Self-Defence читать онлайн

ver.""Images from the trial?""The worst things from the trial- those photo blowups. Or I'll flash on facial expressions. Carrie Fielding's parents. Anna Lopez's husband." Looking away. "His face. I feel like I'm going through it all over again.""It hasn't been that long, Lucy.""Two months isn't long?""Not for what you went through.""I suppose," she said. "The whole time I sat there in that jury box, I felt as if I was living in a toxic waste dump. The grosser the testimony got, the more he enjoyed it. His staring games- those stupid satanic drawings on his hands. As if he was daring us to see how bad he was. Daring us to punish him."She gave a sour smile. "We took the dare, all right, didn't we? I suppose it was an honor to put him away. So why don't I feel honored?""The end result may have been honorable, but getting there-"She shook her head, as if I'd missed the point. "He defecated on them! In them! After he- the holes he made in them!" Tears filled her eyes."Why?" she said."I couldn't even begin to explain someone like him, Lucy."She was silent for a long time. "Everything was a big game for him. In some ways he was just like an overgrown kid, wasn't he? Turning people into dolls so he could play with them… Some kids play like that, don't they?""Not normal kids.""Do you think he was abused the way he claimed?""There's no evidence he was.""Yes," she said, "but still. How could someone… could he really have been in some kind of altered state, a multiple personality like that psychiatrist claimed?""There's no evidence of that either, Lucy.""I know, but what do you think?""My guess is that his crazy behavior at the trial was faked for the insanity plea.""So you think he was totally rational?""I don't know if rational's