Alex Barclay - Harm's Reach

Kohler was standing there as they looked up.

‘Sadly, you can’t hang around to find out,’ said Kohler. ‘Jesse Coombes awaits.’

Kristen Faule had arranged for Kohler and Ren to meet with Jesse Coombes in the art therapy room at the ranch. Ren turned to Kohler as they arrived at the door. ‘OK, out of the two of us, I would venture that I look the most harmless... and this kid’s father is a raving misogynist—’

‘Can you believe he’s letting the kid do this alone?’ said Kohler.

‘I absolutely can,’ said Ren. ‘And here’s why... something’s going on with Howard Coombes. Some shit is about to hit the fan and he is avoiding the law and he’s avoiding facing his son. He has fucked up in some way. I know it.’

‘These people don’t deserve to have kids,’ said Kohler.

‘Nope,’ said Ren. ‘So, back to the misogyny. If Jesse Coombes is anything like his daddy, he may look at women as the weaker sex... You do the routine stuff and I’ll come in with the hard questions...’

‘Are you trying to avoid saying good cop/bad cop?’ said Kohler.

‘It cheapens us.’

The art therapy room was filled with light, in contrast to the emo presence sitting at the desk by the wall in front of rows of student paintings. The images were almost entirely rich with color. Ren pictured a buoyant teacher with an over-stretched smile, running around, taking all the black ink away, pausing at the red ink, tempted to do the same, but deciding — no! — it could also be used for lips or beach balls or prom dresses or hearts or roses! Not just blood!

Jesse Coombes was leaning forward, his fingertips pressed together, his hands making a circle in front of him that he kept opening and closing. As he looked up, Ren could see he still had traces of the youthful looks she had seen in his videos, but hadn’t recognized in him the first time they met.

‘Hello, Jesse,’ said Kohler. ‘I’m Detective Kohler, and this is Special Agent Ren Bryce, she’s an FBI agent with Safe Streets in Denver.’

‘Sir,’ he said, nodding to Kohler, shaking his hand.

‘Hello again,’ said Ren. ‘We met before...’

‘Hello, ma’am,’ said Jesse, standing up. He reached and clasped Ren’s hand as he shook it. ‘Of course I remember you. I’m sorry I lied that day.’

‘As long as we agree on the truth from now on,’ said Ren.

Jesse nodded.

‘We’d like you to talk us through the morning of Monday, May 14th, please,’ said Kohler.

‘Well, I’ll try,’ said Jesse, ‘but it seems like a long time ago. I know it isn’t, but it just feels that way.’ He paused. ‘Breakfast is the same time every morning in the main lodge — eight a.m. I usually get up between seven and seven thirty, take a shower, head over then.’

‘And is that what you did that morning?’ said Kohler.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jesse.

‘What time was breakfast over at?’ said Kohler.

‘Eight forty-five,’ said Jesse.

‘Where did you go afterward?’ said Kohler.

‘Classes begin at nine,’ said Jesse. ‘I went to class—’

‘We can get a copy of your timetable for that morning,’ said Kohler. ‘Your attendance records.’

Jesse swallowed. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘That’s OK...’

Hmm . ‘If they’ve been in any way tampered with,’ said Ren, ‘there will be consequences. This goes beyond the ranch, Jesse. And it’s a homicide investigation...’

He stared down at the ground. ‘I know, ma’am. But I don’t know anything about the homicide. I swear on the Bible, I do not.’

Ren and Kohler glanced at each other.

‘You believe in the truth, don’t you?’ said Ren. ‘In being honest.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Jesse. He looked up at her.

‘Please, Jesse, for your own sake, for everyone’s, tell us what happened that morning,’ said Ren.

As she waited, her gaze traveled along the wall of artwork, some of which looked like it was painted by ten-year-olds... probably the last time these kids felt safe or loved or happy or cared for. There was one image of a back garden; green grass, a barbecue, a picket fence and birthday balloons — red! When Ren looked closer, the fence posts were graves with names on them. Lots of names. And the birthday balloons were created by the brush being flicked over the page. Spatter. And the barbecue tools were guns and knives and they were covered with birthday-balloon red.

Jesse Coombes’ birthday barbecue...

Kohler said nothing to break the silence.

‘Tell me about the car,’ said Ren, turning to Jesse. Tell me about the beautiful flames.

Jesse’s gaze jerked toward her. ‘What about it?’ He paused. ‘The car that was burnt out?’

‘Yes,’ said Ren. Patience.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just heard about it after...’

Ren leaned down to her satchel and took out the brown paper evidence bag. She set it in front of him. She slid out the journal. ‘We found this, Jesse...’

He blushed.

I do not want to humiliate you.

‘How?’ he managed to say.

‘A man called Morgan Greene had it,’ said Ren. ‘Do you know him?’

Jesse shook his head. ‘Not really.’ He paused. ‘He told me he’d get rid of it.’

‘He didn’t,’ said Ren. ‘He kept it to use against you. He lied to you. What we need to know is your side of the story. All we have so far is this, and his promise to tell us the rest. He wants a lighter sentence.’

Jesse started to cry.

‘When I was your age,’ said Ren, ‘I had a journal. I used to write down every single thought I had. It wasn’t a very happy time for me. I found that journal a few years back, and I read it. It was horrible. So little of it reflected who I am, or even how I saw those years looking back. Do you know what I did, Jesse? I burned it. I threw it in the fire in my mom’s house when she wasn’t looking and I was very happy to see it go up in flames. And the idea that anyone else would have read it, back then or even now... well, I couldn’t bear it. Detective Kohler and I are not here to judge you or to judge what you’ve written. We’re just here to get to the bottom of things. We are working on a very important investigation here and we need your help. We need your truthful answers. We have no interest in embarrassing you.’

Jesse nodded. ‘Thank you...’

‘So...’ said Ren. ‘Take your time.’

‘I... I got some bad news the night before...’

Ren waited.

‘News about my father...’ said Jesse. He snorted. ‘And I heard it from his publicist. Even though my father, apparently, had just flown into Centennial Airport. I found that out the next morning. Anyway, the publicist that I’ve never even spoken to before told me that a story could possibly break about my father, that it was not for definite that it would, but that if it did, I had to be “prepared”... which meant prepared to lie about it, as opposed to being emotionally prepared. Nice.’

‘What was that news?’ said Ren.

‘My father has gotten his secretary pregnant,’ said Jesse. ‘Newsflash: my father is an asshole.’

Ren looked at Jesse Coombes and the destruction wrought by the boy’s own father, a man who chose to dictate to the world how they should live, while living an entirely different way himself.

I will never understand the mind of people like that. Live, let live. Or shut the fuck up.

‘When you heard about your father, how did it make you feel?’ said Ren.

Jesse smiled. ‘Now you sound like a counselor.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘How about you tell me how you reacted...’

‘Well...’ said Jesse. ‘I couldn’t sleep, thinking about it all... and at about five a.m., I’d had enough. I went outside, I walked and walked and I ended up in the grounds of the abbey. I didn’t even know I had crossed over. But I was there and then I was past the chapel and then, then I came across this cemetery. It was all overgrown, all these people’s memorials just covered in weeds and stuff, and I just thought of people’s legacies being destroyed and it was all just so depressing. I thought of my time on earth, my father’s, everyone’s. I pulled away a few weeds to read the headstones and I see a little baby grave and it just... it just broke my heart. I thought of myself, how shitty my father is, how hard he’s made things for me, all my life, and I felt ungrateful. I felt spiteful and unforgiving and unloving. I felt like I was judging, when I am not the one to judge. Only Our Lord shall judge. I looked at that little baby’s name carved into that stone and I thought, she didn’t stand a chance, she did not stand a chance in this world. Baby Ward. I cleared away the rest of the weeds and I kept on clearing and I kept on clearing. By then, it was breakfast time and I... I had to go. But when I was at breakfast, I realized that I had left this pile of scrub just there in the cemetery, and I thought about the wildfire that just happened and I thought about how hot it was and how stupid I’d been and then I decided that I couldn’t leave everything there, but that if I set some kind of controlled fire in the cemetery, it would look like a hate crime or something. So I got one of Kendall’s cars and picked up all the weeds and scrub and stuff, put them in the trunk, and drove it back to the fire pit. I threw all the weeds in there and lit it on fire, you know, so it could burn safely... As I was watching the flames, I started thinking about my father and his new baby and how he lies all the time, and I had horrible thoughts and I felt horrible that any part of me was like my father and... the journal... the journal was part of that. So I went to my room, I got it, and I came back. My plan was to throw it in there. That’s when Morgan Greene showed up.’