Page 51 of Zen's Crash

I lay the will on top of the folder, and we continue looking through the paperwork. Lexi pulls out a car title. “What do we have here?”

Craning my neck to read the document, I respond, “Looks like he owns—or at one time owned—a 2004 Ford pickup truck.” Thinking it over, I add, “When I was running a background check, he didn’t have a vehicle registered in his name, so he could have sold it, never registered it, or be driving it on stolen tags.”

“That sounds about right for this guy. He doesn’t seem to think any of the rules the rest of us live by apply to him.”

“I don’t know what’s going on in his head, but almost everything he’s saved is evidence of wrongdoing. It feels like he’s proud of all the ways he violated the law growing up and wanted to save reminders of what a badass he was.”

“Isn’t that kind of like what you told me about serial killers saving something from their victims as trophies?”

Running one hand through my hair, I realize how clever my Lexi is to notice the similarity between the two things. “Yeah, it seems to be driven by the same urge.”

“I guess if he really is a serial killer living in an isolated area, stealing license plates might help him fly under the radar.”

“Yeah, it might make him harder to find, but we’re still gonna get him.”

We finish going through the rest of the paperwork, and it’s just more of the same—written verification of every bad thing he’s ever done in his life. I would find keeping stuff like this tedious.

After we finish, we turn our attention to the other items we found. Amongst all the random shit, we discover something noteworthy, a t-shirt and a friendship bracelet, both with some kind of rusty-brown substance on them. I suspect it’s dried blood.

Lexi asks, “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it looks like dried blood, then yes. That’s what I’m thinking as well.”

“Why do you think he kept this?” she asks. “I know we think he may be a killer, but there isn’t enough blood on the shirt and bracelet to make me think someone was seriously injured.”

I hold up the bracelet in my gloved hand. “See how thick this bracelet is? That usually means it’s meant for a guy. I had a girl give me one like this when I was a teen. And if you look carefully at the t-shirt, you’ll find it’s a men’s t-shirt.”

She holds up the t-shirt well away from her body. “You’re right. Women’s shirts usually curve in slightly at the waist.”

“I think both of these items belonged to Terrance. He kept them for sentimental reasons, even though they were stained with blood,” I explain.

Lexi spreads the shirt out on the table and looks over at me. “Or what if he saved them because they were bloodstained. Maybe he had a nosebleed or something?”

“Or someone punched him in the nose.” Thinking about it for a second, I come up with a theory. “We know he was a degenerate little shit when he was a teenager. Maybe someone got fed up and punched him in the face.”

“But why keep that? It doesn’t match his pattern of keeping evidence of him being a badass.”

“What if he saved it along with his response—like, remember the letter where he got community service for cruelty to animals? Maybe that was his retaliation.” When she stares at me blankly, I clarify, “I’m not saying for sure that’s what happened. I’m saying there’s some reason he kept this. It could be that he took these items from another teen for some reason, and in doing so that kid was injured. There could be numerous possible explanations.”

“Did you ever think we might be coming up with the worst reasons because we already know he’s a bad seed?” she asks.

“You mean, like some kind of pitchfork effect, where we know what he’s capable of, so we create theories where he’s more evil than he actually is?”

“Yeah, something like that. This whole thing is giving me a huge headache. Again, I feel like we’re missing critical pieces of the puzzle.”

“That’s kind of what Rigs said as well,” I tell her, knowing she’s as exasperated as I am.

“Do you want to call it a night and we can delve into his camera, the floppy disks, and the CDs in the morning?”

“I would love to take a break from this for the night. I feel like if we sleep on it, everything might look a little clearer in the morning.”

“Did you get something to eat for dinner?” I ask, wrapping my arm around her.

“Not really. I was waiting for you, and then we came straight down to unpack boxes.”

“We can head to our room and order out. You up for that?”

Pulling off one rubber glove and then the other, she tosses them in the wastebasket. “Yeah, what are you thinking? Burgers?”

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