I Thought It Would Be Best To Tell Someone

This story was written by my Dad after reading Elmore Leonard's advice on writing dialogue. To practice dialogue he suggested writing a story only in dialogue and also said not to rely on exclamation points too often.

“I thought it would be best to tell someone” he said it like that.

“Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this right in my head. You killed a guy at your company? A guy you used to work with?”

“Like I just explained over the last fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Listen, jeez, I don’t, this is too… What the hell?”

“I really didn’t have a choice.”

“Wait a minute. Are you just shitting me? Is this some kinda really sick joke or something?”

“Of course not. That’s surprising coming from you.”

“What do you expect from me? Not to be surprised, no, shocked? You gotta be kidding.”

“I’m not. I mean, I’m not kidding. He’s dead and we’re better off.”

“What do you mean “we’re better off”, there’s no we, it’s just you.”

“Look, like I said before, and if I remember correctly you agreed, I couldn’t just stand by and let something like that happen without stopping it. Something that bad.”

“How do you know it was gonna happen, that he was gonna do it?”

“The way he talked. I told you what he said.”

“But you can’t be sure! How can you know what someone is gonna do just because they say it or you think it? He might not have had the guts.”

“I don’t think it takes as much guts as it takes just being screwed up beyond help. Plus…”

“How do you know? You could have been wrong and what happens then? It’s you who murdered somebody.”

“It wasn’t murder.”

“You killed him, didn’t you. Didn’t you?”

“He’s dead and yeah I made sure that happened but it wasn’t murder.”

“What the hell was it then? You killed him in col…”

“It was just a killing is what it was. Listen, I had a friend who’s wife was pregnant and he had this dog, mostly pitbull. Hell, most of the time that dog was okay but he was fucked up in the head. Around food and certain other dogs he just went ape shit. So I go over there one day and the dog ain’t around so I ask my friend where he was and he said he took him in the woods, dug a hole, shot the dog in the head and pushed him in. I was shocked at first, like you are now. So I asked him why he didn’t give the dog away or something and he said he couldn’t, it was his responsibility and he knew the dog was gonna kill if he didn’t kill him first. It’s the same here.”

“This ain’t a dog, man.”

“Don’t you think I know that? It was worse. He woulda done a whole lot worse. At least everybody would have known it was the dog that did it because he couldn’t lie or cover it up, that’d never even enter his dog brain. But this guy? He coulda gone on and on. You know how many unsolved murders there are out there every year? Freaking hundreds. That’s not even counting teenage kids disappearing with no trace.”

“Shit, what’s the difference between what you thought he was gonna do and what you DID?”

“Big difference, man. Look at me. You think I’m a murderer? Do I act like one? I feel badly that he had to die but there was no other way. I get no pleasure from this, it’s horrible. I thought about this as much as I could and kept coming back to this being the only way. I had to do it.”

“Jesus. I don’t know about this. Why didn’t you just call the police and let them deal with it?”

“That’s why I asked you out here.”

“What?”

“I wanted you to come out here so you’d understand.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Listen to me a minute, this is important. Do you need a minute? I’d rather you not sit down here. How do you think I knew he’d kill someone if I didn’t stop him?”

“You said he told you.”

“No I didn’t say he told me, what I said was he talked like that was what he was gonna do.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Back in November last year, you remember I was working on the Langhorne project, the one with the radio control problem I kept asking you about?”

“Yeah, the interference thing.”

“Yeah, that one. He was working on that one too. We were there all the freaking time, you remember? That’s when we started talking to me. Anyway, all through November he kept getting more and more wired up, I mean out there. Then one day he comes in, he’s fine, no more wired up.”

“So I’m supposed to know what that means?”

“Nah, I suppose not, I didn’t figure it out until later either but I think that’s when he killed someone.”

“What?”

“A girl. There was a girl, Marilyn Truby, 15, left school to walk home about that time, never got there. Was a flier in Sam’s, her picture, you know, at the OUT door? They always have them up.”

“Jesus, you gotta be kidding.”

“Not. I don’t think I would have figured it out either except for this.”

“What the hell is this?”

“What’s left of a sweater. Napoleon dug it up while we were walking, him chasing squirrels. Right here.”

“Oh my god…”

“You need a minute?”

“I can’t breathe. Jesus H. Christ, I’m gonna pass out.”

“That’s what happened to me too. Why don’t you sit down over, uh, there.”

“You tell the police? You’re gonna tell the police right? Right?”

“No. No, I’m not. I’m hoping you won’t either.”

“What? You’re crazy. The police have to know. They gotta know.”

“I’ve been thinking about that but it won’t work.”

“What do you mean it won’t work? What the hell do you mean?”

“I found the sweater afterwards, her sweater, afterwards.”

“Afterwards? Afterwards from what?”

“After he died.”

“What?”

“He died before I found the sweater. I don’t think I would have done anything differently though, the way it worked out.”

“You mean you didn’t know he killed someone before you killed him? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No. I knew he murdered somebody, I could tell that. Shit, I think anybody talking to him like I did could have told that. I just didn’t know it was her until Nap found the sweater.”

“Jesus, this is screwed up. Royally screwed up.”

“I know you probably haven’t had to time to think this through very far but I have so let me talk for a minute and then you can decide what you want to do.”

“What do you mean decide what I want to do?”

“Give me a second, okay? I think he knew what was going on. I was careful but we’re talking about a freaking murderer okay? I think he put her here on purpose. Wait, give me a second. Somehow he knew I knew what he did, or maybe he just thought I might know, either way he buries her here on my property and if something happens it’ll look like I did it. I know at some point it’s going to occur to you that maybe I really did do it. I was hoping we might deal with that thought right now instead of you dealing with it on your own later.”

“You doing it? You mean you committing mur… you killing the gir… oh, Jesus.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I would do. I can understand why you might be a little freaked out. Okay, so you gotta ask yourself, why would I bring you out here and tell you all of this if I did it?”

“Ummm… because it might give you, an, ummm, an alibi?”

“Yeah, that’s one answer. I was thinking I would think that too. But it doesn’t make sense. He’s dead but it looks like an accident, no one knows he’s done anything wrong, as far as we know anyway, and a disappeared girl stays disappeared. Why would I need an alibi for anything? Before you came out here today, did you have any idea I might be involved with a, ummmm, problem like this?”

“Problem? Problem? You call this a Problem?”

“It is a problem. I didn’t do anything to this girl who is buried on my property and I don’t want to go to prison for something I didn’t do. Besides you really don’t provide much of an alibi when you think about it. Everything I’m telling you is circumstantial.”

“But you killed a man.”

“He deserved killing. What the hell was I supposed to do? Let him murder again?”

“But you said you found the sweater afterwards, so you didn’t know he had kil… murdered somebody, you just thought so.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But we already went over that and I was right. He did. That’s my point and that’s why you’re here.”

“Maybe you better explain that last part to me again, I’m not quite getting that.”

“In one case, it makes sense for me to bring you out here and tell you this if it isn’t true. I admit to killin… making sure a man died, a monster, and also say I find a body buried on my property but I’m not going to tell the police about that. Think about it for a minute.”

“Okay… it looks like maybe… you’re a, ummm, a serial killer?”

“Bingo. That’s what the police are going to think. Hell, that’s probably what I’d think if I read it in the paper. What about you?”

“I’m not sure I want to answer that…”

“But, here’s the deal. I’m not going to kill you.”

“Ummm… good?”

“Hell yes good. For both of us. Good.“

“Okay. Good.”

“See, if I was a serial killer, I’d just kill you too, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t that make the most sense? I mean here you are, alone with me on my property, no one around for miles.”

“You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“You think you’re alone? I’m scared as shit too. I told you, I don’t want to go to prison for killing somebody I didn’t kill.”

“But what about the one you did kill?”

“We’re going in circles here. He was a freaking murderer and would still be killing young girls today if he was alive. I stopped him.”

“Wait. Where’re you going?”

“I’m going to the house to get a beer and a shot.”

“You mean a shot like a shot of whiskey, right? That kind of shot, right? Like in a shot glass, right? Wait up, wait up.”