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The next letter was even angrier, starting out with a string
of misspelled curse words that really made me lament the state of public education in our once-great nation, and then settling down into a steady stream of thinly veiled and completely naked threats.
You better jus get it thru youre head that this is goin to happen and that is all there is to it and if you cant see it I am goin to MAKE you see it and make you see ME. I am not afraid to do some pretty bad things if its goin to make you open up youre eyes and look at me and no what I am sayin about you and me is the total hunred percent true.
Given what had led up to it, the final letter was fairly standard stuff, disappointingly predictable in its turn to cold rage, threats of violence, and general psychotic unhappiness. I read it twice, pausing in between to think grateful thoughts about the education I had been lucky enough to receive from Harry—and, as unlikely as it seemed, from the Miami-Dade public school system, which was really starting to look good compared to what Patrick got in Laramie, Tennessee. But of course, as I reminded myself, the schools in Tennessee were not totally to blame; several intelligent people had come from that state, and I was almost certain that another one could come along any day now.
I read through the last letter one more time.
If that is the way how you want to play it than that is the way how I am goin to do it. You want to go all cold and mean on me that’s fine because I can play that game even better and you will be so sorry you ever did that. I will fine you and I will make you see me and I will make you see what you could have had and than I will take it all away from you one little piece at a time. And I do mean ALL of it. I will show you that you are no diffrent but just a hore like all the other girls think they are so special and I will make you SEE what you could have had and that will be the last thing you ever see and I am coming for you bitch and you better believe it.
This last letter was not signed, “youre soulmate”; love is so fragile, isn’t it? And again, it really was just a little bit disappointing in the blunt and ignorant mind it revealed. I do not absolutely demand that every sick and twisted killer must show a bright gleam of intelligence and originality, but really. Something this pedestrian did seem to be letting down the side just a bit, don’t you think?
In any case, it was clear to me that this was not a subtle brain, searching for visceral poetry. This was a very direct, rather dull and ordinary sick and twisted killer. He was psychotic, yes, and capable of almost any kind of perverted violence, but he lacked all refinement, and altogether seemed to be without a single subtle or interesting thought on what was, after all, a very important subject.
Disappointing, but at least it meant he should be quite easy to find, once I put my own sharp and wonderful mind to it and began to track him to his lair and then …
… and then nothing at all, because my mind would not be tracking anything right now; my mind was firmly locked in place inside my skull, riding high atop my body as it performed its chores as Jackie’s protector. I could not step out into the bright and welcoming moonlight and slide through the shadows to find Patrick in what would certainly be a terribly obvious little hidey-hole, could not take him and tape him and end things the right way, my way … because I would be spending those precious dark hours hovering over Jackie with vigilance and cunning, and perhaps a little more dark rum.
I became aware that conversation had stopped in Deborah’s little office, and I looked up from the letters to see Jackie and my sister both staring at me. “What,” I said.
Jackie smiled encouragingly. “We were waiting for you to close your eyes and, you know,” she said, waving one hand vaguely. “Do that thing where you go inside his head.”
“I’m afraid I won’t fit,” I said, trying not to sound too smug. “This is a small and very ordinary mind.”
Deborah snorted and Jackie said, “Ordinary?! My God, after what he’s done—and you call him ordinary?!”
“That’s right,” I said. “Ordinary, garden-variety, demented, psychotic killer.” I shrugged. “Very predictable.”
“Then predict him,” Deborah said.
“Easy,” I told her. “He’s going to come after Jackie.” And I nodded at Jackie with a reassuring smile.
For some reason, that didn’t seem to reassure Jackie very much. She threw up her hands with an expression of sarcastic relief. “Well, shit, that’s good to know,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, come after me, that’s great—but didn’t we already know that?”
Deborah, at least, wasn’t quite so far gone that she had to resort to sarcasm. Of course, Patrick wasn’t after her. “How will he do it?” Deborah said.
“Very directly,” I told them. “Nothing subtle, nothing too clever. He’s a hammer, not a scalpel.”
“Well, goddamn it,” Jackie said, “a hammer can sure as hell cave in my skull just the same.”
“Not with me there,” I said, and although I admit it sounded rather boastful, not at all my usual style of modest self-effacement, I really did believe it. “Really, Jackie, this guy is not capable of any real surprises.”
“He surprised the shit out of those three other girls,” she said darkly.
“They didn’t know what he was. And,” I said, trying very hard to sound quietly, modestly confident, “they didn’t have me.”
She looked at me long and hard, her eyes scanning my face for some sign that I had secret superpowers. I don’t think she saw any such sign, but she did seem to relax a little bit. “Well,” she said, and she looked over to Deborah. “I mean, so, um … what?”
“Nothing has changed,” Debs told her. “I got you in daylight; Dexter has you covered all night.”
“Oh, covered,” Jackie said. And she opened her mouth to say more, then closed it again, looked at me, and, for some reason, she blushed.
“I mean …” She trickled off and looked away from me quickly, and for a moment she seemed so flustered that even her masterful use of sarcasm fled her. “Then, okay, so, right.” She nodded a few times and cleared her throat. “All right,” she said at last. “If you’re both so … confident?”
I simply stood there and, since I had no idea what had just gone through Jackie’s mind, I tried to look relaxed and overwhelmingly confident, leaving it to my sister to say, “Yeah, I think so. Dexter is usually right about this stuff.” And then she cocked her head and looked at Jackie thoughtfully. “You want to hire somebody else?” she said.
“Oh, no,” Jackie blurted quickly. “I mean, no. Dexter is very …” She cleared her throat and looked at me, and then looked away. “I trust you. Both of you,” she said.
