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“That wasn’t the problem. Turns out, she was pretty and charming. When I went to speak with her, she made me laugh, she kept my attention. I’m not ashamed to admit that I really, really liked her. We had long conversations after that first brief interview where she talked about her children, about killing them, about how she’d lost her mind, had a psychotic break. She convinced me that it was her illness that made her do it, and that she didn’t belong in prison. She said she was on drugs that made her stable, and you know what? I bought that, I believed it, and I wrote about it.
“Two weeks after the story ran, she stabbed her cellmate to death with a shank she made from the handle of a toothbrush.”
I looked up from the Inquirer and met his gaze. He was frowning and shook his head slowly, lips curled inwards, eyebrows pulled down.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I vowed never to get so close to a subject again, and I never did. She fooled me, Mona, because I was lonely and she was pretty. I was a stupid young man, and I let her trick me.”
“But maybe she didn’t trick you,” I said. “I mean, maybe she was wrong about being stable, but that doesn’t mean she lied.”
He smiled, just the barest hint of it. “I guess not. But, Mona, you sound like you’re getting close to this guy, and you need to be careful. He’s dangerous, he’s a killer, and you can’t let yourself forget that.”
“I know,” I said. “I know you’re right.”
“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “I can’t tell you to stay or to go to the police. I think no matter what you do, you need to be careful, because this man isn’t the sort of man you can just walk away from, in more ways than one.”
“You’re right,” I said, my voice flat and dull.
I suddenly wanted to get away from him, get away from the old man that was so far past his prime, that had made one mistake as a youth and thought everyone must be making that same mistake.
“Just be careful,” he said. “That’s all. If you can get out safely, do it. If you can’t, go to the police for help. I know people I can put you in contact with if you need it, and you can come stay with me if you have to hide out. Whatever you need, I’ll help you.”
I smiled at him and nodded. “I appreciate the offer,” I said. “But I’m going to see this thing through.”
He smiled back and put the paper back under his arm. “I had a feeling you would.”
He stood with a grunt and stretched his back. I watched him for a second, not sure what to think. I just told him that I witnessed a mob hit, that I saw men get murdered, and he wasn’t freaking out. If anything, he was much too calm.
“Thanks for talking to me,” I said. “I know this is a lot. I’m barely keeping it together.”
He nodded and looked straight ahead, out over the park, toward the kids playing on the swing sets, toward the couples sitting on blankets in the sun.
“You’re in the real shit now, Mona,” he said. “You have to decide what you want to be.”
I smiled a little. “That’s what he said, too,” I said.
Thomas looked at me and shook his head. “Then he’s smarter than I gave him credit for. At any rate, good luck. I’m just a phone call away if you need help.”
He turned and left without another word, one hand in his pocket, the other holding onto the paper tucked under his armpit.
I watched him go until he reached the path that led from the park. He disappeared around the corner, behind a grouping of trees, and I felt a strange, deep loss inside my chest.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. But the longer I sat there and watched the world around me, watched the wind ripple the trees, watched a couple guys kick a soccer ball back and forth, watched a dad ride by on a bike with his young son on training wheels just behind him, I realized that I was mourning normalcy. I mourned a sense of being a part of the world as just a regular person, as a person that didn’t witness murders and still stick around, as a person that wasn’t attracted to a monster, as a person that wasn’t in the process of becoming something else, something harder, something darker.
But there I was, changing despite myself.
I stood and turned back toward the city, away from the park. I walked to the entrance at the far side and stepped back out onto the sidewalk, lingering in the shade of a tree. I could make a choice, I could go back to my old life and stay there. I knew Vince would let me go, even if the rest of his family wouldn’t be happy about it. I knew he wouldn’t let them touch me, even if they wanted to.
