Criminal

“This isn’t our killer’s first victim.”
    Sara still didn’t understand. She asked Pete, “How do you know?”
    Will cleared his throat. Sara had almost forgotten he was in the room.
    He said, “Because the same thing was done to my mother.”

seventeen
    June 15, 1975
    LUCY BENNETT
    Father’s Day. It was all over the radio. Richway was having a special sale. Davis Brothers was offering an all-you-can-eat buffet. The disc jockeys were talking about their favorite gifts from years past. Shirts. Ties. Golf clubs.
    Lucy’s dad was easy to buy for. They always got him a bottle of scotch. Then two weeks would pass and if there was anything left in the bottle, they’d all get a drink on the Fourth of July while they watched the fireworks explode over Lake Spivey.
    Lucy’s dad.
    She didn’t want to think about him. About anyone she used to know.
    Patty Hearst was suddenly in the news again. Her trial was still a year off, but her defense had decided to leak details about the kidnapping. Lucy already knew what went down with that crazy chick. It happened back when Lucy was on the street. There was no one else to talk about it with back then. Except for Kitty, none of the girls even knew Hearst’s name. Or maybe Kitty was lying. She was good at lying, pretending she knew things when all it was in the end was an excuse to lure you in so she could stab you in the back like a sneaky little bitch.
    After Hearst, there was a reporter with the Atlanta Constitution who’d been kidnapped. They demanded a million bucks for his release. They claimed to be from the SLA, too. What they were was idiots. They got snatched up by the cops. They didn’t spend a dime of that money.
    A million dollars. What would Lucy do with that kind of dough?
    The only bank in town who’d had the ransom cash on hand was C&S. Mills Lane was the bank president. His picture was in the paper a lot. He was the same guy who helped the mayor build the stadium. Not the black mayor, but the one who ran against Lester Maddox.
    Lucy felt the gurgle of laughter in her throat.
    The Pickrick. Maddox’s restaurant on West Peachtree. He kept axes on the wall. Rumor was he’d smash one through the head of any nigger who dared walk through the front door.
    Lucy tried to imagine Juice going through the front door. An ax in his head. Brains spattered everywhere.
    Washington-Rawson. The slum they’d torn down to build the Atlanta Stadium. Lucy’s dad told her the story. They were there for a baseball game. The Braves. Chief Noc-a-Homa with his crazy big face running around with an ax he could’ve stolen from Lester Maddox. Lucy’s dad said the stadium was supposed to revitalize the area. There were almost a million and a half residents in the city limits, most of them living on government vouchers. If Atlanta couldn’t strong-arm the nigras out of the city, then they’d just pave over them.
    The SLA paved over Patty Hearst. They were a cult. They brainwashed her. Or so said a doctor on the radio. The shrink was a woman, so Lucy took her opinion with a grain of salt, but she claimed that it only took two weeks for a person to become brainwashed.
    Two weeks.
    Lucy had lasted at least two months. Even after the H had worn off. Even after she had stopped longing for the high. Even after she had learned not to move, not to breathe too deep or too long. Even after she had stopped caring that she had sores on her back and legs from laying for so long in her own piss and shit.
    She’d glowed with hate whenever he came into the room. She’d flinched when he touched her. She’d made sounds in her throat, used words that even without moving her mouth, she knew he could understand.
    Satan.
    Devil.
    I’ll kill you dead.
    Motherfucker.
    And then suddenly, he’d stopped coming. It had to be only a few days. You couldn’t live without water for more than two, three days, tops. So maybe he’d been gone three days. Maybe when he’d come through the door, she’d been crying. Maybe when he brushed back her hair, she didn’t flinch. Maybe when he washed her, she didn’t tense up. And maybe when he finally got on top of her, finally did the things that Lucy had expected him to do from day one, she’d felt herself responding.
    And then maybe when he left again, she sobbed for him. Longed for him. Begged for him. Missed him.
    Just like she’d done with Bobby, her first love. Just like she’d done with Fred, the guy who cleaned planes at the airport. Then Chuck,