Weiss and Sweeting knelt and adjusted the wind muffler mic under Soles.
‘OK.’ Weiss put on his headphones.
Carrot Moustache, or Officer Drake, hung back looking bemused.
‘Ignore the camera and talk directly to me. Just introduce yourself for level.’
‘Officer Gene Soles, Broomfield PD.’
Weiss held his thumb up.
‘OK, what can you tell me about Meredith?’ Hazel felt Drake’s warm breath on the back of her neck as he leaned in to watch.
‘She was a loner,’ Soles replied grim-faced.
That was no surprise to Hazel.
‘She had a lot of issues but she was a good kid… from what I know. Her older brothers had already set low standards for her long before she dropped out of high school. Every town has a family like the Hickmans. Petty theft for the boys to begin with, then dealing crank. Both of them are serving time now. The parents are always having domestics in the street. One day I had to haul Wade Hickman in for slamming his wife’s head against a manhole cover outside Stooky’s bar.’
Hazel hadn’t expected the officer to be quite so forthcoming. ‘So you’re more than familiar with Mr and Mrs Hickman?’
‘Yeah. My fellow officers get called out to their old turkey farm to crowbar them apart from time to time.’
‘We’re due to interview them here tomorrow.’
‘Well… ’, he pinched something invisible from the end of his tongue, ‘careful as you go.’
‘What was your experience of Meredith?’
Drake chimed in. ‘We picked her up after a security camera recorded her stealing grass.’
Hazel turned to him and frowned.
Drake continued. ‘Actual grass. Rolled up a newly laid lawn. Caught her with it in her car. She gave us a big sob story, said she was selling it to pay the bills because her brothers weren’t bringing any money into the house.’
Hazel returned her attention to Soles. ‘Anything else?’
Soles looked daggers at Drake. ‘No. That’s the one time she had any trouble.’
‘And that was your only involvement with her?’
Soles wiped at his tongue before he answered. ‘I saw her in the street on a couple of occasions but that was the only time I really spoke to Meredith. Can’t recall any other episodes.’
‘Who do you think killed her?’
‘That investigation is still ongoing,’ he said, like it had been programmed into him.
Shit. Hazel knew she wasn’t going to get any further. ‘I know, but who do you think killed her?’
‘She grew up surrounded by bad people. Couldn’t be protected from that.’
She wondered if Soles’s remorseful tone was just for the benefit of the camera and remembered Meredith’s elated expression when she handed her the rainbow friendship bracelet. ‘And would her death be lower priority if she hadn’t been tied in with BeMyKiller?’
Soles thought carefully about his answer. ‘That investigation is still ongoing.’
30
‘What’s happening out there?’
Griff Needham was looking through the open entrance doors and turned to the stooped man who had joined him and asked the question. He immediately recognised his face. ‘Henrik Fossen… ’
‘You say that like it’s a good thing.’
‘Griff.’ He extended his hand.
Henrik regarded his fingers as if they held something dead.
‘Griff Needham,’ he added but dropped his palm.
‘I know who you are. I’ve been told to stay upstairs out of your way till they call me. Like they’re my parents. Have you seen a woman on a mobility scooter?’
Griff shook his head.
‘Her car’s still parked up so I know she’s here somewhere.’ Henrik darted his eyes around.
‘Cool tee shirt.’
Henrik glanced briefly down at his yellow Sons of Anarchy print as if he needed reminding what it was. ‘So, what is happening out there?’
‘The cops arrived and now they’re making them part of the documentary.’
‘Everyone loves to be on camera.’
‘Except the guy who murdered my stepsister.’
Henrik tightened his lips but didn’t give Griff the reaction he expected. ‘You’re up next then?’
‘They’re meant to be doing me now but then these guys showed up.’
‘Hazel paying for you to stay in town?’
Griff nodded. ‘For a couple of days.’
‘I’ve been on your Facebook page, Griff. Quite a lifestyle you’ve got going for yourself. Ever have any moments of clarity?’
Griff was euphoric. Henrik had been on his Facebook page. But he didn’t let it show. ‘Some say delusional, I say aspirational.’
Henrik snorted. ‘So you inspire the people you deceive?’
‘You inspired a lot of people.’
‘And what about your sister?’
‘Stepsister.’
‘Think I inspired someone to kill her?’
‘If you turned her into psychobait, I’m cool with that.’
‘You do know you shouldn’t be, right?’
‘Everyone makes their own choices. You said that. Denise willingly put her name in the timeline.’
‘Yeah… but… that’s not to excuse the person who killed her. Didn’t pan out so bad for you though. You were a nobody before she died.’
‘Doesn’t the same apply to you?’
‘Difference is, I don’t want any of this.’ Henrik gestured towards the crew.
‘Really? Suicide attempt not timed to swing the spotlight back to you then?’
‘Jesus, if I knew people were going to think that was a career move… ’
‘You would’ve made a better job? But here you are still alive with the ink drying on a six-figure book deal.’
Henrik’s expression froze.
‘It’s all online. And you’ve got at least one Amazon pre-order. I’m desperate to read how you’re going to paint yourself better than me. And see how Denise fares.’
‘You do remember her then?’
‘It’s true. She’s done more for me dead than alive. That’ll tell you how close we were.’
‘Heart-warming,’ Henrik said disdainfully.
‘Look, I don’t know how this went south so fast. I’m probably the only bereaved family member who’s going to give you an easy ride.’
‘And I should be grateful for that, right?’
Griff made a weighing action with his hands.
‘Based on this conversation, I’d probably be more comfortable having a one-to-one with the maniac who shot your stepsister.’
‘And to think I was so looking forward to meeting you.’
‘Speak to Hazel. She might want us to do it again on camera and, perhaps, that time around, I’ll let you suck my cock.’ Henrik turned on his heel and walked back towards the stairwell.
Grinning, Griff watched him disappear through the door. He took out his e-cigarette, shifted his attention back outside and observed the officers get in their patrol car and drive off.
31
‘Running.’ Lucas had set the camera on the legs in the production office.
‘Come and join us then.’ Hazel wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
Lucas reluctantly came to stand with Hazel, Sweeting, Rena and Keeler in front of the closed door so they were all in shot.
‘You too, Weiss.’
He nodded and ditched his headphones on the sound rig before crouching in front of the group and readjusting the mic that Sweeting had positioned on the stand below them.
‘Are we sure Fossen’s out of earshot?’ Sweeting whispered.
‘He wanted some exercise so he’s checking out the pond.’ Rena was squinting at the monitor and angling her body so she didn’t appear too wide.
‘Where is this pond?’ Sweeting rearranged his strands of hair.
‘Down a dirt track through the trees.’ Rena looked sideways at Ke
eler. ‘I’ve been stretching my legs around there the last couple of nights.’
Keeler cast his eyes to the floor and tried to keep a straight face.
Hazel checked her watch. ‘It’s eight sixteen p.m.,’ she addressed the lens. ‘Our participants have gone back to the motel so we’re taking this opportunity to tell you about the figure in the Meredith Hickman clip. His name is Shaun Stirling, and he’s an actor. Meredith was played by Mia Todd. On day one we undressed the shrine downstairs so I hope Meredith’s family and friends will forgive us. This is Rod Keeler.’
Keeler nodded awkwardly at the camera.
‘As far as anyone is concerned he’s our general dogsbody, but Rod actually works in Hollywood for Radical FX. He sculpted a prosthetic mask of Meredith Hickman, which was worn by Mia. Both actors were released after we completed the sequence, and we redressed the shrine exactly as it was.’
A muffled bump came from the corridor. They all turned to the door.
Weiss opened it and peered out. ‘Nobody.’ He waited a few seconds, closed it again then re-joined the others.
Hazel continued. ‘In the actual Fun Central security footage of the murder, Meredith’s real killer was unrecognisable. So we spliced our end shot onto the original camera clip. The quality was too low-grade to apply CGI. Now we’re showing our participants the edited version. The reason we’ve done this is to gauge their reactions to the face of our actor. Tomorrow we’ll be showing it to Meredith’s parents.’
Lucas took his Zippo lighter out of his top pocket. ‘We still haven’t agreed to that.’
Rena sighed. ‘Shall we cut?’
‘No.’ Hazel didn’t shift her attention from the lens. ‘We need to discuss this on camera. I completely understand why all the crew except myself and my associate producer have reservations about what we’re doing but I need to introduce a fail-safe.’
‘A fail-safe?’ Lucas said scornfully. ‘I signed up to work on a documentary. So did everybody else.’
Hazel hadn’t realised Lucas felt so strongly. Was that why he’d been so remote? ‘But Eve Huber is already convinced our actor was the same man she saw murder her brother.’
Lucas left the group and turned off the camera. ‘Yes, because now she’s had time to think about it she’s realised if she helps you shoot the movie you want to make, there’s going to be renewed interest in her part of the story and she can keep the dollars flowing.’
‘We should be recording this.’ But Hazel could see he was uncomfortable talking about Eve on camera. ‘What if her incentive isn’t for financial gain?’
‘Of course it is. All those stories about a hitman for Henrik were bullshit. She was just trying to wring more cash out of her brother’s murder by selling her interviews to the highest bidder.’
‘We have nothing to substantiate that. Maybe she said she recognised him to distract us from something else. It’s our responsibility to exhaust every possibility.’
‘By concocting evidence?’ It was Weiss who spoke up now. He took off his specs to clean them. ‘And by introducing a decoy there’s no way we can possibly claim to be objective.’
‘Our intention is to prove one person committed these crimes, and using our actor’s face will demonstrate if any of the victims’ friends and relatives is hiding anything. If the Hubers have motives beyond lining their pockets then I need to know exactly what they are. I want to make disproving the lone tourist theory as difficult as possible.’
Weiss put his specs back on. ‘But we’re soliciting responses that’ll taint the testament of everybody who views it.’
Sweeting raised his hand. ‘I have serious issues with showing the footage to Meredith’s parents.’
‘Then you should have said something earlier,’ Rena huffed.
But Hazel shared his misgivings. ‘They may not agree but, if they do, I really only want them to view the last frame. I just need to get their reaction to our actor.’
Lucas folded his arms. ‘Haven’t they been through enough already?’
‘After interviewing those police officers today, we’ve learned more about Meredith’s parents. There’s violence in the family. They may even know who killed their daughter. If they watch the clip and see someone they’re not expecting, their faces will tell us for sure.’
32
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the small, rotting fishing jetty, Henrik looked over the pond and past the dumpsite to Fun Central’s rear storage building. In the stark moonlight he could see large patches of plaster had fallen away from the façade exposing the black cinder blocks beneath. But he guessed it had been that way long before the place had been abandoned.
It was always the same story when you peered behind the gaudy frontage. He’d briefly worked for a fried chicken chain to piss off his father and knew the division was paper-thin. If you showed the customers a glimpse of what was drawing the flies in the backyard, they’d run screaming. Everyone knew what was there though; they just didn’t like to think about it.
Being willingly oblivious to what couldn’t be seen was a human talent. When he’d set up @BeMyKiller he hadn’t perceived the millions of followers he’d attracted as actual people. They’d just been a quantity represented by a counter number on his screen. It seemed inconceivable that moving his fingertips over a keyboard could impact so many lives.
He recalled his dialogue with Griff Needham. The guy was so in denial about the real world he was surprised he could function out in the open but, no matter how much he repulsed him, Henrik wondered if they really were that different.
A fist slammed into the top of his spine. Momentarily stunned, he rocked forward and back on his interlaced legs. Then the arm of the figure behind him locked tight around his larynx and he was being dragged backwards towards the brush.
The pressure on his windpipe increased and his buttocks scraped across sharp stones. Henrik put both his hands on the arm holding him and dug his nails into the taut flesh, but the muscle clenched harder and completely cut off his oxygen. He couldn’t make a sound.
Henrik managed to unfold his legs and kicked them in different directions to try and slow the progress of whoever held him. A rope was tightened across his Adam’s apple, harshly jerking his head up. He felt the bark of a tree against his scalp.
He put his fingers around the rope but both ends were already being tensed from the other side of the trunk. Henrik dug into his throat to try and get a grip underneath it. He felt the vessels of his eyeballs quickly reach bursting point and wondered if he would asphyxiate before the rope started to cut through his flesh.
It slightly slackened, however, just enough for him to breathe. Somebody seized both his wrists and twisted his arms behind his back. He heard a pair of cuffs snap in place.
His vision was bleached white. Was he passing out? But the change in the sound of his choking told him something had been put over his head.
At first he thought it was a white polythene bag but as he looked upwards he could see the night sky above him through a circular aperture. Henrik could hear someone moving around him. ‘Please.’ The word barely emerged.
Henrik moved his face from side to side to try and shake what had been slipped over it and realised what he was wearing. It was a conical dog collar, the type used to prevent wound licking after an operation.
He went into overdrive, thrashing and shaking his head violently to try and displace the collar; the rope sawing into his neck with each movement.
The kick to his balls halted him but the solid chunk of pain in his abdomen barely registered as his assailant stretched the rope again.
A few moments later, Henrik saw the Shell logo on the canister as it was tipped against the rim of the collar. The cold liquid splashed against his face, soaking into his goatee until the level was just above his top lip. It was in his mouth; the fuel burning his taste buds.
He tried to spit the mouthful out of the collar but the flow didn’t stop. Henrik spat more upwards as the canister kept g
lugging. His eyes stung and were then immersed.
Henrik didn’t hear the scrape of the lighter but, as the flame ignited him, his limbs acted out the torture his voice couldn’t. His eyelashes and lids were seared away.
His face bubbled and spat, the heat blinding him, and his arms and legs dancing against the agony. The fire cooked his tongue and the inside of his mouth, and Henrik could hear his skin hiss before it was muffled as both ears sealed closed.
The flesh was stripped quickly from his skull but, after his struggling ceased, Henrik’s brain cooked long before the collar had collapsed and melted over his smoking shoulders.
33
‘April nineteenth? That’s physically impossible.’ Hazel seated herself on one of the red plastic tables in the vacant District Burger restaurant and tried to keep her voice down so the rest of the crew couldn’t hear. ‘I’ve brought the schedule forward by three weeks as it is.’
‘I’m sorry, Hazel; Wesley says there’s no wriggle room on this one. It’s that slot or none at all.’
The status of her movie was very unstable. The majors had passed and Criteria Distribution still weren’t all in. They didn’t have the best reputation but they had the engine and platform the project needed. If they said no, Hazel knew her remaining options were slim to non-existent.
She was meant to be speaking to Wesley Park directly so it was a bad sign they’d put his minion, Rick Bloom, onto her. ‘Even if I can wrap a few days early, that doesn’t give me nearly enough time in the edit. Can’t we be looking at this for summer?’
‘Sorry, you know there’s no crawl space there.’
‘Perhaps I should be examining other options.’
But Rick knew she didn’t have any. ‘Look, we’re all very excited about this project, Hazel, but Wesley has others that have to take precedence.’
Be My Killer: A completely UNPUTDOWNABLE crime thriller with nail-biting mystery and suspense Page 8