Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006
- Автор: Бетанкур Джон Грегори, Jr. William J. Carroll,
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 1 & 2, January/February 2006». Краткое содержание книги:
At the very first, because it felt like the polite thing to do, she did talk to the reporters, but they were insatiable. Over and over again, the very same questions:
What was Ted like?
Did you ever suspect he was a killer?
Were you ever afraid?
And most of the reporters were men, tall men, short men, bearded and clean-shaven men. Some dressed in suits, others in jeans and dress shirts with neckties. All with their little notebooks or cameras, or tape recorders and microphones, all pushing and prodding and trying to drag out one little bit of information that no one else had gotten yet. It was as if they were incessant suitors, demanding to know if any previous suitor had gotten to “first base,” and couldn’t she go just a little bit further this time, please, please, Miss Barnes. We’ll never tell anyone; your secret will be safe with us.
There were always the unasked questions from the men, as well, questions she knew that they wanted to know:
How was Ted in bed?
Why did you think he hooked up with you?
And...
Honey, no offense, but why didn’t he rape and murder you as well?
Well?
Well?
So just before Ted was going to trial, it had proven to be too much, so she had fled home to Mom, back to the same trailer in the same park, the same wind whipping down from the mountains. Mom had put on thirty pounds since she had last seen her, had picked up another pack of Marlboro Lights in her daily habit, and after Patti settled back in, Mom came right out and said it: there was a lawyer friend of hers, a nice fellow who had helped probate Dad’s will and who had come to her with a powerful suggestion: there was money to be made, good money, if she just came out and told the real story behind the story. Now was the time, when the interest was there, and—
Patti had changed the subject. She looked at her mother, saying, Mom, please. I just want to get away from it for a while. All right? Away from everything. Here. I just want to be home. I just want to be your girl for a few nights. I have some money saved up. I can pay some room and board.
Crying then, she had said, Mom, please take care of me for a while. All right?
And Mom had been a bit cool, saying that her lawyer friend was trying to do the right thing, that’s all, but it was Patti’s life now, and if that’s what she wanted, and Mom talked like that as Patti washed and dried the dinner dishes, and that had been that.
A week or so later, after playing gin rummy with Mom and having one Budweiser too many, she had let it all go to her, her fears and memories and what it had been like, living with Ted and then seeing the police there, saying Ted was under arrest for kidnapping, was a suspect in a number of homicides, and would she please come along and talk to them.
All night long, it seemed, she had unburdened herself to Mom, even telling her that little secret of what she had called herself when she found out.
Mom, she said, it was like I was the Devil’s girlfriend. You know?
The damn Devil’s girlfriend.
And Mom had reached over and touched her wrist.
You poor girl, you poor, poor girl.
Then a month later. Standing in a supermarket checkout line in Randolph, scanning a tabloid magazine, she saw, on the bright paper cover, a picture of Ted and a picture of her. Patti Barnes. Taken during one of Ted’s court appearances, when she had walked down the courthouse steps. The screaming headline:
Hands shaking, she picked up the tabloid, opened it up. Saw the words she had told her mother, all the words that night, printed in black type upon white paper. Her secret words, told to her mother.
Right there.
She had walked away from the checkout counter, leaving behind the groceries, and went back to the trailer. Mom wasn’t there — she was working as a secretary at Denver First Savings’ downtown branch — so Patti had packed a bag and left.
She never talked to her mother, ever again.
The reporter is bright but not knowledgeable. Patti is sitting next to her on a bench right by the pond, across the street from Kut & Kurl. Her shift is now over and again, a part of her wonders why she agrees to talk to this young girl. What in God’s name could this girl know that would make any sense, any sense at all?
One of the first things Patti asks is, “How did you find me?”
“A tip.” There’s a shrug of her shoulders. “Somebody called in, said they recognized your face from a book written some years back. About Ted Bundy. The caller said Bundy’s girlfriend was working in town, at the Kut & Kurl.”
Patti is sure her face is flushed. “This helpful tipster. Man or woman?”
“Woman. But she didn’t leave her name.”
Patti folds her arms. “Of course not.”
The young girl flips a page in her notebook. “Ted Bundy was one of the world’s most famous mass murderers,” she starts, and Patti cuts her off right there.
“Sorry, dear, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Excuse me?”
Patti says, “Ted wasn’t a mass murderer.”
“He wasn’t? I mean, the numbers show that—”
“Ted wasn’t a mass murderer,” she presses on. “A mass murderer is someone who kills a lot of people all at once. Like those high school boys who shot up their school in Colorado. Or the loser who goes into a fast food restaurant and starts shooting up the place. That’s a mass murderer. Understand?”
The pen scribbles some more.
“Ted was a serial killer,” she says. “There’s a difference. A mass murderer usually acts out in a rage. Something triggers him, something inside him just snaps. He lets loose with his rage, all at once. And mass murderers... they usually end up dead. From cops or from suicide.
“But Ted was different. Ted was someone who killed over time. He had a... a craving. A fetish. Something that he wanted to do, month after month, year after year. A mass murderer will mostly kill whoever is there. But not Ted. Ted was a seducer. Ted was a hunter. He liked a particular kind of woman, and for the most part, that’s the type of woman he went after. And mass murderers, usually they’re stupid. But not Ted. He was smart. Quite smart.”
Scribble, scribble, scribble. And then the reporter looks up.
“I’m... I’m sorry to say this, but from what you said...”
“Yes?” she asks.
“It almost seems like you’re proud of him.”
Pride. There’s a thought.
Had she ever been proud of her boyfriend, the serial killer?
Once, and only once.
It was in Colorado, and Ted was getting ready for trial, right after being convicted for kidnapping, for having picked up a young woman who had been strong enough to fight back after finding herself in the VW. There had been hearings and lots of publicity and protests and Ted had continued to deny that he had anything to do with the murders of the young women in Colorado or Washington or Utah. The police and the prosecutors had been so sure of what they had accomplished, and how smart they had been to have captured the nation’s most notorious criminal.
And one day, he escaped.
Just like that.
Gone. Made a hole in the ceiling of his cell, crawled through the courthouse building, and got out.
And she had this little shiver of excitement that Ted was loose, was out there, on the run, free from whatever bonds were holding him back, and she was surprised at how unfearful she was. For Ted had never hurt her, had never threatened her, and had only promised love and affection and adventure. By then she was tired of all the official attention from the police and the courts and the reporters, most of them men, of course, and so yes, there was a sort of pride that Ted had outsmarted them all. It made the men a little less cocky, a little less confident, and she was pleased at how she felt.