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The Anatomy of a Murder by Kilby

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A little dark, and a little depressing. You might cry.
"It is bad enough to know the past; it would be intolerable to know the future."
-- W. Somerset Maugham

I hate this place. You can't tell where the dingy walls end and the dirty floor begins. The stainless steel toilet in the corner lost its luster years ago, probably. This mattress is lumpy, and you can't get away from the smell of urine no matter where you go.

"Witter."

I picked my head up out of my hands, and looked up when I heard him call my name. I could see George standing on the other side of the bars. His navy uniform rumpled and his face expressionless as normal. "You've got a visitor."

Of course, I didn't believe him. No one ever came to see me. I walked to him and rested my forearms on the horizontal bar. "Who is it?" I asked him.

"I'm not your secretary, Witter," George said. "Step back."

I did as he said. I knew the drill by now. George pulled the door of the cell back, and shackled my hands. He knew me well enough that he didn't bother with my feet anymore. He knew that I wouldn't run. I walked on the inside, about two feet from the other cells, George on my other side.

The other prisoners ignored me most of the time. I walked with a rather intimidating limp now. I never would've imagined that a limp could be intimidating. Blending in was a good way for me to live around here. No one gets in my way, I don't get in theirs.

George left me in a small room, square and dank. White walls that I could swear were closing in on me, and a grey tile floor were all that there was to look at. I went to sit in one of the chairs on the other side of the room, and examined the scratched surface of the gray table.

I couldn't help but to wonder who was here to see me. After all, it's one thing to have people who care about you at all, much less who would come to visit you in prison.

A short, slender man cautiously entered the room. He had a shaved head, dark brown skin, wire-rimmed glasses, and wore a shirt and tie with jeans. My eyes almost immediately went to the notebook and tape recorder he was holding. "Pacey Witter?" he asked.

"Yeah?" I said.

"I'm Jamal Anthony. I'm the man interested in writing a novel based on your story."

I nodded as Jamal took the seat across from me. "Are you still interested in doing the interview, Mr. Witter?"

"You can call me Pacey," I told him. Hell, there was no use in formality at this point. "Why do you want to do this on me?"

"Well," Jamal said. "I'm actually getting my Ph.D. in criminology. I followed your case in the media, and I was intrigued."

"Okay," I said. I've grown rather agreeable and unquestioning over the last year or so. I didn't even want to mention that he didn't look old enough to have his bachelor's. "What do you want me to do?"

"I just want to talk to you about what happened, hear your story. I'm going to tape record it, and I can come back as many times as we need until I have enough to work on the book."

"Fine with me," I said. I didn't get many people to talk to, much less any who would be interested in listening to what I have to say.

"Are you ready?" he asked. I nodded, and watched his methodic preparation. He opened his notebook to a page scrawled full of questions, and sat the tape recorder facing me. A little red light came on as he pressed record. "This is an interview conducted by Jamal Anthony on December 5, 2004 with Pacey Witter, prisoner 34042379, King's County Prison, Magliore, Massachusetts." After the formality, Jamal looked up at me. "Are you ready for some questions?"

"Yes," I said simply.

"How old are you, Pacey?"

"I just turned twenty-two a couple months ago."

"How long have you been in prison?"

"Since I was arrested?" I asked. "About three years all together."

"When was your conviction?"

"About twenty-two months ago."

"What were you convicted of?"

"First degree murder," I said, the answer rolling rather easily off my tongue. "Premeditation, malicious intent, and all that."

"What's your sentence?"

"Life imprisonment, without parole," I said. I know that my voice lacked any enthusiasm. What was there to be excited for? What was there to feel? "The DA wanted to put me on death row, and keeping me off was the only thing my lousy attorney did that was worth anything."

"Why do you say that?"

"I wanted to plea," I told him, flat out. "I probably would've had the chance for parole. My attorney said that she could probably get me off, or at least get away from the first degree charge. All she needed was a sympathetic jury. She didn't find it."

"Are you in appeal?"

"Supposedly. That woman doesn't care about me anymore. I'm a lost cause, and I didn't make her any money in the first place. I would've been better off with a public defender."

"How do you feel about having to spend the rest of your life in prison?"

"I don't know," I said. That was an honest answer. "I've had plenty of time to get used to the idea. That's the one thing I've got -- time. I try not to think about the fact that I won't see the outside again."

"Is that because you miss it?"

"Not really," I said. He looked rather shocked at my answer. I don't think he understood. "I didn't have anything left. I know that this may frighten people if they were to hear me say this, but I knew what I was doing. Every second I was aware of the consequences of what I was doing. I just didn't care about them more than I cared about taking care of that man."

"Bishop," Jamal said. "Elliot Bishop. They called him Slim."

"I know his name," I said. "This wasn't some random act of violence. I'm not a murderer by nature. I didn't kill him for the sake of killing. I killed him for the sake of freeing the world from having to endure his wrath."

"Do you feel remorse?"

I shook my head. "No. I hope that bastard rots in hell."

"Had you ever committed a crime before that?"

"Beside speeding or underage drinking?" I asked incredulously. "No."

"So why did murdering come so easily?"

"I didn't come easily," I answered. Right now, I was a little more than disgusted with this man. He didn't seem to understand, because I'm sure that he believed all this was a result of some deep psychological problem. It wasn't. "It was the last option. It was all I had left to do."

"You really believe that?" he asked, his tone turning a little bitter.

"Yes."

I could tell that Jamal was considerably shaken. He nervously cleared his throat. "Maybe I should get the background first. Learn a little about you."

"What do you know already?" I asked, a bit curious.

"What I read in the court transcripts, and in news and magazine articles. I'm sure there's much more to it."

"There is. Where do you want me to start?"

"What was it like for you growing up?" he asked.

"I grew up in a small town here in Massachusetts. I was the abhorrent son of the chief of Police."

"You don't think your father liked you?"

"My father didn't like me," I said sternly. "My father could be the poster child for verbal abuse."

"Did you have any friends?"

"Yes, a few good ones," I said. "I lived up to what my father thought I was so that I didn't have to surprise anyone. They expected certain things from me, and I delivered."

Jamal nodded. I wasn't sure what he would ask me next. That was about all there was concerning my childhood. I knew that he would get to the nuts and bolts of why he was here sooner or later. He looked at me sympathetically, I knew it would be sooner. "Do you want to tell me about your relationship with Josephine Potter?"

I didn't usually show any emotion on my face at all, but unconsciously, I know that I winced at her name. I didn't know how I was going to talk about this. "Joey," I said softly. It still hurt me to even say her name.

"You called her Joey?" he asked, his tone more gentle now.

I nodded, trying to choke down the lump that had formed in my throat. I don't know why I ever thought that I could talk about this. "We can stop whenever you start to feel uncomfortable," Jamal reassured.

I looked at him seriously for a moment. By the way he looked at me, I'm sure he could see how just hearing her name could bring me such pain. "Is this going to help someone?" I asked him, my tone barely audible.

"I think it will," Jamal said. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't think that."

I took a breath to try to gain some composure. "Joey and I grew up together." I stopped talking then. I didn't know what else to say.

"There was testimony that she was your girlfriend at the time of the . . . incident."

"She was." I stopped again. I didn't want to talk about it. There was no way that talking about it could make me feel better; it would only make me feel worse. The happy memories were about all that kept me going, and I tried like hell to forget the bad ones.

I looked up to see Jamal waiting patiently. "We started dating near my eighteenth birthday," I said. "Senior year of high school. I'm not going to tell you anymore than that about our relationship." Some things were better left protected.

Jamal nodded. I knew that he wouldn't be brave enough to press a convicted murderer. "Can you tell me about that night?"

"It was the last week in May. Our high school graduation was one week away. Senior year had been stressful, so she and I decided to go to this club in Boston to blow off some steam, have some fun. It wasn't the sort of thing Joey usually did."

"So why'd you go?"

"It was something new and different. It was stupid." It was the biggest mistake of my life. For a moment, I zoned out, forgetting that Jamal was even there. "She looked beautiful. She had on this black dress, she didn't wear dresses often enough. Her hair was so shiny, and she was so happy."

"Tell me what happened in the club," Jamal said, snapping me out of my reverie.

"I left her at the bar while I went to the bathroom. When I came back, I saw Slim hitting on her. She was trying to brush it off, but it wasn't working. I could tell he was a thug. When I got back to her, I got him to go away. He wasn't happy, but he left. The rest of the time in the club, I didn't think about it."

"Did you think about Slim anymore?"

"No," I said. "He was just some guy in a club who hit on my girlfriend. She was beautiful, and it happened a lot."

"What happened next?" Jamal asked me. He seemed rather interested in the story, even if he did know the outcome.

"We were walking back to the subway. It was a warm night. There were lots of stars in the sky, and we were having so much fun, just laughing, and talking. I don't know if we were just walking through a bad neighborhood, but there wasn't much activity around. I remember how I had this strange premonition when this car, a Lexus with dark, tinted windows, slowly pulled up and stopped beside us."

I had to stop then. My breathing was shallow and rapid, and it was almost like I was there all over again. "I could see him," I continued reluctantly. "His eyes, when he rolled the window down. He was driving, though. Joey and I kept walking, and he paced us. The window in the back went down a little, and I saw the gun. The first shot came before I could think, but I grabbed her and we fell to the ground. The bullets sprayed everywhere. They sped off."

I looked around the room once before I continued. "I saw blood everywhere. I knew that I had been hit, though. I was laying on top of her, so I thought she was okay. When I sat up, she didn't. I had just been hit in my knee, and the blood was hers. She wasn't dead, because she looked at me."

"What happened to her?" he asked softly.

"She had been hit in the chest. I didn't know it then, but she was hit in the chest twice. Her lung got tore up, so she couldn't breathe, and all the blood . . ." I started hyperventilating then. My head hurt, and I felt sick in that moment.

"Take deep breaths," Jamal said gently. I did what he said. I calmed down a bit, as the flashbacks slowly subsided. "Are you okay?" he asked. I nodded. "What did you do next?" he prodded gently.

"I cried. I didn't know what to do. I put her head in my hands, and tried to cradle her. She was in a lot of pain, and I tried to tell myself it wasn't true, but I . . . I knew that she was dying."

"Did she say anything?" Jamal asked.

I thought about the words that I hear play over and over in my head everyday. I didn't want to share them with another soul, but I felt some force prodding me, telling me to be on full disclosure. "She said 'love you.'"

Now I was crying. I'm sure that was a sight to see. A grown man all decked out in a prison orange jumpsuit with shackled hands crying. I quickly swiped at the tears falling down my cheek. "I told her that I loved her too, and that everything would be okay. But when she looked at me, she knew. She knew that she was dying. I remember . . . she tried to smile. It was like she was trying to make me feel better. Then she couldn't talk, but she mouthed 'love you,' again."

I stopped then, and threw my head in my hands. The chains clinked, and that was the only sound in the room. I started again in a whisper, but didn't look up. "She shut her eyes, and no matter how many ways I asked her to, she didn't open them again."

"She died in your arms?" he asked.

I looked up at him, and cupped my hands back together on the table. "Yes."

"Did an ambulance come?"

"It did, but I couldn't tell you when. That stuff people say about 'going numb'--it's true. I don't know what happened, or what went on around me. I was out of surgery three hours before I remembered anything."

"The surgery was for your knee."

"Yes," I told him. "The bullet tore my kneecap apart, and they had to rebuild it with some synthetic bone or something." I sat there for a moment, playing with the chain that connected my two hands. "I had to check myself out of the hospital against the doctor's orders to go to her funeral. My friend . . . he looked at me like I was the one who pulled the trigger. He'd always said that I'd be the one to destroy her, and it turns out he was right."

"What about when the arrest was made?" Jamal asked in a shallow attempt to get away from the actual guilty feelings.

"June twelfth. Antonio Rodriguez. Fifteen years old. Wanted to join Slim's gang, and his initiation was to shoot us both. Looks like Slim gave him a rather good beating when he found out that I wasn't dead. Pissed the guy off, and he went to the cops." I looked Jamal in his eyes, ready to challenge the system with one statement. "You ever heard of the big fish/little fish theory?"

"No," he said, even though I was sure that he had.

"The basic premise is this. Sometimes you have to let the little fish get away to catch the big fish. They wanted Slim, not this Rodriguez kid. He made a deal. He was going to testify against Slim, and in return he got some charge -- involuntary manslaughter or something. Spent two months at juvenile hall."

"Then what happened?"

"Big fish got away too. There wasn't enough evidence to convict Slim of j-walking. I limped out of the courtroom three months after I buried my girlfriend, and Slim walked out a free man with a smile on his face."

"What did you think at that moment?"

"I wanted to kill him," I said, plain and simple. I was almost positive that the sadness had left my face, and the anger had returned. "I decided that I was going to right there. And I did. I took care of it in less than a month."

"How'd you do it?"

"I took a gun from my father. I found Slim when he was alone. He was such a smart ass. He asked me how my knee was, and if I'd found another girlfriend yet. Any inkling toward compassion I may have had flew out the window. I pulled the gun on him, and his demeanor switched. He didn't let me see him sweat, but he wasn't such a bastard anymore. I told him I was going to kill him, and I did."

"What did you do?"

"I shot him in the thigh, so he'd shut up, and I told him every detail of when she died. Then I shot him twice in chest, and three times in the head. I dropped the gun, and left."

"How long until you were arrested?"

"Not even a week. I guess subconsciously I wanted to get caught. I stayed in jail from then on. Through the trial and everything. It's amazing, because the two people who killed her got to walk away like they stole a candy bar. Me, I'm stuck in jail for the rest of my life. I did the same thing they did." I knew I was right. My voice was cold, and hard. That, somehow, was how it was supposed to be.

Jamal nodded, and it seemed like he was trying to process everything I had said. "Just one more question today?"

"Go ahead," I said.

"Do you feel like you avenged her death?"

"Avenged her death?" I asked exasperated. "No. It didn't resurrect her. She's still gone."

"So what justifies doing it?"

"At night I can lay down to sleep and know that some guy who was just walking along a dark street won't end up watching his girlfriend die in his arms at the order of this man."

Jamal just stared at me then. I wish I knew what he was thinking. Then he shut off the tape recorder, and gathered his things as methodically as he'd gotten them out. "Thank you for speaking with me," he said. "Can I return with more questions?"

"Sure," I said.

I watched as he put his coat on, and he suddenly turned back to me. "You asked me why I choose you," he said. "Maybe I should tell you why."

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't think you belong here, Pacey."

I just nodded, because I didn't know what to say. He gave a half-smile before he walked out. Then George came to take me back to my cell.

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