I liked this prompt so much that I wanted to continue it. You can read the first part here.
"What is the difference, Jennifer?"
Jennifer leaned back in her chair as much as her chains would allow. "Well victim is someone I've harmed and harm can come in all sorts of wicked wicked ways."
Sarah made a note. "Then was Mr. Skillings the first person you killed?"
"Yes," sighed Jennifer, examining her nails, the chains clinking together quietly. "But I didn't plan it."
"You bought poison."
"So typically female of me, isn't it?"
"What do you mean by that?" Sarah was trying very hard to make her questions as flat as possible.
Jennifer leaned forward excitedly, "Oh come now, Clarice, you know the stereotype. Women poison."
"Have you found that to be true?"
"Well I certainly mixed it up, but yes, a lot of the women in here used poison. And I even did for my first three."
Sarah tried to keep her expression neutral as she made an excited note. Jennifer had only been convicted of poisoning two people, surely saying three was not a mistake.
"First three? Why use poison?"
"I could get my hands on it, I suppose. Rat poison is easy to come by. It really should be locked up more, don't you think so, Clarice?"
"But you yourself said you changed your methods. Why start with poison?"
"I want to go back to talking about Tom," withdrew Jennifer. She could wax and wane like this, Sarah knew, and she knew by now to go with it and not push.
"All right, what else would you like to tell me about Mr. Skillings?"
"He wasn't this perfect man that his daughters made him out to be at trial, you know."
"He dated you when you were 12," Sarah stated flatly.
"It wasn't just that though," huffed Jennifer, "he told me he fantasized about his daughters, but my lawyer said I couldn't bring that up."
"He told you after you were married?"
"And that's another thing, what kind of country lets a 16 year old get married? And all of my actions after that were my fault?" Jennifer huffed again, blowing her bangs up with her breath.
"What else do you want to tell me about Mr. Skillings?"
"He was mean to me too, you know. Not just because he was older and I was younger, but he was like genuinely mean to me."
"What did he do?"
Jennifer shrugged. "The usual."
"And what would that be?" asked Sarah, trying to get Jennifer to give a straight answer.
"Oh, Clarice," smiled Jennifer, "surely you can imagine."
"I'd prefer if you told me."
"Very well, you like the details. He would beat me with his belt if I did so much as be late with his dinner. He stranled me once for spilling chocolate sauce on his favorite sweater. He did all of this in front of his girls, mind you, not that they would ever stick up for me. I suppose when I came along he focused all of his rage on me. I probably saved those girls." Jennifer looked proud for a fleeting moment before resuming her flat expression.
After delving into more details about those incidents, Sarah continued, "Is there anything else you want to tell me about Mr. Skillings?"
"Not now, I'm growing tired," smirked Jennifer. "Maybe you'll tell me something about you."
"Like what?"
"You wear a wedding ring."
"I do."
"Does that mean you're married?"
"I am," answered Sarah flatly. She had decided she would never lie to Jennifer, but she also didn't want to offer her any bait.
"Is he good to you?" Jennifer looked so sincere in that moment that Sarah almost teared up. Perhaps Jennifer was coming to see Sarah as a friend. Or, more likely, perhaps she was getting better at manipulating Sarah's emotions.
"She is."
"Well, well, well," smirked Jennifer, leaning back again, "you learn something new every day."
Sarah cleared her throat. "I hope we can speak again, Jennifer."
(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)
Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer by Katherine Ramsland (UPNE, 2017)
Full subject line: "Confession of a Serial Killer - Documentary on A&E in January 9781512601527"
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