Hidden River (Five Star Paperback)

by Adrian McKinty

  An amateur, who not only killed the wrong person but had run away so quickly he couldn’t even be sure that that person was dead. Maybe someone who had only one hour’s sleep in the last forty-eight. Maybe someone who was exhausted, had just driven back from Aspen and was told by his wife that I had to be gotten rid of.

  So I had fucked it up with Amber.

  I had said something. Given myself away.

  But what, what had I said? Not the time. Think about it later.

  “John,” I moaned, and found that I was weeping.

  I went back into that terrible room.

  His head was resting on the window ledge. He looked so uncomfortable I lifted him and put him on the bed. I was utterly drenched with blood now. His eyes, horrifically, had opened again.

  I closed them a second time. Sat there. Stunned. Frozen. Minutes went by, perhaps hours.

  “Poor Areea,” I said.

  They had stabbed John at the door and he had crawled down the hall and Areea had screamed and we had heard her. She had held him and as he gasped for air, she had opened the window and then she’d heard me coming in.

  She’d been frightened, thought it was the killer coming back. Hid.

  It had all happened in a couple of minutes. Even if she hadn’t been panicked, frozen by fear, and managed to call 911 immediately they couldn’t have helped him. A puncture wound in the heart.

  Where was she now? Downstairs, cowering in her apartment, showering, composing a story that she had been there all night.

  What to do? I was dripping blood, making everything worse.

  Pat.

  I went to the bedroom, stared at John, sat down again. I kicked off my bloody shoes, grabbed a pair of sneakers and put them on. I carefully made my way across the bedroom and skirted the blood trail. I walked to Pat’s and knocked on his door.

  He opened it. He took a look at me, staggered back into the apartment, dropped the remote control.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said. “What the fuck happened?”

  “They murdered John,” I said.

  “Oh my God.”

  “They killed him,” I said.

  “Fuck. Who? Who murdered him? Are you ok?”

  “I’m ok.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Pat said.

  “Areea was in there, she’s downstairs, hiding, I don’t think she saw anything,” I said automatically.

  “Alex, who killed him?” Pat asked.

  “Charles,” I said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The guy I’m after,” I said.

  “You better tell me everything,” Pat said, “but first we’ll go down and see if he’s really dead. You civilians don’t know shit.”

  Pat followed me along the corridor. John was really dead.

  “You should never have moved him,” Pat said. “The cops will book you for sure.”

  “I didn’t do it, Pat,” I said.

  “I know. Charles did. Whoever the fuck that is. Ok, ok, what are we going to do? Ok. First things first. Are we calling the cops? We’re not calling the cops, is that right?”

  “I don’t know, Pat,” I said.

  “They’ll book you, Sonny Jim, better tell me who Charles is, what you got on him.”

  I took a breath and told Pat everything. Everything. From the very beginning. Me, the peelers, the ketch, Commander Douglas, Victoria Patawasti, Klimmer, the lacrosse team, Maggie Prestwick, Charles and Amber Mulholland. I was good at giving a précis, it only took five minutes.

  “You’ve no proof of any kind?” Pat asked.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s my fault, Pat,” I said.

  “It’s not your fault. It’s ok,” Pat said, trying to digest all the information I had thrown at him, trying to think. His face was alert now. He held himself upright.

  “Jesus, Pat, it’s a nightmare,” I said.

  “So you’re an ex-cop, huh. I knew you were something. And John’s dead and Areea’s terrified, right, ok. Ok, what do we do?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Ok, ok, this is what we do. You get up and go to my apartment, go straight to the shower, don’t touch anything, get in, take a shower, take your clothes off in the shower, leave them there. Shower and get the blood out and when you’re really clean, do it all again. Use a towel to dry off and leave it in the bath with the bloody clothes. When you’re done, pour yourself two fingers of gin. Ok? You did good not getting any blood down the corridor.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going downstairs to talk to Areea, she’s bound to be messed up. Talk to her, talk to her family. Tell them it was a burglar but if we want to keep the cops out of it, we gotta take care of this ourselves. They don’t want the cops as much as we don’t want the cops. They’ll get questioned, passed on to INS, deported. We gotta take care of this in-house. Tonight.”

  “What do you mean, Pat?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, we’ll take care of this, no one else involved,” Pat reassured me, suddenly becoming stronger before my eyes, taking on something of the old DFD lead paramedic, someone with responsibility for other things than himself. But even so, I wasn’t convinced.

  “I just assumed we’d call the cops,” I said.

  “Alex, listen to me, they will arrest you, they’ll say you were jealous of John and Areea, you’re covered in his blood, you have motive, opportunity, I swear to you, there’s a very good chance you’ll go to prison.”

  “If I tell them about the Mulhollands….”

  “They won’t believe you…. Christ, Alex, you should know that, the cops want simplicity, there’s a simple explanation for everything. This isn’t a big fucking conspiracy, this is a simple case of homicide. You can get those knives anywhere.”

  “I have an alibi, a witness.”

  “Who, me? Come on. You were his roommate, he was fucking the girl you loved, you killed him with your own knife. At the very least, you’re going to jail. I suppose you don’t have fifty grand for bail?”

  “No.”

  “Alex, listen to me. You’re fucked.”

  I nodded, too tired to debate it, too tired to see if it was the right thing to do or not. I went to Pat’s, stripped, soaped myself, showered. Sobbed up against the wall. Found one of Pat’s robes, put it on, went down the hall. Walked back into the apartment. No one there. The smell of blood, vile, pervasive.

  I trudged downstairs. Knocked on the Ethiopians’ door.

  It was open. I went in. Pandemonium. The whole family up. Pat talking to Mr. Uleyawa, the sons beside him, aghast, afraid, Simon translating what Pat was saying. Areea, wrapped in a blanket, curled on the sofa in the fetal position. Her hair soaked. She had showered or bathed. She’d been terrified but she wasn’t stupid, she’d gotten that blood off her.

  A bucket sat beside her, she had been throwing up. Her mother and grandmother stroking her hair as she shivered and wept.

  She gasped when she saw me.

  “Areea,” I said.

  “Get out of here, Alexander,” Pat said, “I’m taking care of things.”

  I walked over to Areea. She backed into the cushions, afraid of me for a moment. The grandmother tried to stop me from touching her. I knelt by the sofa. I could smell blood on her still. Or maybe that was my imagination.

  I touched her hair.

  “It must have been terrible,” I said.

  She sobbed. I let her cry for a minute. The conversation in the room ceased.

  “Areea, I’m sorry about this, I’m very sorry.”

  “Alex, don’t,” Pat said, cautioning me about saying anything.

  Areea put her arms out and I leaned in and hugged her. No, not blood. She smelled of shampoo and skin, she had been scrubbed raw. We held each other for a minute. Her wet hair dripped down my back. Pat began speaking to Simon again in low tones, Simon translating it for his dad in singsong Ethiopian.

  “Areea, listen to me, listen to me, did you see
anything?” I said. “Did you see who did this?”

  Areea shook her head.

  “Tell me, tell me what happened.”

  Her mother gave her something to drink from an opaque glass. She swallowed it. She looked at me and tried to smile a little.

  “John and I were in your bed,” she said.

  “I know,” I said. “What happened?”

  “We were sleeping, we were falling asleep.”

  “And then?”

  “There was a knock at the door. John thought it was you, he said: ‘Silly bugger’s dropped his keys.’”

  I smiled at her.

  “And then what, Areea?” I asked gently.

  She grabbed my hand and held it tight. So tight that it hurt.

  “John got up, he left the bedroom, he closed the bedroom door. He walked down the hall, he did not come back. I did not hear anything, at first. I wondered what was keeping him. I thought he was talking to you. I waited for five minutes. The fan was on in the bedroom, so I could not hear him and then I did.”

  She burst into tears.

  Pat came over, touched me on the shoulder.

  “Alexander, you’re doing yourself no good here, I’m trying to get this organized, you’re dripping wet, you should go back upstairs,” he said, calm, sensible.

  “In a minute, Pat, in a minute,” I said.

  Pat gave me a significant look. He didn’t want me to say anything. He had made a story for Simon and he didn’t want me to mess it all up.

  “I’ll go back in a minute, Pat,” I said.

  Pat walked back over to Simon and began talking to him again, urgently, explaining something, telling them what happened and what they were going to have to do.

  “Areea, tell me,” I said.

  “John was at the bedroom door, he had crawled all the way from the hall, he was bleeding. He could not speak. He could not say anything. He was bleeding. The knife. Oh my good God. Oh my good God.”

  She cried again. I let her. She shook.

  “I am sorry, Alexander, I was so frightened. I was too frightened to leave the bedroom. I helped John inside. I held him. I was too frightened. I know I should have called the ambulance. John was dying. I was so frightened.”

  “It’s ok, Areea, they couldn’t have helped him, the doctors couldn’t have helped him. He had lost so much blood, there was nothing any of us could have done.”

  “No, no, no, it was wrong, I should have got Patrick and used his phone, I was so frightened, I am so sorry, I am so sorry,” Areea said.

  “No, it’s ok,” I said.

  Areea began digging her nails into my hand and then abruptly she let go and began digging her nails into her own face. She began screaming. Her mother tried to stop her, she was writhing on the sofa. Her mother and grandmother held her down. Pat practically lifted me to my feet.

  “Alexander, can’t you see you’re making things worse here? Go upstairs, Jesus, look at you, there’s still blood in your hair, I told you to have two showers. Go, now.”

  Areea was sobbing and I wanted to hold her and tell her it was ok. My fault, not hers. My fault. My stupidity that had got John killed. My carelessness. It was nothing to do with her. Pat frog-marched me to the front door of the apartment.

  “Listen to me, Alexander, I am a sick man, but if I have to drag you up five fucking flights I will, now get the fuck out of here,” he seethed at me, furious.

  I went upstairs, took Pat’s advice, had another shower. The hot water was gone. It was cold. I relished the pain of the freezing water. Pat was nowhere to be seen. I put on a pair of his jeans and a T-shirt. They were too big for Pat now and too big for me. I walked out into the hall to see what was happening.

  Pat, two of Areea’s brothers, and her dad, carrying John’s body, wrapped in sheets out of the apartment.

  “Alex, get out of here,” Pat said.

  “What are you doing, Pat?” I said, panicked, frightened, protective of poor John.

  “Alex, leave this to us, fuck off,” Pat said.

  “No, Pat, what are you doing? The police,” I said weakly.

  “Hold on, boys,” Pat said. He took me by the arm and led me back to his place.

  “Listen, Alex,” Pat whispered, “I told them John had been murdered by a burglar, ok? Crackhead, looking for dough, ok? I told them Areea would have to tell the police what she knew, that she would get arrested, that they all would get arrested, deported. That they have to help if they don’t want to go back to fucking Ethiopia.”

  “What the hell are you doing, Pat? What are you doing with John?”

  “We’re going to take John to the big trash Dumpster from that building renovation on Fourteenth. Throw him in, cover him up with garbage bags, timbers. They empty that thing every Friday, take it right out there to the landfill in Aurora. With any luck, he’ll never be found.”

  “Fucking hell, Pat, there must be some other way.”

  “No other way, Alex. We can’t get the cops. You’ll be questioned, arrested, I promise you, I know the system. Areea will be questioned, arrested, they’ll deport her and her family, you’ll get done for homicide, I’ll get fucking evicted. It’s the only way.”

  “I don’t know, Pat,” I said.

  “Did you drink that gin?”

  “No.”

  “Go do it now, go do it.”

  I found the Bombay Sapphire bottle, poured myself a half a glass of gin. Pat left. I poured myself another glass, resisted the temptation to let ketch take over and sort this one out by itself.

  When I stepped outside the apartment, the Ethiopians and Pat had John in the corridor and were maneuvering him down the stairs. He was wrapped like a mummy, in five or six sheets and blankets. No blood was soaking through, which wasn’t surprising considering how much he’d bled in the apartment.

  “John, oh God, I’m so sorry,” I found myself saying.

  “Alex, if you’re going to help, you got to pull yourself together,” Pat said.

  I walked down the hall. Of the Ethiopians only Simon spoke good English. The father said something to me and Simon translated.

  “A bad business,” he said, as if discussing a fall in the stock market or a war in a far-off country.

  “Yes.”

  “Just like with O. J. Simpson’s wife,” he said.

  I glared at him. Clenched a fist. Pat put his hand on my shoulder.

  The two big Ethiopian boys looked at me with expressionless faces. Maybe they thought I had killed him, or Areea had killed him in an argument. Anything…

  “Alex, if you want to help, take the front, my place, and I’ll direct traffic,” Pat said.

  I took Pat’s place at the front of the body. John was well wrapped in blankets, but I could feel his legs.

  We walked him down the five flights. There were four of us. Surprisingly easy. Too easy, it should have hurt more. We paused in the lobby.

  “I’ll check the street,” Pat said. He went out onto Colfax.

  “We have to hug the shadows and get quickly around the back of the building. We’ll be exposed in the street for about thirty seconds,” Pat said.

  I had no idea of the time but one thing was for sure, there wouldn’t be many random cop cars going by. Cops seldom came around here, almost never at night. Still, a taxi or bus driver might alert the authorities.

  “It’s all clear,” Pat said.

  We carried John outside and walked with him around the building to what Pat had called a Dumpster. We froze as a car drove past on Colfax, but it didn’t stop. Simon muttered something to his brother. I hoped they weren’t going to leg it, leave us with the body.

  We heaved John into the skip and Pat told Simon to lift his brother in there so he could cover the body with debris. Matthew, the older boy, climbed up the side of the skip and lowered himself in, and spent a few minutes covering John with garbage bags, bits of wood and debris from the building. We stood there, looking foolish, feeling guilty. Matthew climbed out and gave us the thumbs-up.


  We walked back to the apartment building.

  “I have to see Areea,” I said.

  “In the morning,” Pat said.

  “I have to speak to her tonight,” I insisted. “It must have been terrible, I want to speak to her. While it’s fresh.”

  “In the morning,” Pat said again.

  Pat was a mess. Unemployed and unloved and abandoned by his friends and dying of AIDS, but at this moment his head was clearer and he was made of sterner stuff than me. I bowed to his common sense.

  “Of course,” I said.

  All of us walked up the five flights. The Ethiopians went into my apartment.

  “I’ve told Mr. Uleyawa that they’re going to spend as long as it takes cleaning up the blood, not that you’ll be staying there anymore, not that anyone will be staying there anymore. But just to be on the safe side,” Pat said.

  “Why won’t I be staying there?” I asked.

  “They know where you live, asshole. You’ll be staying with me tonight, out first thing in the morning,” Pat said. “I have a place in Fort Morgan, it’s a one-room, it’s full of my old shit, but you’ll be safer there. Get you on the first bus.”

  “Gotta thank the Ethiopians,” I said.

  “No, don’t say too much, they think we’re doing it for Areea, we’re covering up for her, for all of them, don’t disavow them of that notion, we don’t want them talking. Ok?”

  We went to Pat’s. He poured me a large whisky but I didn’t drink it.

  “She told him, Pat,” I said. “She told him, Pat, she didn’t have any qualms, I mistook her, I didn’t see it, Jesus, she must have told him, too much of a coincidence. I don’t know what I said. I said something, I fucked up, I killed him.”

  Pat put his fingers on my lips, showed me to his bed. I was too exhausted to protest. I boiled some ketch, injected it, crawled into his bed, and stared out the window at the sky over the park, stared all night until the black slowly evaporated and the stars went out and the ugly gray dawn stretched its tentacles across the sky….

  * * *

  The bus to Fort Morgan left at ten. It was nine-thirty, but I had to see Areea before I left. Pat was opposed.