covered his face with his hands.
“ He’s a killer, and you’re his accomplice.”
I heard the noise behind me, coming up from the lake. As I spun toward it, a nearby voice said, “Drop the gun, Knighthorse.”
Chapter Fifty
Under different circumstances, I probably wouldn’t have dropped the gun. I would have started firing and kept on firing until all of us were dead.
Instead, I tossed my gun aside and there, silhouetted in the headlights of my van, was a figure I had come to recognize.
Gary Tomlinson.
He stepped forward through the short grass, his facial features hidden in shadow. He was holding what appeared to be shotgun. Pointed directly at my chest.
“ Get on the ground,” he said.
“ Go fuck yourself.”
He stepped closer, and the closer her got, the more I could make him out. His nose was still a little swollen. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows. He was a few inches shorter than me, but he didn’t look it. There was a lot of muscle around his shoulders, and his forearms rippled as he gripped the shotgun tightly.
“ Then put your hands up.”
“ Go fuck yourself. Again.”
Gary was now standing near his father, who was still sitting at the table, holding his head in his hands. The old man looked traumatized, bewildered, and I realized now that this whole nighttime set-up had been Gary’s idea, not his father’s.
Gary glanced at his father. “You believe this guy, Dad? You would think he was the one holding the gun.”
Dad didn’t say anything. He just continued to hold his head in his hands. The picture of denial.
“ I swept the area. Twice. We’re all alone. Park’s closed. No rangers, no campers. Nothing.” Now he looked at me. “You’re not in a very good position.”
“ I’m always in a good position.”
Gary shook his head and walked carefully around the table. He kept the weapon loosely trained on me. That was a good decision on his part.
“ Doesn’t matter,” he said. “This ends now, anyway.”
“ For some of us.”
Gary looked at me curiously from above his still-swollen nose. Curiously, because I wasn’t acting the part of a scared and cornered victim. He shrugged. “So you found me, Knighthorse. After twenty years. Funny how I always knew you would. So how did you find me?”
“ I Googled ‘murderous scumbags.’”
Gary tilted his head slightly. “I’m not as murderous as you think, Knighthorse. Sure, there was your mother and another woman who shall remain nameless. But that’s it. Just the two of them. You see, killing is more troublesome than it’s worth. There’s the cleaning and the hiding and the worrying. Not to mention I happen to like my current lifestyle…although things can get a little boring.”
“ So you mix things up with a little rape and murder?”
“ Actually, yes, although I’ve discovered other…outlets.”
“ Spoken like a true psychopath.” I didn’t want to know about his other outlets.
He shrugged, then nodded toward me. “You wired?”
“ No.”
“ Prove it.”
I needed him to believe I wasn’t wired. So I made a show of irritably pulling up my shirt and turning around. He seemed satisfied.
“ You’re a big boy, Knighthorse.”
I dropped the shirt, ignored him. “So why my mother?” I asked.
“ Why not?” he said. “Before your mother, there had been another girl-”
“ The girl you raped.”
He shrugged. Rape. Murder. It was all the same to him. “Anyway, I had found that experience… unfulfilling.”
“ So you wanted to rape and murder.”
“ Not in so many words…but I wanted to take things…further, if you will.”
“ But why my mother?” I asked again.
He shrugged. His gun shrugged with him. It was all I could not to lunge at him. I knew lunging at him would probably not end up very well for me.
He said, “She seemed…vulnerable. She was cute. She was an older woman. I was, what, nineteen or twenty? Her hubby, your dad, I guess, didn’t seem too interested. Sure, they were holding hands, but she seemed to be trying twice as hard as he was. I thought I would…satisfy her.”
“ So you followed them home.”
“ Not at first, but something odd happened. As they were leaving, I was leaving, too. And we all just sort of headed out to the same area. And when they exited just a few streets from my own…it was like…destiny.”
He trailed off. I waited.
“ So I circled around the street a few times. It was a quiet street. A quiet time of day.”
“ And then my father and I left.”
He nodded. “And then you left…and she was alone.” As Gary spoke, he did so in an emotionless monotone, a strong indication of psychopathy. That his words might have an effect on me, did not occur to him. Or, if it did, he didn’t care. “I knocked on the door and she answered. I told her my car had broken down and asked if I could use her phone. She said sure without thinking. Stupid of her to let me in.”
I briefly closed my eyes. That sounded like my mother. So trusting.
I nearly told him to stop, but I needed his confession on tape. Gary Tomlinson went on in agonizing detail. Once or twice he paused when he saw me wince or take in some air, and he looked at me curiously. Lacking real emotions himself, he would find my own display as something strange, something to be studied and processed.
He described her running from him through the house, of her nearly tearing his eyes out as she fought back. And as he described raping and killing her, I let my mind go somewhere else. Where it went, I don’t know, but I could only barely hear his droll monotone. When he was done talking, I came back.
“ Since then, there were a few other incidents, and, like I said, one other killing.”
“ And who was that?” I asked.
“ A girlfriend in Anaheim. I was tired of her.” He shrugged like, what are you gonna do? “So that’s it. Just two killings. Hardly a serial killer.” He took a step toward me. “When I described raping your mother, when I described killing her and leaving her to die, how did you feel?”
“ Fuck you.”
“ I can see you’re upset, Knighthorse. Angry. Horrified.” He frowned, seemed to have a thought, raised the shotgun toward his father and fired. His father, whose face had been buried in his hands, never saw it coming. The shot blasted the back of his head clean off. Bert Tomlinson convulsed, then fell backward where he landed on his back, eyes wide open.
“ You see,” said Gary. “Nothing. My own father. He protected me all these years. Shielded me. Permitted me to get away with some heinous shit, all because he said he loved me. All because he said he knew I was a good boy. Look at him now. Dead. Stupid man. He should have put me away. It’s his own fucking fault.” He turned back to me. I was, admittedly, too shocked to do much else other than to stare. “You see, Knighthorse, if I don’t give a
