David Jackson - The Helper

‘Oh shit. Tell me what happened.’

‘I. . I don’t know, Detective. I went down to the laundry room. I didn’t want to, but Tabitha insisted. She wanted clean sheets. So I went. I thought it would be okay if I wasn’t going out of the building. Only the light wasn’t working down there, and all the windows are boarded up. I couldn’t see a thing. And then somebody hit me. They put a bag over my head and tied me up. I was down there for hours. I’m sorry, Detective. I did my best. I really did.’

Doyle stares at the pitiful wreck before him. He knows that Gonzo is absolutely right. There’s nothing more he could have done. He’s not a cop. He doesn’t know how to fight. He’s just a kid. A kid with really bad glasses. What the hell was I thinking?

Except that I didn’t think it would come to this. There wasn’t supposed to be any fighting. The killer was never supposed to find Tabitha. How did he do that? How does he always manage to stay one step ahead?

‘You think she’s okay, Detective? You think you’ll be able to find her?’

Doyle hears the optimism, and is saddened that he has to quash it. ‘We found her, Gonzo. She’s dead.’

Gonzo tilts his head, blinks. ‘Tabitha? Our Tabitha? The one who stayed here last night?’ He steadies himself on the back of a chair, then gently lowers himself onto the seat. ‘How could that be?’

Doyle has no answer.

Gonzo suddenly straightens in his chair. ‘I didn’t tell anyone. I swear. I didn’t tell anyone she was staying here.’

Doyle puts out a hand to calm him. ‘It’s okay. I know you didn’t. Somehow the killer figured it out. I don’t know how he did it, but he’s damn smart. Did you pick up anything on him in the laundry room? His voice, his height, his clothes?’

‘Nothing. I just walked in there, and bang! That was it.’

Doyle gestures toward Gonzo’s face. ‘You should get that looked at.’

‘I’m okay. It’s sore, but I’m okay. My glasses got broke, though. These are my old pair. I don’t see so well out of them.’

‘Get some new ones. Send me the bill.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Yes. Yes, I do. I got you into this mess.’

‘You couldn’t have known. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Gonzo! Stop being so fucking nice to me. It is my fault. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I shouldn’t have asked you to watch over her. You could have been killed, do you understand that?’

‘But I wasn’t. I’m okay. I was glad to help out. I like you. And. . and I liked Tabitha too.’

The purity of motive hits Doyle hard. There is no selfishness here, no hidden agenda.

‘Yeah,’ he answers. ‘I liked her too.’

He moves to the window. Across the street, a low-rise school building in concrete and glass occupies most of the block, but he doesn’t really take it in. Doesn’t really see anything. It’s just a meaningless geometric shape. His head is too crowded with other thoughts. He’s been outsmarted. Again. The killer said this one would hurt, and it does. God, it hurts.

The others hurt too. Their names will be forever seared into his memory. Cindy Mellish. Lorna Bonnow. Sean Hanrahan. Andrew Vasey. Helena Colquitt. And now Tabitha Peyton. A roll call of lost souls. And all reaching out for Doyle. All calling to him from beyond the grave. And isn’t there a note of blame in their plaintive cries?

He thinks it’s time.

Time to do what he should have done at the very beginning of all this. Time to surrender.

He thought he could win. He was arrogant enough to think he had the intelligence to catch this evil bastard. But now, humiliating as it might be, he has to accept he was wrong.

The killer is laughing at him. Ridiculing his puny efforts. He could easily have killed Tabitha here, in Gonzo’s apartment. Instead, he chose to make a statement. By taking Tabitha back to her apartment and killing her in the way he intended last night, he was saying, I can do what I want and you can’t stop me.

And Doyle is starting to realize he’s right about that. The killer does what he wants. He goes where he wants, murders who he wants. He’s like a ghost. He can’t be seen or touched or caught. But if he chooses to haunt you, then you’re condemned. He will pass through your walls and he will whisper in your ear and you will do his bidding. And then you will die.

‘Detective? Are you okay?’

Doyle turns his gaze on Gonzo. ‘That attitude of yours? The way you just want to be of some value? Don’t ever lose it, okay? No matter how many times life kicks you in the balls, stay just the way you are, Gonzo.’

He starts heading for the door.

Gonzo calls after him. ‘Where are you going?’

Doyle pauses, just for a second.

‘To catch a ghost.’

He should be proud. What he did with Tabitha Peyton today was practically a work of art. Nobody would have been expecting that. It was a stroke of genius. He should open some champagne.

And yet. .

The kid. The geeky red-headed fuckwit with the stupid name. Gonzo.

What the hell was he doing there? Again! Seeing him outside Vasey’s place not once but twice was disconcerting enough. But this!

Why would Doyle take the Peyton girl to him? He can’t be a cop. Cops don’t look like that. And they certainly put up a better fight than he did in that basement.

So what the fuck?

I should have killed him, he thinks. Yes, that would have been the best thing to do. It would have been so easy. I missed an opportunity. He’s starting to get under my skin, and I can’t let him interfere like this.

There are people who need my help.

Doyle works his shift. He spends most of it going through the reports on the various murders, over and over again. Hoping to catch something he’s missed. Praying that he’ll find something that will mean he doesn’t have to go through with his decision. But it’s fruitless. He knew it would be. He’s looked at all the paperwork before, dozens of times. Other than the link between Vasey, Hanrahan and Cindy Mellish, there is nothing. And even then it could be that Hanrahan and the girl were killed simply as pointers to Vasey as the next victim. There may be no more of a connection than that. There is nothing to suggest that any of the other victims were linked in any way to Vasey.

So that’s it, then. He is left with no choice.

He gets up from his desk. Steps toward the door. He passes Holden’s desk. Holden is typing at a keyboard. He has pulled overtime on the murders of the two girls. He looks up at Doyle.

‘You wanna talk?’

Doyle considers the offer. He wishes Holden hadn’t asked. It would be so easy to say yes.

‘Tomorrow,’ he says. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

Holden nods slowly and returns to his typing. Doyle moves out into the hallway and enters a storeroom. He opens a wall cabinet and takes down what he needs. He’s supposed to sign it out but he doesn’t bother. He drops the item into his pocket and returns to his desk.

Then he waits.

It’s almost one-thirty in the morning when he gets home. He’ll be back on duty at eight. It’s a tough switch-over. Doyle knows a number of detectives who don’t even bother going home, especially if they live way out in the sticks. Some of them grab what sleep they can on a cot in the station house. Some even go partying between the shifts. Family man that he is now, Doyle always goes home. He goes home and he slips into a warm bed with his warm wife and he sinks instantly into a deep and reinvigorating slumber.

But not tonight.

Tonight his brain has no plans for winding down. It has too much to consider. Too much to worry about.

His future, for instance. Or, to be more precise, whether he has one.