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She’s got the persistence. Too much of that and it becomes a disease.
She-devil. They did call me that, along with “that woman serial killer” and sometimes “the psycho bitch.” It all happened before the internet. The era of tabloid journalism was a precursor of things to come.
“I’m not going to blame you for the murders or claim that you should’ve been arrested. I want to exonerate you once and for all. And just so you know, I plan to make the series anyway.”
Regardless of what’s new and improved or better, faster, stronger, I make one assumption about modern life: Every device is being tracked.
regret is one of the most insidious things out there. Arthritis is a close second. You can’t live and not have regrets. Some call them life lessons and try to figure out what they’ve learned from each experience. That’s well and good, but you’ll always wish you hadn’t done it in the first place.
Archie means well, but I do not like being treated like I’m too old to do things by myself. Every household chore is not a life-or-death event.
Using a fireplace requires work. You can’t just throw a body in and expect it to burn—or a limb, for that matter. Fireplaces are not incinerators. To do it properly, the body must be cut into small pieces, and the fire must continue burning so it can reduce as much as possible to ash. If it’s done right, only bone fragments and teeth will remain.
Slow and methodical…meanwhile it's bound to smell like roasting meat
The smell still gets to me; that hasn’t changed. The charred, burning stench is impossible to get used to.
It’s sort of like being in the eye of a hurricane. The first part of the storm has blown through—the murder, the body—and now there’s a period of calm until the back side of the storm arrives. Sometimes it never arrives. It all depends on how well I did the first part.
First Covenant is not judgmental except when it comes to alcohol on the premises. They don’t judge anything else, including the food we choose to eat, which is one of the reasons why I like this church.
We fall into one of our favorite conversations and debate whose children have screwed up worse. Not that we keep score. That would be absurd.
Sometimes I say things just to make myself laugh on the inside.
A few times, I was stupid enough to attend press conferences by the police. But only because it was so infuriating when the news only showed the highlights. I wanted to see every question and answer.
Wow bold of you. How do you even get to attend one of those? I've always wondered.
“That’s my favorite, too.”
Hopefully this is just a line she uses to entertain guest and not just prior to killing someone
“They kept asking if we’d gotten into a fight. Sort of insinuating that she was trying to escape. Like I was…abusive or something.”
Thirty-six-year-old Lorena Mae Lansdale, a never-married single mother. Good thing it was the ’80s and not earlier. Otherwise, they might’ve thrown me in prison just for that.
The problem was I didn’t know what evidence they had. And I didn’t know what they were hiding. When I sat down in that interrogation room, I decided this was their problem. If they wanted to charge me with these murders—and convict me—they would have to prove it. And I wasn’t about to help them.
Marilyn Dobbs had not been burned; that was Walter Simmons. Paul Norris was strangled. Burke had switched everything around. He was messing with me, trying to get me to respond.
“Who is the father of your son?” If I reacted to any question, it was that one. My stomach lurched, and I felt like I was going to throw up. Horror and revulsion had to be all over my face.
For most of my life, I worked at a bank. First as a teller, then as a personal account manager.
My other retirement began over a decade ago. Every time I felt the urge, I remembered all the work involved. The cleanup, the body, the lull, the anxiety about when or if someone would show up at my door… Exhausting. It sounded exhausting.
murder began to feel like a chore instead of a joy.
I dig into one of my bags and take out a large cookie tin. “I used my fireplace over the weekend. I brought you some ashes for your lawn.”
Givng away the remains, clever
Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about Plum Dixon?” About time. I’ve been wearing this outfit for two days.
Lmao how calculating
Her hair swung forward, she pushed it behind her ear, and that’s when I asked about the pearls,” I say. “When she turned to answer me, I saw the bruise.”
She shaping the narrative
Who has time to lie around in a pool of water filled with their own dirt?
Ha when you put it that way
The walker might be turning into more than a prop.
I kept waiting and waiting to feel some remorse, but it never came. Instead, I felt better. For a while, anyway. I didn’t realize how much anger I had until it was gone. Eight years later, when Detective Burke asked who my son’s father was, I couldn’t tell him any of that.
killing had become a bit like sex. First, I had to be in the mood. Next, the opportunity had to present itself. The place, the time, who was around and who wasn’t. It all had to work. But the most important thing was the anger. I had to be very, very angry.
“But if you old people would just die already and give up your houses, I wouldn’t have to work a second job to afford a place to live.”
Dang harsh
There’s only one thing giving me a little spark tonight: Jax. I’ve been thinking about him all day. The way he spoke, the horrible things he said. And I wonder if his calls are recorded.
Let me guess, you want to kill him
I’ve never killed a detective. Now I can envision eighteen different ways to do it right here in my kitchen, starting with bashing in Kelsie’s skull with the teapot.
If she wasn’t, I wouldn’t have let her marry Archie.
Mine became Lottie Jones, and he went from Richard Lansdale to Archibald Jones. I chose that name because of the nicknames—Richie and Archie were so much alike.
Maybe it was the new school, the new friends, and being in a place where the kids weren’t calling his mother bad names, but Archie decided the way he was treated in Spokane wasn’t my fault: I hadn’t done anything. Everybody else had just lost their mind. That night, Archie showed me what loyalty looks like.
“May I ask why you use that walker?” she asks. “I’m sorry?” “You always use it at home, but when I saw you at the grocery store, you weren’t using it. You didn’t even have a cane.”
She's On to you
“Plum called you before showing up at your house. I bet you didn’t want to be in her docuseries, you probably didn’t want her to make it. And you never mentioned your past to us, despite being exonerated,” she says. “Which means the one thing you don’t want is exposure.”
She's smart
“Fifty thousand dollars. That’s what you owe me.”
Woow so instead of trying to get justice you extort a possible killer for money?
When everybody has a camera in their pocket, anyone can be the villain. All it takes is the right angle.
Nobody needs to see a picture of me.” It’s been forty years since my picture was in the news. I look nothing like I used to, but I still won’t take a chance. Not even for the church newsletter.
there are people who enjoy stalking and people who don’t. I’m one of the latter.
At first, I thought she was greedy and arrogant, but she is so much worse. Kelsie is desperate. Nothing is more dangerous than that.
“Why are you so anxious to pay me?” “Because it seems like you need it.” Kelsie takes a step back, as if I’ve physically hit her, and it doesn’t look like she’s faking it. She must believe her desperation doesn’t show. But it always does.
“Isn’t that horrible?” she said. “To feel lucky no one attacked you?” “Yes.” “Accepting that was the hardest part. That I should feel grateful to make it through the day alive,”
It takes a long time for a house to become run-down. The same goes for people. It’s one thing to have all these aches and pains, but it’s quite another to forget something important. Something so crucial. It’s no longer a sagging porch or wiggly banister. My mind is deteriorating, and that’s like discovering a crack in the foundation.
This cane isn’t for show. It really does help, and it has for a long time, but I’ve avoided using it in public. My pain was a weakness I never wanted to show.
“We don’t carry dumb phones.”
Lol is that what they're actually called
