Joe Victim: A Thriller Read online

  “Please, Raphael,” Schroder says, “don’t make this difficult for us. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important.”

  Raphael nods. “Why? Has he done something?”

  “Did he come to the group?” Kent asks, and she flashes her smile at him and for a brief moment Raphael wants to tell her everything about his secret fantasy to wrap himself in plastic and hide himself beneath the house and take a bunch of pills so that nobody will ever find him, nobody will ever know what happened, so that he will have just disappeared from this life and this world. He imagines a lot of men would give in to that smile, and on other nights he would too. But not tonight. Not with Stella waiting for him, not with thoughts of killing Joe Middleton running around in his head.

  “I contacted him a few times, but he always said no, then I stopped trying.”

  “Why’d you stop trying?” Schroder asks.

  Raphael shrugs. “Well, he wasn’t thrilled with me contacting him,” he says. “But then I heard a rumor and realized he wasn’t really the kind of person I wanted in this support group.”

  “What kind of rumor?” Kent asks.

  “I heard he used to beat his wife,” Raphael says, rubbing his hands to keep them warm. He heard it from another person in the group who heard it from a cousin or a neighbor or some such thing. “Is it true?”

  “He’s never been charged,” Schroder says, rubbing his hands too.

  “That isn’t the same as you telling me it wasn’t true. So why are you here asking about him? Has he beaten somebody else up?”

  “He was murdered this afternoon,” Kent says, burying her hands into her pockets.

  “Oh,” Raphael says, and he takes a small step back. “Oh,” he repeats, and isn’t sure what else to add. He can’t say Good, he probably deserved it, because he doesn’t know for a fact that the guy was a wife beater, and even if he was, does that merit the death penalty? The appropriate sentiment comes to him in the end. “Shit.”

  “Walker was due to testify at Middleton’s trial,” Schroder says. “Just like you are. And other family members of victims. You probably had a dozen people in your group tonight who are all testifying.”

  Walker slowly nods. The rain every ten seconds or so washes over them as the wind pushes it sideways. He thinks about what it’s going to be like testifying. He’s thought about it a lot. He’s thought about how far he could make it from the witness box to Joe before somebody stopped him. He thought about how difficult it would be to smuggle a weapon into the building. About carving a knife out of wood or bone. He thought about how many men it would take to stop him. All those thoughts were only a fantasy—the best he knew he could do was form this group, help others, and starting next week they would protest.

  “What are you saying?” Raphael asks. “You think some of us are targets too?”

  “We can’t rule it out,” Kent says.

  “Who would want to target us?”

  “We don’t know,” Schroder says, but Raphael doesn’t believe him. Something in his voice makes Raphael think Schroder may have an idea.

  “So what can I do?” Raphael asks.

  “We were actually hoping to get here before the meeting was over,” Schroder says, “so we could talk to you all as a group.”

  “Well, I know who some of them are,” Raphael says. “I can make a list. And we’re all meeting again on Monday.”

  “Another session?” Kent asks.

  “Actually, no,” Raphael says. “We’re meeting outside the courthouse. We’re going to protest against those who are going to protest against the death-penalty referendum. There’ll be around thirty of us from the group going, and all of us will probably bring somebody, and no doubt there’ll already be others going anyway. Could be hundreds,” he says, but really he’s hoping for thousands and doesn’t see any reason why it won’t be. Like he thought earlier, it’s a bad-news kind of country. All that bad news has left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths—plenty of anger to go around, plenty of people willing to show up.

  “And you’re leading it?” Kent asks.

  “No,” Raphael says. “Just taking part. There is no leader.”

  “But you’re helping organize it,” Kent says.

  “I’m just doing my part as a concerned citizen.”

  “You do know a protest like that has every possibility of getting out of hand,” Kent says, her voice hardening. “For both sides.”

  Raphael frowns. “We need to be heard,” he says. “And we have every right to peacefully protest. We have every legal right. Joe Middleton is exactly the reason we need this law brought in,” he adds, keeping his voice level, but inside he’s yelling at her. “I intend to offer my complete support. We’re all planning on it.”

  “And if somebody gets hurt?” she asks. “Then what?”

  “We’re all victims,” Raphael says. “We’ve already been hurt. All we’re doing is peacefully protesting against the anti–capital punishment movement, and against the current system. I’m sure there will be enough police on the scene to keep everybody in check,” he says, but truth be told he isn’t so sure. Not having enough police hasn’t done well for the city over the last few years—and perhaps Monday’s protest won’t be any different. But it’s not his job to keep the city safe. It’s Kent’s job. And people like Kent. And people like Schroder too.

  “Was Tristan Walker part of the movement?” Kent asks. “Was he going to be there?”

  Raphael hadn’t heard anybody use movement to describe what he’s doing. It doesn’t quite fit right in some way. “We are a group of people trying to change the country,” he says, “and if that makes us a movement, then so be it.”

  “And Walker?” Kent repeats.

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t told him about it, but maybe he was coming. I’d have hoped he would be.”

  “Were there any new faces tonight, anybody suspicious?” Schroder asks.

  Raphael puts his hand to his chin and crosses his forefinger over his lips, then slowly taps the finger up and down. All he can think about is the woman in the car. “Suspicious? In what way?”

  “Somebody who didn’t belong,” Schroder says.

  He shakes his head, the finger remaining in place. “No, nobody,” he says. “I mean, there were new people here, there often is and always will be as long as people keep getting murdered. As for somebody suspicious, no, nothing. Nobody who didn’t belong.”

  “You sure?” Schroder asks.

  “It’s not like somebody came in here covered in blood and waving a knife,” he says. “Most people when they come, they don’t speak. It’s almost like an AA meeting. People are nervous. They don’t know what to expect. They want to hear other people’s pain before sharing their own. It takes them a few weeks to open up. We’re doing good work here. We’re helping people.”

  “What about a woman?” Kent asks. “Were there any women tonight who stood out?”

  “A woman?” he asks, and he has to make a conscious effort not to look back at the car. “Why? Was it a woman who killed Tristan Walker?”

  “Nobody is saying that,” Kent says, “but there’s a woman we’re hoping to question. A blond woman,” she adds.

  A blond woman. The woman in the car has black hair. Even so, the woman in the car wants to kill Joe. Why would a woman who wants to kill Joe also want to kill Tristan Walker? He thinks about the others who came along. There were blond women there, there always are, but there are . . . what? Fifty thousand blond women in the city?

  “You have a name? Or any other features?”

  “Just blond,” Kent says, glancing at Schroder first. “A woman wearing a blond wig.”

  “That’s not a lot to go on,” Raphael says. “There were new faces here tonight, there always are, and we don’t have any kind of sign-in sheet. There were blond women here tonight, but nobody stood out.”

  “How about you make us that list,” Kent says, “of the people you do know who came along.”

  “
It’ll take me about five minutes,” he says.

  “We can wait.”

  Raphael nods once, then moves back inside. The final few people are leaving. They say their good-byes and offer sad smiles. He starts working on the list, but doesn’t put Stella on it, not wanting to draw attention to a woman who had no reason to hurt Walker, and who has the potential to bring him so much happiness.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’m getting hungry again even though dinner was only an hour ago. The easiest way to kill an appetite in a place like this is to think about what it is they’re serving. I do that now and the hunger pains fade a little. Then I make the mistake of thinking of a tender steak, some fries, some barbecue sauce. The harder I try not to think about it, the more I can taste it. It’s a last-meal kind of meal, and perhaps that’s what I’ll chose if it turns out I have an appointment with the hangman’s noose.

  Of course the way to make sure that never happens is to find Melissa’s message. I flick through the books again, knowing there’s nothing in them, sure there’s nothing in them, and finding just that everywhere I look. It’s almost time for lights out. Our cell doors have all been locked so it’s just me, my cot, my toilet, and books that aren’t telling me what it is I want to hear. I can hear my neighbors in the cells next door. They’re talking to themselves. Or talking to their imaginations.

  Six books.

  One message.

  Or perhaps no message.

  Frustrated, I begin throwing them into the corner of my cell, creating a game in seeing how close I can get them to land to each other. The other game, the one that Melissa is playing, is lost on me.

  I pick the books back up. And throw them again. It’s the most fun I’ve had in my cell. I kill ten minutes, wondering if it’ll be this easy to kill the next thirty years, or if I’ll be killed instead. The six books land in the corner. I pick them up. Line up the spines. Tap them so all the edges are level. Then throw them again. Tomorrow Caleb Cole is going to come and find me. Tomorrow may be my last day in this world.

  I pick the books back up. Line up the spines.

  I look at the titles.

  Twilight Angel. Show Love to Get Love. Bodies of Lust. Love Comes to Town. The Prince of Princesses. Twilight Angel Returns.

  Maybe that’s where the message is. Somewhere in the titles. I take the first word from each one. Twilight. Show. Bodies. Love. The. Twilight. I mix them up. Twilight bodies. Show the bodies. That bit works. Show the bodies. Twilight twice doesn’t work so much. Where does love fit in? Is Melissa telling me to show the police where the bodies are? The only one they’re looking for, or at least know whose to look for, is Detective Calhoun’s, the man Melissa murdered and the man I buried, the same man Schroder’s psychic wants the location of.

  I don’t know. It’s a stretch. But Melissa does know where Calhoun is buried. Roughly. Because it made sweet pillow talk. The message—if it is that—says to show them, not tell them.

  I don’t know. And the love?

  So rather than being Negative Joe, a Joe nobody would like, I continue to be Positive Joe. Optimistic Joe. Likeable Joe. I imagine being outside. I imagine showing Schroder where Calhoun’s body is. Not telling him. Not drawing him a map. But leading him along the dirt path to the dirt grave where Calhoun’s body is shrouded in dirt. I imagine four or five other policemen with us. Guys in uniforms with guns on their waists. Maybe even the men in black who arrested me. I imagine walking—a few men ahead, a few behind, all of them waiting for the first sign of trouble. The air cold. The ground damp. Birds in trees that have been stripped of leaves. Then, from out of nowhere, gunshots start shattering the calm silence of the day.

  Only it’s not daytime at all, it’s evening, it’s twilight, and Melissa is specific about that. Except she’s not being specific about which twilight. She knows my mother would have visited me today. She knows I’ll have gotten the books and would have figured out the message. She knows leading the police to the scene takes time, so she wouldn’t be planning on it today. Trial starts Monday, so she must be planning on it for tomorrow. In two twilights’ time, including today. Which makes perfect sense.

  Tomorrow I have to show Schroder where Calhoun is buried.

  Unless . . .

  Unless what? Unless I’m seeing a message that isn’t there?

  Positive Joe steps back in to save the day. He takes me back into the scenario. Twilight. We’re walking in a straight line. The gunshots. Birds take flight. The shots echo like thunder across the landscape. The policemen have no idea which direction they’re being shot from, then it’s over—their uniforms have red stains blossoming across them. Blood soaks into the dirt as Melissa steps into view. She wraps her arms around me and hugs me and kisses me and everything is okay now, everything is all right, and she leads me away from all the dirt and all the blood and into a life far from the jail cells with the pedophiles and the prison wardens, far away from Caleb Cole and his decision-making process, away from Glen and Adam and the hell they’ve been putting me through, away from it all and into bed and away from the darkness.

  Negative Joe is coming around. He’s thinking that Positive Joe just may be on to something here.

  Six book titles. Show the bodies at twilight. Love.

  Now I’m convinced. Now I feel like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. It’s clever. Very clever, and Melissa is as clever as they get. That’s why she’s still out there. It’s why the police can’t find her.

  And she’s going to save me.

  Because she still loves me. Love.

  When I lie on my bed I feel something I haven’t felt in some time—a sense of hope.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Raphael heads inside and Kent and Schroder stay in the doorway. They have to step aside twice as more people leave, an elderly man nodding and saying “Detectives” on the way out as a greeting. Schroder recognizes an elderly couple who look like they have aged twenty years since he came to see them five years ago with the news their son had been murdered for a pocketful of change and his sneakers. The guy who had done the murdering had spent the change on a hamburger and had made it about halfway through before he was put into cuffs.

  “Maybe we should have mentioned Melissa,” Schroder says.

  “We agreed not to for a reason,” Kent says. “I shouldn’t have to remind you we don’t know if she’s involved, and if we start mentioning her then we risk people looking for facts that aren’t there. We can’t mention things we don’t know. Next thing it’s in the news, and false information like that might upset her. It might prompt her to make an example out of somebody. And if it is her, then we can’t afford to give her a heads-up that we know it’s her.”

  “I know,” Schroder says, tightening his jaw. “I used to do this for a living.”

  She smiles and it breaks the tension. “I know. I’m sorry,” she says.

  The conversation reminds him of the kind of talks he used to have with his partner, with Theodore Tate, after Tate stopped being his partner and became a private investigator after his daughter was killed. Four weeks ago Tate started the process of becoming a cop again. He’s still in that process—though it’s on hold as he fights for his life in a coma. It’s almost as if the two men have exchanged roles. Tate is becoming a cop, and Schroder is becoming whatever the hell it is that Tate was. Maybe even something worse. Tate and Tate’s wife have swapped roles too—the same accident that cost Tate his daughter also put his wife into a vegetative state—she came out of it the same day Tate went into his.

  The same day Schroder killed that woman.

  It’s a topsy-turvy world. Go figure.

  “I’m still thinking it wouldn’t hurt,” he says. “We should tell him.”

  “You heard him,” Kent says. “There were no women here acting suspiciously. And really, what reason would Melissa have for coming here? It was a good idea earlier,” she says, “and it still is. We’ll track down the list of names, and of course we’ll get the prosecution wit
ness list and work with that.”

  Only it won’t be we, it will be them. He’s not part of this. Now after a couple of years of dealing with Theodore Tate, he finally sees where Tate was coming from because he’s now going through the same damn thing. Some things are just impossible to let go.

  “Maybe we should show him the photograph of Melissa anyway,” he says. “But not say it’s her.”

  Kent sighs.

  “We just say it’s a person of interest,” he adds.

  “And maybe he’ll say he’s seen her in the news.”

  “And maybe he’ll say he’s seen her around.”

  She slowly nods. “Okay. You got one?”

  He jogs back to the car, his footsteps splashing rain off the ground and soaking the bottom of his pants. He leans into the back of the car and opens the case file and the photograph of Melissa isn’t where it should be. He flicks through the rest of the contents, flicks through them again, then looks on the floor and around the rest of the backseat while the rain soaks into his legs and lower back. The photograph is of Melissa back when her name was Natalie Flowers, before she named herself after her dead sister and started killing people. He searches under the seats. It’s fallen out, but not in the car. Maybe it’s back at the house. Or in a gutter somewhere, soaking up water the same way he’s soaking it up.

  He jogs back to Kent. “Can’t find it,” he says.

  “I’m sure it doesn’t matter.”

  “I’ll show him one tomorrow.”

  “Carl—”

  “I know, I know, it’s not my case,” he says, holding up his hand. “I’m just trying to be helpful.” His cell phone starts ringing. He grabs it out of his pocket and checks the caller ID. It’s the TV studio. He should have been back on set by now. He puts it on mute and lets it go through to the answering service. Tomorrow The Cleaner is shooting a scene in the casino, where the main characters are cleaning up after a weekend of high-roller suicides.