Dying in the Post-War World

22

Lapps, as of this writing, is still inside. That’s why, after all these years, as I edge toward senility in my Coral Springs condo, in the company of my second wife, I have put all this down on paper. The Parole for Lapps Committee requested a formal deposition, but I preferred that this take the same form, more or less, as other memoirs I’ve scribbled in my dotage.

Jerry Lapps is an old man now — not as old as me, but old. A gray-haired, paunchy old boy. Not the greasy-haired J.D. who I was glad to see go to hell and Stateville. He’s been in custody longer than any other inmate in the Illinois prison system. Long before courses were offered to prisoners, he was the first Illinois inmate to earn a college degree. He then helped and advised other convicts with organizing similar self-help correspondence-course programs. He taught himself electronics and became a pretty fair watercolor artist. Right now he’s in Vienna Prison, a minimum-security facility with no fences and no barred windows. He’s the assistant to the prison chaplain.

Over the years, the press and public servants and surviving relatives of the murder victims — including JoAnn’s sister Jane — have fought Lapps’ parole. He is portrayed as the first of a particular breed of American urban monster — precursor to Richard Speck, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy.

Bob Keenan died last year. His wife Norma died three years ago.

Sam Flood — a.k.a. Sam Giancana — was hit in his home back in ’75, right before he was supposed to testify before a Senate committee about Outfit/CIA connections.

Of the major players, Lapps is the only one left alive. Lapps and me.

What the hell. I’ve had my fill of revenge.

Let the bastard loose.

If he’s faking rehabilitation like he once faked amnesia, if he hurts anybody else, shit — I’ll haul the nine millimeter out of mothballs and hobble after him myself.