Paying the Price

by Maria Quick

  ‘Meaning I’m a liar? Right, I should’ve expected this. Look, I don’t care, Chief. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows?’ I shrugged, catching George’s eye as he frantically shook his head at me.

  ‘We want him to arrest him, remember?’

  ‘Oh, right. I forgot.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Rathers asked sharply.

  ‘I sneezed. Look, I didn’t lie. Izzy told me herself that he did it. From what I hear, he’s a big crybaby. I say, go confront him. He’ll most likely confess.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice, Boss,’ he said dryly. ‘Unfortunately, my job does not give me the power to randomly accuse people of murder in the hopes that they’ll confess. People are sadly, stupidly more intelligent than that.’

  ‘Alright, what if I confronted him? I could record him.’

  George stuck his head into mine and sighed.

  ‘Nope, nothing in there at all. Should’ve guessed.’

  ‘I would never give you permission to do that,’ Rathers groaned.

  ‘Ah, you didn’t specifically say not to, though. This is off the record, right?’

  ‘Brianna, don’t intimidate my suspects. That specific enough?’

  I grinned at George.

  ‘Ha! So, he is a suspect.’

  George muttered something about me being an idiot, as Rathers probably did the same.

  ‘Any other news, partner?’ I asked, thoroughly enjoying myself.

  ‘You are not my partner.’

  ‘Sorry, do you call all the local mediums to talk about official cases?’

  ‘This is a one-off, Mendes. You got that?’ he growled.

  ‘Loud and clear. So, did you want me to talk to David or not?’

  ‘Not!’

  ‘Alright, fine! But you’ll regret it, Chief. Killer on the loose. Is there anything else?’

  ‘No, you’re free to go. I’ll call you if I need anything. Though, I doubt I’ll need anything from you. Do you know Hannah Smith?’

  ‘Han- Hannah Smith? Hannah Smith,’ I stammered, cursing myself. ‘Nope, not ringing any bells. Oh, wait. She’s in my gym class- no, hang on. That was Laney Smits. Who’s Hannah Smith? Another victim?’

  ‘Nice,’ complimented George.

  ‘Apparently she’s been snooping around, asking questions people don’t want to answer. A troublemaker. She’d better be careful, because she’s treading on dangerous ground. If I was her, I wouldn’t go back to where she was snooping,’ he warned.

  ‘Of course. If I see her, I’ll let her know. Bye Chief!’

  I hung up before he could ask me about anything else. That was intense. But that last thing about Hannah Smith? I was curious. I’d almost forgotten about that creep at the library. I must’ve gotten to him somehow. Interesting. It made me wonder if Lola had ever emailed back.

  ‘You look determined about something. Should I be worried?’

  ‘Normally, I’d say yes, but... bingo,’ I said, beckoning him to look at the screen.

  She had replied, and boy did she have a cross to bear. After establishing that Terry was a weirdo, her thoughts were that Jessica was afraid of him. Nothing she could prove, but Jessica used to come over to Lola’s office as much as humanly possible. She got the impression that she didn’t want to be at the library, even though she claimed to love the place. Books had been her passion; especially old, historical tomes. She hadn’t wanted to leave the place. So, why did she spend most of her time at Lola’s office?

  As a woman, Lola knew why. And so did I.

  This was all the proof I needed.

  ‘You know none of that counts as evidence, right?’ George groaned as I started gathering my things.

  ‘When has that ever mattered to me before?’

  ‘Look, you can’t just go and accuse Terry of things. It doesn’t work like that. And what if it’s a trap? Rathers knows how you work. He could be waiting for you.’

  ‘And what if he is?’ I countered, grabbing my supplies. ‘I’m not sure impersonating a school reporter is a crime. I didn’t break and enter, and I didn’t do anything illegal. I know my rights. Besides, he wants me to go back. That was the message.’

  ‘He said you were treading on dangerous ground and not to go back. It was pretty explicit.’

  ‘You know what else was explicit? I caused trouble. Which means Terry was the guy after all. It means that I should go back to finish what I started. It means I’m getting close.’

  23

  ‘That’s great and all, but you still haven’t explained why we’re doing this,’ George said, causing me to tear my eyes out.

  I’d re-dressed as Hannah Smith. Making my way to the dumpster of a library that Terry worked at, I’d kept an eye on traffic but hadn’t seen a tail. Then again, I’d never spotted a tail in my life so there could’ve been about nine cops following me. Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

  George had been perplexed that I was still going after Terry. I’d spent the whole drive over saying that Terry was weird, and he’d mentioned Hannah’s name so I kinda had to save myself there. What if he starts searching for Hannah Smith? Since Rathers wasn’t an imbecile, I was sure he’d be keeping an eye and ear out for any mentions of that name. Maybe he’d be going over past cases to find out if anybody had been spoken to by Hannah Smith. Then, I’d be identified and probably arrested. Rathers was just waiting for me to make a single, solitary mistake. I was barely an inch away from jail. I was doing this for myself, nothing more.

  Apparently, they weren’t explanations.

  ‘What are you expecting me to say here?’ I cried, exasperated.

  ‘I want you to admit that you’re not doing this for you. You’re doing it for Jessica. You care,’ he smiled at me.

  ‘Jessica’s dead. Dead dead. I never met her, so why would I care?’

  ‘You don’t have to know somebody to care about them,’ he said. Um, yeah you do. ‘You can care about the injustice of her death. You can care about a lot of things.’

  Man, where does he find the time? I barely care about myself, and even that’s a stretch sometimes. Clearly, we held differing opinions over what the word “care” meant. I was sure he “cared” about starving kids, and orphans and the homeless and all that other stuff. I was also sure he “cared” so much that he did nothing about it, other than ranting and maybe feeling a little sad. On that note, did I “care” about any of that?

  No.

  Call me cold-hearted if you will, I’m only being honest. If you think I’m wrong, look a little harder at yourself. If I gave money and tried to stop all those kids from starving and becoming homeless, I’d end up starving and homeless myself. If you really want me to, I can tut and gasp at the news stories every single day. But what does that do? Nothing. Do I dislike the fact that people are starving? Obviously, I’m not a monster. Do I care enough to do something about it?

  No.

  Do I think about it at every waking moment? Nope. Does it cause me to change my behavior in any way? Again, no. Therefore, I do not care.

  Same with Jessica. I was not thinking about her. I was thinking that Terry creeped me out and he was going to cause issues for me. Would you describe that as “caring?” Because I certainly wouldn’t.

  George kept his dopey smile up as I ranted all that garbage at him.

  ‘Why does it bother you so much to admit that you care?’ he only said.

  I was seriously going to murder him. I’d find a way, I swear.

  ‘I can’t tell if you’ve been brain damaged or not. George, for the last time, I do not care. I stopped caring about people a long time ago, around the time I realized that they didn’t care about me. Why should I waste my time and energy on people who wouldn’t do the same for me?’

  ‘So, why are you here right now? Don’t give me that crap about Terry being a weirdo or talking about Hannah Smith. Hannah Smith didn’t actually do anything she can be arrested for, and you know that. We meet a lot of weirdos every day. Why are you here, Ann?’ he asked again.r />
  I wanted to fold, alright? I wanted to tell him that he was right, and that I somehow did care. Not about Jessica, not about justice. Not even Hannah Smith, really. I couldn’t explain it. I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t care in some way. And yet, George was right. It was difficult for me to admit that I cared about something for a change. So difficult, in fact, that I couldn’t do it.

  I don’t know why.

  I wish I did.

  But the fact remains. I scoffed at George as I always did, and kept up my careless bravado. Again, I don’t know why. Maybe after so long, it was all I knew. I was used to it by now. I couldn’t stop it.

  Or, I simply didn’t care enough to stop it.

  ‘I don’t give a crap what you think, okay?’ I growled. ‘I don’t care, George. About any of it. You got that? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just gonna go and ruin this guy’s life so I can go back to ruining my own.’

  I didn’t give him the chance to argue or cluck at me in disappointment. I stormed out of the car, totally pissed off. Maybe at him, possibly at myself- no, it was George. It was always George. If I wanted to look deep inside myself, then, maybe I’d see that the problem was me all along.

  But who the hell wanted to do that?

  I was so angry, I’d forgotten that I didn’t actually have a plan. I marched right into the musky cavern masquerading as a library and stood there, huffing and puffing. I forgot that I was supposed to be an inquisitive reporter and not a raging bull in a china shop.

  Terry came crawling out of the woodwork, armed with a pile of tomes written before papyrus and hieroglyphs were invented. He plopped them down on the counter, where they promptly disintegrated into ash. I had a sudden random thought that maybe all these old books were actually made of human skin, and he’d been carrying Jessica around this entire time.

  A thought which was entirely unhelpful, and completely illogical. The cops had taken her body, duh. Surprisingly, relief did not suddenly overwhelm me.

  ‘May I help you?’ he asked, peering at me through the darkness.

  ‘Hannah Smith, school reporter,’ I re-introduced myself, giving the lamest superhero name in history.

  ‘Ah, you were here the other day. Asking questions about Jessica. I’m glad you came back. Which school did you say you were from?’

  ‘Dunbar,’ I replied, having seen the school on the drive over.

  ‘Really? I called them, they hadn’t heard of you.’

  Rookie mistake, I should’ve asked him first. That’s gonna hurt.

  ‘Well, they would say that. It’s illegal to give out students’ names,’ I sighed pompously.

  ‘They told me their student reporter was named Kaleel Walters,’ he went on, edging ever closer to me. I quickly gave him the once-over, but saw no weapons of any kind.

  Of course, he had strangled Jessica, so his hands were his weapons. Hands trained over many years to carry heavy books, which would have no trouble with my muscle-less chicken neck.

  Thanks, brain.

  ‘Alright, I’m not a school reporter,’ I replied. I was fighting a losing battle, and he’d clearly done his crazy, intensive research.

  ‘I never thought you were,’ he chuckled darkly. Kinda wanted to ask why he’d told me things then, but I thought I’d better not prod him any more than I have to.

  ‘Are you Lola’s kid?’ he went on.

  ‘Who’s Lola?’

  ‘His boss that he tried to blame,’ George answered, coming to my rescue. Sort of.

  Damn, that would’ve been a good play. Can’t exactly pretend to be her daughter now.

  ‘Not Lola’s kid,’ he deduced. Man, he is fast. ‘And you’re not a school reporter. You don’t work for the cops because you’re a kid yourself. Who the hell are you?’

  His hands began to itch, and it wouldn’t be long before they’d be wrapped around my throat. I thought quickly, pouncing on the train of thought he had.

  ‘I’m Jessica’s daughter,’ I said.

  ‘Oh my God,’ George moaned, refusing to look at the incoming train wreck.

  ‘What? Jessica didn’t have a kid,’ Terry frowned, growing more irate.

  ‘She didn’t tell you about me? She told me about you,’ I barked, mirroring his rage. Trust me, wasn’t hard.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  But he did a little, because he was wavering. Uncertain. He was looking at my face, trying to picture the woman he’d known five years ago. I could’ve been anyone’s daughter, let’s face it.

  ‘No? She didn’t tell you a lot of things, Terry, but she told me all about you. How you kept following her around all the time, and talking to her,’ I goaded, thinking of the vaguest things I could’ve. It seemed to be working. A vein popped out on his forehead. If I was lucky, he’d explode and solve both our problems. ‘She hated you, Terry.’

  ‘That’s not true! She-’ he halted, biting his lip.

  ‘She what?’ I sneered. ‘Loved you? Wanted you? She didn’t want anything to do with you. She was afraid of you, Terry. And with good reason.’

  ‘No,’ he rasped, covering his ears and vehemently shaking his head.

  ‘You killed her, Terry. You left your wife on the day before Christmas Eve to see her, and she rejected you. You strangled her and left her here to die,’ I yelled, just as the door opened behind me and I heard footsteps. Luckily Terry was too caught up in the situation to notice and he exploded.

  Thankfully verbally, not physically.

  ‘I didn’t mean to! I was in love with her and she threw it back in my face. She looked so disgusted with me. I promised to leave Mandy for her, but she didn’t want to know. She was backing away from me and I-’

  His head shot up and he looked me in the eyes, imploring me to understand my fake mom’s murder.

  ‘I just wanted her to see how much I loved her.’

  And this is why you should just buy women flowers or chocolates. Sure, it’s boring, but it comes with less jail time.

  ‘You killed Jessica, Terry.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I killed her,’ he choked, falling to his knees and bawling like a giant baby.

  ‘I cannot believe that worked,’ George sighed in disbelief.

  ‘I told you not to come here, Mendes,’ said a voice from behind. I’d thought it was Rathers. Guess I did have a tail after all.

  ‘I’m sorry, were you about to get a confession for an unsolved murder yourself?’ I retorted.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ he spat.

  I’d had enough of this place. The library wasn’t built for this many people. I turned to leave, rudely brushing past Rathers as I did.

  ‘No, the point is that you’ve got a confession thanks to me, and nobody ever needs to know I was here. Congratulations.’

  ‘Mendes,’ he warned, but I was already out the door. I’d had enough.

  24

  George decided that I was being an ass, and he was going to give me some alone time. Before I could say no, he’d already waltzed away through multiple walls and I didn’t have a chance in hell of finding him. Gotta say, it was definitely unnerving not having him at my side. I felt totally wrong. In a moment of madness, I asked Zainab if she wanted to meet up. Weirdly, she’d agreed. She’d chosen a snooty, fancy café that charged an extra ten bucks on every coffee. I don’t even know what I ordered and it tasted like crap, but it came in an Instagrammable mug, so whatevs. I waited for her to finish taking pictures before we caught up.

  ‘So, I had a productive day,’ she greeted, sipping and grimacing at her sugary cream.

  ‘Me too, surprisingly. I solved a cold case murder.’

  She choked on her coffee.

  ‘Oh, wow. Okay, I was being sarcastic. I called in sick and watched Netflix while I spoke to everyone I knew at the party. Pretty sure they all think I’m gay now. What murder?’

  ‘A woman who was strangled a while back. I thought that David might’ve killed her.’

  ‘But he didn’t even kill Leesha,�
� she frowned.

  ‘Well, I know that now. Didn’t know it when I first found out about her.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So, did you find Andy?’ I asked, changing the subject so I didn’t look weird.

  ‘No, haven’t heard a peep. People are asking around for me, but I’m not sure anybody even knows her. There were a lot of friends of friends of acquaintances there that night. I’m positive people just randomly turned up off the street, too. I don’t even know what Andy’s short for,’ she stressed. ‘I didn’t actually meet her. For all I know, she was in the closet too and gave a fake name. Does Leesha know?’

  ‘I don’t know, she didn’t mention it.’

  ‘Can you ask her?’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied. She looked at me. ‘Now?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ she said, as though it was obvious.

  ‘She’s not here,’ I told her. Without any company from the spirit world, I felt fake, in a way. Not helped by the fact that Zainab was currently giving me a cynical look.

  Also not helping, her milk moustache.

  ‘Do you have to summon her or something?’ she asked doubtfully.

  ‘I can shout her name really loudly, but if she doesn’t hear me then I’m screwed.’

  ‘Do you need a quiet area or...’

  ‘I’m gonna stop you there, okay? I don’t do any of that. They just turn up whenever they want. No séances, no Ouija board. Nothing.’

  She nodded, so maybe she’d gotten it and we could move on.

  ‘So, how do you get her to turn up?’

  Or not. Alright, let’s do a quick exercise. Imagine a medium. Or a psychic, whatever you want to call them. What do you see? Crystal balls, bad makeup, a lot of overpowering incense. Maybe they have a lot of cheap jewelry on and a terrible fashion sense. They speak in disconnected words and sentences. They are fakes.

  And here’s a real one who doesn’t do any of that and suddenly I’m the fake. It’s like people need all that faux-arcane crap to make them feel better. You’d think the fact that I don’t do that would make me more credible, wouldn’t you? Or maybe you’re disappointed that I don’t, I don’t know.