Blessed are the Dead by Kristi Belcamino Page B

interviews.”
    The alcohol has made me brave. I don’t feel like buttering him up, so I just start going through my list of questions. “Let’s not play games. Are you going to tell me whether you took Jasmine?”
    His eyes bore into mine. “Yes.”
    My heart leaps into my throat until I hear what he says next. “It might be next week or it might be in ten years.”
    This guy doesn’t make sense. He likes to talk without saying anything.
    â€œIs Jasmine alive?”
    â€œCan’t answer that. I’m not hungry for the D.A. to come and give me more charges,” he says. “Let me tell you something off the record—­I try not to lie at all.”
    I have a hard time believing that.
    â€œThen tell me the truth.”
    He leans forward putting his elbows on the small counter. “A lot of ­people can’t handle the truth.”
    â€œThen tell me you didn’t take her. If you don’t lie, then tell me you are innocent.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter how guilty I am of any of this stuff. It’ll be a jury that’ll decide.”
    â€œYou aren’t answering my questions. Here’s what I think—­Because you won’t tell me you’re innocent, that makes me think you’re guilty.”
    â€œYour intuition is good.” He leans back in his metal chair.
    His responses are starting to sound like he’s shaking a Magic 8 Ball. I keep pressing. I want to rattle him. Get a reaction.
    â€œWhat you said the other day, about being a Buddhist—­you can’t really believe that justifies what you do?”
    â€œA long time ago—­say twenty-­two years ago—­something happened to me. I was living in Livermore, and something happened that turned me on to what Buddhism really meant. Helped me understand myself and my needs and my wants.” He gives me a knowing look that sinks my stomach like a cement block in the ocean.
    I look down, scanning my notes so he can’t see my reaction. The only thing I know that happened twenty-­two years ago in Livermore was that my sister disappeared from our front yard.
    â€œWhat happened twenty-­two years ago?” I try to seem nonchalant, but the tremor in my voice gives me away. I can tell by the way he cocks his head that he notices. He watches me carefully for a moment before he answers. I try to mask the emotions on my face. Placid. As still and quiet as a mountain lake.
    â€œThat doesn’t ring a bell, but maybe my memory’s not that great, either.” He smiles as he says it. “I’m not quite sure. What do you think happened?”
    He startles me by bursting into laughter. The sound makes the hairs on my arms stand straight up. It is a high-­pitched cackle that trills through the phone and makes my scalp tingle. After a moment, the laughter trails off, and he grows eerily still. He stares at me. I stare back. We both are holding the phone to our ears, our eyes locked. There it is again. I didn’t imagine it last time. His eyes are dead, devoid of humanity
    No. I refuse to let my mind go there. He couldn’t have taken Caterina. I won’t believe it. I can’t. Looking at his dead eyes, I wonder whether I’d rather never know what happened to Caterina than even imagine for a moment that Johnson had her in his clutches.
    I need to get him to talk. To trust me. Thinking hard, I try to remember everything I know about killers and what makes them spill the beans. Then I hit on it—­I’ve heard ­people often want to talk about what they’ve done, either to brag or get it off their chests.
    â€œYou want to tell somebody about it, why not tell me? I’m not a cop.”
    He looks me dead in the eye, and says, “I’ve been keeping in stuff worse than that for more than twenty years.”
    â€œLike what? What is worse than that? When you tell me that, it makes me think you have been killing