Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

Suddenly everything she’s seen on TV, all the cop shows and all the movies she’s watched with her dad, it all comes in handy, because right then she knows exactly what to say next. “I want a lawyer.”

Schroder leans back and sighs. “Come on, Sally. Just be honest and you won’t need one,” he says, which is something else the cops say on TV too. “How long have we known each other?”

She thinks about it. She doesn’t see the harm in answering this one without a lawyer present. “Six months.”

“You trust me?”

“Until tonight I would have, but no, not now. Not at the moment.”

He grunts, then leans forward again. “The place that burned down, it was a crime scene. It’s where Daniela Walker was killed. It was also where Lisa Houston was murdered.”

She recognizes the names: both victims of the Christchurch Carver.

“I didn’t burn the place down.”

“And you’ve never been in Detective Calhoun’s car.”

“No.”

“And we have your word for that.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then you’ve got nothing to worry about. No need for a lawyer.”

She knows it doesn’t work that way. “Then why do I feel so worried?”

He smiles at her, but she can’t find any warmth in it.

“Let me show you two things,” he says. He opens up the folder, revealing a plastic ziplock evidence bag sitting on top of a photograph. It has a parking ticket in it. She can’t get a clear look at the picture beneath it.

“We found this today behind Detective Calhoun’s desk. It’s quite interesting really, what we learned from it. It has his fingerprints on it. We know that, because everybody who works here has their fingerprints on file. Everybody. Even people who aren’t police. The cleaners, for example. Even Joe. Even you.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing. She tightens her grip on her crucifix. She’s been hanging on to it since the moment she arrived here.

“The second set of fingerprints on the ticket belongs to you.”

“What does that mean?”

“In itself? Not much. It means you and Detective Calhoun each held this ticket at one point. You know, we went to the parking building this belongs to. The date on it is five months old.”

“Five months?”

“That’s right.”

Five months? A small bell starts ringing in the back of her mind. Something familiar, but what?

“We went to the parking building and we drove up each level. We weren’t sure what we were looking for. It was probably just a false lead. Only on the top we found Detective Calhoun’s car. The ticket wasn’t for that, though, because his car could only have been there for a day at the most. When he parked it there, he hit the car next to him. Left a huge scrape all the way along the side of it. We’d found his car, that was good, but it meant we had to deal with the owner of the second car. Insurance companies were going to have to get involved. No doubt the owner would be pissed off. Any idea what happened then?”

She shakes her head, too scared to speak.

“We ran the plate. Turned out the car was reported stolen five months ago. Reported one day after the time code on the parking ticket. That means the car was stolen at night, parked there, and the following day the owner went to drive to work and found out he couldn’t. So we opened up the car. Want to guess what we found in there?”

She shakes her head.

“We found a body in there.”

She gasps and tightens her grip. The corners of her crucifix puncture her skin.

“It was wrapped in plastic, and surrounded by ninety pounds of cat litter.”

“Cat litter?”

“It absorbs the smell.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“It seemed odd that Detective Calhoun would dump his car next to a car with a body hidden in it. Odd that we would find the ticket for that car after we’d already searched his desk. It was as though it were placed there for us to find. Odd that your fingerprints are on it. Any idea why he would park there? Any idea how this ticket showed up?”

“No,” she says, but that’s not strictly true. She does have an idea, and she doesn’t like it. Not at all.

He lifts the plastic bag away. The photograph beneath it is of the car she saw parked up the driveway of the house yesterday. The same car Joe left in.

“This is his car. You’re telling me you’ve never seen it?”

“I. . I don’t know,” she says, remembering seeing somebody walk into that house, somebody she recognized from a distance but couldn’t place.

He lifts the photograph away, and beneath it is another evidence bag. Inside it is the small pad she wrote on yesterday. It’s the address of the house where Joe went.

“Why did you write down this address?”

“Is that. . is that the house that burned down?” she asks.

“Yes, it is,” he says. “You had the address written down on a pad in your car.”

“Oh Lord,” she says-not to Detective Schroder, but to herself. She knows why the house looked familiar to her. She saw a photograph of it in the folders at Joe’s house when she flicked through them. The same day she picked up the parking ticket from beneath his bed.

“Joe,” she whispers.

“What?”

She starts to sob. It’s all starting to make sense. The folders. The wound. Joe driving the detective’s car.

“I. . I had nothing.” She chokes on a sob, can’t catch her breath, and feels like she’s going to pass out. She shakes her head, grits her teeth, and inhales loudly. Then, surrounded by more tears, she finishes her sentence. “I had nothing to do with this. Please, you must. Must believe me.”

“Then tell me, Sally. Tell me how I’ve added all of this up wrong. Tell me where I should be looking.”

So she does. She starts by telling him about the smile Joe gave her that day in the elevator two weeks ago, she tells him what a sweet guy Joe is, then starts to tell him the rest.

The homework has been completed. The work carried out. Now it comes down to the sales pitch.

Melissa walks slowly across the grass toward me. My gun in her hand. She trusts me enough to meet me in a dark park at night, but not enough to come unarmed. No surprise there. Nor is there any surprise for her when I produce Detective Calhoun’s gun and point it at her.

I stand my ground and wait patiently. She stops a few feet away. She’s not smiling. Perhaps she sees no humor in the situation. Nor does she show any fear.

“Seems you can’t get enough of me,” I say, looking her up and down. She looks good.

“Does seem that way, doesn’t it? You got the money?”

I shake the plastic bag I’m carrying. “I’ve got something better than money.”

She lifts the gun to my face. “Oh?”

I hand her the plastic bag. Both of us are keeping our guns trained on the other. She quickly glances into it.

“A video camera.”

“That’s right.”

“What’s this for?”

“You may want to watch the tape.”

“You bastard.”

“Why?”

She flings the camera back at me. “You fucking bastard.”

I start to laugh. From her abuse it’s obvious she’s figured things out.

“I’ve got copies of that tape, Melissa, and if anything should happen to me along the lines of, oh, I don’t know, anything at all, then a copy of that tape will find its way into the hands of the police.”

“You played me,” she says.

“Wasn’t difficult.”

She grunts. “You’re on that tape too, Joe.”

“Actually, I’m not. Not that it matters. If you kill me, what are the police going to do? Dig me up and arrest me?”

She stares at me silently for a few more seconds, then sighs. “It’s a stalemate then. Just as if anything happens to me, Joe-to use your phrase, oh, I don’t know, anything at all -copies of everything I know about you will make their way to those same people.”