Hideout

by Jack Heath

  Kyle coughs into his fist. ‘Excuse me.’ He sounds offended, and now so am I.

  ‘And what do you do, Mr Blake?’

  ‘I’m a civilian consultant for the FBI.’

  Kyle kicks me under the counter.

  ‘Really?’ Sue asks, eyes wide.

  ‘Off-duty today, though,’ I say. ‘So if you see any crime, call someone else!’ I laugh too loudly.

  ‘Uncle Tim, you’re a riot,’ Kyle says, through clenched teeth. ‘But we gotta get this done.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  The next package Kyle picks up has a handwritten label.

  I grab an object at random from the stand next to the counter: a bar of handmade lavender soap. ‘Hey, check these out. Should we take one home?’

  The distraction doesn’t work. Kyle is about to hand the package to Sue, but he hesitates when he notices the label. ‘Huh.’

  Sue looks curious. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Oh, that’s my fault,’ I say. ‘I tore the printed label. Had to write a new one. Sorry.’

  ‘Justice Park Drive,’ Kyle reads. ‘Houston.’

  If he flips it over, he’ll see the coordinates I wrote under my name.

  ‘Isn’t that an FBI office?’ Sue asks me. Damn her and her good memory.

  ‘You bet.’ I take the package before Kyle can turn it over. My heart is hammering. ‘No pantry moths there, not since they started buying these. Right, James?’

  ‘Right.’ Kyle looks uneasy. Maybe realising that the Guards do have customers at the FBI, and that it’s not smart to chat with Sue about that at length.

  I hand over the package, keeping the side with the return coordinates hidden from Kyle. Sue scans it. When it disappears into the bag, I can breathe again.

  We unpack the rest of the boxes and Sue scans the last of the packages. She asks if Kyle wants them mailed by air, or wants signature on delivery, and he says no. I know why—he would need to show ID if the parcels were travelling by air, and the Guards’ customers would need to show theirs if they were signing for these packages.

  Kyle pays in cash. Sue glances at me before accepting, like this might be a sting.

  So she hasn’t fallen for Kyle’s pantry moth ruse. She knows he’s breaking the law somehow. But she’s pretending she doesn’t. I imagine her lying to the police—I’m shocked. I had no idea he was doing anything illegal.

  ‘Mind if I have a look at the magazines, son?’ I ask. The last word just slips out.

  ‘Sure.’ If Kyle’s noticed that I called him son rather than nephew, he doesn’t say.

  I go and pretend to examine the magazines while he pays. Sue seems happy to take his money while I’m not looking.

  One of the tattoo magazines catches my eye. There’s a shirtless man on the cover with ink all the way from his jawline to his wrists. Like a beautifully decorated cake.

  The novelty is appealing. When I was eating death-row inmates, I rarely got the tattooed ones, because they tended to have blood diseases. I wonder if I could taste the ink in this man’s skin.

  ‘Good to go?’ Kyle asks.

  My gaze snaps up. ‘What? Yeah. Let’s go.’

  I go to put the magazine back. ‘Take it,’ Sue says. ‘It’s yours.’

  I hesitate. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Of course! Take some soap, too. An uncle of James is an uncle of mine.’ She laughs, but I can see through it: that desperation no one else ever seems to see or care about.

  This is a bribe. The only one she can afford.

  ‘Well, okay,’ I say. ‘Thank you very much. See you next time.’

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ she says, as we walk out. I know it’s Friday, but I have no idea what the date is. Is it Christmas? The days have all smeared across each other in a paste of exhaustion and panic.

  ‘What the fuck was that?’ Kyle says as we walk back to the van. He’s carrying another box, about the size of a milk crate, sealed with packing tape. Supplies for the house, I guess.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wasn’t Timothy Blake the name of the real FBI consultant? I didn’t recognise it right away, but—’

  ‘That’s the point,’ I say. ‘When the police go looking for him, his last known whereabouts will be at this post office—not buried out in the woods. It’ll throw them off the scent.’

  ‘It’ll lead them away from the woods but towards us.’

  I hope so. ‘We’re a hundred miles from the house,’ I say. ‘You gave a false name at the post office. Trust me, for the cops, this lead will be a dead end.’

  ‘What about the cameras at the post office? Do you look anything like the real Timothy Blake?’

  ‘There’s a passing resemblance,’ I say. ‘But Sue probably only keeps the recordings for a week or two. There would be too much data to store otherwise.’

  This is probably true, but I hope it isn’t. I want Sue to be suspicious enough that she calls the FBI to see if Timothy Blake is a real civilian consultant there. I want my name to ring alarm bells. I want the feds to come here and follow our trail all the way back to the house. If I don’t live long enough to save Thistle, I still want her to have a chance.

  ‘What’s in the box?’ I ask, as Kyle dumps it in the back of the van. It looks heavy.

  ‘The new cameras,’ he says.

  I find myself taking a step back, as though the box is a time bomb. Today is Friday. The cameras I sabotaged on Monday night have been replaced.

  The torture can start again.

  In my head I see Donnie, spinning that battleaxe in his hands and whistling.

  On the drive back, Kyle glances over at the magazine on my lap. The half-naked man on the cover.

  ‘So,’ he says. ‘You’re queer.’

  It’s such an old man word, coming out of a young man’s mouth, that I’m taken aback. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I mean you’re part of the queer community,’ he says. ‘Right? I notice you don’t have any tatts yourself.’

  ‘Maybe I just like art.’

  ‘Relax. I’m cool with it.’ He smiles benevolently, like this makes him a saint.

  I’m not sure why I don’t want Kyle thinking I’m gay. Maybe it’s some latent homophobia on my part. Or maybe he’s the only Guard I feel bad about lying to.

  ‘I didn’t even want the magazine,’ I say, dropping it on the floor between my feet. ‘I was just trying to give you some cover.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he says, not believing me. ‘Listen, you’re in good company. Donnie’s gay. Samson was too.’

  ‘I’m not gay. I … Wait, were Donnie and Samson in a relationship?’

  ‘Yeah. You didn’t know that?’

  ‘No.’ I hope this isn’t a dangerous thing to admit. But I certainly didn’t see any overt signs that they were together.

  It makes sense, though. Cedric’s voice in my head: But when everyone else got up, Samson acted like nothing had happened. Samson didn’t want to own up to his night of passion with Cedric, because he was already in a relationship with Donnie.

  Kyle looks wistfully out the window. ‘Love at first sight, Donnie always said. But then he’d flex his muscles, like he was talking about how Samson fell in love with him, not the other way around.’

  The odds are shifting around in my head. If Donnie found out Samson had slept with Cedric, that might have made him angry.

  Maybe angry enough to put a gun to Samson’s head and pull the trigger.

  ‘I’ll miss Samson,’ Kyle continues. ‘He was a great cook. He helped out with the inmates. And he didn’t try to compete for the only pussy in the house.’

  He laughs, as though it’s fine to say that as long as you’re kidding.

  ‘Don’t say things like that,’ I say.

  He scoffs. ‘What are you, my dad? I was joking.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  Kyle looks annoyed but says nothing. The way young men talk is always grating, but I find it particularly hard to take from Kyle. I want him to be better than the oth
ers.

  ‘Zara’s dangerous,’ I add. ‘If I were you, I’d steer clear.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? How about you follow your own advice?’

  There’s a hint of bitterness in his voice. He’s interested in Zara, and he’s seen her flirting with me. Fred did say Kyle had been acting strangely—maybe that’s why.

  Kyle is still talking. I tune in to hear him say: ‘Except for the old lady.’

  ‘Old lady?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. The only other pussy in the house. Technically.’

  I stare at him. ‘An old lady lives in the house?’

  Kyle looks at me like I’m an idiot. ‘Duh. Who did you think was upstairs?’

  CHAPTER 32

  A writer from New York realises something and drops me. What am I?

  Back at the house, I stand at the foot of the narrow stairs—the ones Fred told me not to go up. I think of the creaking sounds I’ve been hearing.

  An extra person has been here this whole time. A suspect I hadn’t even considered.

  Zara’s out harvesting yeast. Donnie is servicing the pick-up. Everyone else is installing the new cameras in the slaughterhouse. There will never be a better time to see what’s up here. I grip the polished wooden bannister and climb the stairs.

  A sharp bend makes each step narrow on the left and wide on the right. It’s disorienting. Like I’m climbing up into another dimension, with different laws of geometry.

  At the top of the stairs is a flimsy wooden door. There’s no keyhole. Whoever’s up here, they’re not locked in.

  I tap my knuckles on the door. It quivers.

  There’s silence. For a moment, I wonder if the ‘old lady’ is Kyle’s alter ego, or a skeleton in a cotton shift and a wig.

  Then someone calls out, ‘Yes?’

  A sharp voice. Female.

  I open the door.

  The bedroom beyond is lit only by a small window overlooking the driveway. There’s an old-fashioned bed with brass fittings. The ceiling is only inches above my head, its weight pressing down.

  A woman in her early sixties is sitting at a writing desk, wearing a pale blue robe. Her hair is long and grey. Sunken green eyes in a round face. She swivels in her chair to face me.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks.

  I clear my throat. ‘I’m Lux.’

  ‘What brings you here, Lux?’

  ‘I arrived on Monday,’ I say.

  ‘I know. I saw.’ She points her pen out the little window. ‘But that doesn’t really answer my question, does it?’

  ‘I guess not,’ I say. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

  The woman lays her pen atop the papers covering her desk. Bowls are stacked on one side. I remember Fred at dinner, eating from one bowl and leaving the other untouched.

  ‘Did Frederick send you?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Actually, he said not to come up here.’

  ‘But you did anyway.’

  ‘I did.’ She’s already set up the rhythm of this conversation. Controlling its structure, if not its content. ‘You’re Fred’s mother?’

  ‘Correct. Welcome to my home. Can I get you something to drink?’

  ‘Uh, no, thank you.’

  ‘I was joking.’ She gestures at the little room, which has no refrigerator or glassware, although I assume the doorway in the corner leads to an ensuite. ‘What do you want?’

  I speak carefully. ‘Did you know someone was murdered downstairs?’

  ‘My son informed me that there had been a suicide.’ She speaks like a school principal, her age creating a sense of authority rather than weakness.

  ‘Fred thinks Samson might have been murdered,’ I say. ‘He asked me to help him work out who did it, and why.’

  I realise my mistake, but too late to stop the words coming out of my mouth. Fred spotted the signs of murder as fast as I did and asked me to investigate almost immediately. There would have been no time to talk to his mother in between. Therefore, when he told her it was a suicide, he already knew it was murder. He lied, and I just exposed him.

  But his mother doesn’t look surprised. She didn’t believe him anyway. ‘Is that so?’ she says. ‘Interesting. How do you two know each other?’

  ‘We met on the internet,’ I say. ‘Can I ask you some questions?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Did you hear any voices before the gunshot on Tuesday?’

  ‘I didn’t hear any gunshot.’

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘Really?’

  ‘I sleep pretty heavily.’

  ‘It was the middle of the day,’ I say.

  ‘Time doesn’t matter much up here.’

  I look down at the floor. Fred’s bedroom would be directly below my feet and Samson’s was next door. Is it really possible that this old woman didn’t hear the shot?

  ‘Do you have trouble with your hearing?’ I ask.

  The woman avoids the question. ‘It’s interesting that Fred asked you to investigate, rather than any of the other people in the house. He must really trust you. You met on the internet, you say?’

  I feel like she’s learning more about me than I am about her in this conversation. ‘What’s your name, ma’am?’

  ‘Oh, I’m Penny,’ she says. ‘Forgive me, it’s been a long time since I’ve had to introduce myself to anyone.’

  ‘Do the others know you’re up here?’

  ‘They know, yes,’ Penny says. ‘But they may have forgotten. It’s surprisingly easy to forget about a woman you never see, even if she lives right above your head.’

  She doesn’t sound bitter about this. It’s as though she prefers to be invisible.

  ‘You never come down?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Aren’t you going to ask me if I saw anyone approaching the house around the time of Samson’s death?’

  ‘Did you see anyone?’

  ‘I did not,’ she says, and leaves a significant pause. She’s trying to tell me that the killer is one of the Guards, which I had already surmised.

  ‘You were looking out the window the whole time?’

  She looks pleased. ‘That’s more like it. No, I was not.’

  ‘How long have you lived up here?’ I ask.

  She points to some notches carved into the wall. There are hundreds, and I don’t know if they measure days or weeks.

  ‘You have paper to write on,’ I point out.

  ‘Old habits,’ she says. ‘Sit down, Lux.’ It doesn’t sound as if she likes the name.

  I approach. The floorboards don’t squeak under me, even though I’m heavier than her.

  I sit on the bed, which lets out a sick moan and a bad smell. No fancy memory foam up here.

  ‘If you really want to solve this,’ Penny says, ‘you’ll have to pay attention not only to what you hear, but what you don’t.’

  She clearly knows something. I see no reason not to just ask what it is. ‘Do you know who killed Samson?’

  Penny raises her eyebrows. ‘I haven’t left this room in years. How could I know anything?’

  So she knows something she doesn’t want to share, at least not directly. The best way to find out what it is might just be to let her talk.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll save me some counting and tell me the date,’ she says.

  I’ve been thinking about it since Sue wished me a Merry Christmas. ‘December seventeen.’

  ‘Ah.’ Penny looks up at the ceiling. ‘Frederick will be twenty-eight soon. If his father and I were still together, last week would have been our thirtieth wedding anniversary.’

  ‘Is Fred’s father still alive?’

  Penny shrugs and gestures at the room. As if to say again, How could I know?

  ‘You’re divorced?’

  ‘Neither of us underestimated how hard it would be to raise a child, but both of us overestimated our own strength. Being a man, he felt like he could leave.’ She says all this impatiently. It’s not what she wants to talk about. ‘Anyway, I used to be a police officer. Did my son tell you that?
’

  ‘He’s told me nothing,’ I say, suddenly uneasy.

  Penny notices this, and smiles. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to rat you out for coming up here. I appreciate the company. And as for whatever’s going on in the shed, well … who would I call, and how? You boys have your fun.’

  I wonder how much she knows, and how much she’s chosen not to.

  ‘Anyway, I have a test case for you,’ she says. ‘One from my own experience.’

  I’m starting to fall behind. ‘A test?’

  ‘Obviously, I need to assess your skill as an investigator. To confirm that you’re good enough to assist my son.’

  I’ve never seen someone’s eye twinkle in real life, but if it were possible, she’d be doing it.

  ‘Okay.’ The bed hasn’t been made since she last slept in it. The intimacy makes me uncomfortable. I find myself smoothing down the sheets.

  ‘I entered the crime scene at nine thirty-five pm,’ Penny begins. ‘The bathroom door was locked from the inside. I had to break it down to get in—’

  ‘Wait, what crime scene?’ I ask.

  ‘A woman in an adjacent apartment heard shouting,’ Penny says. ‘A male voice. Then she noticed that the shower had been running for a long time. The pipes went right behind her wall. When she called 911, I was nearby.’

  ‘This is a true story?’

  ‘Yes. There was a thirty-six-year-old male in the shower, deceased. Naked. Blood running down the drain from a head injury. It was concealed by his hair, but the autopsy later confirmed a cracked skull.’

  ‘How much did he weigh?’

  ‘Around two hundred pounds. Why?’

  ‘Just trying to picture it,’ I say.

  ‘When my partner arrived at ten oh seven, we found a smudge of blood on a cracked tile, about two feet above the floor. Soap on the floor and on the bottoms of his feet. What does that sound like to you?’

  She wants me to say it sounds like the man slipped in the shower. ‘Any windows?’ I ask instead.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Extractor fan?’

  ‘Switched on.’

  Even if the killer—if there was a killer—had climbed up into the vent, they wouldn’t have been able to switch on the fan afterwards.

  ‘How big was it?’

  She can see what I’m getting at. ‘Apparently untouched, and too narrow to crawl through in any case.’