That you fight with
whatever you've got,
Whatever you can
lay your hands on...
and you never stop.
The minute you do,
that's the minute the world
rolls right over you.
This is Mary?
She was 53 there.
She was beautiful.
She never thought so.
Well, she was wrong.
She looked so young
for her age.
How old are you, Ave?
I ever ask you that?
- No.
- Well, then.
How come you don't have
any pictures of your sons?
I don't have any sons.
Yes you do,
Sam told me.
He shouldn't have.
We had Timmy late.
I was 48,
Mary was 42.
So it was a kind of surprise
to both of us.
We had to fix up the attic in
order to give him a bedroom.
He was a good boy.
An easy boy.
Favored Mary that way.
But the older boy, Billy,
had been different
right from the start.
He always had a way of turning
a good thing sour on himself.
He always had
a problem with lying,
here at home
and to other people.
He dropped out of school when
they kept him back Junior year.
Went to work for Clover's
Hardware here in town.
Got to work late
half the time.
Stayed out nights,
made up lies about why.
He always had
this way with him,
Like he couldn't
help himself.
I got this idea in my head
that he might work it out
for himself in the service.
Get some discipline in his life.
It had worked for me.
Maybe he wanted to leave
the house by then anyway,
because it was one of the few
times he listened to me
and did what I told him to.
He joined the Navy.
Nine months later
he was out
on a section 8.
- Do you know what that is?
- Mentally unstable.
Unfit is the word
they use.
The night it happened...
I was with Emma
down at the store
taking the six-month
inventory.
It was the dead of winter.
Tim was asleep
in the bedroom upstairs,
Mary was reading
in the kitchen.
It was about 11:30
by the time
we finished the inventory.
When he told
the story later
to the police,
to the detectives,
to the lawyers,
Billy lied.
But it was confused lying.
It was as if he couldn't actually
remember what had happened.
He'd lie about one thing
and then tell the truth about
whatever the hell that was
and then go back and lie
about the first thing again.
Or something
completely different.
It just went on that way.
But how we pieced it
together was...
Billy had come around the house
earlier that evening
looking for some money.
Mary told him no.
Told him if he wanted money
he'd have to come down to
the store and talk to me.
Well, he knew he wasn't
going to do that.
I'd had it by then.
So they argued
and eventually he left.
Then just before 11:00
He came back to the house
again still looking for money.
And Mary still told
him no again.
I don't know why,
but he...
locked Red here,
up here in the bedroom.
Maybe he was barking,
I don't know.
Then he went back out
to the kitchen
and started hitting her.
Beating her.
Maybe he thought he'd get
money from her that way.
Maybe it was just one
of his crazy rages.
But he hurt her.
He hurt her so bad
I guess he thought
he'd killed her.
Because then he decided
he decided he'd have to
cover up what he did.
So he went out
to the tool shed
and got the can of kerosene
I used to keep out there...
went up to the attic bedroom
and threw it all over Tim.
All over my son
who was lying asleep.
He burned him to death...
up there in his room.
But kerosene doesn't burn
as hot as gasoline.
I mean,
he killed Tim all right,
the boy was saturated
with the stuff.
But all that burned
up there was my son
and the mattress he lay on.
Not even the drapes
caught fire.
He...
closed the bedroom door,
locked it behind him,
stood outside and waited
till my son
stopped screaming.
Until it was quiet.
Then he came back down
and threw the kerosene over Mary
lying on the kitchen floor, lit