Joe Victim: A Thriller

by Paul Cleave

  Schroder is sure the prints will match. He looks back out the window at the city. At his city. He wonders if he put this in motion the day he arrested Joe. He guesses he did. All that destruction down there, and yet in other parts of the city life is going on as normal, people going about their day-to-day business, carrying briefcases and handbags, eating lunch on the go, bike messengers weaving in and out of traffic.

  “Fuck,” Schroder says.

  Hutton says nothing.

  “Let’s go,” Schroder says.

  “Where to? Raphael’s house?”

  “The hospital.”

  “Good idea.”

  They head back downstairs. Unbelievably, Schroder feels like crying. He doesn’t know why—he’s seen bad shit before, has lost people he worked with, but this is just . . . just too much. Rebecca Kent . . .

  “We’ll find them,” Hutton says.

  “Just like we found Melissa,” Schroder says.

  Hutton doesn’t answer him.

  The sling is still helping, but Schroder’s arm is really starting to hurt now. They walk to Hutton’s car. Journalists throw questions at them. People are standing around with blank looks on their faces. Paramedics are still working on people, though there doesn’t appear to be anybody seriously wounded lying on the street—they’ve been rushed to the hospital already. He doesn’t see any bodies either. Was nobody killed? Or have they been moved already?

  “It all seems unreal,” Hutton says.

  “I know.”

  “Honestly, Carl, doesn’t this make you thankful you gave up the job?” Hutton asks, but Schroder didn’t give it up, it was taken from him, though he gets the point.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he says. “I really don’t.”

  They get into the car. Schroder uses the side mirror to get a look at himself. He’s a mess. The bandage around his forehead is pushing his hair upward. There’s blood on it, but there’s dried blood on other bits of his face. On his neck too. It only takes them ten minutes to reach the hospital, Hutton putting the sirens on at intersections. There are no free spaces out front. They’re full of cars, and other cars are all double-parked around them.

  “Just drop me off here,” Schroder says, nodding toward the side of the road opposite the hospital. “I’ll be okay from here. You should try to do something useful.”

  “I’m coming in,” Hutton says. “Rebecca is in there.”

  “And she’d want you to be out here finding Joe and Melissa.”

  Hutton nods. “Listen, Carl, I know what you promised her.”

  “And?”

  “And I think that means I ought to stick with you for a bit. You go in ahead of me and get your arm looked at, I’ll park around back and meet you inside.”

  Schroder gets out of the car. He cuts between traffic. Hutton can’t be too worried about the promise he made, otherwise he wouldn’t have left him so quickly. He gets across the road and steps through the main doors into a crowd of people who are in shock, many with cuts and broken bones, pain etched into so many people’s features. From what he heard on the drive here most of the injuries have come from the rushing crowds, from people falling and being trampled. There’s a queue of people lined up behind a window all waiting to talk to the admitting nurse. He doesn’t want to wait in line. He steps back outside and moves further around the building and into the ambulance bay where an ambulance is pulling in. He steps out of the way as ER doctors move into position. The back of the ambulance opens and a gurney is brought out, a man dressed as the Grim Reaper who is missing part of his face. He’s conscious, his fists balled up tight. Schroder follows them through the doors until a doctor holds a hand up in front of him.

  “Wrong entrance,” a doctor with the wrong choice in comb-overs says to him. He has bloodshot eyes and smells like coffee and has a badge on his chest that says Dr. Ben Hearse, and Schroder figures it’s a bad omen for his patients, but still one step removed from Dr. You’re Gonna Die.

  “I’m a cop,” he says. “Detective Inspector Carl Schroder. Listen, I need to get in there. My partner is in there. She was brought in a few minutes ago.”

  Dr. Hearse nods. “They’re working on her.”

  “Is she going to make it?”

  “They’re working on her,” he repeats, a little more sympathetically. “Let me take a look at your arm,” he says, then Schroder winces as soon as it’s touched. “Okay, follow me,” he says.

  “Can’t you just give me a shot or something?”

  “A shot?”

  “For the pain. It hurts like a bitch.”

  “No, I can’t just give you a shot, but what I can do is set your arm and put it in a cast.”

  “I just need a shot. We can do the cast thing later.”

  “Let’s do the cast thing now,” Hearse says.

  Schroder follows him into the emergency department. The doctors who aren’t helping people are rushing around getting ready to help those still on their way. They keep going until they’re past all the operating rooms and into a doctor’s office.

  “Wait here,” Hearse tells him. “We’ll get you x-rayed and figure out what’s going on.”

  “I want an update on Detective Kent,” Schroder says, and he feels impatient, like he needs to be doing something to find Joe, but he doesn’t know what.

  The doctor gives a brief nod. “Wait here,” he says again, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Schroder has only been alone for a minute when his cell phone rings. He reaches into his pocket. The display was broken in the blast so he can’t tell who it is. He realizes he still hasn’t phoned his wife yet. She’ll have heard the news and be worried about him.

  “Detective Schroder,” he says, the title out of his mouth too quickly to avoid. Right in this moment he still feels like a cop.

  “Carl, it’s Hutton,” Hutton says, either letting the detective comment go or not picking up on it. “Listen, I got something here.”

  “Where?”

  “Meet me out back in the parking lot, and make it quick.”

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  The Sally gasps inward when she sees the gun.

  “Joe,” Melissa says, “I was keeping her alive for you to kill, kind of like a present.”

  “Like a housewarming present,” I say, and I’m not real sure why I say it because as great a housewarming gift as it’d be, it’s not like me and Melissa are moving in here. Unless we are. “Are we moving in here?” I ask.

  “No,” Melissa says.

  The Sally has backed up against the wall. Her palms are facing outward and they’re in line with her shoulders. She’s wearing a wristwatch that’s spun around upside down, so the face covers the underside of her wrist. I can see the time. I can also see an alarm clock on the bedside drawer, and the alarm clock is two minutes ahead of her wristwatch, and suddenly I know why everything seems so fucked-up—I’m two minutes in the future and it’s messing with my equilibrium. Which means whatever The Sally’s fate is, it’s already happened and I’m just watching now to see how it unfolded.

  “So how do you want to do it?” Melissa asks me, her question crossing the time barrier.

  “I don’t know,” I answer.

  “Please don’t, please don’t hurt me,” The Sally says and, for all that she’s done, I don’t really see any need to.

  Of course not seeing a need isn’t the same as deciding to let her go.

  “Just shoot her,” I say, because I want to get out of this place with its fractured time zones and, gun to my head, I’d have to confess I don’t really want to do it.

  “Please, Joe,” Sally says. “I don’t want die. I’ve always been good to you. I know I never came to see you in jail, but how could I, after what you’d done?”

  “I’m sorry, Sally,” I say, and the truth is I am sorry.

  “I brought you books,” she says.

  “What?” I say, and point my palm to Melissa in a stopping gesture in case she’s about to pull the trigger.
<
br />   “I didn’t bring them to you, but I gave them to your mother to give you. Romance novels. I remembered how much you loved them. So I gave them to her. I’ve been good to you, Joe, even after all the bad things you’ve done. Please don’t hurt me.”

  Melissa looks at me for guidance, and I realize this is all playing right out in front of me—there’s no dream, no difference in time. The Sally gave my mother those books, not Melissa.

  “That was your message?” I ask. “You were the one trying to help me escape?”

  Melissa looks confused, which is exactly how The Sally looks too. “Escape?” Melissa asks, then she looks back at The Sally. “You were trying to help him escape?”

  The Sally doesn’t answer, so I answer for her. “There was a message in the books,” I say. “She wanted me to show the cops where Detective Calhoun was buried, and she was going to help me escape, only my mom didn’t give me the books in time and . . . and . . . and I thought they were from you. Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask Melissa.

  “You were given medication,” she says. “You’re not thinking straight.”

  “I am!” I say, louder than I wanted to. I grit my teeth and inhale deeply, and I notice there is no pain in my shoulder. Whatever drugs they gave me I want to keep taking. “They were romance novels. She picked specific titles, but my mom messed it up.”

  “Your mother?” Melissa asks.

  “Please,” Sally says to Melissa, “all I’ve ever done is help Joe. I helped him last year when you crushed his testicle, I saved his life when he was arrested, and now . . .”

  And now I’m no longer listening. I’m thinking of my trip into the woods. It was The Sally who was planning my escape. Me and The Sally, running through the forest and leaving behind a pile of dead cops, me and The Sally sitting in a tree, K-I-L-L-I-N-G, we’re running toward our future, only a future with Sally is about as appealing as . . . well, as having my testicle crushed, as being locked away in jail, as being given the death penalty, as being a father.

  “Joe,” Melissa shouts, and I realize she’s said my name a few times now. “You’re still thinking about those books, I can tell. She wasn’t trying to help you escape.”

  “I . . . I don’t understand.”

  “Did you give him the books he’s talking about?” Melissa asks.

  Sally nods. “He likes romance novels,” she says, looking at me and talking to Melissa as if I weren’t in the room.

  “There was a message,” I say, and my words don’t even convince me.

  “Yeah? Then ask her what the message is,” Melissa says.

  “Please,” Sally says, shaking her head, and she’s looking at me and talking to me, and I remember the conversations we used to have at work, I remember her making me a sandwich every day, good ol’ reliable Sally, kindhearted Sally, Simple Sally. The Sally. Sandwiches that wouldn’t make me sick, Sally.

  “We have no use for her,” Melissa says.

  “No, I don’t suppose we do,” I say.

  “Joe,” Sally says.

  “Sssh,” I say, and I put my finger to my lips. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her.

  “Joe,” she says, her voice higher now. “Joe . . .”

  “I kept her alive for you, Joe,” Melissa says. “I kept her for you to kill.”

  Sally. Poor Sally. Overweight Sally. Always trying to help. Sally always plodding her way around the police station and ignored by everybody, the same way I used to plod and be ignored, only I’d be plodding with forty pounds less than her. I shake my head. It’s time to show people that I’m a human being, and what better time to start than here and now.

  “I’m not going to shoot her,” I tell Melissa.

  The Sally looks happy. Melissa looks sad.

  “You do it,” I tell Melissa. “But make it quick,” I tell her. I don’t want The Sally to suffer. That is my humanity.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  This part of the hospital is a maze. Schroder has been in it before, visiting people. He’s waited outside operating rooms as victims inside have died. He’s been in here as friends have fought for their lives—some making it, some not.

  Dr. Hearse sees him and comes over. He has the same disapproving look on his face his dentist has when he sees Schroder hasn’t been regularly flossing. “I know you’re impatient, but they’re still working on her.”

  “I need the quickest way out into the back parking lot.”

  “The hell you do. You need medical attention.”

  “Just give me something for the pain.”

  “What the hell is it with cops? You want us to perform miracles when your life is on the line, but when it comes to injuries you just don’t seem to care.”

  “It’s one of life’s ironies,” he says. “Look, it’s important. Please, can you give me something or not?”

  “No. You need to come back and—”

  “Later,” Schroder says. “Look, at least show me the way to the parking lot.”

  The way consists of a few more turns and a pissed-off doctor who rolls his eyes whenever Schroder looks at him. Then they’re in a corridor that’s about twenty yards long with doors at each end and no windows. Hearse has to walk with him to use his security card to get the doors to open. They both step outside into the sun. There are sirens wailing in the not-too-far distance.

  “I don’t understand,” Hearse says, looking out at the parking lot and seeing the same thing that Schroder is seeing—an ambulance surrounded by sedans and SUVs and a few motorbikes. Dirt and dust from nearby construction floats above all of it like a blanket. The weather hasn’t changed any—the sun has climbed a little higher and made the shadows shorter, but that’s about it. Hutton has parked ten yards from the ambulance. He’s standing behind his car.

  “That ambulance shouldn’t be there,” Dr. Hearse says. “What is—” he starts, then stops when he notices Hutton is holding a gun.

  “Stay here,” Schroder says to the doctor, then skirts around the cars and, staying low, makes his way over to Hutton. “What’s the situation?”

  “Not sure. But it has to be the one, right? I’ve called it in. AOS is ten minutes away.”

  Schroder doesn’t think they need to wait. The Armed Offenders Squad is going to arrive only to find an empty ambulance. Still, they need to be cautious. “We can’t wait that long.”

  “I know,” Hutton says. “That’s why I called you. I’m going to go in.”

  Schroder nods. “And if somebody comes out? What do you want me to do? Shoot them with my fingers?”

  “Why don’t you use Kent’s gun? I saw you take it.”

  Schroder nods. Fair point.

  They approach the ambulance. It’s clear there’s nobody in the front. Hutton stands at the back and gives Schroder the go signal, then Schroder rests Kent’s gun in his sling, uses his good arm to pull the door open, and at the same time he jumps back and grabs Kent’s gun. Hutton points his gun inside and a moment later lowers it. Schroder puts Kent’s back into his pocket then calls out to Dr. Hearse, who comes running over. He looks inside the ambulance.

  “Jesus,” he says. “That’s Trish. And where . . . Oh, shit, Jimmy,” he says, looking at the second body, then climbing in.

  The back of the ambulance is a mess. There are supplies littered over the floor. Blood. A nurse’s outfit. The man has been stripped down to his underwear. Hearse checks Trish for a pulse, then quickly turns toward Schroder.

  “She’s alive,” he says. “Get some people out here,” he says, and pulls off his security tag and hands it to Hutton. “Quickly,” he adds, and Hutton runs toward the doors.

  Schroder looks at the clothes. Melissa showed up in nurse scrubs, then changed into the clothes the naked victim was wearing. Hearse checks for a pulse on the second victim, then puts the side of his face against the man’s chest, then checks for a pulse again. “It’s weak,” he says. “What the hell happened here?”

  “This was used in the escape,” Schroder says. Dr
essed in the nurse scrubs, Melissa would have found it easy to be given a ride. Then she probably pulled a gun on them. She could have ordered the scrubs from any work-uniform shop online. Or she got them from a nurse. If she got them from a nurse, then she might have gotten ID cards to open the doors to the hospital too.

  “Help me with the gurney,” Hearse says, and between them they get it onto the ground, Schroder using his only good arm. Then they get the woman loaded onto it. There is blood around her face and her hair is matted in it. Blunt force trauma to the head. Schroder has seen enough of it to diagnose the condition and knows if she survives there can be some serious ongoing problems. The second paramedic has no signs of violence at all. He looks like he’s just fallen asleep. Hearse starts pushing the woman toward the door they came out of. He’s almost there when it’s thrown open and four doctors come running into the parking lot. Two of them take the gurney with Trish, and the other two come back to the ambulance with Hearse and another gurney. The second victim is loaded onto it, then for a moment it’s just Hearse and Schroder.

  “You’re looking for the person who did this, aren’t you,” Hearse says.

  “Yes.”

  Hearse nods. “I can’t do this for you, but you see that plastic drawer up there?” he asks, nodding toward a whole stack of small drawers along the inside of the ambulance. “The one with the green handle?”

  “I see it.”

  “You’ll find something for your arm in there. It’ll give you a few hours. You won’t feel much, but you won’t feel any pain either.”

  He chases after his colleagues and Schroder climbs into the ambulance and opens the drawer with the green handle. There are half a dozen syringes in there—all identical, and all loaded with some type of clear fluid. He uses his teeth to pull off the protective lid, then plunges the needle into his arm. He doesn’t know what’s inside it, but by the time he puts the cap back on the needle and tosses the empty syringe onto the floor, the pain starts to fade. He takes a second syringe and drops it into his pocket. He figures what the hell, and takes a third too. He steps out of the back just as Hutton arrives.