CHAPTER 44

LEEWOOD FOLCRUM

I NMATE 82145

With the Folcrum Party, you had twelve stab wounds in Lucy and eight in Kitty. Plus, of course, Jenny Folcrum's slit throat. But there was a lot of psychological speculation over that difference between the victims. Lucy and Kitty were—and I testified to this opinion—much more aggressive, almost angry, which would fit what we knew about Leewood Folcrum, especially if the young girls had spurned his advances. In contrast, Jenny Folcrum's wound was designed for one reason—to kill her as quickly and painlessly as possible. Maybe he did her first so she wouldn't interfere with his attack on the other girls, or maybe he did her last. We never got that information out of him or out of the crime scene evidence.

—Dr. Aubrey Jones, expert witness (psychiatrist)

"I have a theory I'd like to run by you." Tim seemed relaxed today, in a T-shirt and khakis. He had on hiking boots, and a backpack instead of his briefcase. I noticed the change but kept my mouth shut.

"What's that?" I unwrapped the first of four tacos, excited at the prospect of spicy ground beef, cheese, and a crunchy shell.

"Do you think people are capable of change?"

I lifted my shoulder in a shrug. "Depends. What kind of change?"

"Well, mental state. For example, do you think you were always the type of person that could kill someone?"

"I think anyone could kill someone if they're put in the right situation," I responded. "Maybe not physically—maybe some spaghetti strap doesn't got the strength to get it done, but I think everyone's got that point where, if they was pushed to it, they'd take a life."

"I don't know ..." he said, and it clicked what else was different about him. He was wearing glasses, these round-frame ones that the nerds wore. "I think it takes a certain element ... a piece that not everyone is born with."

"Inner grit?"

"No, that isn't it." He looked annoyed.

"I'm telling you, the average person, assuming they aren't some sniffling weakling, will kill if they are put in the right situation."

"Says the man who's spent the last twenty years in prison. You've been surrounded by animals too long. You've forgotten what normal people are like. The majority of people are good."

"You can be good and still kill someone, Tim."

His mouth flattened into a thin line. "We'll have to agree to disagree on that point."

"So, you wouldn't kill someone?"

"If you killed someone that I loved, and I had the opportunity ... I could see wanting to kill you."

I smirked, amused at where this chat was going. So far this was much better than our typical visits, where he hit me with the same old questions, like he didn't understand I wasn't going to answer them.

"But I wouldn't go through with it," Tim continued. "Wanting someone to die and killing them are two different things. We can't help our emotions, but we can control our actions."

"Must be nice to know everything about everybody." I bent back in the chair, reaching my arms out in an attempt to stretch my chest. It was tight, like someone was sitting on top of it, and I coughed to try to clear my lungs.

"So, to return to my earlier focus ... I was asking about whether you think that people change. Take yourself, for example."

"Yeah?" I dropped my arms, interested in where this was going.

"If we look at a week before the party, we had one version of Leewood Folcrum." He pulled a photo from his folder and held it up against the glass.

Curious, I leaned forward and looked at it. It was a photo of me, my weight against the railing at Pop's BBQ. Jenny was standing beside me, her skinny legs on display in short shorts. She was leaning against me, her head resting on my shoulder. It had been taken at a classic car showcase. Neither of us looked at the camera, but I was smiling at something she had said.

"Where'd you get this photo?" I wanted to reach for it, but the glass was in the way. Annoyance spread through me. Suddenly, there wasn't anything in the world I wanted more than that picture.

"It's a crop of a photo someone took of one of the cars. You were in the background. That's why the quality on it is so bad."

I remembered that day. It had been hot, with a shitty showing of cars but one sweet '39 Ford De Luxe.

"Almost everyone says that you were a good guy. Good father. Reliable employee. Hard worker. Someone who would give you the shirt off his back."

"Guess I had them all fooled," I said tartly, my eyes still on the picture. On her smile.

"Two weeks later ..." He pulled out my mug shot and held it up beside the other.

Like night and day. Before and after. I stared at my mug shot and remembered how pissed I had been when the photo was taken. It was right after the intake. Right after I'd realized the hell that was about to be my home.

"So, what happened to change you from this to this?" He tapped the glass above the two. "Or ..." He paused. "Was this first guy always a monster, and on December 6, your Mr. Perfect Father mask just slipped down for a moment?"

I lifted my gaze from the photos, not sure I had heard him correctly. "What?"

"It's a theory I have. That people don't change; sometimes their mask slips off and you see the real person they are." He tapped on the mug shot. "The monster behind the mask."

Sometimes it's not the people that change. It's the mask that falls off.

"This is your personal theory?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Not exactly. It's something they say about narcissists. It can also be applied to violent individuals."

Sometimes it's not the people that change. It's the mask that falls off.

"So it's a common idea? I mean, that's something a lot of people say?" My chest was growing tight, and I coughed again, then hit the center of my chest with my fist.

He looked at me as if I were crazy. "What's something that people say?"

"The thing about the mask falling off," I said impatiently.

"It's not something that normally gets brought up in dinner conversations." He grinned and I didn't return the gesture. Instead, my mind was flipping through where I had heard that line before.

A letter. Had to be from a letter. Not a book I read, not a conversation, not from him in the past. I remembered it because it had stuck in my craw for the next week or two.

Coincidence? Probably not.

"You haven't answered the question." He put down the photos and sat back in his chair. "Were you always this ‘monster'?" He put the word in air quotes, but we both knew he meant it. Despite whatever form of friendship we had between us. Maybe he didn't see it as friendship. Shit, I wasn't sure I did either. But for someone used to no one, he had become a someone to me in the last three months.

Maybe a someone who was hiding something.

Sometimes it's not the people that change. It's the mask that falls off.

Maybe he had his own mask on. Maybe that line ... this conversation ... it was a slip of it.

He was staring at me, brows raised, and I struggled to return to the discussion before he started to wonder what I was thinking on. "I've always been a monster," I said. "You see a good father ..." I nodded toward the picture of me and Jenny. "I wasn't one."

"So you—"

I didn't let him finish. Standing, I caught Redd's eye and lifted my chin, beckoning him. "I got to go. Bathroom's calling."

Tim didn't move, his eyes narrowing. Maybe I should have played this off better, but I needed to get to my room and figure out where I'd read that line before.

Redd came in and I looked at Tim. "That picture of Jenny and me. Put it through the slot?"

"You want it?" He picked it up slowly. This asshole was lucky the glass was between us.

"Yeah." I gestured to the thin slot in the glass, the one just wide enough for legal documents and papers to pass through.

He waited for a second, like he was considering it, then leaned forward and inserted it through the opening.

I didn't say thanks . I grabbed it and then showed Redd the photo and my shackles, letting him check both.

On the other side of the glass, Tim stood and silently got his backpack and headed for the door. "See you next week?" I called out.

He stopped, his hand on the door handle. "Probably."

I didn't like that response. I watched the door shut behind him and had the feeling that I had fucked up somewhere in this relationship.

Sometimes it's not the people who change. It's the mask that falls off.

I repeated the line as I hurried along the wide hall, past the commissary and the library, to my block and then to my cell. Entering the narrow space, I retrieved my files of letters and carefully combed through the stacks.

For my regulars, I kept them grouped by sender, and I thumbed through the women until I got to the men. It was likely the brother, Mr. Anonymous. I pulled out his stack and started there, kneeling on the hard concrete floor and spreading out the pages.

The collection was thick, over fifty or sixty pages, and I forced myself to be careful not to rip anything.

How long ago had I heard that? At least a year, maybe a few.

I'd worn a mask for decades. One that only a couple of people had ever seen behind. Hell, I had adopted a new one once I got here, for survival more than anything.

I don't understand how a man like you can look at himself in the mirror.

I flipped to the next letter, scanned it quickly, then the next. A dozen more letters passed.

She was the only pure thing in my life. What did she do to deserve this? How did you justify this in your mind?

Maybe it wasn't from him. Maybe it had been from—my finger stopped mid-scroll on a paragraph of handwritten text.

I've been reading about narcissistic behavior and the differences between a narcissist and a sociopath. Both work very diligently to appear normal but hide their true nature behind a mask—their public persona. When they act outside of that public persona ... say, killing a group of innocent children ... it's not a psychological break, it's just an interruption of the play-acting ... i.e., their mask slipping off. To say that another way ...

Sometimes it's not the people who change. It's the mask that falls off.

That is so disturbing to me ... the idea that the people in my life could be like you, and just ...

I stopped, then reread it. Narcissistic behavior ... That's what Tim had said, right? It's something they say about narcissists. It can also be applied to violent individuals.

Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe this was the scratch that had been digging its way deeper and deeper into my brain with each visit from Dr. Valden.

I pinched my eyes closed, trying to piece together what I had told the pen pal versus what I had told the visitor. I'd always been careful to keep the different pieces of the truth in compartments, but I might have ... maybe ... shared too much between the two of them?

I hadn't been the only one with a mask on. The brother had a wife and a kid. Tim had presented himself as single. Who was telling the truth? The brother had been in a long-term relationship ... surely he hadn't lied in his letters for two decades, but what if he had? What if he wasn't even the brother of one of the girls? What if he had always just used that as a fake connection, a way to catch my attention? It was easier to deceive someone with letters. Plenty of time to line up the lies, think through the wording.

No. It was more likely that Dr. Valden was the one who was lying. Being face-to-face with someone was risky. One off phrase, one slip of the mask, and he would have shown his cards. Like he had tonight.

Maybe it had been an intentional clue. Maybe he'd given me a half dozen, and I'd missed them. I can confidently say that I know just about everything there is to know about you, Mr. Folcrum. A big softball right there, and I was too busy jawing through a sandwich to catch it.

I had always believed that my pen pal was the blonde's brother, but maybe he wasn't. Maybe that was a lie. I'd seen the brother in court, glaring at me like he was ready to throw fists. All testosterone and hatred, right there in the front row at the trial, gripping that railing like he'd been ready to come over it at me. It had been easy to believe that he'd start to write me letters, but it wasn't like I had any lack of enemies.

Tim ... I shook my head, trying to put him and that seventeen-year-old kid next to each other.

Could they be the same person? Maybe. Big difference between an acne-covered, shaggy-headed kid and a clean-cut grown man.

Truth be told, other than the hate in his eyes, the rest of the kid was a bit fuzzy. I'd spent more time searching the audience for her .

Searching, and being let down in what I saw.