "ha ha" funny.
[He tries to collect it all and trace it back to the beginning. It takes a while, a few long breaths. Maybe she'll get sick of waiting.]
Eight little boys, drowned in rainwater. All around the same age, all the same way.
I've seen worse. Kids get killed all the time. Nobody likes to talk about it much, but that's life. But they just kept coming.
[The file photos were usually school pictures, kids who'd had a comb dragged through their hair before being shoved in front of one of those flimsy backdrops.]
Shaun Mars would've been the ninth.
[His fingers laced together, making the sore knuckles twinge.]
Then we got the first solid lead we'd had after months of dead ends. It had to be his father. Every single time a kid was killed, he'd had some kind of blackout. Never once had an alibi. Each time he woke up, he'd be clutching origami, just like the dead kids did. He'd lost his other kid in a car accident a while before the murders started. According to everybody around him, he'd lost his mind, too. We had him in custody for a while and he wouldn't even deny it himself, no matter how hard I hit him.
[Usually "I didn't do it" was the refrain they kept up for a while, but Ethan Mars, he hadn't said anything at all. He'd just taken it. There was still satisfaction to it, like there always was, but his silence had made Blake uneasy and confused until rage rose to cover it up, and it'd made him throw in a little extra. Mars hadn't stayed conscious long anyway. He'd already had all those injuries he'd refused to explain.
Blake hears his own voice keep going, like a cassette tape hooked up inside him that was going to keep on until it hit the end with that little snapping click.]
We finally tracked him down again and had him surrounded at an old warehouse. This newspaper hack, she showed up and kept yelling about how he was innocent, and did some crazy damn stunts to break through and get in to him. We had snipers around, but shit, if you've got the balls to motorcycle through a bunch of armed guys for the opportunity to get yourself killed by a serial murderer, you deserve the chance.
It was quiet, for a long time. Waiting.
[The fluorescent lights cast a steady glow, nothing like floodlights smeared by rain.]
Then Mars came out with the newspaper hack on one side and the kid in his arms. First kid picked up by the killer who was ever seen alive again.
[And he'd had nothing to do with it.]
So I told everybody to stand down, and there you go. Happily ever after.
But the kid--
[His eyes close. His hands are gripping tight to each other, short nails digging into the skin. Hard effort makes his voice steady.]
[action] Ma'am is this the novel you ordered
She's drawing in breath for it now. She'll hit him, and call him a sick lying son of a bitch. You were a murderer all along, and you let me think you were my friend.
Sitting on the floor with the sweat turning cold and clammy on his back, he's ready for it.
Instead, she just asks.]
You wanna know the funny thing? I don't really know.
[His arms are draped over his knees. His bones are leaden.]
...not "ha ha" funny.
[He tries to collect it all and trace it back to the beginning. It takes a while, a few long breaths. Maybe she'll get sick of waiting.]
Eight little boys, drowned in rainwater. All around the same age, all the same way.
I've seen worse. Kids get killed all the time. Nobody likes to talk about it much, but that's life. But they just kept coming.
[The file photos were usually school pictures, kids who'd had a comb dragged through their hair before being shoved in front of one of those flimsy backdrops.]
Shaun Mars would've been the ninth.
[His fingers laced together, making the sore knuckles twinge.]
Then we got the first solid lead we'd had after months of dead ends. It had to be his father. Every single time a kid was killed, he'd had some kind of blackout. Never once had an alibi. Each time he woke up, he'd be clutching origami, just like the dead kids did. He'd lost his other kid in a car accident a while before the murders started. According to everybody around him, he'd lost his mind, too. We had him in custody for a while and he wouldn't even deny it himself, no matter how hard I hit him.
[Usually "I didn't do it" was the refrain they kept up for a while, but Ethan Mars, he hadn't said anything at all. He'd just taken it. There was still satisfaction to it, like there always was, but his silence had made Blake uneasy and confused until rage rose to cover it up, and it'd made him throw in a little extra. Mars hadn't stayed conscious long anyway. He'd already had all those injuries he'd refused to explain.
Blake hears his own voice keep going, like a cassette tape hooked up inside him that was going to keep on until it hit the end with that little snapping click.]
We finally tracked him down again and had him surrounded at an old warehouse. This newspaper hack, she showed up and kept yelling about how he was innocent, and did some crazy damn stunts to break through and get in to him. We had snipers around, but shit, if you've got the balls to motorcycle through a bunch of armed guys for the opportunity to get yourself killed by a serial murderer, you deserve the chance.
It was quiet, for a long time. Waiting.
[The fluorescent lights cast a steady glow, nothing like floodlights smeared by rain.]
Then Mars came out with the newspaper hack on one side and the kid in his arms. First kid picked up by the killer who was ever seen alive again.
[And he'd had nothing to do with it.]
So I told everybody to stand down, and there you go. Happily ever after.
But the kid--
[His eyes close. His hands are gripping tight to each other, short nails digging into the skin. Hard effort makes his voice steady.]
Shaun says different.