We Were Killers Once by Becky Masterman

For you true crime aficionados out there. Do these names ring a bell?

The Clutter family, Perry Smith, Richard Eugene Hickock.

No? Let me add one more name: Truman Capote. Bet you know now.

Those were the primary subjects of Capote’s In Cold Blood. But this isn’t a retelling or some new twist to what remains one of the most visible slaughters of our time. Buried within Capote’s book and the various archives of the crime is one little remembered detail. When Smith and Hickock were driving the 400 miles across Kansas to the Clutter home, they picked up a 14yo boy and his ill grandfather who were hitchhiking to Colorado. It’s this little bit of karma that Masterman jumps on.

The boy is one Jeremiah Beaufort. A very troubled boy. when he was about 10 years old, he an his annoying little brother were messing around with their dad’s shotgun. You can guess what happens. Said it was an accident but he got sent to juve detention for a couple years. When he got out, his parents told him to get lost. Ended up with his grandfather and the eventual cross-country trip. They’d been gathering bottles for the deposit to buy food. Jeremiah sees some glittering in a field. Smith/Hickock pull over and let the kid out. Takes his very ill grandfather by the arm, walks toward their treasure, sits his grandfather down, and leaves him there.

Smith/Hickock are spooked, but not enough to dump the kid. So the kid is now perp #3 and participates in the robbery and killing of the Clutter family. Now all three are on the run. To Mexico. To California. To Florida. To Miami. To Sarasota. To Tampa. On the drive to Vegas, Jeremiah takes off. While in Vegas, the FBI finally catch up with Smith/Hickock.

They are, of course, charged with the Clutter murders, but also a family named Walker from Sarasota because the M.O. was the same and they were in Sarasota at the same time. But they didn’t do it. And the Walker case was never solved.

So much for history. It’s now 55 years later. Beaufort had been caught up in the three strikes and you are out for a series of drug trafficking crimes in Florida. But his sentence was commuted, and he was released. He has been panicked for quite some time. In all the hubbub about the Clutter case (multiple revisions of confessions), apparently Hickock requested a priest to hear (and read) his confession prior to his execution. In it, he straightened out a number of misconceptions, including the truth behind the Walker killings. If that written confession gets out, Beaufort will be facing execution.

The priest who heard the confession is dying from cancer. Upon his death, a sealed envelope was to be delivered to a protégé of the priest, Carlo, now a retired philosophy professor living in Tucson.

Through his own doggedness, Beaufort tracks down Carlo and plots how to find out if he does indeed have the forgotten confession. But he runs into a buzz saw of an opponent: Carlo’s wife is Brigit Quinn, retired FBI (and her own ghosts and demons). Being a suspicious sort, she notices a number of things about Beaufort that simply don’t add up. Now two are looking for the same thing, and while Quinn is a whole lot better at the looking part, Beaufort is a whole lot better at the stealing-hostage taking-killing part.

I have to admit. About a third of the way into this book, I was ready to put it down and just move on. Not only does Masterman jump back and forth between Beaufort and Quinn, but also across time for Beaufort from his days in prison to his intersection with Smith/Hickok to his history as a child and his search for the hidden confession. Got to the point where it was hard to keep straight who and when. For me, I would’ve liked each chapter to have had a heading (who) and a date (when).

But I struggled on. The 2^nd half had less bouncing around and the story became (mostly) linear (helpful for my aged brain) and much much more exciting. The last third, as both close in on Hickock’s confession, downright flew in overdrive as Masterman brought all the loose ends together to a breathless end. This is the 4^th in her Brigit Quinn series. I think I might be trying to find #1, Rage Against the Dying. Here's hoping the library has a copy.

ECD