Макс Коллинз: No One Will Hear You

Harrow and Carmen exchanged wary frowns, but then the host said, “Certainly,” and gestured to the remaining visitor’s chair.

Before Watkins sat, he offered a hand to Harrow, who shook it; then the attorney nodded to Carmen, his vague embarrassment saying he recognized her.

Settling, Watkins said, “I have a package for you, Mr. Harrow. It’s not a summons or anything that involves a legal obligation on your part. If it has a value, I don’t know what it is.”

Harrow said, “The more you try to reassure me, Mr. Watkins, the less reassured I am.”

“I’m sorry. It’s an unusual situation. My clients instructed me to deliver a package to you.”

Harrow sat forward. “Mr. Watkins, if you have a package for me, you need to set it down carefully and walk away. Your clients left booby-trapped ‘packages’ before, and I’ll be calling the bomb squad...”

The attorney raised a hand. “It’s not like that. They have been sending me, over the last month or so, occasional sealed envelopes. My instructions were to hang on to these envelopes, and — in the event of both their deaths — the envelopes were to be delivered to you , Mr. Harrow.”

“The instructions were explicit?”

“Very. Each envelope went into my office safe. My partners and I have been discussing, over the last several days, what we should do with this material. Our late clients were, after all... allegedly murderers.”

“Right,” Harrow said. “Allegedly.”

“We discussed with our own counsel whether these envelopes should go to the police, rather than yourself. Ultimately, the decision was made for me to deliver them, to you, as per our clients’ instructions. Passing them along directly to the police, or keeping them... that will be your decision. Your signature is not required. And our firm’s responsibility ends here and now.”

He reached down for the briefcase, then hesitated. “May I?”

Harrow nodded.

Carmen was frowning, her arms folded protectively.

Watkins placed the briefcase on his lap, removed a big clear plastic envelope containing six six inch by nine inch manila envelopes, set it on Harrow’s desk, shut the briefcase, stood, nodded to them both, and started out.

At the door, he turned to say, “The one without postage — that’s the first one. Postmarks will, obviously, indicate the order in which the rest were sent. That first envelope was hand-delivered to me, and I was to tell you to ‘watch it first.’... If I may be of further service, you’ll find my card attached to the outer envelope.”

And he was gone.

Carmen said, “I suppose that could have been creepier.”

Harrow emptied the plastic package onto his desk, then selected and opened the first envelope.

A small clear DVD case held a disc with a pink stick-on label featuring a border of roses and an intertwined gothic DJ. In black letters under the center hole were the words Start Here.

He opened each envelope in order of their mailing and found similar contents — clear DVD case, disc with the DJ/roses label; but the label lettering differed:

Erskine

Hannan

Chavez

Thornton

Rousch

Four Don Juan victims and the final Billie Shears collaboration.

“Jesus,” Carmen said. She had come around the desk and was looking over his shoulder. “Are those... what I think they are?”

“Probably.”

“... You’re going to watch them?”

“Not with you here.”

“We’ve already seen what Don Juan sent us.”

“Right.”

“But these could be... longer versions. Maybe more cameras. And the FBI agent’s death, J.C. That’s new.”

“Yes.”

“Should you call Lieutenant Amari? Or the FBI?”

“I should.”

“Are you going to?”

“What do you want me to do, Carmen?”

“I... I want to see the first disc.”

He drew in a deep breath. Let it out.

“Okay,” he said. “Go close my office door, then pull a chair around.”

She did.

Sitting right beside him.

He put the Start HereDVD in his computer, and soon a smiling Vince and Jana Clay came onto the screen, both bald as the day they were born — balder. They wore matching light blue shirts and jeans. The effect was weirdly unisex, though Vince remained a handsome man and Jana a beautiful woman.

“They’re... they’re like aliens ,” Carmen whispered.

From a bad fifties sci-fi B movie, he thought .

“So finally we meet, J.C.,” Vince said. “I call you ‘J.C.’ because I take the liberty of considering you a colleague, and an equal.”

Carmen’s hand squeezed his shoulder.

“If you’re watching this, J.C., my sister and I are very likely both dead. There should be no other way this material could reach your hands, but you never know — lawyers can be so morally ambiguous.”

Pointing at the screen, Carmen said, “That’s the bedroom. They’re in that bedroom ...”

This was a two-shot, and the focus was tight on brother and sister, soft-focus on the background, but Carmen was right: the siblings were apparently seated on the bed where Don Juan’s “conquests” had been made, and in an eerie piece of stagecraft, a table with a vase of Black Pearl roses was visible behind and to the right of Jana, who sat with hands primly folded in her lap.

Her brother, however, gesticulated confidently as he continued in his role as their appointed spokesperson.

“You may even be naive enough to think, J.C., that this means you’ve won. It does not. I admit our deaths are not our preferred course of action, and our script calls for us both to survive. Still, because we are playing out our drama on the real-life stage, there are contingencies we cannot predict. So dying is our ‘Plan B.’ ”

“He was so nice,” Carmen said. “So normal ...”

“Jana and I inherited enough money to come out here and follow our dream. To make it in LA, to be stars. We went down more conventional paths for several years without success — and our funds were running out. We needed a new course of action, and we developed one. How odd to think that you are watching this, knowing more about what we accomplished than we do! So far, we’ve been involved strictly in pre-production.”

Jana reached over and squeezed her brother’s hand — perhaps he was getting off script...

“In any event, if our work has progressed as we intended, by the time you’re viewing this, we’ll have surely joined the pantheon of famous serial killers. Whether or not we’re the most famous, well... that’s not for us to say. We’ll leave that to the history books.”

“They look odd,” Carmen said. “But they don’t look dangerous ...”

“We are confident that you and UBC will fall in line with our script — ‘dueling’ serial killers should be a great ratings boon for you... You’re welcome! But I can take no credit for the concept, that was strictly Jana...”

“She’s blushing,” Carmen said. “Oh my God, she’s blushing ...”

“Jana felt that one killer might get lost in the shuffle... TV is a hungry medium... but two killers? And two competing for attention? Well, that’s sweeps week stuff if we ever heard of it!”

“Jesus,” Harrow muttered.

“Now,” Vince said, “I’d like to throw it over to Jana, who has a few final words for you.”

“Thank you, Vince...”

“She sounds so sweet,” Carmen said.

The grotesque collection of mason jars discovered by Choi and Chase in the pantry, containing Jana’s trophies, challenged that notion.