The Killings Read Online Free PDF

race.”
    “But-”
    “They’re women and girls. Yes, I know. It doesn’t match the victimology.”
    “How can they be the same?” The look on Wayne’s face was changing from one of shock - of a sudden realization that maybe this was his chance to get a new trial, to be free - to the realization that he was being fooled. “This … this is impossible. You’re just fucking with me now.”
    “I’m not. I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
    She could see him growing angry. Already his tone of voice was changing. His facial expression and his body posture were becoming more rigid, tense, aggressive. He scooted back in his chair, putting distance between them. “Almost thirty young Black men and boys killed. And they think I did it! And now you tell me it’s starting up again and this time it’s young women! What are you, crazy?”
    “Not all the victims of the Atlanta Child Killer were boys. Some were young girls.” And your last two victims were young men in their early twenties, Carmen thought. Only reason you were given the moniker The Atlanta Child Killer was due to all those other victims - they were all children.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It’s not supposed to mean anything.”
    “Why hasn’t this made the news?”
    “Why do you think?”
    Wayne opened his mouth to reply and then stopped. He looked at her, understanding dawning on his features.
    She held his gaze. “Fourteen young Black women and girls, from the same part of town. A few of them were prostitutes. Some were crack heads. Still others were simply lower-income women who worked low-wage jobs. It hasn’t made the news because the FBI is keeping a very tight lid on it.”
    “The FBI?” Wayne shook his head, chuckling. “Those motherfuckers can’t find their own dicks.”
    “Maybe you’re right,” Carmen said. “But there is a task force, and there are seasoned homicide detectives and profilers on the case. I think it’s only a matter of another week, maybe less, before the press gets wind of what’s going on. A local alternative paper has this journalist writing for them, a guy who specializes in this kind of thing. He’s already speculated in his weekly column that the city may be facing another serial killer. If you ask the police and the FBI, though, they deny it. They won’t be for long though. Today’s Tuesday. By Saturday morning, there’ll be another victim. And when she’s found, it’ll be hard to ignore.”
    Wayne Williams was looking at Carmen in amazement, as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying. “I don’t understand. Even if ... even if somebody else out there ... if whoever killed those kids back then ... even if that person had been in their twenties, at the earliest they’d have to be in their fifties now. They’d be my age.”
    “That’s certainly a possibility.”
    “Would you mind telling me more details?”
    “I can, but now is not the time. What I need from you is something else. Something we haven’t really gone into during our talks.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I need you to tell me about a woman you knew in the neighborhood.”
    “A woman? What woman?”
    Carmen leaned forward and whispered the woman’s name. She got an immediate reaction. Once again, Wayne Williams seemed to freeze up, as if facing a sudden, cold shock. He averted his eyes from hers. He swallowed several times, looking every place but at her - at the four walls of the temporary holding cell he was in, the black telephone receiver he held in his left hand, the clock on the wall behind her.
    “I’ve never heard that name in my life.”
    “You’re a horrible liar, Wayne,” Carmen said.
    Wayne looked at her. For a moment their eyes locked. He knows very well who she is, Carmen thought.
    “I should get going,” Wayne said.
    “When they find a perpetrator for these crimes, he’s going to be just like you, Wayne. Do you want to see another young Black man like yourself rot away in prison