use his body. So I started going out when he fell asleep, and he never knew it. I did this for several years.
'As Andy got older, through high school and college, I think he started to realize I shouldn’t be there. Started feeling weird about me. We were close, and then in college he tried to ignore me. Tried to pretend I didn’t exist.'
'Did that make you mad?'
'Don’t fuck with me.' Orson glared at Goldston. 'Anyhow, you gotta remember I’m telling this from my point of view. I knew what the fuck was going on. I knew I was inside of him. He didn’t know that. I'm not sure how, but he saw me. He physically saw me. Only thing I can guess is his mind created these hallucinations to compensate for what it heard. I don’t know. I’ve looked at psychology texts and there isn’t a damn thing on this sort of condition.'
'I’ve never heard of anything like it,' Goldston said. 'What happened in college?'
'I was twenty-one. I didn’t like the prospect of spending my life sharing someone else’s body, watching them live. So I turned Andy off.'
'What do you mean?'
'How can I explain it to you? I had an edge on him. I just turned him off. I could suggest things to him, by thinking into him. It’s impossible to explain. I told him to sleep, to dream. Told him he was in paradise, and he slept for seven years. He vividly dreamed that part of his life so when he woke up, he had a past that wasn’t mine.'
'What do you remember, Andy?' Goldston asked.
'Why do you wanna talk to him?' Orson said.
'I’d like to hear what he dreamed, what he remembers.'
'I remember the Caribbean,' I said. 'A long time ago. It’s very vague, like childhood.'
'You didn’t think that was strange?' Goldston asked. 'That your memory was fuzzy?'
'What did I have to compare it to?' I said. I wanted to cry but I didn’t.
'What’d you do during that time, Orson?' Goldston asked. 'While he was asleep.'
'I left Appalachian. Went to New York and was homeless there for awhile. Practically lived in the library. I read constantly, gave myself the best education you could imagine. Then I went to a school in Vermont called Middlebury. I made up this flawless resume. It said I got my Ph.D. in history at this college in Arizona which didn’t even exist. I made up all the credentials. It was ingenious. I taught in Vermont for a year until this prick named David Parker, a professor in the history department, too, found out that Baxter College didn’t exist. I was fired.'
'Is this when you started killing?'
'Yes.'
'Why?'
'Because I could. And there were people who deserved it. But I'm not saying anything else about it. I won't sit here and let you put me in one of your categories. I killed. End of story.'
'When did Andy come back?'
'When I started killing. I'd bought this cabin in Wyoming. I could feel Andy starting to move again, especially when I’d wake up in the morning. Sometimes he’d have control of his body. He didn’t know where the fuck he was. I told him he was in the Bahamas. I talked to him constantly without him knowing it was me. Still do. It's really just subtle suggestion. Sort of like hypnosis. That’s when I found out how much control I really had. He thinks he only killed once, but he killed whenever I told him to. He was pretty good at it. He thought it was a game.'
'I don’t remember any of that,' I said.
'Of course not. I told you what to remember. About this time, I bought the lake house. It was a safe place to let Andy write. He was good, too. Wrote about the things I did. You know, it's funny. He thought he was making it up. A lot of what’s in his stories really happened.
'When his books started getting published and making money, I realized it’d be smart to let him keep writing. So I did. And the money he made allowed me to travel.'
'Travel as in hunt?' Goldston asked.
'Yeah. I just had to be careful and let Andy have a small piece of his life, too. He'd made a few friends in the publishing business, so part of the time, I’d sit back and let him go. Let him keep up his connections. It took a lot of patience, but it paid off. The only time Andy was actually conscious was when he was writing and doing his book tours. I did a few readings, but they were boring. I'd have faked more of his life, but I’m a different person. People would’ve known something was wrong. Besides, I hated trying to act like someone else.
'When he wasn’t writing or touring, I’d travel and send Andy away. If you asked his friends, they’d say he traveled quite frequently. Always going to the islands. Always alone.'
'Orson,' Goldston said, 'I want to show you something.' Goldston pulled several pieces of paper out of the folder and laid them across the table. They were the letters Orson had sent to me. 'I could never understand why Andy wrote these to himself,' Goldston said. 'Especially since he never used them to prove his innocence.' He looked up at Orson. 'You wrote these.'
'Yes.'
'Why go to the trouble of kidnapping your brother and bringing him cross-country to the desert when you had mind control over him? From what you’re saying, you could've just suggested he go to the cabin, and he would.'
'But not of his own free will. I did, I do have control over Andy, but that gets old. I wanted Andy to act on his own.'
'To kill on his own?' Goldston asked.
'To kill on his own. I wanted him to kill for the pleasure of it. Not because I suggested it. I guess I wanted us to be more like brothers. Real brothers.'
'Did he?'
'I didn’t!' I yelled. 'Not one fucking time did I kill for the pleasure of it. Even when I thought I was killing Orson.'
'You tried to kill Orson?' Goldston asked.
'When Andy was at the cabin with me,' Orson said, 'he learned about David Parker from this cowboy who I’d purchased the land from. I'd used Dave's name from time to time as my own. Andy thought David Parker was the name I assumed when I was away from him. So I let Andy chase him down. What did I care? This guy had gotten me fired from teaching. I also wanted to see if Andy could do it. If he'd kill me, given the chance. If he'd do it in cold blood.'
'And did he?'
'Oh yeah,' Orson said. 'Just to give you an idea of how much control I have over Andy’s mind, I’ll tell you this. David Parker looks nothing like me. I told Andy he was me. I convinced him I was a professor named David Parker at Middlebury College, and he tracked David Parker down and murdered him and his wife. Andy did it of his own free will, too, and he did a damn good job of it. I still don’t think they’ve found their bodies, and I know they never suspected Andy. I was really proud of him for that. I knew he had it in him.'
Goldston scribbled furiously on his notes.
'Orson, let me…'
'No, Andy. I’ve heard enough from you. I’ve heard forty years of shit from you. You’ve had the past seven to yourself. It’s my turn now.'
Goldston removed a thick stack of black and white photographs from the folder. I saw pictures of the desert, Washington D.C., the excavated backyard at the lake house, and a woman lying heartless on her back in the sand.
'I’d like to discuss some photographs with you. Why you chose certain victims, when and why you started removing the hearts. Was Washington your ultimate goal?'
'This is what you've waited for isn’t it?' I said. 'The glory and the fame.'
'This is what I’ve waited for,' Orson said. 'This and you to finish your book. It’s good, Andy. I’ll make sure you get some credit for…'
'It's not finished,' I interrupted.
'I know,' he said. 'I have to finish it.'
'What are you talking…'
'You know what I’m talking about,' Orson said. He looked me dead in the eyes and squatted down beside
