Eight Perfect Murders(73)

I must have hesitated for a few seconds because she added, “Or was it you? I need to know.”

“After Claire . . . after my wife died, I have a very hard time remembering the following year. I had terrible dreams, and I was filled with guilt, and maybe I was drinking too much.”

“Okay,” she said.

“And during that time, I had this recurring dream, and sometimes I wonder if it actually happened.” It was cold where I was standing, but I could feel sweat beading up at the base of my neck while I talked. “In this dream I hit your father with my car. I got out to see if he was okay, and he wasn’t, of course, but he was still alive. His legs were going one way and the top part of his body was going the other. I told him who I was and why I was there, and then I watched him die.”

“Okay, thanks,” Gwen said in a voice I couldn’t read.

“It still feels like a dream,” I said. “It all feels like a dream.”

“Are you sure you can’t meet with me? I could drive to you. I’d come alone.”

“No,” I said, after a moment. “Sorry, Gwen, I just can’t. I just don’t think I could take it if I was arrested—”

“I told you I would come alone.”

“—and I don’t want to answer any more questions. I don’t want to relive the past any more than I’ve had to do these past few days. It’s been pure luck that I’ve had these few years, even though, down deep, I knew it couldn’t last. Sorry, I can’t see you again. It’s impossible.”

“You do have a choice in the matter,” Gwen said.

“I don’t. I really don’t. It might not seem like it to you, but the last five years . . . I have terrible dreams every night. I managed to keep going because it was all I knew how to do, but there hasn’t been any joy in it. I’m not afraid, anymore, but I am tired.”

I thought I heard a sigh on the other end of the line.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Gwen said.

“No.”

“Okay. But what you’ve told me is the truth?”

“Yes,” I said. “Everything I’ve said is true.”





Chapter 32




Claire Mallory

Eric Atwell

Norman Chaney

Steven Clifton

Robin Callahan

Ethan Byrd

Jay Bradshaw

Bill Manso

Elaine Johnson

Nicholas Pruitt

Marty Kingship





Those are the names of the dead. The real names. All except for Marty Kingship.

I don’t know why I changed his name for the purposes of this narrative. Maybe because he has children, and they, like all children, are innocent of their parents’ crimes. And maybe it’s because he’s the only one who deserves blame for what happened. Besides me, of course.

It’s funny, I just now realized that Marty Kingship has my initials. Freudian slip, I suppose. I also suppose that astute readers out there will be convinced that there is no Marty Kingship, that there is only Malcolm Kershaw, and that I did all the killings myself. It’s not true. I wish it was, in a way. It would make for a clever ending.

What is true is that I am responsible for everything that happened. Marty carried most of the acts out, but I was the architect. It all started with me.

That is the truth. I have committed the sin of omission, but when I said something is true, it is. Believe me.



I am in Rockland, Maine.

After shooting Marty Kingship (he looked almost pleased as he touched the blood coming through his sweater, then shuddered and died), I went first to Brian Murray. He’d woken when I’d fired the shot, of course, lifting his head, and muttering something. I sat by his side and told him that it was a champagne bottle he’d heard. He rolled over and began to snore again.

Then I checked on Tess. Humphrey was no longer occupying the sofa across from her. He’d heard the shot and disappeared. As Marty had said, “Some guard dog.”

Tess was still breathing, and she was on her side so if she did vomit, I thought she’d be okay. It meant that I didn’t need to call 911 right away. I would call them soon enough, but I wanted just a little bit of time.

I returned to my own apartment and packed a bag. Cold weather clothes, some toiletries, my favorite picture of Claire. It was from our honeymoon, two rainy weeks in London, the best weeks of my life. The picture was taken in a pub, Claire sitting across from me, a slight smirk on her face, not sure she really wanted to have her picture taken, but happy nonetheless.

I thought about going to Old Devils one last time, saying good-bye to Nero, but it would take time that I wasn’t sure I had. I needed to call the police and let them know that there was a dead body in the residence of Brian and Tess Murray. I wanted to do this soon, of course, because of Tess and the drugs in her system. But I also didn’t want Brian to wake up early in the morning to find a corpse in his bedroom.

The sky was beginning to lighten as I drove into New Hampshire. I pulled off the highway next to a twenty-four-hour convenience store, and using cash, I bought enough canned food and bottled beer to last me a week. After loading up the trunk of my car in the parking lot, I called 911 on my cell phone, identified myself, and said there was a dead man at 59 Deering Street in Boston. Then I called Gwen, and when she called me back, we had the conversation that I’ve already written about. Afterward, I smashed the cell phone with a brick I found in the parking lot, then put the pieces in a trash bin outside of the store. If they decided to trace me, then I guess they’d figure out that I was traveling north. But I wasn’t too worried about it.