CHAPTER 54

LEEWOOD FOLCRUM

I NMATE 82145

"Well, Mr. Folcrum, I don't have good news." The doc sat on the metal stool and regarded me. "I'm guessing you have two weeks, maybe three. If you were on the outside, we'd be moving you into hospice right now."

Not a huge surprise, or an unwelcome one.

"I can do my best to make you comfortable, and we can move you into medical if—"

"No." I shook my head. The only worse thing than having your body slowly break down was doing it while handcuffed to a hospital bed.

He nodded. "I figured as much. Come by here twice a day for pain meds. I'll alert the COs and the warden. You're done working, starting immediately."

I wouldn't bitch about that.

"Get your affairs in order, Folcrum. Meet with the chaplain. Any last words or confessions you want to make—now's the time." He held my gaze and I grunted.

"Thanks, Doc." I pushed off the exam table and stood. "Can't say I'm disappointed to get out of this place, even if it is in a body bag."

He opened the door. "I dispense medicine, not advice, but think about the people out there who are looking for closure. Do that for me?"

I met his eyes as I moved past him and through the door. "I got my own closure to find, Doc. But sure, I'll think on it."

I thought on it. The doc was right. I had felt guilt over both Kitty's and Lucy's families for decades, so the next morning, with no job to report to, I wrote the brother a letter that was different from any one I had ever sent him.

Part of me—a big part of me—wanted to confront him about visiting, about being Tim, but I didn't. I swallowed all that and focused on what I had done wrong and all the things he hated me for.

You're desperate to understand why and how that night happened, and I have to say, I don't understand the need to know. There was an outcome: death. Why does the motivation behind the act matter? Why does it matter if it was a mental break or anger or jealousy or perversion or something else? It happened, now we have to deal with the fallout.

I was recently told that I need to provide closure to those that are hurting. You, out of everyone, seem to be hurting the most, so I would like to go ahead and give you that closure. Frame this letter, because it's the only time I'll say this, and it's also the last letter you'll ever receive from me.

You already know that I'm dying. Have been for a while, but the doctors say that the end is close, so if I'm ever going to give you any peace, now is probably the time to do it.

I killed your sister. I did it because I'm a sick fuck who likes to hear little girls scream and I wanted to know what the act felt like. I killed the first girl, and when that was done, I continued on so that there wouldn't be any witnesses.

I'm sorry. I am sincere about that. I'm sorry that that whole night happened and for my part in it. I wish I'd never met your little sister. I wish I'd just killed myself before she was ever born, before any of this could have ever come into play.

But I didn't. And I can't bring your sister back, but know that I have paid the price for her life. I've been locked in this place of hell for two decades. I've thought about the mistakes I've made for every day of that sentence.

Like I said, I can't bring her back. But I am sorry.

I killed her. And for no good reason at all. There isn't anything you could have done to prevent it, no mistakes that you or her parents made, no signs that would have tipped you off that a fucking psychopath lived at my address.

Bad things happen sometimes. Not your fault. She died fast, she didn't suffer, she blacked out from fear and pain just after the first stab occurred. Not to make this all about me, but having your body slowly eaten apart, organ by organ, by cancer ... it's months of excruciating pain. Nights of trying to sleep, but every part of your body is hurting. Your brain going haywire, obsessing over the pain pills and inventing pain even when there was a moment of reprieve from it.

She had a good, quick death. Way too early, but quick and relatively painless, when compared to others, like mine.

I hope this gives you the closure that you need. Do with this confession whatever you want. By the time this reaches you, I'll probably already be dead.

Leewood

I read the letter over twice, saying the words aloud and testing them on my tongue. It was good. He wouldn't like it, but like the doctor said, it would give him some closure. Who cared if it was all lies? I'd consider it my donation to humanity.

I folded the paper into thirds and slid it into the envelope, then printed his PO box in neat writing on the front. I rose to my feet and headed for the commissary for a stamp.

Tim's next visit would be interesting, assuming he was the pen pal–writing brother. Maybe he wasn't and I had imagined a connection where there wasn't one.

Either way, here was my good deed for the year. Probably my final chance for one in this lifetime.