Paul Cleave - Joe Victim

She was Melissa.

The realization was almost like a blow to the stomach. He felt his breath catch and it took all of his composure to stay calm, to not let on that he knew the woman in the picture. He stood there staring at it while his mind was racing. What he felt was a sense of betrayal. What he should have felt was a need to tell Schroder she was in his house-and yes, that was a consideration-but not what he settled on. Telling Schroder would be the first step in the process of he himself going to jail-after all, he did kill two lawyers.

Of course Schroder sensed something. How could he not? But he recovered from the pause-he told the ex-policeman that he recognized her from the news, and Schroder bought it. No reason not to. Will Melissa buy it too?

What he can’t figure out is why she wants Joe dead. The trial must have something to do with it. That’s what the timing suggests. She wants Joe dead, and he’s okay with that. He wants Joe dead too. So their desires fall in line quite nicely.

Where things don’t line up are their views on people who take innocent lives. Melissa has been doing a lot of that lately. Other cops. Security guards. Paramedics. People in uniform. The media even labeled her the Uniform Killer for a while there, though that name doesn’t seem to have stuck much. The police uniform he has, it looks authentic because it is-it’s come from somebody she’s killed.

He knows the irony. He’s a smart guy. Smart enough to know that he’s a killer working with another killer to kill another killer. It’s not complicated.

Law Abiding Raphael knows he should go to the police. Red Rage Raphael thinks he should just shoot both Joe and Melissa and let the chips fall where they may. Sensible Raphael knows he can’t go to the police because Melissa saw the articles pinned to the wall in his daughter’s bedroom. She made the connection. If he goes to the police then he’ll be thrown in jail alongside her. Then Joe will get his trial. He’ll have his chance to plead his insanity defense, and then you just never know what will happen. He’ll be found guilty, has to be, but that doesn’t sit well with Raphael. So Sensible Raphael agrees with the Red Rage. There are more than enough bullets to go around. The plan allows for that. In fact, the very nature of the plan allows for it perfectly. And if he gets caught because he’s taken that extra shot? Then so what. So. What.

So he covered with Schroder while these thoughts went through his mind, and then he covered with Melissa too while those same thoughts were there. If she suspected he knew who she was, she would kill him. He didn’t know how. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think that just because he was bigger and perhaps stronger that that gave him an advantage. There was a reason she had killed so many people. It was foolish to underestimate her.

But she didn’t suspect. Had no reason to, not when he spoke about his anger toward Joe, and what Joe had done to him, his daughter, and to Stella. He spoke of his excitement to be the one to take Joe’s life. They spoke about the plan. They went over and over the plan. It wasn’t a simple plan. Not really. But he has a great way to streamline it.

Melissa rang him this morning. The next part of the plan was happening today. She said she would be by this afternoon to pick him up. Sometime around three thirty.

“It’s important we’re not late,” she had told him.

And now it’s three thirty and he’s waiting by the door, and he only has to wait another minute before her car pulls up. He heads out and climbs in. She’s still got black hair, but he wonders if it’s a wig or if she’s dyed it. He tosses the bag with the police uniform into the backseat.

“Then we’re doing this,” he says. “We’re really going to shoot Joe.”

“Gun’s in the back,” she says, and puts the car into gear and starts driving.

I end up lying down, hoping for my stomach to settle, which it doesn’t seem to want to do. The sandwich has set about some motions that I don’t know how to stop. There are cramps and there are sharp pains and there are occasional moments where the two combine, other rarer moments where there is no pain at all. I give up looking at the door every time I hear somebody coming near me. If Caleb Cole came in with his makeshift knife he’d be doing me a favor.

Eventually a set of footsteps slow down. They enter the cell. I’m too busy feeling sorry for myself to look up. It’s more than one set of feet. Eight feet, four guards, one underlying current of anger. None of the guards are Adam or Greg. My hands are cuffed in front of me. There are ankle cuffs with a length of chain about a yard long between my feet. A length of chain runs up from that chain and connects to the handcuffs. It’s the kind of thing Harry Houdini would wear to a fetish party.

I struggle to keep up with the guards, and when I do slow down too much I get pushed in the back. At the front of the prison is a police detective I haven’t seen before. A woman. She’s signing forms and talking to the warden. The woman is perhaps a couple of years older than me. Beautiful hair. Beautiful features. Great curves all wrapped up in some pretty sleek packaging. She glances up at me and barely gives me a second’s worth of attention before carrying on her conversation with the warden. The warden is in his mid-fifties and is wearing the kind of suit telling the world there’s just no point in mugging him.

Both the warden and the woman come over to me. I’ve got my stomach muscles clenched and my ass clenched because my organs are performing some weird kind of ballet, they’re dancing around so fast they’re turning into fluid.

“If you put one foot out of line,” the warden says, “these people will shoot you.”

“Which is the wrong one?” I ask him.

He doesn’t answer.

“My name is Detective Kent,” Detective So Hot I’d Rather Abduct You Than Kill You says, and my oh my, what fun we could have together. “And what the warden said here is absolutely one hundred percent correct,” she says, and I could get lost listening to her voice, looking into her eyes, cutting her open. Even the warden seems to be mentally trading his wife in for her.

“Joe will behave,” I tell her.

“Good,” she says. “Because the general consensus is that Joe has something planned.”

“Joe don’t have a plan.”

“Good. Because if anything happens, Joe’s going to find himself with a bullet in the back of his head,” she says.

“Joe just wants to do the right thing.” Everybody is giving me the same kind of look they’d give a stand-up comedian misreading his audience. “Where is Detective Carl?” I ask.

“Detective Schroder won’t be joining us,” she says.

“I miss Carl,” I tell her.

“I’m sure he misses you too,” she says. “Now let’s get this show on the road.”

I’m escorted to the door. Outside are three heavily armed officers. The afternoon is chilly. Mostly gray skies, but some patches of blue in the distance. No sun. The day is cool, but my skin is feeling hot and my stomach is riddled with what feels like large worms on the loose. I’m led to the back of a white van. There is nothing special looking about it. The back doors are opened and I’m told to climb inside. There’s a metal eyelet that’s been welded into the floor. I step up and my legs buckle under me and somebody has to catch me.

“Stop fucking around,” somebody says.

I suck in a deep breath and hold it. I can feel the world slipping a little.

“He’s going to hurl,” somebody says. “Get back!”

Everybody gets back. I drop to my knees heavily enough that I’ll have bruises on both of them this time tomorrow. I open my mouth, but nothing happens. Sweat is dripping off my face. I widen my eyes and my mouth then exhale heavily. My stomach is struggling to hold on. The sandwich is threatening to fire out in all directions.