The Grinning Golly: A Killer On the Edge
Episode 7: The stakes are raised
Previously on The Case of the Grinning Golly:
After Estelle survives the killer’s attack, Jackson clears most early suspects and zeroes in on activist Kyle Weston, publishing a baiting article that goads the murderer into a furious call revealing details only the attacker could know; tailing Kyle through his work for Councilman Lemaine and into a protest at Jackson Square, Jackson watches his rhetoric mirror the killer’s ideology and, with a series of burner texts and a disguised phone call, flushes him out of the crowd and into a face-to-face confrontation.
Estelle’s hospital room
Thursday, 8:27 AM
The morning light pierced through the hospital window at an angle that made everything look sterile and hopeful at the same time. Estelle was sitting up when I arrived, which was a relief. Two days ago she’d been barely conscious. Now her eyes tracked mine as I came through the door.
“You look better,” I said.
“I still look like someone who got hit in the head,” she said. She smiled a little. “The doctors say I can probably go home tomorrow if the neuro signs stay clear.”
I pulled a chair up to her bed and sat. The machines around her beeped softly, marking time in a way that felt intrusive yet comforting.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Better. Angry. Confused. But better.”
I nodded. “I’m working on the confusion part. For all of us.”
She looked at me for a moment, then her expression shifted as if a long-lost memory had just resurfaced.
“That young activist,” she said. “Kyle. I remember him.”
I leaned forward.
“He came in a few times over the past couple months. I thought he was just interested in the shop, you know? Curious about the business, about where Dolly got her inventory. He’d ask questions about suppliers, about whether she worked late, whether anyone else had keys to the place.”
I felt something settle in my chest. Confirmation of something I’d already suspected but needed to hear out loud.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“The usual things. I talked about Dolly’s routines—that she liked to work late on Wednesdays, that the shop was usually quiet on Monday afternoons. He asked if there were other employees with keys. He seemed... I don’t know. Interested. Focused.”
“Did he seem hostile?” I asked. “Angry?”
Estelle shook her head. “Not angry. But he was really curious. Like he cared deeply about something, and Dolly was connected to it.”
It made sense. It made too much sense.
“Did he ever ask about Dolly specifically? Her beliefs? Her politics?”
“All the time,” Estelle said. “He wanted to know what she believed in. Who she associated with. Whether she was involved in anything...controversial. I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to understand her stance better, or gathering dirt.”
I sat back, processing.
“He was methodical,” Estelle continued, like she was working through her own realization. “Now that I think about it, he was asking questions like someone who was building a profile. He even asked if she had connections to the Aryan Patriots.”
“Did he ever ask about the spare key?” I asked gently.
Estelle’s eyes widened. She shook her head slowly. “No. But now that you ask... I talked about the shop’s security once. Or lack of it. I mentioned that Dolly was always so trusting about—” She stopped.
“About the key in the plant,” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” Estelle whispered. “The key in the plant.”
I let that sit for a moment. The young man who’d come into her shop, asking questions, gathering intelligence. The young man who’d learned where the spare key was kept. The young man who’d used that information to get inside after hours.
“There was no way you could have known what he planned to do,” I said.
“Doesn’t feel that way,” Estelle said quietly.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s true.”
I looked at her for a moment longer, then made a decision.
“Estelle, I need to ask you something, and I need you to think carefully before you answer.”
She nodded.
“This young man—Kyle—did he seem like he was acting alone? Or did he seem like someone else was... directing him? Encouraging him?”
Estelle was quiet for a long time.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “But there was something about the way he talked about politics. Like he was repeating something someone else had taught him. It felt like he was reciting a script. Does that make sense?”
Yes, it did.
I opened my laptop to do some work while keeping Estelle company. I planned to dig up some more information on Kyle.
My phone rang. It was Danielle Tran.
“Hey Danielle,” I answered.
“Jackson. Did you see my piece from two weeks ago? The one on Lemaine’s background?”
I paused, trying to remember. Two weeks ago I’d been drowning in Dolly’s murder, Floyd’s alibi, the Aryan Nation disinformation. “I... honestly, I might have skimmed it. Why?”
“Because you just confronted Kyle Weston—Lemaine’s intern—and I think there’s something you need to know about the man Kyle’s been working for.”
“Wait a minute, how did you know about Kyle Weston?”
“You think you’re the only journalist Fontenot talks to?”
“No, but I thought I was his favorite. Now I’m hurt.”
Danielle laughed. “Well, maybe what I have to tell you might make you feel better.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
“Pull up the article. ‘Councilman Lemaine’s Secret Affair With a Teenage Girl.’ I published it right after Dolly’s murder when I was doing background on all the major political figures involved in the controversy.”
I opened my laptop and searched for it. The article loaded.
Councilman Lemaine’s Secret Affair With a Teenage Girl
By Danielle Tran, WVUE
Councilman Pierce Lemaine projects an image of unity and progressive values, but sealed court documents and confidential sources paint a more troubling picture.*
Three years ago, Ted Whitman, a mid-level staffer on Lemaine’s city council campaign, left abruptly with no explanation. Multiple attempts to reach Whitman for comment were unsuccessful until this week, when he agreed to speak.
According to Whitman, his seventeen-year-old daughter volunteered at campaign events during her senior year of high school. Lemaine, then 38, took what Whitman described as “inappropriate interest” in the teenager—private meetings, late-night strategy sessions, mentorship that crossed boundaries.
“I came home early one day and found them together,” Whitman said. “I pulled Lemaine away from my daughter and told him to get out. Two days later, I was fired. They called it budget cuts.”*
Whitman filed a complaint with campaign leadership, but the matter was handled internally. No police report was filed at the time, and by the time Whitman’s daughter was ready to cooperate with authorities, statutes of limitation had expired on several potential charges.
But that’s not the end of the story. The teenager later told her father that she had become pregnant, and that the child was Lemaine’s. “He forced her to have an abortion,” Whitman told me. “He paid for it and everything. I had no idea.”
A settlement was reached—sources indicate the amount was substantial, in the mid-six figures—and routed through shell companies to avoid campaign finance scrutiny.
Lemaine’s office declined to comment for this story, citing “ongoing legal confidentiality agreements.”
I sat back in my chair, the pieces clicking together.
“Well, damn,” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” Danielle said. “So when I saw you were chasing Kyle Weston, and that he’s been Lemaine’s protégé for what, two years? I thought you should know what kind of mentor we’re talking about.”
“Does Kyle know?”
“No idea. But if he does, it means he stayed loyal anyway. Based on my investigation, Lemaine certainly knows how to groom young people...” She left the implication hanging.
“Danielle, this is—thank you. This might change things.”
“Be careful, Jackson. Lemaine’s got lawyers, money, and political protection. He’s very good at making problems disappear.”
After we hung up, I read the article twice more.
Lemaine groomed a seventeen-year-old. Paid the family to stay quiet. Built his reputation on unity and progressive values while abusing his power behind closed doors.
I needed to get back to the office. But before I left, I updated Estelle on the revelation.
“What a piece of shit,” Estelle said, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Do you think he had anything to do with the murders?”
“I doubt it. But you never know. These politicians are capable of anything. But I don’t think it’s likely that someone like Pierce Lemaine would take that big of a risk when he’s already favored to win the election. I mean, what would he get out of it?”
“Maybe he just hated Dolly.”
“It’s possible. But I’ve seen his type. He’s cautious. Doesn’t let his emotions control him. We’ll find out soon enough.”
The Bayou Chronicle
Thursday, 9:12 a.m.
I’d been up all night.
I was so focused on the murders that I hadn’t asked Charlie about the leaks lately. I’d been so caught up in trying to find the killer.
After Sadie died, the leaks had stopped, as did the attacks on my personal life.
Yet, there were still no answers.
The CMS logs didn’t lie. Access times, maintenance windows, keystroke patterns—it all painted a picture if you were willing to look at it hard enough. And I’d been looking.
I thought the individual responsible had been external. But maybe we were wrong. I needed to get to the bottom of this before I dealt with the Kyle situation. If not, this saboteur might get up to his old tricks after Kyle was arrested.
Someone inside the Chronicle had been sabotaging my work. Systematically. Carefully. The kind of careful that suggested they knew exactly what they were doing and had the technical skill to do it without getting caught.
Almost without getting caught.
I decided to hit up Charlie again. He was at his desk with his earbuds in, probably listening to Blink 182 or some other nonsense.
“Hey Charlie,” I said.
He jumped. I’d startled him.
“That’s what happens when you have that music up so loud,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, forcing a smile. Those bags under his eyes hadn’t budged since the last time I’d seen him.
“I haven’t had much time to check in with you lately, but what have you found out about the leaks?”
“Still looking bro,” he said, gazing at his keyboard. “Mavis has had me working on other stuff so it’s been hard to find time.”
“Yeah, especially after what happened to Sadie. Things have been crazy. I’m still concerned about my personal information getting out there — the CPS records and all that.”
“I get it. It’s fucked up, Harlow. I had no idea you had been through all that. I can see why Dr. Evans was so worried about you harming yourself,” he said. “I’d probably be the same way.”
“It was tough. But I like to think I’ve made progress since then. I guess we’re not going to find out who is behind this anytime soon.”
“I’ll still keep digging when I have time.”
“Thanks.”
I stepped away from Charlie’s desk and headed to Mavis’ office to give her an update on the murders. She was on the phone so I headed to the couch to wait.
I froze. It slammed into my brain like a baseball bat.
It couldn’t be, could it?
“Mavis. I need to talk to you right now.”
Mavis looked at me. She said into the phone “Ray? I need to go. Something just came up.”
She hung up the phone.
“Call Charlie in here right now,” I said.
“Why?”
“You’ll see. Just call him in here.”
Mavis stepped out of her office and waved Charlie into her office.
Charlie drifted into the room looking weary — and resigned.
“What’s up?” he said, weakly.
I felt the fire building in my chest. My fingers curled into fists. I took a second to collect myself. “Why’d you do it, Charlie?”
“What do you mean?” Charlie said, trying — and failing — to muster some defiance.
“My therapist’s records were not shared on social media. Nobody has seen them except me, my therapist, and now you. Nobody knows her name was Evans.”
Charlie paused. “Yes it was. I saw it.”
“Where did you see it, Charlie? Show us,” Mavis said evenly.
“I don’t remember where,” he said.
“You’re lying,” I replied. “What did you do Charlie?”
Silence. Charlie gripped his arm at the elbow. “I saw it on social media, I swear. I don’t remember where.”
“Charlie!” Mavis barked. “You need to start talking now.”
“I don’t know what to say, boss. I know what I saw,” he said as if he didn’t really mean it.
I tried a different tack. “So, if I pull up X right now and run a search of Dr. Pauline Evans and my name, I should be able to get some results, right?”
Charlie’s head faced down, as if he were examining his shoes. I pulled out my phone. “You really want me to waste time searching when we already know there’s nothing there? You’re prolonging the inevitable.”
“No, you don’t understand—”
I jumped in. “What would happen if I called our IT forensics guy to look into this? What will he find, Charlie?”
“Jackson—”
“What will we find?” I yelled.
“Jackson, that’s enough,” Mavis held up her hand.
“It was me,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
His confession sucked the air out of the room.
“How long?” Mavis asked.
“Since I started,” Charlie said quietly. “Three months.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Someone hired me to do it.” Charlie looked up. “I don’t know their real name. They came to me online. Said they were part of some dark watchdog group. Said they were monitoring media outlets for bias and exposing them. At first I thought... I thought it was legitimate.”
“Who were they?” Mavis pressed.
“Username was TruthKeeper_74. Everything was encrypted. We communicated through an app, not email. They told me your coverage was biased, Jackson. They said the Chronicle was pushing narratives for the government instead of reporting facts. They said they were misleading the public and someone needed to expose them—you.”
Something hot rose in my chest. “And you believed them? With everything you know about me?”
“I wanted to believe them,” Charlie said. His voice was hollow. “I was new. I wanted to feel like I was part of something. Like I was doing something important. He said part of dismantling the system is holding the media accountable.”
My jaws tightened. He’d ripped my life apart. Delayed my investigation. Contributed to the political atmosphere that got Sadie killed.
“You were sabotaging my investigation into a murder,” I said. “And you released my personal information for it to be weaponized against me.”
“I know,” Charlie whispered.
I wanted to hit him. If Mavis hadn’t been standing right there, I actually might have.
Mavis’ voice was ice. “You leaked Jackson’s notes, made it look like he was specifically targeting left-wing activists over politics. But you did more than that, didn’t you?”
I knew what Mavis meant. “That social media campaign against me, that wasn’t organic, was it?”
“No.” Charlie said. “I used sock puppet accounts to get it started. It took on a life of its own from there.”
“And Sadie. You made her a target for harassment,” Mavis replied.
Charlie’s hands trembled. “I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t know anyone would—”
“You didn’t care,” I said.
He flinched like I’d actually hit him. “That’s not true. I thought—”
He couldn’t finish the sentence. Charlie looked like he wanted to sink into the floor and never be seen again. If the circumstances were different, I would pity him.
Mavis stood up. “You’re fired. Effective immediately. You don’t come back to this office. You don’t touch any equipment. You don’t talk to anyone about this until I tell you to.”
“Am I going to jail?” Charlie asked quietly.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Mavis said.
Charlie nodded. He looked destroyed. Whether that was genuine remorse or just the shock of being caught, I couldn’t tell.
“One more thing,” I said. “Why’d you send the confession email?”
Charlie looked at me for a long moment.
“Because I realized what I’d done,” he said finally. “And I realized I couldn’t live with it. Because Sadie is dead. And I helped. Even if I didn’t mean to.”
Mavis called security to escort Charlie out of the building. I sat alone in the conference room for a few minutes, staring at the geolocation data for Guidry’s office.
Guidry was the money. Guidry was the handler. Did Lemaine know? Was this done at his behest? Or did Guidry have his own agenda?
Lemaine’s Campaign Office
Thursday, 12:00 p.m.
Pierce Lemaine’s campaign office was exactly what you’d expect: exposed brick, standing desks, young volunteers in t-shirts with his face on them. The energy was frenetic—phones ringing, people moving between rooms, the smell of coffee and ambition.
I wanted to discuss Guidry with Lemaine, but now wasn’t the time. I still had a killer to catch, which was much higher on my priority list.
I had a plan, and I didn’t want Fontenot to know about it until it worked. If it worked, that is.
His assistant tried to stop me at the door to his private office. I didn’t slow down.
“He’ll want to see me,” I said. “Tell him it’s about Kyle Weston.”
Lemaine was on the phone when I walked in. He held up a finger—one minute—and finished his conversation. Something about voter turnout in the Third Ward. When he hung up, he turned to me with the kind of smile that made you believe he’d been thinking about you all morning.
“Jackson Harlow,” he said, standing to shake my hand. “It’s been a minute. Please, sit.”
I sat. The look on his face said, “what can I do for you?”
“I’m here about Kyle Weston,” I said.
Lemaine’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted in his posture. Just slightly.
“The young activist who killed those women?” he said carefully. “I heard he’s still at large.”
“He is,” I said. “And I think you can help us find him.”
Lemaine leaned back in his chair. “I’m listening.”
“Kyle idolizes you,” I said. “I interviewed him months ago when I was working on the golliwog story. He talked about you like you were the only honest politician in the city. Like you understood something everyone else was missing.”
Lemaine didn’t comment. Just listened.
“He’s radicalized,” I continued. “Someone online has been feeding him false information, poisoning his mind, convincing him that violence is the only way to create change. He’s dangerous. And right now, he’s scared.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Lemaine asked.
“Because you know him better than most. And because scared people do stupid things,” I said. “Kyle respects you enough that if you publicly disavow him—if you make it clear you won’t protect anyone involved in these murders—it might break through. It might be the thing that brings him out of hiding.”
Lemaine was quiet for a long moment. He tapped his fingers on the desk.
“You want me to use my relationship with him to draw him out,” he said finally.
“I want you to help me end this,” I said. “Kyle is a threat. He’s killed two people and tried to kill a third. The longer he’s out there, the more likely he is to hurt someone else. You can help stop that.”
Lemaine stood and walked to the window. The city spread out below—cars, buildings, people going about their lives, unaware of the violence spinning beneath the surface.
“If I do this,” Lemaine said, “I’m saying publicly that I have no knowledge of his involvement. That I will cooperate with NOPD. That I won’t tolerate violence.”
“That’s what I need,” I said. “The truth.”
He turned back to me. His expression was unreadable.
“It’s also good politics,” I said. “It makes you look like someone who won’t protect criminals. Like someone who puts law and order first.”
Lemaine bristled slightly, as if offended. “You still think that’s all I care about? Yes, I want to be mayor. But I also don’t want a murderer running loose in the streets.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you, councilman,” I put up my hand. “I’m just pointing out the facts.”
He sat back down. Tapped his fingers again. Checked his watch.
“Okay,” he said, straightening his tie. “I’ll do it. I’ll hold a press conference this afternoon. I’ll say what you want me to say.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I stood to leave. As I reached the door, Lemaine called after me.
“Jackson—you really think this will bring him out?”
I turned back. “I think it will break him. And when he’s broken, he’ll make a mistake. He’ll reach out. He’ll try to contact you. He’ll do something that gives the police a way to find him.”
Lemaine nodded. He looked like a man who’d just made a decision and wasn’t entirely sure it was the right one.
The Press Conference
Thursday, 4:30 p.m.
I watched from the back of the crowd outside Lemaine’s campaign office. Lemaine stood at a podium in front of a dozen reporters. His tie was perfectly knotted. His expression was grave.
“Two innocent people have been murdered,” he said. “Dolores Mercier. Sadie Broussard. And an attempted murder of Estelle Mason. These were tragic, senseless crimes. And I want to be absolutely clear: I will not protect anyone involved in them. I completely disavow them. Not because they worked for me. Not because they volunteered for my campaign. Not because they believed in the causes I believe in.”
He paused. Good politicians always know when to pause. They probably take classes on effective pausing.
“If any member of my staff, any volunteer, any supporter of this campaign was involved in these murders, they will face justice. Full stop. I am cooperating completely with the New Orleans Police Department. I will provide any and all information that might help bring this perpetrator to justice. We have zero tolerance for violence in any form. I call on anyone with information to come forward immediately.”
The reporters started shouting questions. Lemaine answered a few—standard politician stuff about how violence undermines the causes he championed, how it betrays the very communities he was trying to help, how real change comes through advocacy and activism, not through crime.
Then he stepped away from the podium and the press conference was over.
That should do it.
Your move, Kyle.
Pierce Lemaine’s Campaign Office
Friday, 12:30 p.m.
I’d been parked across the street from Lemaine’s campaign office since 8 AM.
I didn’t tell Fontenot. I didn’t tell Mavis. I didn’t tell anyone. Because if I had, they would have told me to stop.
They would have said it was too dangerous, too speculative, too much of a risk to use Lemaine as bait without his knowledge of what I was really doing.
I would be lying if I said this wasn’t personal. It certainly was. I don’t make friends easily, and when I do, I don’t take kindly to those threatening them.
Estelle was my friend. Sadie was becoming my friend. Dolly would have been my friend.
But it was also true that Kyle had evaded police for two days now. He had made many mistakes, but he wasn’t stupid.
The only way to get him to mess up again was to play on his emotions, his need to be recognized. That’s why I knew the Lemaine gambit would work.
I knew—with the kind of certainty that doesn’t need proof—that Kyle would react to Lemaine’s betrayal. A young man who’d been groomed by his hero would need confrontation. Would need answers.
So I sat in my car and I waited.
The coffee was cold in my cup and my back ached from sitting there for over four hours when he arrived.
Kyle came from the south, moving at a brisk pace but not running. He wore a hoodie pulled low and his right hand was in his jacket pocket. The way someone holds a gun when they’re trying to keep it hidden.
I didn’t expect him to have a gun. But it made sense.
Kyle stepped straight into the building.
I was out of my car before I could second-guess myself.
The campaign office was on the third floor. The elevator moved like molasses. I took the stairs two at a time, my mind already racing through scenarios, already preparing for what came next.
The stairwell door opened onto a hallway. Lemaine’s office was fifty feet away. Through the glass doors, I could see the chaos.
Kyle was there. Gun in hand. Pointed at Lemaine, who was standing very still behind his desk, hands visible, speaking in low, calm tones. A dozen staffers were frozen at their desks, eyes locked on the gun like it might go off if they looked away.
He was talking. I could hear his voice through the glass—high, desperate, angry.
“You said you believed in me! You said I was special! You said—”
Kyle was so flustered he couldn’t even finish his thought.
“Kyle,” Lemaine said, his voice steady. The voice of a man used to controlling rooms. “Let’s talk about this. Just you and me. Not here.”
I had to admire his ability to remain poised when a handgun barrel was pointed at him.
“Here is perfect,” Kyle said. His hands shook. The pistol wavered slightly. “You betrayed me in public. Now we settle it in public.”
I made a decision.
I quietly pushed through the double doors, my Smith & Wesson gripped tightly in my hands.
Kyle’s head whipped toward me. For a second, confusion registered on his face. Then recognition. Then something worse—understanding that I was a problem. His face twisted into that menacing snarl I’d seen at the protest.
“Kyle,” I said, walking forward slowly, hands visible. “Put the gun down.”
I didn’t want to shoot him in this office. I could easily hit Lemaine or one of the other bystanders.
“Stay back,” he said. The gun swung toward me.
“You need to think this through,” I said. I kept walking. Slow. Steady. “You’re not going to shoot me. Because if you shoot me, this becomes a murder-suicide. Is that really how you want to go out? It would destroy your legacy. Nobody would remember the statement you made with Dolly and Sadie. They will only remember that you took yourself out.”
Kyle’s face went red with panic. He knew he was cornered. His focus shifted—just for a second—from me to Lemaine.
That second was all I needed.
I darted forward and grabbed his gun hand. Kyle was stronger than he looked, but surprise was on my side.
We fell hard, his pistol clattering across the floor. Kyle scrambled for it but I was already moving, already pinning his arm, already bringing my weight down on his ribs. But he managed to grasp the pistol.
Someone screamed. The shot was deafening. Kyle tried to point the barrel at me, but I was quicker. I wrapped my fingers around his hands and slammed them repeatedly on the floor.
Everyone was screaming now.
Lemaine backed away, hands still up.
Kyle thrashed. For a moment I thought I had him. Then he twisted—actually twisted his whole body like an earthworm—and rolled out from under me.
He grabbed the gun and was on his feet before I could grab him again. He scrambled to the door and looked back at me. I raised my pistol.
His eyes met mine. In that moment, it was all over his face, the calculation. The decision. The realization that this was over.
Then he ran.
I looked over at Lemaine, who resembled a granite statue. “You ok?” I asked.
“I think so,” he answered breathlessly.
I turned and ran out the door.
Kyle was fast, but he was also panicked. Panicked people make mistakes.
He burst out of the building and onto the street. I was maybe twenty feet behind him, and I was not letting go. My phone was already out, but I didn’t call Fontenot yet. Not until I knew where this was going. Not until it was unavoidable.
Kyle cut left, down a side street. The afternoon crowd gave him some cover, but not enough. I kept him in sight, kept the distance steady. He wasn’t losing me. Not today. This was going to end now, no matter what.
I chased him through a marketplace. Kyle knocked over a vendor’s cart, creating chaos, trying to slow me down. It didn’t work. I jumped over the debris like a movie action hero and kept going.
I continued the chase. Tourists and vendors leaped out of the way. A woman screamed. I vaulted over a produce stand and kept going.
He was heading toward the warehouse district. I could feel it in the way he moved, the way he was making decisions—he was going somewhere he knew. Somewhere he felt safe.
My lungs burned. My legs screamed. But I stayed with him.
He ducked into an alley. I followed. The alley opened onto a wider street and suddenly there it was—the old warehouse. Massive. Abandoned. The kind of place that echoed with emptiness.
Kyle didn’t slow down. He ran straight through the open loading dock door.
I was maybe ten feet behind him when I hit the pavement, still running. Now I called.
“Fontenot,” I said, gasping. “It’s Jackson. Kyle Weston just ran into the old textile warehouse on Magazine and Tchoupitoulas. He’s armed. I’m pursuing.”
“What?” Fontenot’s voice was sharp. “Jackson, where the hell are you? How did you—”
“He went after Lemaine,” I said. I was already moving, already into the warehouse. “I was at the campaign office following up on the story. I’m going in.”
I was lying. He knew I was lying. But there was no time for that.
“Stand down,” Fontenot said. “I’m dispatching units. Do not pursue a suspect with a weapon.”
“I have him in sight. I’m going in.”
“Jackson—” Fontenot started.
I hung up.
Kyle was up the stairs. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the cavernous space. I followed. Up one flight. Up two flights. The stairs were metal and they rang with every step like we were both announcing where we were.
What was he thinking? Why would he go to the roof, where he would have no escape route?
He wasn’t hiding. He was running toward something. Up three flights. The door to the roof was ahead of him. He hit it hard and kept going.
I was right behind him, pistol in hand. I pushed through the door.
The roof opened up. Massive. Industrial. Edged with a low wall and empty sky beyond. Kyle stood at the edge of the building, breathing hard, looking at me.
“Kyle,” I said, still breathing hard from the run. “It’s over.”
He looked at the edge of the roof. Four stories up. A long way down.
“Don’t do this,” I said. He held his handgun, but did not point it at me.
“You don’t understand,” Kyle said. His voice was hollow. “You don’t understand anything.”
“Then explain it to me,” I said. I took a step closer. “Help me understand.”
Kyle stepped closer to the edge.
“Kyle—” I started forward.
“Stay back,” he said. He looked at me with something like desperation. “Just... stay back.”
“We can stand here as long as you need. But you’re not jumping.”
“How do you know?” Kyle asked.
“Because you’re still talking,” I said. “And people who’ve decided to die stop talking. They stop explaining. You’re explaining. Which means part of you still wants to be understood.”
“Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters.”
Kyle’s hands shook. He was crying, I realized. Angry tears. Betrayed tears. They streamed down his face like a spilled glass of water.
“He said I was going to make a difference,” Kyle whispered. “He said I understood things other people didn’t. We were going to change everything.”
He stopped himself.
I didn’t push. I just stood there, letting him breathe.
“He said the system was broken,” Kyle continued. “That normal people couldn’t fix it. That sometimes you had to be willing to do hard things. That real activists weren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.”
“And you believed him,” I said.
“I believed him,” Kyle confirmed. His voice cracked. “I thought he believed in me.”
“What changed?” I asked.
Kyle looked at me like I was stupid. “He disavowed me on live TV. He made it sound like I was some random thug, not someone who—”
He stopped again.
“Not someone who what?” I asked gently.
But Kyle just shook his head. He wasn’t going to say it. He wasn’t going to admit—to himself or to me—that he’d done those things. That he’d killed two people. That he’d tried to kill a third.
In the distance, I could hear sirens. Getting closer. Still blocks away, but coming.
“Kyle,” I said. “The police are coming. When they get here, you can either talk to me, or you can talk to them. But you’re going to talk to someone. And what you say matters. It matters for what happens next.”
Kyle looked at the edge of the roof again. Then he looked back at me. He put the gun to his right temple.
“No!” I yelled. “This isn’t going to solve anything.”
“If I don’t,” he said slowly, “I go to prison. For life.”
“Probably,” I said. “But you will still be alive. You might still have a chance to do some actual good.”
Kyle’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean someone had to have radicalized you,” I said carefully. “Someone fed you false information. Someone made you believe things that led you to do what you did. If you help us understand who that was, if you help us prove it—that could change the story I tell about you.”
“Bullshit. You’re just trying to talk me out of it.”
My mind was frantic, trying to figure out how to stop him. “What about Sadie?” I blurted out.
Kyle stopped. “What do you mean? What about her?”
“If she were standing here right now, what would she tell you?”
“I dunno.”
“You knew her. You know what kind of person she is—was. Can you imagine her telling you to kill yourself?”
The doubt formed on his face. A good sign.
“She could have gone down the same road as you. She didn’t. She changed. And she changed others,” I said.
Kyle was shaking now. But his hand drifted off the trigger.
“What’s the point? I killed her. I killed Dolly. I tried to kill Estelle. There’s no going back.” Something changed in his voice. Not panicked. Sad.
“I know, Kyle. But you can still go forward. Two people are already dead. Sadie wouldn’t want there to be a third.”
“I don’t know—there’s nothing more for me now,” he said. “I can’t live with this.”
“You can. For her. There was a reason she trusted you—why she was your friend. You have to live with what you’ve done. But your story doesn’t have to end here.”
Kyle stood there as if he didn’t know what to do. The pistol moved from his temple. His foot moved from the ledge and toward me. One step after the other.
“Good. Now can you do me a favor?”
“What?” he sounded like he was in a trance.
“Can you put that gun down?”
He looked at the weapon as if it were his first time seeing it. “Oh,” he said absently. The look of defeat on his face could have drawn tears from a stone, if he wasn’t a killer.
He knelt down slowly and placed the gun in front of him on the ground.
“We’re gonna figure this out, Kyle.”
Warehouse Rooftop
Friday, 4:23 p.m.
“Kyle,” I said. “The police are coming. When they get here, you need to surrender. You need to do this right.”
He looked at me. His eyes were hollow. “What does ‘right’ even mean anymore?”
“It means you face what you did,” I said. “It means you don’t run. It means you tell the truth.”
He didn’t answer.
The sirens got louder. Then they stopped. I could hear voices below. Officers entering the building.
“Keep your hands visible. When they come through that door, you don’t move. You don’t reach for anything. You just stand there.”
Kyle nodded.
The roof door burst open. Officers in tactical gear flooded through. Fontenot was with them, and behind him, a dozen more uniforms.
“Hands up!” someone shouted.
Kyle’s hands shot into the air.
“On your knees!”
Kyle dropped to his knees.
I stepped back, hands visible too. “He’s unarmed,” I called out. “He’s surrendering.”
One of the officers—Detective Julius Brennan, someone I’d seen around the department—moved forward. He was tense. Too tense. His hand was on his weapon.
“Kyle Weston,” Fontenot said, moving closer. “You’re under arrest for the murders of Dolores Mercier and Sadie Broussard.”
That’s when Brennan drew his weapon. “Gun!” he yelled.
It happened fast. Too fast.
Brennan fired three shots. Kyle’s body jerked with each impact and he collapsed forward onto the roof.
“What the fuck did you just do, Brennan?” Fontenot’s voice cut through the air like a machete.
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