Mom remained motionless.
Dad looked bleaker than Genevieve had ever seen him look. “I’d never been that mad in my life. The front door wasn’t locked, so I ran inside.”
“Russell heard the door bang against the wall,” Mom said. “He left me to see who’d entered.”
“He yelled at me and threatened me.” Dad ran his fingers through his graying hair. “I punched him in the face. He punched me back. He was strong, and his hatred was so deep that it made him stronger. He was a better fighter than I was. But I’d just seen how he’d treated your mother, so I was even angrier than he was.”
Genevieve was scared to hear more. She wanted her father to continue to be the man she knew.
“I followed Russell into the living room,” Mom said. “I begged them to stop, but neither seemed to hear me.”
“Your mother later told me she’d been sweeping when Russell entered the house. As soon as I was able to push Russell away from me, he grabbed the broom that was leaning against the fireplace and rammed the tip of the handle into my face. It sank into my left eye. As he pulled the broom back, I caught it in my hands and twisted it away from him. Then I swung it as hard as I could. It caught him in the temple.”
“He didn’t go down.” Lines furrowed Mom’s forehead. “He paused, then he came at your father again.”
“So I hit him in the head again, equally hard, in the same place. That time, it knocked him out cold.”
“We thought at first that he was only unconscious.”
“But he never came to. Within a short period of time, he was dead.”
Mom rose and went to the windows, where she peered at her backyard garden. “Your father acted in self-defense.”
“The first time I hit him, I did so in self-defense because I believed he would have killed me if he’d had the chance. But afterthat first strike, I knew I’d hurt him. I should have dropped the broom and tried to wrestle him to the ground.”
“It was self-defense, Judson.” Mom spoke to the glass. Her words did not invite argument.
My father killed Russell Atwell. Genevieve’s numb brain couldn’t accept it.Russell was the one who ruined Dad’s left eye.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Natasha asked.
“It took a while before we were calm enough to think straight,” Mom said. “I was beside myself. Russell was dead, and your father’s eye was seriously injured. He didn’t complain about it, but I knew it was hurting him terribly. I taped a washcloth over his eye. I didn’t know what else to do. Obviously, he needed to go to the hospital, but he wouldn’t hear of leaving until we’d decided what to do about Russell.”
“We worried how it would look. Essentially, I’d entered my ex-girlfriend’s home, then killed her husband.”
“But Mom saw everything,” Natasha said. “She was a corroborating witness.”
“Yes. I’ve wished every day since that wehadcalled the police and taken our chances with the judicial system. If my actions resulted in jail time, then I should have stood up to my sentence and done the time.”
“Camden is a close-knit town.” Mom rotated to them, arms crossed. The joints in her hands were pointed and white. “Russell was one of their favorites. The people of that town doted on him, but very few of them knew me. I didn’t think they’d accept my word if I tried to tell them what had happened between Russell and your father. They’d have believed that I was in on it, too. That together, Judson and I wanted Russell dead.” She ratcheted her hands even tighter. “I wanted peace, and I wanted to be free of Russell. But I didn’t want him dead.”
“In those days, the Shoal Creek Killer was receiving constant attention in the media,” Dad said. “It was all anyone could talk about.”
“So we tried to make the scene look like it would have looked if the Shoal Creek Killer had committed the murder.”
“Russell fell onto his chest with his face to the side. I turned his face down because I didn’t want your mother to have to look at it. I straightened his limbs because that position was more dignified than leaving him how he’d fallen. At the time, I didn’t know that the other bodies had been left in a heap. The police hadn’t released details about the positioning of the victims’ bodies.”
Genevieve’s mind reeled sluggishly. “But Terry Paul Richards later confessed to killing Russell.”
“Yes.” Dad nodded. “At that point, he’d been convicted of three of the murders and was facing execution. Nothing could have made his situation worse than it was. I think he took responsibility for Russell’s death in order to increase his own fame.”
“Who else knows about this?” Natasha asked. “Someone does, because someone sent Gen those letters.”
Dad frowned. “Russell’s sister, Sandra, knows. She walked in when we were almost finished staging the scene. She saw everything.”
“Sandra and I had plans to go to Bible study together,” Mom told them. “She’d come to pick me up and was running ahead of schedule.”
“Your mother told Sandra what had happened. One side of your mom’s shirt was ripped, and her face was pink from where Russell had slapped her. Even so, I thought Sandra would immediately turn us in. Instead, she helped us make it look like the Shoal Creek Killer had committed the murder.”
