The Last Victim_ A True-Life Journey Into the Mind of the Serial Killer - Jason Moss [95]
Mercifully, the family meeting went far better than I imagined. We agreed it would be useful to get some legal help in constructing an affidavit which stated that the incidents described in the letters were fictitious. As it turned out, my mother refused to sign the affidavit. She said she wanted me to learn that I couldn’t always rely on her to get myself out of trouble.
Well, I suppose she could have refused to talk to me for the rest of my natural life. All in all, the upshot of my full disclosure seemed remarkably painless.
It really seemed like my long nightmare was finally coming to an end. At least, the waking part. I figured I nearly had Gacy back in his Pandora’s box, so to speak. I thought I’d confronted, and dealt with, all the aspects of his personality.
I was grossly mistaken.
43
Blackmail
“Jason, this is Ken, I’m on a conference call, I’ll talk to you laterBye.”
“Hello. Hello. John, are you there?” I heard Ken say again, making sure Gacy was still on the line.
“Yeah, hello,” Gacy replied. “Was he there?”
“No, I got the recording.”
I’d just run up to my room when I heard the phone ringing. The answering machine picked up on the fourth ring. Apparently, there was something wrong with the machine because it kept recording the conversation between Ken and Gacy, who thought they were disconnected from my line.
Throughout the previous week, I’d been able to avoid most of Gacy’s calls. Using caller ID and the answering machine, I’d set up a pretty effective screen. Gacy’s current ploy, however, was to have Ken call me and try to conference him in.
Due to a technical glitch, my machine was continuing to broadcast this conversation, which focused mostly on legal aspects of Gacy’s latest appeal. And since I’d set the machine on “unlimited,” it was recording everything.
I sat on the bed amused as I listened in. They were arguing. Ken was upset that Gacy had never given him a copy of the privately published book Gacy had given me when I left.
“Why don’t you ask Jason to make you a copy?” Gacy said, laughing.
“Because . . . because I didn’t . . . I don’t feel comfortable asking him.” Ken seemed jealous of the attention Gacy had shown me.
“In any case, if we don’t get back to him . . .”
The next part of the conversation was unintelligible, maybe because Gacy was mumbling to himself rather than actually talking.
“. . . Jason has not come through with what he said, which means he’s violated . . . I don’t have to observe his trust anymore as long as he’s gonna lie to me.”
“What are we looking for?” Ken asked. “The notice, the confidentiality agreement, and copies of the pictures?”
They were referring to a number of legal documents Gacy routinely asked his visitors to sign. The documents, which had been drawn up by his attorneys, were his insurance that a visitor wouldn’t repeat any confessions Gacy inadvertently made.
Several times prior to my going to the prison, Gacy had tried to get me to sign the documents, but I always stalled him with excuses. Now he was asking Ken to find my signed papers so he could ensure my silence. That was going to be difficult because no such papers existed. Gacy had by now learned from Ken, and also from Koko, that I hadn’t matched up with the person he’d described to them. Now he was not only suspicious regarding what game I might be playing, he was furious that I was refusing to speak with him.
He kept ranting about getting even. “I’ll send those letters [the ones that detailed my fictitious incestuous forays] to his father,” he threatened.
As I watched the little tape in the machine going round and round, I thanked the instincts that had told me a few days before to go to my parents