A Killer Harvest Read online

  He closes his computer. He applies a primer to the rocking horse in the garage. It’s oil based, so he opens the windows to help with the smell, but it still gives him a headache. He keeps waiting for the police to show up, or at least call, but they don’t. That worries him. It makes him think maybe they’re putting something together. Could be they’re even following him. His mom calls, though. As does his brother. They ask him, Is it true, what the police are saying? They ask him, Could Simon really have done these things? They ask him, How did we miss this? How did any of us miss this?

  He tells them it can’t be true.

  When the day turns to night, Vincent sits in the backyard in a deck chair he built last summer that is now covered in spiderwebs but no spiders, and he wonders where they’ve gone. He stares at the stars, at the half moon, and he drinks another dragon beer, knowing if he has enough of them he can stay calm.

  He thinks about that day fishing. The girl with the mountain bike. Ruby.

  She didn’t tell them her last name, but they saw it all over the news in the days and weeks following her disappearance. The funny thing is that neither Simon nor Vincent had ever talked about doing anything like that before. It just happened.

  Ruby was cute. She was in her midtwenties, which made her almost ten years younger than them. She biked a lot, so she said, and on this occasion she had mistimed a turn through the trail and hit a stump and the wheel was bent so badly it wouldn’t turn. This far out into nowhere, of course there was no phone reception. Yes, they would help her. They had a cabin a few miles upstream. There was a phone there she was welcome to use. They could take the bike with them in the boat, or leave it there and pick it up later. It was up to her. She wanted to take it with her. She was slim. Athletic. They helped her into the boat. Ruby had a killer smile, and when she turned it on, it made him smile. Simon too. She had a way about her, no doubt about it, the kind of personality you wanted to bottle and store and break out on cold, dark days. If she hadn’t have been those things, then it probably would have gone very differently.

  But she had been all those things. And their intention to help her changed when they were halfway back to the cabin. It changed when Simon asked if she would be interested in going on a date with him. She smiled, and said thanks, but she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend.

  Why? I’m not good enough for you?

  The words didn’t match the real Simon he knew, but they did line up with the one who’d been getting steadily drunk over the previous two hours. The one whose girlfriend had dumped him. He did, however, deliver the words with a venom that didn’t line up with any version of Simon that Vincent had ever known. The mood on the boat changed. It was sudden.

  Ruby looked uncomfortable. No, it’s not that, I . . . I don’t really date . . . maybe some other time.

  Some other time, huh? Simon said.

  Cool it, Vincent said.

  How about we help you some other time instead?

  I didn’t mean to upset you.

  Yeah, you never do, Simon said, and in that moment Vincent knew you was for the woman who had broken up with him. It was for his boss. It was for every woman who had ever turned him down.

  Simon . . . Vincent said, but his friend didn’t hear. Instead he shoved Ruby hard.

  You’re a psychopath, she said.

  Yeah? You really think that? Simon asked, and then he went about proving her point, and Vincent, well, he sat there and watched. There are ways you always think you will behave in life. Neighbor’s house on fire? Vincent always knew he’d run inside to save who he could, even if it meant dying. Somebody got a flat tire on the side of the road? He’d pull over and help. Somebody outside a bar getting beaten up? Vincent would stop it. A woman being assaulted? He would never put up with that kind of shit. He would step in. Of course he would.

  Only he didn’t. He found himself standing back and watching. The truth is, he can’t even say exactly what was running through his mind at that moment, and he’s tried so many times to figure it out. His life changed then. The person he always thought he was wasn’t there. That guy had moved out, and Vincent has no idea when exactly that happened. Maybe he was never there. He was a myth, because, after all, Vincent never had been forced to run into a burning building. He never had seen anybody beaten up outside a bar, and he’d never come across somebody on the road with a flat tire who looked like he or she needed help. It’s possible that Vincent was nothing more than a hypothetical, and it took Ruby to make that hypothetical disappear.

  So yes, his life changed in that moment—as did Simon’s. Their lives became better. On that boat, once the shock of both his inability to act and Simon’s ability to act left him, it washed over him—this sense of power like nothing he had ever felt.

  Sitting out on his deck chair drinking his third beer, he thinks about what a good thing Ruby had been for them. A positive experience overall. She gave him something he never knew he had wanted until then and, according to the news, it was the same something Simon must have been searching for again with Andrea Walsh.

  Day two, and the media are still all over the story like white on rice, like red on blood. He opens the curtains and windows and he calls in sick and leaves the cheap beer alone and considers taking a trip out to the cabin. There’s still plenty of work to do out there. He and Simon have been working on it for the last nine years, turning the beaten-up old cabin into a thing of beauty—an ongoing project that he doesn’t believe either of them really thought they’d ever finish. Not because they weren’t able, and not because there were problems, but because they were always looking for more to do, and when it looked like things were getting done, one of them would float an idea to expand something, or convert something, or even add on a room. Hell, nine years ago the cabin was barely above ground, a single-story shithole handed down from his grandparents to his parents. When he was a kid, his folks used to take the family there for a few days every summer, and every time they showed up, he hoped the place had been hit by lightning or eaten by termites, and often it sure looked like it had been. Ten years ago he took Simon there to see if he thought it was worth salvaging so his family could sell the place. Simon said all the value was in the land, but also believed that together they could turn the cabin into something that would make them a huge profit. Vincent was doubtful—he’d never picked up a power tool in his life—but under Simon’s guidance he quickly adapted to the point where he now considers himself just as good a builder as Simon ever was. The goal was always to renovate and then sell it, but soon they never spoke about selling it. It became a labor of love, one neither of them was willing to say good-bye to. Perhaps that’s why the cabin grew. Some weekends they would drive out there and spend the days constructing, with the occasional weekend of fishing and drinking, but over the last few years, and especially after they bought the boat, the balance changed. Hell, they even got themselves a dog because it felt like they were living there—every second day, or sometimes every day, one of them goes out there and feeds it.

  Which he’s going to have to do. Soon.

  Yesterday he was in no mood, but now that he’s a single parent to her, if he doesn’t go out there she’s going to starve to death. He puts on his shoes and grabs his keys and steps outside. The sun is out, but it doesn’t have the same heat in it that it did even a week ago. His car is in the driveway, and he has his hand on the door when another car comes to a stop outside his house. He turns and leans against his car and watches as a man in a dark suit and a woman in a red blouse and dark pants climb out. They walk over to him. The woman has a scar on her face and no wedding ring, and he suspects those two details are connected. The man has slicked-back hair and a pair of designer glasses that makes his eyes look small and is dressed better than any cop he’s seen before—and he knows that’s what they are before they introduce themselves, which they do a moment later. Detective Inspector Rebecca Kent and Detective Inspector Brian Travers. He wonders how much they know or think they know, and decid
es not that much. Otherwise it wouldn’t be just these two cops, but a team with dogs and guns and bulletproof vests. They ask if they can have a few minutes of his time, and he tells them sure, no problem, and invites them inside.

  “You’re painting something?” Travers asks, sniffing the air.

  “Sorry, I’d gotten used to the smell,” Vincent says. “We can sit outside, if you like.”

  “In here is fine,” Travers says, as they take a seat in the lounge.

  “What are you painting?” Kent asks him.

  “A rocking horse for my niece. It’s her birthday.”

  “How old?” Travers asks.

  He knows what they’re doing. They’re making small talk while evaluating him. It’s a game, but a game easy to win once you know it’s being played. Building a rocking horse for his niece, what could be better?

  “She turns five next week. Okay, don’t judge me, but I can’t help myself,” he says, and he pulls out his wallet and opens it to show them the photo of her. She’s wearing a Spider-Man outfit that he bought her for Christmas ever since she fell in love with the crime fighter. Now she wears it all the time. “Her name is Matilda.”

  “Such a cute age,” Travers says.

  He closes up his wallet and puts it back into his pocket. Matilda has scored him some points. He offers them a drink to score some more, but they say no. He needs to be careful.

  “So no doubt you’re here to ask me about Simon,” he says.

  “You were expecting us?” Kent asks.

  “Kind of, yeah. I figured you’d be wanting to talk to anybody who knew him.”

  “You two were close,” she says. “Best friends, even.”

  They’ve been best friends since the day they met in high school, almost twenty years ago. Simon’s family had lived in Auckland but moved to Christchurch because his dad was taking on a new job, and Simon joined his school halfway through the year. They were fifteen. Simon sat next to him in class that day, and during the first recess Vincent asked him where he was from. They started talking. Vincent didn’t have any real friends back then, and Simon didn’t know anybody, so they started hanging out. They became fast friends, but actually it felt like they were brothers. More than brothers. They grew up seeing the world the same way, a world that was unfair, so you had to take what you could, because nothing ever came for free. Neither of them excelled in school, neither of them went to university, both of them were concerned with current events but never willing to help make change. They didn’t vote, because they didn’t see a point, neither had had a relationship that lasted longer than a few months, and even then those relationships were few and far between. Often a skill one of them didn’t have, the other would. In a way, their friendship was symbiotic. Vincent knows that through the years there have been some who thought they were more than friends. The truth is they loved each other, like brothers, and without each other they had nothing, and right now Vincent has nothing.

  Well, nothing except his desperate need to burn Detective Inspector Ben Kirk’s corner of the world.

  “You could say that,” he says.

  “Everybody else seems to,” she says. “In fact, I’m saying his death is the reason you’ve called in sick, because you sure look okay.”

  He shrugs. “Everything is so . . . so messed up. You’re right, we were best friends, and that’s why I know Simon didn’t do whatever you think he’s done. I know you think different, and I know you’ve come here with preconceived ideas to go along with the narrative you’re creating about Simon, and I’m telling you now I’m not going to go along with it. Simon was a good guy. A really good guy. Whatever you think he did, he didn’t do.”

  The detectives stare at him. He doesn’t add anything.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Kent asks.

  “Why? So you can tell me he killed somebody that night too?”

  Both detectives frown at him. “Mr. Archer—”

  He puts his hand up to stop Detective Kent from saying whatever it is she’s about to say. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I . . . I don’t know. I mean . . . it’s been a difficult few days. Not only is my best friend dead, but now people want me to believe he was a monster. Put yourself in my shoes. How’d you feel if you woke up tomorrow being told your best friend was dead and that they were a murderer?”

  “It would be difficult,” Kent says.

  “Difficult doesn’t even begin to sum it up.”

  “We appreciate how hard this is for you,” Travers says, “but we need to piece together Simon’s life and learn more about him. Can you remember the last time you saw him?”

  He leans back into the couch. He puts his hand over his mouth and strokes his beard and acts like he’s giving it some serious thought, even though he can remember exactly when it was. Only he doesn’t want to tell them he was at Simon’s house a few nights before he died. “I don’t know. A week ago maybe. Monday last week I think it was. He came by on his way home from work. He does that sometimes and hangs out for a bit.”

  “And what do you normally chat about?” Travers asks.

  “I don’t know. Stuff. Just stuff. Life. Work.”

  “Women?” Kent asks.

  “Everything,” he says. “Just not . . . not the kind of things you think he did.”

  “What kind of places did you go with him? Bars? Strip joints?”

  “Strip joints?” He laughs. “I don’t know why you’d think that, but no. We were into fishing,” he says, immediately regretting it.

  “Fishing?” she asks. “Where would you go fishing?”

  “Lots of places.”

  “Like where?” she asks.

  “Wherever there’s water. The beach, usually. Off the rocks out by the estuary,” he says, even though he’s never fished there before. He can’t tell them where he really fishes. Can’t lead them in that direction. “Places around there. It’s peaceful. We’d go out there and fish and shoot the breeze, maybe have a beer or two.” He smiles at Kent, who doesn’t smile back, so he tries his luck with Travers. He’s hoping the fishing-relaxing-drinking thing might help form a connection. It doesn’t. Maybe he should get the photo of Matilda back out and show them.

  “You met Simon in school, right?” Kent asks.

  “High school, yeah.”

  “So you’ve known him for twenty years,” Kent says.

  “Something like that.”

  “How is it a guy you’ve known for so long, a guy you’re best friends with, a guy you go fishing with to shoot the breeze, how is it you couldn’t know what he was capable of?”

  The question angers him, but he doesn’t take the bait. Every day people get arrested for doing things their husbands and wives didn’t know about it. Everybody has secrets. He knows they know this. He knows they’ve arrested people before whose partners and friends and family had no idea of the truth. This is no different from any of those times, no different from learning your next-door neighbor was beating up his wife or that the really lovely nurse at the care home was stealing from the old folks. He shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. “It makes no sense. I keep thinking back on things we’ve spoken about, but he never said anything to ever make me suspect something like this. It’s why I know you guys are wrong about him.”

  “We’re not wrong,” Kent says.

  “And I’m telling you that you are,” he says. “The Simon I knew, that’s not him. You can say whatever you want about him, but eventually the truth will come out and you’ll see he’s innocent.”

  What else can he tell them about Simon? Well, he can tell them Simon is/was a quiet guy. Simon is/was a good guy. Simon isn’t/wasn’t possible of doing the kinds of things they’re saying he did. He hammers on the point not because it’s true, which it isn’t, but because if he shows a steadfast belief in his friend’s innocence then the police will see him as the unsuspecting friend rather than the eager enabler.

  They spend thirty minutes with him. They ask him about their school days. They
ask him if Simon ever spoke about his days before they met, which he had, and he tells them so. There wasn’t much to tell, other than that Simon didn’t have a lot of friends, and had to change schools when his dad got a new job and they all moved down from Auckland. They ask him if he’d ever heard of Andrea Walsh, which he hadn’t, up until the news. They ask him a lot of things and they take notes and he doesn’t think he’s added anything to the narrative of Simon they’re trying to piece together.

  He walks them to the door when they’re done. He shakes their hands, and Detective Kent holds on to his and stares at him, and says, “That was bullshit, what he told you, about his dad getting a new job.”

  “What?”

  “When they moved down from Auckland. They moved for a fresh start. Simon tied up his fourteen-year-old neighbor and kept her in an empty neighboring house that was for sale. He kept her for six hours because he wanted to spend more time with her so he could convince her to be his girlfriend.”

  He doesn’t know what to say. Simon never mentioned it.

  “She escaped when she told him she needed to use the bathroom, and when he let her, she climbed through the window. Because of his age, he was given name suppression and the record of the crime was sealed. Nobody at the school was ever told, and the girl’s family moved away within days of it happening, and then Simon’s family moved too. You said before the Simon you knew wasn’t capable of hurting anybody. The thing is, Vincent, that’s the same Simon who kidnapped his neighbor, and before that he killed that same neighbor’s dog. That’s the Simon you’ve known for twenty years.” She lets go of his hand and gives him her card. “If you think of anything else, give us a call.”