October 2019
Minneapolis
From the time she was ten and found the finger in the basement, Sofia had despised her father. That hatred, combined with her fear that she was like her father, had motivated her to go into hiding, to change her name and lie to the man she loved for thirty years.
Now, Sofia wondered for the first time what her father felt when he had killed someone.
After a nearly sleepless night, she’d quickly showered at first light and had gone for a long walk around the lake near the motel, trying to make a plan. The days were already growing shorter and colder and darker. Winter would be here soon. Her least favorite time of the year.
Across the small lake, she watched an older man feeding the ducks. Something about the man reminded her of her father. He had to be in his seventies now. If he was still alive.
What had made her father turn into a killer? Did he inherit some violent gene from his father? Why did he kill? How did he feel when he was killing someone? How did he feel afterward? Somehow, she didn’t think her father felt remorse. Nor did she think he killed out of rage.
Instead, she pictured him calmly and methodically strangling someone with piano wire. The same way he perfectly peeled an orange all in one piece or carefully cut his steak up into tiny pieces so he didn’t have to open his mouth wide when he put the fork in. The way his clothes were always perfectly pressed and his shoes buffed to a high shine. Her father’s nails were so well manicured they sometimes seemed womanly. He was meticulous, organized, and efficient.
He would kill with little or no emotion.
The FBI said he’d likely killed thirty people, but they could only prove the two from that night.
For a second, Sofia let herself remember her relationship with her father before that night she found the finger. He loved her. That was certain. Unlike her mother. Her father was the one she always turned to when she was upset. He’d pull her up onto his lap and hug her and stroke her hair and whisper in Italian that she was his “beautiful girl.”
He told her nothing was more important than family. She was his angel, he said.
One day when she was seven and they were spending the day at Ocean Beach, some men came up to her father. Unlike her father, who was wearing swim trunks and a shirt, these men were in slacks and white shirts and ties. He told her to go play. Her mother was sleeping on a blanket. Sofia decided to get into the water and surf the waves like the older kids were doing. The surf was licking her feet. She turned around to see if her father was going to call her back, but he gave her a distracted wave.
Sofia stepped into the surf. The older kids were not far out and were laughing and bobbing in the waves. She waded out further. She turned. Her father was talking animatedly, his arms waving. Her mother was still face down on the beach blanket.
When she turned around, a big wave engulfed her. All she saw was white and blue as she was tossed and turned. Not knowing which way was up, she panicked. She opened her mouth and it filled with water.
The next thing she knew she was on the beach, coughing. Somebody was pounding on her back. Hard. She spit up and then threw up. She was lying on her side and a crowd of faces peered down at her.
She looked over at the teenage boy who was hitting her back. He smiled, but then was yanked to his feet by her father. Sofia sat up frightened of what her father was going to do to the teen for hitting her.
“That’s my daughter!” her father said.
“Sir, I apologize for hitting her. I was just trying to clear her lungs of water.”
“No, you misunderstand,” her father said. “I am now indebted to you for one life.” Her father handed the teen his business card. “Call me.”
The teen took it, looking confused.
Her father took her in his arms, woke her mother, and they headed for the car without him saying a word. Sofia looked back over his shoulder and saw a group standing around the teen. Everyone was looking at her dad’s card and then over at her dad. When they saw her looking, they looked away.
That night after she went to bed, she heard her parents talking in low voices at the kitchen table. She snuck out of her room and stood outside the kitchen, listening.
To her amazement, her father was crying. He held a glass of wine. Two empty wine bottles stuck out of the trash. Her mother looked on, seemingly unsympathetic.
“You don’t understand. If we had lost her … if something had happened to her.”
“So, you are saying it is my fault? For relaxing on the beach taking a nap on my day off?” Sofia could tell her mother was irritated.
“No. No, it is nobody’s fault. I thank the Virgin Mary and all the saints for that teenage boy.”
Her mother sighed. Then stood and started doing dishes. Sofia stared as her father put his face in his hands and sobbed.
After she had crept back into her bed, Sofia fell asleep with a smile on her face, feeling more loved than she ever had before.