[European Style] Praying Mantis

"David, can you show me the report on the Curley case?" I asked, getting up to David's desk.

"Of course." He took a sip of coffee, and quickly pulled out a thick work notebook from the drawer, which was full of clippings from the reports he had participated in.I also have such a work habit, but my seniority determines that the content I record in it must be much less than his.Seeing my serious face, he teased, "Robby, do you want to be Sherlock Holmes?"

"Stop teasing me, David," I said, "I just want to know what happened to my professor at my university."

"Look, this is a weird thing." He finally got serious, flipped through his crumpled notebook, pointed to one of the stories about Laura, and said, "I don't think she's lying. The real culprit must be another story." There was someone, but that cunning guy was hiding in the dark and tricked us all."

I thought for a moment, looking at Laura's face as captured by the photographer on the report.In court, she was thin and haggard, and even her blond hair had lost its luster. She was completely different from the radiant look I had seen in family photos before.Facing the judge's trial, she looked terrified and excited, opening her mouth wide, moving her hands and feet to defend herself.To be honest, the way she dances and dances looks flustered and funny.

Generally speaking, as a woman, no matter how good her psychological quality is, her natural motherhood cannot make her a cold-blooded murderer.As a mother of two children, as a loving wife with her husband, her motives for committing the crime are even more difficult to convincing.Why do normal people have to work hard to break away from a peaceful and peaceful life and devote themselves to a despicable criminal career?

I guess I should dig into this.David is right, this time I want to be Sherlock Holmes.

From David's information I found Dominique Curley of Hazel Street.He is 20 years old and is attending college in Boston.It's summer break, so I was able to meet him in San Francisco.

If there are any scenes in my life that I will never forget, this meeting must be included in it.When I knocked on the blue and white single-family villa, my mood was undoubtedly comparable to the rough Indian Ocean that was hit by a tsunami more than ten years ago.

And this anxiety reached its peak when the blond figure really appeared in front of me.

"Hi, I'm Robert Lindsay from the San Francisco Chronicle. I tweeted to you earlier." After a few seconds of bewilderment, I held out my hand to him. "Sorry to bother you."

"No, not at all." He was half a head shorter than me, with a handsome face, thin and pale, but his hands were not weak, and it even hurt to hold my hand.Dominic smiled at me friendly, "Come on, coffee and tea are ready for you."

The whole house is neatly furnished and orderly, with a gentle warm color everywhere in the decoration, it is not difficult to see that there used to be a harmonious family living here.But at this moment, there was no one in the huge house except this young man.

From previous conversations, I learned that since his stepfather disappeared and his mother was imprisoned, he has lived here alone until now.Stepsister Whitney went to college thousands of miles away in New York, and made a boyfriend there, and didn't even go home for vacation.

"Haven't you thought about living with relatives? Aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.?" I sat on the sofa and turned on my laptop. My professional habits made me try to start a topic naturally and actively, "Living alone It’s hard not to feel alone in such a big house.”

"I'm used to it." He brought two cups of freshly ground steaming hot coffee, and habitually added two large cubes of sugar into each of them. Then he suddenly remembered something, and said annoyedly, "Oh, damn it , I forgot to ask you in advance if you want to add sugar."

"It's okay, I like sweets too." I smiled and said, "I think we can start."

"Of course." He sat on the single sofa diagonally opposite me, took out his mobile phone to check the time, and then put it on the coffee table.There was also a bookmarked hardcover copy of David H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.His sitting posture is upright, just like those curvy ballerinas, and in this alone, he is very different from his peers who advocate ease and ease.As if sensing my gaze, he smiled and explained, "Forgive me, I didn't mean to look too official. It's just because my mother used to be a model and treated me harshly since I was a child." Physical training."

"Your mother used to be a model? Oh, she deserves to be a model, she's so beautiful," I said, "I'm sure she must have been framed."

"That's what the public opinion says." Dominic didn't care about it. He took a sip of coffee in a very dignified manner, and his expression didn't change much, as if he was deeply numb to this topic. "Maybe we The truth of the matter will never be known."

"Don't think so, Dom, can I call you that?" I asked, "You can call me Robbie."

"Nick," he corrected me. "Mom thought 'Dom' sounded like 'Dumb,' so she changed my nickname to Nick."

"So, Nick, can you recount what happened to you two years ago?"

He cleared his throat lightly, and said unhurriedly: "On July 7, two years ago, we celebrated Doug's 10th birthday at home. The next day he was going to school to pick up some papers." The material disappeared on the way back."

I quickly typed these words on my notebook while continuing to listen to his narration: "At that time, there were a large number of police and reporters around the house every day, and we were interviewed more than a dozen times a day. It was also in the same year that I first I walked into the police station for the first time to take notes."

"As an 18-year-old boy, and as a member of the victim's social relationship, I was inevitably included in the list of suspects. But the police asked me and Whitney a few symbolic questions. We were let off, and instead Mom was questioned non-stop until, over a month later, the police announced she had killed Doug."

"Sometimes we have to face unreasonable misfortunes, such as your family killing each other," Dominic said with self-deprecation, "Although I don't believe that my mother will do such a thing, but I know I Have to accept that fact. Maybe she's a hidden Irene Wuornos(②)."

During the two-hour conversation, what shocked me was not only his elegant demeanor, but also his numbness to the tragedy, his neglect of his family and his indifference to life.As if all this was just stating a piece of social news that had nothing to do with him.You can see everything that belongs to youth in this handsome boy, except the most important kindness is missing.

His performance made me feel inexplicably bitingly cold in the hot San Francisco summer.

When the interview was over, I closed my laptop, thanked the interviewee as usual, and shook his hand again.He was a well-educated boy, judging from his thoughtful hospitality.It must have had an inseparable connection with his parents.

That night, I sorted out the interview transcripts about Dominic Curley under the lamp, and I got acquainted with the trajectory of his life: born in Boston, never met his biological father.At the age of ten, he and his mother moved to San Francisco. At the age of 15, his mother married his stepfather and changed his surname to Curley.As for other content, I have heard it in previous reports.

From a rational point of view, his family may be more broken than mine, which grew up with my biological parents and younger sister, but his mother and stepfather must have given him comprehensive care.From this point of view, he is luckier than those children who are left alone and go astray.

But his indifferent attitude in the interview kept others away, as if any concern he made was deliberate and false.Everything has an official procedure.

What kind of a person is Dominic Curley?

The author has something to say:

① "Rainbow": written by David Herbert Lawrence, it was once banned because it contained lesbian plots.

②Irene Wuornos: From the late 80s to the early 90s, Irene Wuornos killed six men including a policeman.She was sensationally dubbed "America's first female serial killer" by the media.