All Good Deeds (22 page)

I snapped back into alertness. “Is he a different kind of scumbag than you?” The container in my hand seemed to grow hot. Carefully, with a practiced hand, I unzipped the plastic bag and unscrewed the cap. I knew I took my life in my hands every time I used the cyanide. I took precautions covering my skin, but accidents happen. Still, I didn’t know how to do this any other way.

“I don’t kill kids.”

“No, you just steal their youth.”

He rolled his shoulders back in defiance. The cords in his neck bulged, his blond chest hairs trying to escape through the collar of his shirt. Jaw taut, eyes barely open, he had the balls to be offended at my accusation.

The man who abused my sister was just like Brian Harrison. When he showed up at our house months after her death, he’d come to see me. He knew I was home alone. My mother had broken up with him more out of mortification than anything, and he still lived in the neighborhood, walking around a free man while my sister rotted in her grave.

“She wasn’t a little kid, you know,” he explained to me that horrible day. “When we started, she was just like you. Had this body she didn’t know how to use, and she wanted me to see it. Like they all do.” His eyes slid over my chest; I’d gotten my first bra that summer, and its lines were visible beneath my shirt. He stepped toward me, licked his lips. “How old are you again, Lucy?”

I went for the baseball bat and cracked his skull. My juvenile record was expunged, and my sister’s abuser left us alone. He’s still out there somewhere, probably hurting other little girls. Maybe one day I will find him.

“I want those pictures.” Harrison said.

“They’re in your computer.”

“Then how’d you get them?”

“I have my ways.” My right hand was still in my pocket. I assume Brian thought I had pepper spray ready. With the cap between my thumb and forefinger and the vial clenched in my fingers, I withdrew my hand.

He watched, a bemused expression on his face. I’m sure, in this darkened parking garage, a 200-pound man didn’t believe he had anything to fear from an average-sized woman.

“What you got there?”

Self-control kept me from throwing it on his face. Instead, with a smooth flick of my wrist, I tossed the cyanide directly at his chest, watching the liquid splash onto his shirt and exposed skin. A droplet lingered on one of his chest hairs.

“You dumb bitch.” He looked down at himself in disgust. “What the fuck? What is this shit?”

I said nothing. Some of the poison had made direct contact with his skin. This wasn’t going to take long.

If I were a polite murderer, I would have offered him a hand. Maybe told him to sit down so he didn’t fall and hit his head. At least offer him some comfort in the last moments of his life. After all, it wasn’t his fault he was like this. It was something wired in his brain, maybe mixed with some lousy childhood experience.

“Were you and Cody abused?” I asked. “Did someone sexually assault you both? Is that why you became deviants?” The cold abruptness of the question surprised me. Shouldn’t I feel some sort of empathy for what was about to happen? Normally, by this time, I was nearly back to my car, long away from the scene of the crime. So logic would dictate I have some sort of empathy or remorse at this moment. But I felt nothing but anger and disgust. I expected self-preservation to kick in, the warning that I needed to run, to keep from seeing the result of my actions. Instead, I stood rooted to the spot and watched the cyanide take effect.

Maybe I’m the sociopath.

I’ll think about that later.

“What?” Brian breathed as though he’d just finished a marathon. He leaned against the pylon.

“You and your brother are both child molesters. Or, in Cody’s case, were. Why? It’s unusual that both of you would be so screwed up, unless you experienced something really bad in childhood. So I’m asking you what it was.”

“None of your business.”

I shrugged. “So something did happen to you. It’s almost always that way. A combination of nature and nurture. That’s why it’s a vicious cycle.”

Harder breaths now, coming on like a speeding freight train. Glistening sweat dotted his forehead, with a few droplets dribbling down his face. He shivered. “What are you talking about?” His knees jerked as if he’d been kicked, and his shaking body slipped down the pylon.

“How can you want to touch them? They’re babies. My sister was just a baby. How can you justify taking that from her?”

His meaty fingers dug into his left arm. “I don’t know your sister. I think I’m having a heart attack.”

He didn’t know Lily–none of them did. But every sicko was of the same breed connected by some sort of corrupt DNA thread that required eradication. “That’s only what it feels like.”

“It? What?” His eyes widened, and his breaths were long and ragged like shards of glass. “What did you throw on me?”

“Cyanide.” My matter-of-fact tone sounded like it belonged to someone else. I should be in my car, feeling remorse, reminding myself that this person needed to be put down like a rabid animal. “It presents like a heart attack. Since I made direct contact with your skin, this won’t take long. I’d apologize for your suffering, but truly, I’m not sorry.”

Shock flickered across his face, and then panic. He tried to get up, gasped, still clutching his arm. His eyes were wild now, darting past me, searching for someone to help. There wouldn’t be anyone. I’d chosen this parking garage well.

“You’re killing me. Like you killed Cody.”

“I am.”

I expected him to beg. Cry. I could deal with those things because I believed he didn’t deserve them. Didn’t have the right to plead for anything. He didn’t listen to his victim’s plea.

“I deserve to die.”

The iron case around my heart weakened. “You don’t believe that.”

“Yes, I do. I’ve always known it. Me and my brother…we never had a chance. Least, that’s what he said. I always believed him. And I did…” he gasped again, “I did try to be good. But I never could manage it. Every time I thought I’d beaten it, the urge came back worse than before.”

“It’s impossible.”
Shut up.
Don’t try to be a human now. Don’t make me feel for you
.

His skin paled, tinged with the blue of a corpse.

“So I should be put down. Like a rabid dog.” He’d gone into my mind, yanked out my own words. Maybe we were the same, just with different addictions. My addiction was my twisted need to make things right, to squash some of the torment that kept me up at night.

I’m killing him for myself too.

Another breath, this one more labored. “No more trying to fight it. No more worrying about getting caught. Maybe I’ll see Cody in hell too.”

He closed his eyes and said nothing more, nursing his breathing.

My own breath grew unsteady. My heartbeat ramped up until my head hurt. A voice I usually kept locked up roared in my head.

What gives you the right? How can you do this? This man is dying. You’re a killer. A screwed-up mind seeking solace, just like all the other murderers on death row.

“I’m doing what any parent would.” I spoke out loud to no one. Brian was beyond listening. His eyes rolled back in his head, saliva pooling at the corner of his mouth. “Every parent of an abused child would kill the person responsible if they thought they could get away with it. I’m doing that for them. For all the Josies of the world.”

Brian groaned, then mumbled something I couldn’t understand. The color had drained from his face like someone turning a colored photograph into a black and white one. He coughed, once, hard. His body began to shake, most likely a seizure, and his eyes flew open. They were filled with a terror I would never forget. He reached for me, his hand flailing for some kind of human contact. He was going into the void. Did he see darkness? Was it slithering over him like an immovable veil?

The reaper I feared more than anything had come right in front of me, and I wanted to shake Brian Harrison, make him tell me what he saw in those last moments.

I gave him my gloved hand.
I’d have to burn these.

His gaze locked with mine, his grip tight enough to cut off circulation. A final shudder, and then stillness. His unseeing eyes still seemed focused on me, accusing in their opacity. There was no sense of peace, no feeling that his soul had left. Just utter stillness.

He’s nothing now.

I pulled my hand free of his and ran to the car.

I
shouldn’t have
just shown up at Kelly’s door, but she didn’t seem surprised. I must have looked terrible; she ushered me right in and put the teapot on to boil. Her little place smelled of orange tea, and the scent made me feel less like crawling out of my skin.

“I thought I might see you again tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because you couldn’t walk away until it was done this time.” Kelly sat the cup of tea in front of me. Chin on her hand, she looked young and sweet. Innocent. But her mind and body knew horrors because of someone like Brian Harrison.

I did the right thing. Killing Brian Harrison is for Kelly and Josie and kids like them.
His terrified eyes flashed in my vision once more, and I rubbed my temples as if to extricate the memory.

I didn’t give her any details. She didn’t need any more sinister images to keep her awake at night. “He thought he was at peace with death. Like it was the best thing. I think that’s what threw me.”

“You watched a man die. At your hands. If you didn’t feel something, I’d be worried about you.”

But I didn’t feel anything for him at first. What does that say about me?
I couldn’t bring myself to ask her.

I took a drink of the steaming tea, wincing as it burned my throat. I took another drink and let it burn my lips. “It’s not that I didn’t fully understand the consequences of my decisions. Seeing them in action, watching the life literally leave his eyes. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Because you can’t. Human life is vibrant–an energy. Even if that energy is dark and twisted and needs to be extinguished, it’s a tangible force. Watching its destruction makes us all realize how fragile we are. And when you’re the wrecking ball…” her voice trailed off.

“It’s the nothingness, Kel.” My voice was barely audible. “Whenever life ends, it just quits. We literally cease to exist. Every single one of us. It’s not even blackness. It’s literally nothing.” The pulverizing fear rushed me, yanking the breath out of my shaking body. “I bring the nothingness to people.”

The cold, stark reality of what I’d become seeped into my bones. I may be a nice person. I’m loyal, a good friend, I help families, help children. I want to make this world a better place, truly. But I’m a killer, just like Chris said. I’d convinced myself I didn’t belong on murderer’s row because I was doing a good service, and so I really wasn’t the same. For the past few months, until the day Chris barged into my life, I really believed I was at peace with my decision.

But that’s wrong. Being at peace with it would make me a true monster, and I don’t want to become a monster. Accept the decision and consequences, fine. Continue on the path I’ve chosen because I believe I’m helping, all right. But never at peace. That’s a reprieve I don’t deserve, and a punishment I’ll take.

“Are you going to be okay?” The gentle pressure of Kelly’s hand on my shoulder soothed me.

“Yeah. I just need to process. You know me.”

She smiled. “Better than anyone, I think.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, but I kept seeing Brian’s eyes, dead and accusatory. Then his face morphed into the five other men I’d killed and to the one I should have killed, my sister’s abuser, and finally to my own cold, dead face. I needed to talk about something else. Kelly beat me to it, however.

“So I’ve got some good news on Slimy Steve, your Chetter’s scumbag. My contact at the police department told me about an electronics scam they’re working on. Some guy is stealing tablets and laptops, filing the serial numbers off, and selling them in an online action. Guess who one of the prime suspects is?”

“Steve,” I said. “Are they building a decent case against him?”

“My contact thinks so. Apparently it’s quite a network. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and they’ll take him off the streets for you.”

That would be a blessing. I didn’t want to think about tracking anyone else right now. “I hope so. Listen, I need to tell you Justin’s story from this morning.”

Kelly sat in stunned silence as I told her everything Justin had confessed. Part of the reason I’d put off telling her was because I knew how much it had to hurt her to hear. She knew what it was like to have a parent use her for his own sick means. I hated having to dump it all on her, but she was the only person in my life I fully trusted. And if I didn’t get the words out I would explode.

“Jesus Christ,” she finally said. “That poor kid.”

“I’m sorry to dump this on you.”

“I can handle it.” She squirmed in her seat, looking queasy.

“And I should have listened to you. You were right about Justin.”

“Stop worrying about what you should have done and do something now.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Hopelessness slid over me. “There are plenty of things I want to do, but they all have consequences, and I don’t know which sucks less.”

Kelly sighed. “What’s the first thing you want to do?”

The answer required no thinking. “I want to confront Justin’s mother. I want to make her admit everything she did to him and force her to tell me if she took Kailey. Then I’d like to drop a cup of cyanide down her throat.”

“Let’s save that second part for later,” Kelly said. “Why not confront her, especially if she did take Kailey?”

“She thinks she’s got the upper hand. That Justin’s shaking in his boots. If she found out he confided in someone else–in me, particularly–she might bolt. If she has Kailey…”

“Yeah, okay. Plan B?” She paused. “And what’s Todd got to say about all of this?”

“Justin says he’s not taking him seriously. That’s why he came to me.” I rubbed my temples, trying to squash the images still tormenting me. “Her bakery and house are in Fishtown. She could easily be hiding Kailey in either one of those places, but try to find out if she’s got any other property.”