“I have to go to work,” she told herself, trying to calm down. Work was routine and routine would help. Routine would not steal her time.
Carol was front and center as Bess walked through the front door of The Rabbit Hole.
“I thought you were on vacation,” she said.
“Oh, no. Sorry, I guess I wasn’t very clear. Is it okay that I’m here?”
“Fine with me. I’m checking inventory, but we got a shipment in. You want to handle that?” Carol nodded toward the back of the store where a stack of boxes was nestled against the wall.
“Yeah, of course. Hey, did you hear about that arrest they made? With the murders?” Bess tried to sound casual.
“Well, I’m not a hermit living off the grid in the woods, so yeah, I heard.” Carol didn’t look up from her clipboard.
“Do you think he did it?” Bess asked.
“Considering he pretty much confessed, I’d say it’s a good bet.”
“Is that right? I hadn’t heard he confessed.”
“So you’re the one living in the woods.”
Bess waited for Carol to elaborate, but it was clear she was in no mood for chit-chat. Bess put her purse away and started to work on the shipment without another word. With something to keep her busy, Bess felt almost normal. The day passed like any other. There were no mysterious knocks, no lost time. By the end of the day, the idea of going back home didn’t make her happy. That’s where things went wrong.
Instead of collecting her purse, Bess walked to the bar and sat down on a stool across from Lucy.
“What do you want?” Lucy asked. Bess pretended it was a pleasant, What can I get you? instead of an annoyed, Why are you here?
“Can I get a beer? You know, if you aren’t busy. I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Am I getting fired?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Lucy. This is why we don’t talk.”
“Sorry, shit. What do you want to talk about?” Lucy popped the cap off a Fat Tire without even asking and Bess briefly considered if she was too predictable before settling on being grateful for the drink.
“Carol was saying that guy confessed to all those murders. Did you hear about that?”
“You really want to hang out and talk about a murderer? This is why wedon’t talk.”
Bess gulped her beer and hung her head, eyes on the bar. Carol’s voice was in her head telling her this was what she got for not maintaining any real friendships. When she needed someone she was forced to socialize with a perky blonde she had nothing in common with.
“It wasn’t even a confession anyway,” Lucy said.
“What was it then?”
“The poor guy is getting bullied by the cops, that’s what it is.” Lucy pulled her iPad out from behind the counter and began tapping the screen ferociously. “Look at this video,” she said, shoving the screen under Bess’s nose.
The camera angle looked down on a Spartan room containing a table and a couple of chairs. On one side of the table Bess recognized Tam Gillis from the pictures she’d seen on the news. Detective Howland was on the opposite side and Bess felt a sudden flush as flashes from her dream reemerged.
“Where did this come from?” Bess asked.
“I don’t know,” Lucy huffed. “It’s on fucking YouTube.”
“But the police wouldn’t release this, right?” Bess’s mind searched back to every crime drama and made for tv documentary she’d ever seen and tried to recall if a confession was ever reported before a case went to trial.
“Do you want to see it or not?” Lucy asked.
“I do, yeah.” She suppressed the urge to apologize.
Lucy pressed play and the low-resolution black and white video began.
A few seconds ticked by before Detective Howland finally spoke. “Do you know Ashley Bunkirk?”
“No. She was just a lady that came into the shop,” Tam replied. His voice was softer than Bess expected, like a little boy.
“So you did know her?”
“I took her order sometimes. She was a nice lady. She was nice to me.”
“Why were you at her funeral?”
“She was nice to me. I was sorry she died.”
There was a long pause while Detective Howland shuffled some papers around in front of him. The camera blinked. A quick cut. The two men were seated in the same chairs, but now Tam was leaned over the table, his forehead pressed against the edge, his hands dangling down between his legs.
Detective Howland again spoke first. “So let’s go over your dream again. What happened to Ashley?”
“Um… she was unconscious? And then I would have stabbed her. Then used the branch cutter to…” Tam sat up and wrapped his arms around his stomach. “I don’t like this.”
“No one likes it, Tam, but it’s important. If I’m going to be able to help you at all, we need to get through it.”
“The branch cutter was to cut off her head.” Tam snuffled lightly and Bess wondered if he was crying.
“And it had a serrated edge, right, Tam?”
“It did,” Tam said quietly.
At this point the recording ended.
“Seems like a confession to me,” Bess said, looking into her drink. She didn’t believe her own words, but she wanted to hear what Lucy thought. She wanted to hear the conspiracies come from someone else’s mouth.
“Are you kidding? What was that break in the middle? We have no idea how much time lapsed there. And didn’t you hear the cop ask him about a dream? What the fuck is that about? I don’t trust it.” Lucy’s voice had been rising steadily as she spoke, and the last couple lines came out like shrill squeaks. Suddenly self-conscious, she glanced around to make sure there weren’t any customers within earshot.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so riled up, Lucy.”
“Well, like you said, we don’t talk. You don’t know me at all.” Lucy had tucked her iPad back out of sight and was swiping absently at the counter with a rag—her usual “look busy” routine.
“That’s true.” Bess felt a twinge of guilt that she quickly pushed down. Lucy didn’t need to like her. She needed to respect her. But still, it was nice to have someone to talk to. “So, who are you? Tell me what you think,” Bess said.
“It doesn’t feel right. I think they wore him down in there until he gave up. And even then it doesn’t feel like a confession. I’m not sure what happened, not exactly. But I don’t think he did it.”
“A confession like that, it wouldn’t be admissible in court. There’s no way a judge would allow that.”
“Maybe that’s why it was leaked. It’s worthless in court, but it can sway public opinion, or maybe persuade someone to come out with real evidence.”
Bess examined her drink and considered. “If I’m being honest, I hope he is the Impaler. I’d sleep better knowing the Impaler was locked up.”
“Yeah, but remember, as long as they have this guy, they aren’t looking for anyone else,” Lucy said.
They aren’t looking for Amy.
Bess finished her drink in one long swallow. “I should go home. I don’t know what I’m doing here, anyway.”
Lucy’s eyes went wide at the abrupt shift but only waved halfheartedly in the direction of Bess’s already turned back.
Bess jogged to her car and checked the backseat before getting in and quickly locked the door behind her. The world didn’t feel any safer today.
Her home didn’t look different when she came in and, unlike the feeling of walking to her car, she took this familiarity as a sign that things were okay. She would take any assurance she could get. On the counter, Bess noticed the plain white envelope Rebecca had given her that morning along with her paper. Part of her wanted to toss it unopened into the trash. That part was quickly overruled by her curiosity, which would never allow such a thing.