Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

“Listen-”

“Wait,” she says, and she holds up her hand. “You want him dead for what he did, don’t you?”

There is no delay in his answer. “Of course I do.”

“And don’t you want to be the one to make that happen?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can give you that. I can help you make him suffer,” she says, “and I can give you this.” She opens up the briefcase and turns it toward him.

“How much is in there?” he asks.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“Is that what it’s worth? To kill somebody?”

“This, this is just money,” she says. “The payoff is in the satisfaction. He murdered your wife,” she tells him. “He broke into her house and he ripped off her clothes and he-”

“Stop,” he says, and he lifts up his hand. “Stop. I know what he did.”

“Don’t you feel it?” she asks. “It’s like a heat. It races around your body-this heat, this need, this desire for revenge. It burns inside you. Keeps you awake at night with bad thoughts. It runs your life and ruins your life and it doesn’t get better.”

“I feel it,” he says. “Of course I feel it.”

“I wake up at night sweating and shaking, and all I can think about is wanting to kill him. And we can do it,” she says. “Together we can do it and nobody will know it was us.”

He shakes his head. “I hate him, I really do, but I don’t want to throw my life away because of him. If anything goes wrong then we’re both going to jail.”

“Nothing will go wrong,” she says, but it’s already too late-she’s trying too hard to sell him and she didn’t want to try at all. She had wanted him to want to do it. She wanted to show up and say I want to shoot Joe Middleton and she had wanted him to say I’m on board-show me how-no matter what the plan is I’ll make it happen. Perhaps her first idea was the best, to pay somebody to do it. She thought there would be an advantage in getting somebody grieving to do the job. This way she can supply the gun, the plan, and she can supply the outcome too. She’s starting to worry that what is a two-person plan will have to be changed into a one-person plan-only she doesn’t have a one-person plan.

“Don’t you want revenge?” she asks.

“Of course I do. But not enough to risk going to jail. I’m sorry. I still have a family.”

“So you won’t help.”

He shakes his head.

She closes the briefcase and stands up and rubs her belly. “Before I go, tell me, you mentioned group-counseling sessions.”

“You think you can find somebody there to help you?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“There’s a group that meets every Thursday night.”

“Thursday?”

“Yeah. Today. They’re family members and friends of homicide victims. I haven’t been, but from what I’ve heard there’s quite a big showing of people who have been hurt by the Carver. You’re going to have plenty of people to choose from. You’ll get so many volunteers you’re going to have to start turning people away.”

“Where and when?”

“Seven thirty,” he says. “They meet at a community hall.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in town.”

“You’ll go to the police?”

“Hell no. I wish you the best of luck. I really do. I want nothing more than for somebody to nail that sick bastard. It just can’t be me. I’m sorry.”

She makes her way to the front door. He follows her. She thinks about what Joe told her about this guy, how he used to beat up his wife. It was Detective Calhoun who figured out Tristan Walker was always around when his wife and door occupied the same moment in space in time.

There’s nothing worse than a wife beater.

“You’re sure you won’t help me?” she asks, picking up the wet newspaper.

“All I want is to be left alone,” he tells her.

She keeps rubbing her belly when she steps out into the street, leaving Tristan Walker alone just like he asked.

The air-conditioning in the TV station is a season behind, or so he’s been told, and Schroder believes it too since it’s still blasting cold air. No doubt it’ll get around to pumping out warm air just when spring starts turning into summer. The station belongs to one of the major networks, coming into existence around the same time Joe Middleton started making the news. Until then there was only a local TV station in the city, the major ones were up in Auckland. But then suddenly Christchurch became the capital for crime, it became the place where journalists wanted to be. It also became the place where producers wanted to shoot crime shows. He once had a guy theorize that flights into Christchurch take longer every year the further the city slips into Hell-though the current temperature makes it an arguable point.

He catches the lift. There is elevator music, classical stuff he can’t imagine anybody ever liking. Especially him. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like being here. Another person gets on the lift next to him, and the two of them stare straight ahead, each of them making a big effort not to speak to the other. His stomach is rumbling, reminding him he skipped out on breakfast and he could end up skipping out on lunch too. On the fourth floor he steps into a corridor and makes his way past a makeup room, a cafeteria, offices, and down to Jonas Jones’s office. The studio itself where they broadcast from is on the floor below, and Schroder wonders if Jones has a certain satisfaction being above it all.

He doesn’t knock on the door. He figures there’s no need when you’re going to see a psychic. He opens the door and walks inside. Jones is sitting behind his desk with his shoes off, polishing them.

“Ah, I’m glad you’re back,” Jonas says.

Schroder isn’t glad. There are a few reasons he lost his job being a cop, and Jones is one of them. Schroder had never killed anybody before this year, and the nightmares he has about that probably wouldn’t get any worse if he were to put a few bullets into Jonas.

“I spoke to him,” Schroder says, sitting down opposite the desk. He’s tempted to put his feet up. The office has framed pictures of Jonas on the walls meeting other celebrities-a bunch of actors, some writers, some popular local figures. There are photos of him at book signings, even one of him signing a book for the prime minister that helps Schroder decide who he’s going to vote for.

“And?” Jonas asks. “Or are you just going to keep me hanging?”

“And he’s thinking about it.”

“Thinking about it? Come on, Carl, I’m sure you could have done better than that. You offer him the twenty grand?”

“Of course.”

“How much more did he want?”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty is good,” he says, and Schroder thinks about what Joe said earlier, about Sally being paid out that fifty-thousand-dollar reward. It was police work that got them there last year, and Sally was part of that. Was she a big enough part to have earned a reward? No. Not in his opinion. But the money wasn’t coming out of his pocket, and he was happy to see it go to her. It was as much a publicity stunt at that stage as anything else. There will be more rewards in the future, and if the public see that kind of money being paid out, then they’ll be more willing to offer up the names of people doing bad stuff. It’s all part of their new Crime doesn’t pay, but helping the police does campaign.

“Yeah, fifty is good,” Schroder says back to him.

Jones pauses to look at him for a few seconds, then goes back to work on his shoes. “We had budgeted for a hundred,” he says, scrubbing at them even though they already look clean. “Can you imagine it?” he asks. “Imagine how it will be, with us finding Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun?”