"Hello, son."
The voice was as deep and grave as Veck's own, and as he lifted his eyes to his father's, it was like looking in the mirror - twenty or thirty years from now.
"No greeting for me?" the elder DelVecchio said as he came forward with tight little steps, the guard who brought him in riding his ass so close he might as well have had another jumpsuit on his back.
"I'm here, aren't I."
"You know, it's a shame we have to be chaperoned." His father sat down across from him and put his hands on the table ... in the precise position Veck's were. "But we can keep our voices low." The planes and angles of that face eased into an expression of warmth - that Veck didn't buy for a second. "I'm touched that you're here."
"Don't be."
"Well, I am, son." The saddened shake of the head was so appropriate Veck wanted to roll his eyes. "God, look at you ... you're so much older. And tired. Work been tough? I've heard you're in law enforcement."
"Yeah."
"In Caldwell."
"Yeah."
His father eased forward. "I'm allowed to read the newspapers and I've heard you have a little fiend at work up there. But you caught him, didn't you. In the woods." Gone was the benevolent-father lie. In its place? An intensity in the man's expression that made Veck want to stand up and walk out. "Didn't you. Son."
If eyes were the windows of the soul, then Veck found himself staring into an abyss ... and in the same way that leaning over a ledge and looking down created a vertigo-induced increase in gravity, he felt a pull.
"What a hero you are, son. I'm so proud of you."
The words warped in Veck's ears, his senses getting muddled, so it was as if he both heard them and felt them as a brush over his skin.
You should have killed him when you had the chance, though.
Veck frowned as he realized his father had spoken without moving his lips.
Shaking his head, Veck broke the connection. "This is bullshit."
"Because I complimented you? I meant it. As God is my witness."
"God has nothing to do with you."
"Oh, no?" His father quickly reached into his jumpsuit and pulled out a cross before the guards could get a hard-on about the hands rules. "I can assure you He does. I'm very much a religious man."
"Because it looks better for you, no doubt."
"I have nothing to prove to anybody." Now those eyes glinted. "I let my actions speak for me - have you been to your mother's grave lately?"
"Don't you dare go there."
His father laughed a little and lifted his hands, showing off the steel cuffs. "Of course, I can't. I'm not allowed out - this is a prison, not the Four Seasons. And even though I've been falsely accused, falsely tried, and falsely sentenced to death, I'm held just as everyone else is."
"There is nothing false about where you're at."
"You actually think I murdered all those women."
"Let's be more accurate - I think you butchered all those women. And others."
More with the head shaking. "Son, I don't know where you get your ideas. For example ..." His father's stare lifted to the ceiling, as if he were faced with a complex math equation. "Did you read about the death of Suzie Bussman?"
"I'm not one of your fans. So no, I don't keep up with your work."
"She was not the first girl they accused me of, but the first one they thought I killed. She was found in a drainage ditch. Her throat had been cut, her wrists had been slashed, and her stomach had been inscribed with all of these symbols."
As his father fell silent, he leveled his chin and stared at Veck.
Sissy Barten. Found in a cave. Her throat cut, her wrists slashed, her stomach inscribed with ritual symbols.
"Now, son, as you know, serial killers have patterns they like to follow. It's like a style of clothing or an area of the country to live in or a professional pursuit. It's where you feel most comfortable expressing yourself ... it's the sweet spot in the center of the racket and the perfectly cooked piece of tenderloin and the room that is decorated to your taste and no one else's. It is home, son - where you belong."
"So you're saying that all those other women couldn't have been your work - in spite of the evidence at the scenes - because your first one didn't match the pattern?"
"Oh, I didn't kill anyone."
"So how do you know about the sweet spot."
"I'm a good little reader, and I like pathology."
"I'll bet."
His father leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. "I know how you feel, how apart you are, how desperate it can be to be lost. But I was shown the way and was all the better for it, and the same is going to be true for you. You can be saved - you will be saved. Just look inside of yourself and follow that inner core that we both know you have."
"So I can grow up and be a serial killer just like my father ? No f**king thank you."
His father backed off and offered his palms to the ceiling. "Oh, not that, never that ... I'm talking about religion. Naturally."
Yeah. Right.
Veck glanced around at the security cameras in the corners of the room. His father had cleverly not implicated himself in anything, even though the subtext was Las Vegas - obvious.
"Find your God, son... ." Those eyes grew luminous once again. "Embrace who you are. That impulse you have is going to take you where you need to go. Trust me. I've been saved."
As he spoke, the voice morphed into a dark symphony in Veck's ears, as if his father's words were being set to epic movie music.
Veck slanted forward, bringing them so close together he could see every one of the flecks of black in his father's deep blue irises. In a whisper, he said with a smile, "I'm pretty sure you're going to hell."
"And I'm taking you with me, son. You can't fight what you are, and you're going to be put in a position you can't win." His father tilted his face, like someone would a gun when they had it right up to your forehead. "You and I are the same."
"You sure about that? I'm walking out of here, and youve got a date with a needle on Wednesday. No 'same' there."
The pair of them stared at each other for a while, until his father was the one who ended up backing off.
"Oh, son, I think you'll find me alive and well come the end of the week." Lot of satisfaction in that tone. "You'll read about it in the papers."
"How the hell are you going to manage that."
"I have friends in low places, as it were."
"That I believe."
The charming, slightly haughty smile returned, and his father's voice eased back into gracious territory. "In spite of how ... acrimonious ... this is, I'm glad to see you."
"Me, too. You're less impressive than I remember."
The twitch in the left eye told him he'd hit a mark. "Would you do something for me?"
"Probably not."
"Go see your mother's grave for me and bring her a red rose. I loved that woman to death, I really did."
Veck's hands curled into fists.
"Tell you what." Veck smiled. "I'll put my cigarette out on your headstone. How about that, Father."
The elder DelVecchio eased back, his expression going cold. Clearly, the meet-and-greet was not rolling the way he'd expected.
"This wasn't just about you, by the way," his father announced.
As Veck frowned, the man focused on the blank space behind Veck's shoulder. "She wants you to know that she suffered. Horribly."
Jesus ... exactly what Kroner had said ...
Veck caught himself before he looked up and over at Jim, but the angel's response was clear: A cold draft boiled up and drifted over Veck's head, crossing the table and causing the skin on the back of his father's hands to go goose bumps.
His father smiled into the thin air where Jim was standing. "You don't honestly think you're going to win this, do you? Because you can't take her out of him - an exorcism isn't going to work because he was born with it - it's not in him, but of him."
His father glanced back over at Veck. "And didn't you think I'd know you brought friends? Silly, silly boy."
Veck stood up. "We're done."
Yup, it was definitely time to go: Given the arctic-blast thing going on, Jim Heron, the angel, was about to raise hell on his dad. Fun to watch, but aftermath-wise? File that under not-here-not-now.