EGOPATH : “ i know you blame yourself and you shouldn’t. ” · source.
BLAME — IT'S A TRICKY THING TO CONTEND WITH. he knows, logically, that holden is right. there’s no point to blaming himself. it won’t help him. it’s not useful. but he can’t help but think of the women that came after him. the one person perfectly poised to catch this killer, the one person who saw his face and walked away, and he failed to do the one thing he was supposed to. stop the bad guy. save the innocents.
he felt the weight of the lives that were lost after him in every question asked of him. the police, memo pads poised and ready to take down a description. journalists equally ready to unmask a murderer. how could he stand the hypocrisy of claiming the police force were getting closer every day, when all he could see with every flashbulb burst were the reports, the files, the evidence boxes. the incontrovertible proof that if jim had stopped him, at least two women would still be alive.
he knows he can’t blame himself. and yet, he also knows himself. there are excuses that can be made for him — he certainly heard his old partner make them, often to him: he’d been run ragged by the investigation. he’d had less than two hours sleep the night before. but then there’s the fear, validated by his own natural curiosity, that he knew who cumberland was for some percentage of the time he’d spent with him, and did nothing about it to get a closer look.
he can’t help but wonder if he let the man lead him to his car, let him display some of his collection, simply because he needed to know. it’s that thought that haunts him. i did this. i let him do this. i let him get away.
jim doesn’t say any of this, though. instead, he looks at holden after a moment’s pause. “ if it was you, ” he says. “ wouldn’t you wonder if there was something more you could’ve done ? ”