Sixth Grave on the Edge

“You have my complete attention, Captain,” I said, a cautious anger simmering beneath the surface. “What do you want?”

“I’m not a good person,” he said, seeming to regret that fact.

“Ya think?”

“When I was a kid, my oldest sister was raped by a boy from her school. She was intellectually challenged and he took advantage of that. He was a popular kid, very well liked, from an affluent family. All the things that would allow him to get away scot-free.”

“So he got away with it.”

“For a while. But I’ll get to that. After she accused him of sexually assaulting her, it became a big thing in my hometown. I was from a small suburb near Chicago. Nobody believed her, because why would a kid like that need to rape a handicapped girl? When he could have anyone? The town turned against us. The school turned against her, and what was a little teasing here and there became full-on everyday bullying.”

I could feel the heartache that caused him. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to have an ounce of empathy for a man who would set me up so frivolously, so I fought it. I buried it under a mountain of resentment.

“A few weeks later, she couldn’t take the bullying anymore and killed herself.”

That time, a wave of guilt hit me. It had a smooth, pure texture. Zero conflict. Zero doubt. He felt responsible for his sister’s death. In a word, he hated himself, and I realized that had been the odd emotion I felt every time I met him. I just figured he hated me. I got that a lot. But his feelings were directed solely toward himself. That was new. In general, people can’t handle guilt. Their minds won’t let them for very long. So they make up excuses. Excuses work like a salve, allaying the guilt, letting you forget the real problem. For example, every time an abusive husband says something like, “You made me hit you,” he’s twisting the guilt—she didn’t have dinner on the table, so hitting her was surely his wife’s fault.

“It tore my family apart,” he continued, standing to stare out his window. “My parents split up. My mother sank into a depression. I rarely saw my dad. Within six months, my world had been turned inside out.”

“I’m so sorry, Captain.”

He turned back to me. “It gets better. And this is the part you need to keep very, very quiet.”

“Or you’ll burn me.”

“I’ll bury you. You will spend years behind bars.”

Just when I was beginning to sympathize with him. “How about you stop with the threats and get on with this?”

He walked over and leaned against the desk in front of me, towering over me, making sure I knew he was top dog. After studying my face—my perturbed face—a solid minute, he said, “I was seven when I hunted that kid down and killed him.”

I stilled. He was confessing a murder to me. That was there in the back of my mind, but even more salient was the fact that he was only seven when he did it.

“Did you know that they rarely suspect a seven-year-old of murder? I wasn’t even questioned.”

The shock I felt surely showed on my face. As I’d demonstrated many times in my life, my poker face was virtually nonexistent. But my fight-or-flight response was top notch. He’d just confessed to murder. I wasn’t going to make it out of that room alive. I couldn’t help a glance toward the door.

“No one’s stopping you,” he said, nodding toward my escape route. He didn’t seem particularly concerned. Of course he wouldn’t be. He had evidence of me buying drugs all over town. My accusations would be in retaliation after his attempt to arrest me. He’d really thought this through.

Then again, would he risk someone knowing his deep dark secret? That paltry evidence wasn’t enough. Any good lawyer could get the charges dropped. He had to know that.

“Is this the part where you kill me?” I asked him.

Of course this was the part where he killed me. He would never let me leave here with that information. Would he say that I went for his gun? That we fought and the gun went off? That’s what I’d do.

“No. As I told you, I have enough evidence on you to put you away for a very long time.”

“That evidence is all circumstantial. You’d need testimonies. Eyewitnesses,” I argued. Why was I arguing this? Making the case for him to just kill me and get it over with. Perhaps it was because when I did leave here—if I did leave here—I didn’t want to have to worry about him changing his mind. Would I get a bullet to the back of my head when I least expected it? I didn’t want this hanging over my head for the rest of my life. “You’d need credible witnesses,” I added before pointing to the photographs. “Not that crap you sent me in the streets.”

One step ahead of me, he said, “Bought and paid for.”

Damn, he thought of everything. At least he was thorough.

“I also have footage of you constantly talking to yourself. Arguing with air. Shaking some invisible friend’s hand. Hugging someone only you could see. Everything together adds up to a lengthy sentence in prison or the nuthouse. I’m good with either.”

Holy crap. I knew that stuff would come back to haunt me. Damn it.

He leaned closer. “As long as I stay out of jail, you stay out of jail.”

I was beaten. He won. I crossed my arms over Danger and Will. “Why go to all this trouble? Why confess something so incriminating to me now? After all these years? You don’t exactly like me. Or trust me.”