coercion 3

Photos on the bureau made it clear that the victims were the mother and daughter who had lived here. Laura Plympton, forty-one, and daughter, Zoë, fifteen. They’d both been pretty.

“Look at this,” Owlstone said, her voice dropping into a whisper. She drew a cheap plastic pen from her inner pocket and touched the curled left hand of Laura Plympton. I came around to her side of the bed. I took my penlight and shined it into the dark hollow formed by her curled white fingers.

“Is that paper?”

“You have a good eye, Detective Sergeant,” I said, and took some close-ups of Laura Plympton’s hand. “You ought to consider a career in criminal investigation.”

“Oh yes, very funny.” We very slowly, very carefully worked together to gently spread Laura Plympton’s fingers. She must have been murdered early yesterday morning, so rigor had come and gone, leaving her fingers slack in a creepy, rubbery way. In death her bladder and bowels had released, so the smells that rose from her were eye-watering, and buried beneath them were the beginnings of the sweet stink of decomposition. Owlstone slid the paper out and I lowered Plympton’s hand back to its resting place on her breast. I knew that she was dead and far beyond any feeling, but I felt like I wanted to apologize to her for this necessary violation. We carried the paper to the dresser and carefully unfolded it. It was a quarter of a piece of ordinary computer paper folded several times and then rolled into a cylinder. There were several lines handwritten on it in blue ballpoint:

My Sweet Laura and Precious Zoë,
I know that what I have done is unforgivable.
I have damned my immortal soul for all eternity,
but at least what I have done here in our home
will save you both from greater horrors.
It was the only way to save you both from them.
They are everywhere.
I could not let them do those things to you.
Not even if I am to burn in hell.
God accept and protect you both.
My greatest regret is that I will not be able
to join you in paradise.
I will try to make it right if I can, but I know they are watching.
I don’t ask for or expect forgiveness.
They are not kings. They are monsters.
I am only the monster they made me.

It was unsigned. The paper was stained with bloody fingerprints and the distinctive pucker marks of dried water. Tears, without a doubt. There was a reference to the Kings, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. Was Plympton not part of the Kings? I am only the monster they made me. Was that an admission that he had become corrupted by the Kings? Or had they somehow coerced him into this?

They are not kings. They are monsters.'
-The King of Plagues pg. 129-130