And it hurt my heart to see.
I turned back to the kitchen and handed the photos to Gentry.
He took one look at them, then laid them on the table to show the kid.
“Start talking.”
Eustace swallowed as he looked at the photos.
“They were mean to me.”
I shook my head.
“Mean?” Gentry asked. “Mean how?”
“They made fun of me all the time. And my dad said to suck it up. That I was going to suck at life if I couldn’t handle a little meanness every now and then.”
I tended to agree with his father.
The world was a hard place.
Not everyone was going to be nice to you all the time.
“So I killed them,” he said. “Made it look like a suicide.”
“You killed who?” Gentry asked.
He named all three of the teenage boys, as well as his father.
“And Errol Fuller?”
The kid all of a sudden looked even more guilty.
“I didn’t kill him. I stole his credit cards,” he answered. “I hit a limit on them, and I’d go back to steal another one. That’s why you caught me there today. I didn’t kill him.”
“That’s where you got the idea, though. On how to kill your dad.”
Eustace swallowed hard. So hard that I heard him gulp.
“Yeah.”
“And the dogs?” I asked.
Eustace’s eyes came to me. “She was nice to me.”
I blinked. “Who was?”
“Mrs. Pratt.”
“And?” I asked.
“She heals dogs. They were…not good. I messed them up.”
“Why?” Gentry asked.
“They tried to hurt me. When I k-killed them.” He shrugged. “I took them. Tried to get them to like me. They never would.”
I couldn’t help but shake my head.
