Chapter 22 #4
Mark just stared at her, and he shook his head, his whole body trembling now.
Devon continued. “So it was somebody you knew. It was somebody you spent time with. So, was it somebody your age, and you went to school with him?”
Mark just nodded, and she realized this would be a twenty-question session. “Did you ever come up with an idea of why he did it?”
He shook his head. “No,” he whispered, “not at all. The only thing I could think of—and that’s only if he did it—is because of Amelia, the daughter.
He probably got into a fight with the father, killed him, then ended up feeling like he had to kill everybody.
” Mark paused, shaking his head over and over again.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. If he was there, it was because of Amelia though. ”
“Why would he have killed her?” Devon asked Mark.
Camden snorted. “Because he couldn’t leave her alive,” Camden suggested.
“She would have told. It was her entire family after all … that he just butchered.” Camden slowly stood and paced the small room, trying to figure out the best way to get to the rest of it.
Finally he asked, “Did he ever talk to you about it?”
“No, never. He acted as if he’d never even seen me there. I got to the point where I was afraid that maybe I had not seen him at all, and it was just the shock. I convinced myself for years that I hadn’t seen him, and then, every once in a while, I would wake up shaking, remembering it all.”
Mark continued. “But I knew nobody would believe me, and they couldn’t reopen it just because the stupid young cop there at the time suddenly remembered something,” he admitted in shame.
“I mean, it wasn’t like anything I said would change the situation at that point in time,” he shared, with a pleading look at Camden.
When Camden stayed silent, Mark added, “I don’t know how it’s different even now.
I’m not sure what to do,” he wailed. “However, I can tell you that, if I could fix it, I would have. If I could have gone back, I would have. I’ve spent a lifetime doubting myself, a lifetime of being afraid to do anything, to have anybody trust me or to put me in any position where I was being trusted to handle something because I knew I couldn’t handle it.
I am a failure. That’s not a good feeling, not at all,” he whispered.
“But I also don’t know how to go about fixing it. ”
“You intended to take this to your grave, didn’t you?” Camden asked. “That’s a hard thing for me to accept because you knew that you had something to say, but you didn’t want to say it.”
“Not until I died,” he agreed, and then he shrugged.
“You’re right. I wouldn’t do anything about it.
” His eyes filled with tears again. “I guess I was just too weak to handle it, too stressed to even think that this was the right thing to do. Even now, if you try to tell anybody, they won’t believe you,” he stated, “because it’s not as if I’ll sign anything at this stage of my life.
I don’t dare. I will probably get kicked out of here, and then where would I go?
I have no place. I have no money. Nobody will look at me as poor Mark anymore. ” His gaze begged for understanding.
“It’ll be that liar, that cheat, that failed cop,” he cried out. “I can’t handle that. I literally can’t handle that. If they take away my benefits, I have nothing. I would end up on the street. I have no family. I have absolutely nothing.”
“And that’s why you weren’t saying anything all this time,” Devon explained, looking at him, “because you were afraid you would have to pay for speaking up.”
He looked at her and then slowly nodded.
“Yes, because, after a certain amount of time, there is no excuse for not coming forward. I also knew nobody would listen to me anymore after that, and then what am I supposed to do?” he asked.
“What am I supposed to do if that happens? If nobody believes I have PTSD anymore?” He closed his eyes as he settled back into his chair.
“Even now,” he added, “I can’t tell anybody what happened, which is why I don’t even want you guys here.
If you tell anyone, I will deny it. I’ll just say that you’re making up stories and trying to ruin an old man’s last few years,” Mark declared, opening his eyes and glaring at Camden.
“Absolutely no way I’ll let you guys do that—not when I don’t even know for sure what happened. ”
“Except that you do know what happened,” Camden argued, his exasperation and tiredness showing as he regarded the old man in front of him.
“You’re just scared of how people will see you, scared of what they might do, scared what they might take away from you.
I get that. I mean, you’ve spent a whole lifetime milking other people’s sympathies to get what you wanted.
Poor Mark, he went through a terrible trauma.
We need to get him benefits. We need to find him a place.
We need to take care of him. The poor boy has never been the same. ”
Mark glared at him. “You don’t know what it was like.”
Camden agreed. “I don’t. But you know something?
I also can’t imagine that it was worse than what that poor family went through when they were being murdered and butchered, one at a time, by somebody who you knew had been in that house when you got there.
” Camden shook his head. “Now, in order for me to not haul your sorry ass into jail right now,” he began, “you tell me exactly who it was.”
Mark stared at him for a long moment, but Devon supplied the name.
“It was Jerry, wasn’t it?” she asked.
Mark stared at her in shock, then slowly nodded. “Yes, … it was Jerry. How did you know?”
Camden frowned at her.
She nodded. “Our neighbor,” she murmured. “That Jerry.”