Chapter Twenty:
In the four days following Alexandria’s leaving me, I received three unexpected letters in the mail. The three letters were authored by three different hands and arrived on three different days. The first one, computer typed and double spaced, was a ready mix of lies, truth, and gray murky world of the in between. And of everything included in this letter, the truths were the hardest to take. There is no need for me to name its author. Once you start reading, the writer’s identity will become clear to you.
‘You hacked into my accounts, didn’t you, you Polack son of a bitch. But it wasn’t you personally was it? You hired someone. I thought my accounts were hack proof, but there is no such thing, is there? Do you know what I think, Caterski? I think you’ve been sitting around all these years waiting for a chance to take a run at me. Since the day Donna rejected you and married me. You couldn’t let it go, could you? You just couldn’t leave behind you and move one. The love was too strong and so was the hate.
Right and wrong didn’t have a damn thing to do with any of this. Vengeance. A well-read, intelligent, thinking man, yet you still couldn’t escape the primitive call of revenge burning inside you. Is there any hope at all for mankind, Caterksi?
What are we really? Huh? What are we as a species? Have we progressed through the ages? Or have we learned nothing at all? Do you know what I think? I think the caveman’s heart still beats within us. We’ve learned to stand up, shave, wipe our own ass, and communicate through various forms of language.
But what motivates us? What are the things that dominate our lives and rule our large skulled heads? Selfishness, jealousy, hate, arrogance, vengeance, and power. And because we are creatures of logic and reason, we can justify anything we do. We can spine virtue into sin and sin into virtue. He we are in the modern world Caterski, here we are. A cell phone in one hand and a Cro-Magnon club in the other.
I suppose you think I’m some kind of inhuman monster. I suppose you think I never loved Donna, that I never even tried to love her. Well, if that is what you think, you are wrong. I did try. Yes, I did try. You of all people, though, should know what that was like. Donna was a hard person to love. Impossible? I do not know. But it was well beyond me.
And it was no easier for her to love than to be loved. Donna did not love me. Donna had trouble loving anyone. Even herself. Why? I do not know. Maybe it is just a whole conglomeration of things, a series of indecipherable hieroglyphics. I tried to understand her Caterski. For a long time, I tried.
So, we have reached an end you and I. And before I go, I want to tell you something. I did what you think I did. And the reason I did it is because of you. I did it not only because of what Donna was running away from, but also because of what she was running to. I killed her and I should have killed you too.
Goodbye, Caterski. You are a fool. You could have had anything you wanted. Money, position, power. Only one thing stopped you. You could not wear the mask. That is all there is to it. Wearing the mask. You can be whatever you choose to be behind the mask. Anything at all. Yes, you can go without a costume. But you can never go without the mask. You have to have the mask, Caterski. You have to have the mask.’
The second letter, like the first, was typed and double spaced. And also like the first letter, the person who authored it was not a member of the Neal Caterski fan club. The only real differences between the two letters is in style and length. Again, I’m refraining from revealing the identity of the person who wrote it. Again, in time, you will learn this for yourself.
To Neal Caterski:
You never had a clue, did you? Not exactly a great detective, are you? You should try another line of work. You know, something you’re actually competent at. There I was living in your own house and working against you all the while. You and that drunk partner of yours.
I don’t know if you’re going to believe this or not, but I am going to tell you anyway. I didn’t play a part in this drama willingly. Sonny Winters knew things about me. Information. He used it against me to blackmail me into helping him. He told me if I helped him he would make all of my problems disappear. And if I didn’t help him, he’d make me disappear. He is a cruel man. I’m not going to lie to you and say there was a deep love between Donna and me. There wasn’t. But I didn’t want her to die. It was either her life or mine. I had no choice. The sorrow you saw on my face was real. I’ll have to live with this for the rest of my life. Actually, I don’t believe you’re such a bad detective Mr.Caterski under normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Sentimental pathos clouded your otherwise capable mind.
You must know by now, of course, that I stole Donna’s diaries. They made good kindling for the fire one night. Now, there’s nothingleft but ashes. I don’t know what my sister saw in you Mr. Caterski. Nor do I know what your partner saw in you. Both of them have said there’s something special about you. But I say they’re wrong. There’s nothing special about you. Nothing.
There’s just one more thing I like to touch on before I go Mr. Caterski. The night in question. It was all so easy. Donna trusted me. She called me and I went to her. But what she didn’t know is that I called Sonny right after she had called me. Donna also didn’t know that I’d taken a room in the same hotel as hers. So, when she called me on my cell phone, I was already there. I went to her room and played the part of loving, involved sister. Sonny was on his way to the hotel.
I spiked her drink and put her out. Sonny arrived and I let him in. We snuck Donna out to the her car and put her in the front passenger seat. I drove Donna’s car, Sonny followed in his car. We went for a drive. Sometime during the drive, I remembered that huge empty parking lot. We drove there. After we arrived, I got out the driver’s seat and got out of his car and circled around to the passenger side of Donna’s car. He put the gun in her hand, put the barrel against her temple and squeezed the trigger.
The letter breaks off there with formal ending.
The last letter, hand written in a broad sweeping scrawl, was the shortest of the three. The shortest and also the most unexpected.(This is an understatement of massive proportions, as you will see for yourself in a second)
My Love,
I am sorry that the necessity of this letter has come to be. But here it is. Whenever the time comes for you to read it, I will be gone from this life. I will be dead. I hope that you are not taking this too badly. I hope you can move one and find a future with enough joy and serenity to allow you to carry on with the fight. You are a decent man, my love. Too decent for me. I am sorry I hurt you so. I am sorry I came between you and Sarah. I am sorry for everything. If I ever loved anyone, it was you. And how you loved me, I will never know. I did not deserve it. Goodbye, my love. I hope you can forgive me someday.
Yours Eternally,
Donna J. Winters
Epilogue:
Two and a half weeks have passed since I received Donna’s posthumous letter. A lot has happened. I sold my house and just about everything else I owned. I didn’t sell my car. It was old and beat up and not worth selling. So, I just went out to my driveway, shot it, and put it out of its misery.
I’m not living in Wannabe anymore. Hell, I’m not even living in the U.S. anymore. I’m not going to say where. Thanks to the unsurpassable skills of my unnamed hacker acquaintance, I now have more money than I’ve ever even dreamed of before. My hacker acquaintance has assured me that Alexandria has received her share. So has everyone else that was on my list to receive shares. I’ve verified this myself through a series of phone calls.
Alexandria seems to be doing okay. She hasn’t had a drink since we said goodbye. She’s still smoking, though not as much as she used to. Her divorce has already gone through. In record time from what I understand. Alexandria made few demands. She just wanted the marriage to end as fast as legally possible. And Carl, given his position, put up little resistance. The divorce has been good for her. Don’t get me wrong. Divorce is never a good thing. But it can be a better thing. Better than what you had. And this definitely so with Alexandria. She even landed herself a new job already. An investigator for a prominent defense attorney.
As for Sonny Winters, he has also chosen to leave the country. He reasons for leaving, though, were slightly different than mine. Even all of his powerful, well connected friends couldn’t save him from the heat that had come his way. I had made dozens of copies of the evidence I had against him and sent them to a wide variety of places. Many of these places included foreign countries. The same foreign countries that Winters had stolen priceless antiques and historic artifacts from. I wasn’t sure how hard anyone inside the U.S. was going to pursue charges against him. So, I thought pressuring him from outside the U.S. was a sound countermeasure. And it proved to be the best thing I could’ve done. When the pressure started to build from the outside, then pressure started to build from within too. I’d wanted him to go to jail for killing Donna more than anything else. But looting his family fortune and putting him on the lam was a decent alternative.
Gina Wilson seems to have walked right off of the face of the earth. I have found no trace of her anywhere. Either Howard B. Willmore the loan shark or Long Tom Fitzpatrick the man with organized crime connections got to her or she voluntarily. Did Winters take care of all her monetary problems like he said he would? Did he give her an added bonus on top of that for the part she played in her sisters’ death? Where is she now? Is she even still alive?. I don’t know. I can’t even begin to guess. I’m still having trouble buying her story about Winters forcing her to participate in the murder. Winters is capable of anything, no doubt. Her behavior and manner while she was in my house were not the actions of a victim of circumstance. I think she participated in the murder willingly. The murder itself could’ve even been her idea for all I know.