Adrian McKinty - Hidden River

“Tell me again, please.”

“Ok, so they set up CAW. Charles got made partner at Cutter and May and when CAW really started to take off, everyone benefited. I believe they have political ambitions. That’s why we’re moving the office to Denver, plus Daddy has remarried, so who knows, maybe they’re worried about the will,” Klimmer said with a leer, wiping brandy off his thin lips with a big clumsy paw.

“How long have you worked for them?” I asked.

Klimmer drank some more of his brandy, went to the kitchen, crashed something down on a tabletop, groaned, came back with the bottle.

“You know what I think?” he said.

“What?”

“I think I’m done with these fucking stupid questions, that’s what I think,” he said bellicosely.

“Well, Mr. Klimmer, don’t get—”

“I think I’ve told you more than enough, in fact, I’ve told you far too much,” he said loudly.

I nodded.

“Mr. Klimmer, you have been very cooperative and I’m very grateful. I, I suspect we’ll just have to do this one more time.”

“No more times,” Klimmer said, laughing, slurring his words. He sat down heavily, dropped the bottle, brandy spilling everywhere.

“Mr. Klimmer, you know we’re going to have to go to the police with this information,” I said.

“Go, I don’t care, I’ll deny everything. I’ll deny I ever saw you. Margaret was on lunch, she can’t back up your story, you were never at CAW today. You never came here. Don’t you see, if he can kill Victoria and Houghton he can kill me.”

“No, the police will protect you.”

“The police. The police can’t do anything. I don’t know what I was thinking. I never told you anything. I never saw you. I never fucking saw you,” he said, raising his voice and gripping the sides of his chair. He pointed his finger at me and shook his head.

“Ok, Mr. Klimmer, well, look, I think we’ll go, we’ll discuss this tomorrow,” I began.

“We’re discussing nothing tomorrow, I make a huge mistake, I don’t know what I was thinking. I thought I wanted someone to come looking for me, but I was wrong. Goddamnit, you tricked me, you tricked me. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I invented the whole thing. No, I never saw you.”

“Mr. Klimmer—”

“You weren’t here, you made it all up,” Klimmer said, angrily, on the verge of hysteria. It was time to leave, we had to let him calm down. I gave John the nod.

John tried to get up.

“Where are you going?” Klimmer said, furiously, “what are you doing? I’m not going with you. Sit down, sit down, I tell you.”

Klimmer was right on the edge. We had pushed it too far. Shouldn’t have come here again today. This was a catch to be taken easy, on a light line, not brutally hauled in. Tomorrow morning, the three of us walking to the police station together. Bad call hounding him again today.

Klimmer got up and backed away from us. He was furious. He looked unhinged. More than just the drink. He slapped himself on the face. Made a fist. John was standing right next to him on the balcony. Three chairs, me and two big guys, we could barely fit at the best of times. Now, with all of us standing, it was crowded, horribly tense.

“Back off,” he shouted at John. “I’m not going with you.”

“Calm down, mate, we’re leaving you alone, we’re not touching you,” John said.

“I don’t know who you are, leave me alone,” Klimmer said, his body shaking with fury. Was he drunk? Was he having a breakdown? All those pent-up weeks, knowing what he knew, and now it was released. Now it was all coming out, his anger, his fear, his love for the dead girl. His fury at the spoiled rich kid who had killed her. And it was John and me who had stirred these emotions in him. Somehow we were the enemy.

The veins throbbed in his head, his pale skin had turned red.

“Leave me alone,” he yelled at John, standing a few inches from him, his face almost up against John’s.

“Steady on, mate,” John said.

“Everything’s fine,” I assured him.

But his eyes were wild. His cheeks crimson, then white, then ashen. He bit his lip. He bit it until it bled.

“Get out, get out, both of you, I don’t know anything.”

“We’re leaving,” I said, and started backing away, except there was nowhere to back to.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Klimmer said.

“It’s ok, everything’s fine,” I said. “Come on, John, we’re leaving.”

“Go, leave, now,” Klimmer said.

John turned his back and began squeezing past the chair, trying to go back into the living room. Klimmer shoved him. John grabbed Klimmer’s hand. Klimmer shoved him again.

It all happened in slow motion now. Time paused on its journey to eternity. I don’t know what John was doing. Steadying himself? Shoving Klimmer back? What did Klimmer think? That John was trying to grab him, trying to wrestle him to the ground as a precursor to frog-marching him to the police station? He punched John, hit him in the throat, started shoving him back into the seat, John reacted violently, pushed Klimmer away from him. Klimmer snarled, went for John again, grabbed at his collar, John pushed Klimmer off him. Harder this time. Cop fashion. Aggressive. John had big shoulders. Klimmer was all height, but John had bulk, too. The balcony was very narrow. Too crowded. Klimmer six-five, six-six, with that high center of gravity. The rail came up only to the top of his hips. I could see it before it happened. I reached out my hand.

Klimmer stumbled. The momentum carried him into and onto the balcony rail. He toppled backward, lay horizontal on the rail for a fraction of a second.

“John,” I said in a frozen whisper.

Klimmer clawed the air. John made a grab for him but Klimmer had lost his balance, the momentum carrying him tumbling over the balcony. He fell at a rate of thirty-two feet per second per second, his eyes stunned, his mouth open, his voice gone. He had, perhaps, a second to prepare himself. He landed on his feet but his femurs burst out through his knees. His internal organs smashed into one another. Parts of his brain liquefied inside his skull. The body snapped and crumpled sickeningly on the concrete path. He died instantly without uttering a sound.

West across the park and the city — five layers of mountains and the setting sun. A halo over the foothills like an enormous chrysalis. A trap enclosing us in this town, in this state. Forever. We stood on the balcony for an amazed moment — caught in our own theologies of panic, fear, retribution. It was the longest day of the year and it wasn’t to be over for a long time yet. A dozen witnesses in the park. At least two or three had seen the whole thing.

We moved back from the edge of the balcony.

John was stunned, his eyes wide, his face white.

“W-what now?” he asked. “The police?”

“We make a run for it,” I said.

“What?”

“We’ll get twenty years for this,” I said.

“It was an accident.”

“It was goddamn manslaughter, twenty years,” I insisted.

“We won’t get out,” John said.

“We’ll try.”

I grabbed his arm and backed him off the balcony and into the apartment. I found the brandy glasses we’d drunk from, wiped them with a piece of paper towel. Tried to think of any other surfaces I’d touched, wiped them, too.

Police sirens now. John sat down on the chair, dazed.

“Oh, Jesus,” he was saying over and over.

“Get up,” I yelled at him.

He sat there, incredulous. Stunned into catalepsia. And to think I was the heroin user. I grabbed him, pulled him to the door. Wiped the handle, went out, left the apartment, closed the door behind us. Marched him to the fire escape.