Marshall listened but, except for learning Phil had been killed, he was unaffected. At the telling-and retelling-of each horrific incident, he was reassured of his own innocence, his own sanity. And that of his wife. The tarot reader had been primed by Danny to wait for Polly, so the dissolution of Marshall ’s marriage could be set in motion.
Even after he no longer needed this assurance, he still made the drive. He did it because Rich had done it for Dylan, because Dylan loved his brother. And he did it because Danny was confined to a wheelchair, and Danny’s lack of control-of himself and, most sharply felt, of others-was torture for him. Marshall drove out to see Danny this way because Marshall hated Danny.
Dylan Raines’s name was cleared, but Marshall chose to keep Marchand.
It sounded better with the name Pollyanna.
Richard Raines. Killed mother, father, sister, and the family cat.
“We get to the upstairs hall, and Pat finds a light switch. You’re not going to want to print this next part, but by God this is how it was. In the middle of the rug-one of those long narrow hall rugs-was a baby, a little girl no more than two, and she had been cut in half. I about puked, and Pat looked like he was going to.
“We hear movement downstairs and think maybe it’s the killer.
Or somebody hurt. Pat goes first.
“In the back bedroom, there’s two boys. At first, we thought both of them had been murdered. The older boy nearly had his leg cut off and had bled so much he was the color of a sheet of paper. The other boy was still in his bed, but at first we didn’t even know it was a kid, you know? It just looked like a bucket of red paint poured over some blankets.
“Turns out this kid-the one in the bed-has got nothing wrong with him; he’s just sleeping like a baby. Or that’s what we thought at the time. The ambulance rolls up so there’s paramedics stomping all over everything trying to save the kid with the chopped up leg when this little bast**rd wakes up from his beauty sleep. He sees his brother being carried out more dead than alive, and he starts laughing like a hyena.”
EPILOGUE
Homework? It’s bullshit; you know that don’t you? God knows I read enough of Dylan’s homework. My baby brother is like the rest of you sheep. Pathetic. I’ll tell you why I did it-why we do it. Because the sheep won’t.
There is not a man in the world-and I mean a man; women are sheep’s sheep-that doesn’t want to be me, to do what I do. You all want to feel the kill, feel blood run on your hands. The asshole at the office, the fuck who cuts you off in traffic, the mealymouthed waitress spilling hot coffee in your crotch-you would love to watch those miserable little lives wink out.
Man was not evolved to love his neighbor. He evolved to kill his neighbor, and rape his neighbor’s wife, and take his neighbor’s property.
You want to know why I kept Vondra around? Because she lied for me on the stand, and I was grateful? Don’t kid yourself. Vondra was useful. She watched Marsh’s office for me. Did the tarot thing. I kept her around because she reminded me why I am who I am. Why I do what I do. The world needs people like me to rid it of people like Vondra, people like you.
Jack the Ripper. He did London a favor. Cleaned poxy whores off the streets. Dahmer got rid of fags half the Christian Right wanted dead; they wanted to do it, but they didn’t have the balls. Dahmer was out of his fucking mind, but he did it. We are the world’s garbagemen. Pest control.
I cleaned house that night. Got rid of the weak-kneed jackasses trying to run my life. Mom doted on her baby Dylan. I scared the shit out of her. She’d look at me, and I’d see this cold fear, where with baby brother it was all hearts and flowers. Frank-Dad-decided I might fit in better at this school for boys. Discipline. Structure. Challenge. Religious orientation. Spiritual guidance. Code words for “lock the kid up and brainwash him.”
I wasn’t warm and fuzzy like little Dylan. Frank looked at me, and it was the old wolf looking at the young wolf; he knew I’d take him as soon as I was strong enough. Except he wasn’t a wolf. He’d let the teachers and preachers and other bullshit artists castrate him. So he wanted to castrate me.
That night was the night I was born again in the blood, as the Bible beaters say. Dylan was knocked out on cough syrup, the old fashioned kind with codeine; Lena was down. I’d been planning it since I was seven. Six. We are born to kill the way the wolf puppy is born to kill its meat. For a while it’s all play-growling and pouncing-and then, one day, a primal urge kicks in, and the puppy tears the throat out of a squirrel, then a rabbit, then a fawn, then, when it’s grown, deer and moose.
You dickless wonders, you sheep, let that instinct be beaten out of you. But you miss it. God, do you miss it. You glut yourselves on movies about killers, books about killers. You worship the killers because you want to kill. You need to. But you just watch.
I lived my life the way I was born to, not in the pen with my woolly, bleating brothers.
The plan was to kill Frank and Mom while they slept. I nearly freaked when Mom woke up and started gobbling like a turkey, then sprinted off, Frank’s blood dripping off her. Then, she’s running like a crazy woman down the upstairs hall, her nightgown flapping, and her hands flailing. That was worth the price of admission. I got to laughing so hard, it took me nearly five minutes to shut her up.
Lena was nothing.
The cat was just for fun.
I’m coming up from the cellar, there’s blood on me, and all of a sudden the light goes on at the Werner’s next door, and there’s Vondra gaping at me like a landed fish. At the time, I figured she knew what was going on, but now I doubt it. Anyway, I fucked her to shut her up. I could have killed her then, but it worked out better keeping her around.
The only major screwup was my leg. I thought I’d killed myself. That turned out in my favor, too. The buffoons on the police force were so blown away, they couldn’t bring themselves to look at anything too close. Dylan was there, he had the axe and the blood, and they fell all over themselves to hang him.
I’d planned on killing Dylan when I did the rest of the family. He was a huge pain in the ass. And there was the money issue. Mom and Frank’s estate would be divided. We were well enough off I could have made do with half, but it would have been a waste to give it to Dylan. What would he use it for? Braces for his kids?
I could have pinned the deaths on Dylan dead or alive-same story, only this time I hit my brother too hard, and brother dies in his jammies-but after I hit him, I thought I’d broken his neck without killing him. I figured he’d be a quadriplegic, or at the least a paraplegic. I would have enjoyed finding out how the kid everybody thought was God’s gift to the world would deal with peeing into a tube for the rest of his life.
I’m the one ended up pissing in a tube. You fucking sheep can bleat your little sheep laughs, but it doesn’t change anything. I owned Dylan for forty years. We were twins. We were closer than twins. Dylan was me.
That was the thing; I made him me.
Nevada Barr
