A Vicious Balance: A Mystery Thriller

by Jolyon Hallows

  “Helen?” She nodded. The smile never wavered. “I’m Gord Travathan. This is my associate, Ruth Janner. We’d like to ask you some questions about someone who used to live next door to you. May we come in?”

  She blocked their way, but to Travathan, her reticence sprang more from confusion than caution. She seemed to be struggling to reconcile the concept of someone who lived next door with these people’s request to come in. “Who?” she asked.

  “Oliver Raynor.”

  “Ollie?” Her voice and face brightened. She leaned forward, looking around the hallway as if expecting Ollie to be there. She seemed disappointed, although her smile remained. She backed up, beckoning Travathan and Janner inside. The apartment was spare, but on the mantel above a fake fireplace, flanked by marble bookends, were two books, Groupthink and Innumeracy. They looked clean, the bookends polished, but Travathan doubted they had been read recently.

  “Do you know Ollie? Have you seen him? Where is he?” Travathan guessed she didn’t have many friends, so anyone who showed her a kindness would remain in her memory, fresh as the human touch that created it. Be gentle. Let Helen continue to believe her Ollie was okay. To hope he might one day return.

  Travathan said, “I’m sorry, we don’t know him. In fact, we’re trying to track down anyone who did, which is why we’re here.”

  “When you find him, will you tell him about me?”

  “Of course we will. Tell me, Helen, do you know if he had any friends or family?”

  “I was his friend.”

  “That’s good. Everyone needs friends. But do you know if he had any friends other than you?”

  “He liked books. He told me books were his friends.”

  “Well, I like books too.”

  “He gave me those.” She pointed at the books, a shrine ennobling the room, bestowing grace.

  Travathan studied them. “Do you mind if I look at them?” It was a faint hope, but perhaps Raynor had left some kind of note inside.

  Helen frowned. “If you’re careful. Books are important.”

  “Thank you. I’ll be gentle with them.” He opened each book in turn and flipped through them. There was nothing inside except the receipt from the library. He replaced them on the mantel. “Do you know if Ollie had any friends other than you and his books?” She dropped her head and shook it. “Helen, it’s really important that we learn everything we can about Ollie. Can you help us?”

  She looked up. “I shouldn’t. It’s not nice.”

  “What’s not nice?”

  She lowered her head again. “The hussy.”

  “What hussy?”

  Her voice speeded up. “He didn’t really like her, you know. It was just sex. He liked me. We were friends. We didn’t need to have sex.”

  “Do you know who this hussy was?” Helen shook her head. “Did Ollie ever mention her name?”

  She was frowning now, becoming distressed at the shift in focus from her Ollie to an unwelcome intruder. “Ollie didn’t like her. He liked me. He gave me those. He didn’t give them to her. He wouldn’t have. Anyway, she’s dead.”

  “Dead? What happened to her?”

  She dropped her head again. “You’re not supposed to say bad things about dead people, are you?”

  “No, I guess you’re not, but you can tell me what happened to her.”

  “So I shouldn’t have called her a hussy.”

  “I won’t tell anyone what you said, but I would like you to tell me what happened to her.”

  Helen paused as if trying to decide whether they were worthy of hearing what she had to say. Travathan allowed her to enjoy her moment of control. Her life hadn't given her many such opportunities.

  She said, “She was killed. By that boy who was having sex with her. She was killed. He went to jail. And Ollie left.”

  Travathan and Janner stared at one another.

  Aha.

  18

  One of Gord Travathan’s questions had been answered. The beggar had been having sex with Sherry Galina. True, Helen wasn’t the brightest person he’d met, but she had no reason to lie to him, and even if she had, she wouldn’t have been good at it.

  Which left his second question. Was Jake Handley part of the dead letter drop? For that, he needed to speak to Handley again, and for that, he needed to deal with Ruth Janner’s irritation.

  “This is a complete waste of time,” she snapped. Her anger persisted even now as they drove toward the prison. “What makes you think Handley will talk to you?”

  “Talk? I didn’t say he’d talk.”

  “You said he’d tell you what you want to know.”

  “He will.”

  She crossed her arms. “Okay, I’ll play your stupid game. How?”

  “Stupid game? You need to keep your mind open.”

  “All right. If you don’t expect Handley to talk to you, how will you find out what you’re looking for?”

  “See how easy it is to ask a reasonable question? Some years ago, I discovered a new investigative technique. Let me tell you about it. I was dating a woman who was into New Age nonsense. She dragged me to workshops where we chanted, moaned mantras, and listened to self-absorbed yuppies agonizing about some obscure childhood indignity that had ruined their lives, forcing them to live in upscale condos and drive BMWs. It was an astonishing waste of time and gray matter, except that these things always made her horny. That was my payoff. One night, she invited me to a mind-reading workshop.”

  “Mind reading? And you actually went?”

  “What do you think?” He shifted in his seat. “Would you like to hear about it?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “There were about thirty people in the workshop, squatting on the floor. The woman who led it wore flowing robes and a silk scarf.”

  “I don’t need the details.”

  He shrugged. “Just trying to set the scene. The woman picked a guy named Jonathan as a volunteer. She asked him to think of two people: one he cared for and one he didn’t. She asked him to close his eyes and imagine that the person he cared for, a woman, had entered the room and had moved over to stand beside him, watching him. We were instructed to observe his body language, his facial features.”

  “And let me guess. He was all giggly.”

  “Well, giggly isn’t quite right, but his body relaxed, his face flushed, his lips swelled.”

  “You saw this?”

  “I was a cop. Being observant was my job. Yes, I saw this.”

  “And I’m guessing the workshop leader did the same thing with whoever this guy didn’t like.”

  “You got it. This was a man, and when Jonathan thought of him, his shoulders tensed, his cheeks drained of color, and his lips pressed together.”

  “So people react one way to those they like and another to those they don’t. Was this your big revelation?”

  “Not at all. After the woman had Jonathan concentrate on these two people, she asked the rest of us some questions about them such as which of them was taller, which older, which a better dresser, and so on.”

  “She asked you? Not this Jonathan?”

  “Yes. In fact, she told Jonathan not to reply. She’d ask a question, then have us study Jonathan’s reactions to it. We were to compare his responses to how he had reacted to the two people. From that we were to deduce the answer to the question. After we had guessed, she asked him which answer was right.”

  “And I presume you got it.”

  “I aced it. I got every question. Even one where the answer was ambiguous. Jonathan couldn’t hide his reactions. The woman called them micro-expressions. They’re involuntary. We can’t mask them, and they betray our reactions to anyone who is observant enough to pick them up.”

  Janner shrugged. “Micro-expressions? Maybe this Jonathan was just expressive. Maybe he didn’t realize he had to hide his reactions.”

  “Maybe, except the rest of us spent the evening practicing in small groups. At the end, I was astonishe
d how people, myself included, couldn’t hide their responses even when they were trying. I was also surprised how other people, myself not included, were unable to spot them.”

  “Nobody else got it?”

  “A few didn’t do too badly, but I realized these micro-expressions could give away how people were reacting, could reveal their emotions. And there was nothing they could do to prevent it. I guess I’d always been able to read people, but that session opened my eyes as to how I’d been doing it. It enabled me to tell when someone is hiding something or embarrassed or angry, even when they’re trying to conceal their responses.”

  “So that’s what you meant when you said Jake Handley would tell you what you wanted to know?”

  He nodded. “Everyone betrays their reactions, however briefly. All I need to do is to find out what a strong emotional response looks like in Handley, to calibrate his micro-expressions, then I’ll be ready to ask him my key question.”

  “About the letters?”

  “About the letters.”

  A prison guard escorted Travathan and Janner to the interview room where Handley was waiting along with two guards. He glared at Travathan and said, “Why don’t you f—.” He stopped, glowered at Janner, and said, “I told you to leave me alone. Why the hell are you here.”

  “Jake, I see you remember me, Gord Travathan. This is Ruth Janner. We’d like to talk to you about Sherry Galina.”

  Handley’s voice was a snarl, the words clipped. “I told you to butt out. I did it. I killed her. Now leave me alone.”

  Travathan held up a sheet of paper. “Well, Jake, that’s not what Schlossheimer-Yamamoro Cognitive Consistency Index says.”

  Handley’s eyebrows knotted. His jaw dropped a fraction of an inch. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The S-Y-C-C-I test. It’s pronounced sigh-key. You had it last week at our request. It’s the latest forensic development in establishing guilt or innocence, every bit as reliable as DNA.”

  “Nobody ever gave me any damn test.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t remember because one of the side effects of the test is amnesia for having taken it.”

  Handley stared at Travathan and shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

  “You look a little pale. Are they treating you okay in here?”

  Handley, his confusion mounting, was thrown off by the question. “What the hell’s it to you?”

  “Well, everyone deserves to be treated fairly. That’s why the Foundation exists. To ensure fairness. Are the meals okay?”

  “The meals?”

  “And are you getting enough sleep?”

  Handley sneered at Travathan, his voice rising. “Are the meals okay? Am I getting enough sleep? Does this place look like the damn Hilton to you?”

  Travathan said, “Anyway, the SYCCI test is conclusive enough that Ms. Janner here—did I mention she’s a lawyer?—she has a motion before the appeals court next week to overturn your conviction. The hearing is Tuesday, isn’t it, Ms. Janner?”

  Janner nodded. “First thing in the morning.”

  “Anyway, Jake, it’ll take the court a day or so to consider her motion, but we expect that you’ll be a free man by the end of the week. Isn’t that great?”

  Handley’s face lost color, his pupils contracted, his breathing became shallow and fast. “No,” He yelled. “You can’t do this. I’m guilty. I did it.”

  “Jake, you don’t have to keep pretending. We know you didn’t do it, and soon the whole world will know it as well.”

  “No.” He was screaming now. “You have no right to do this. Get out of here.”

  Travathan waved off the guard who had started across the room. “I don’t understand, Jake. Don’t you want to be out of this place? I can tell you that without your cooperation, the court won’t even hear the motion. Isn’t that so, Ms. Janner?”

  “I’m afraid so. If you don’t help me, Jake, I can’t even go before the court.”

  “Fine. I won’t help. Just leave me alone. Get out.”

  “Okay, Jake.” Travathan shrugged. “If you insist. We can’t force you, but I sure don’t understand why you’d want to remain in here. Ms. Janner, I guess we might as well go.” As if in an afterthought, Travathan said, “I understand you finished high school in juvenile detention. Is that right?”

  Handley stared at Travathan as if he’d just spoken in a foreign language. “Yeah. So what?”

  “And I hear you want to take some university courses here. What were you planning on taking?”

  Handley’s insolence was returning. “What the hell is it to you?”

  “Just curious. I’m always interested in people’s career choices. Let’s go, Ms. Janner.” He started to leave, but as if a thought had struck him, he turned back and said, “Oh, one more thing, Jake. What did you do with the letters to Leslie Charters that you picked up?”

  Handley’s face paled, his pupils swelled, his breathing quickened. The reaction passed as his face smoothed itself. “Letters? What letters?”

  Travathan had his answer. He turned for the door.

  “What letters? I never picked up any letters.” Handley’s voice rose.

  “Sorry. My mistake.” Travathan walked out of the room, Janner close behind him.

  Travathan pulled onto the road leading from the prison. Janner said, “Okay, explain all that. What just happened?”

  “It’s simple. I came here to ask him about the letters. If he didn’t know anything about them, he would have been confused. On the other hand, if he had been the third drop, I expected he’d be petrified at being found out, so I had to observe what confusion and fear looked like in him, what his micro-expressions were for each emotion.”

  “So that nonsense about the SYCCI test was to create confusion, and you figured that the thought of his being released would make him afraid?”

  “I didn’t figure he’d be afraid, I knew it. I talked to him before, remember?”

  “But what about that other stuff? About his eating and sleeping and university courses?”

  “Ah. Before you can calibrate an emotion, you need to get the subject back to neutral, to wash out the previous emotion. That’s all that did.”

  “And from all this, what do you conclude?”

  “Well, Ms. Janner, let me turn the question back to you. What did you observe?”

  She said, “When you asked about the letters, his face tightened up and his breathing became faster. He had the same reaction when you told him he was about to be released.”

  “And?”

  “He was terrified. Okay, you’ve convinced me. Jake Handley was the third drop.”

  “You’ll make a detective yet.”

  She frowned. “And you say you have no imagination.”

  19

  Max Kagan shook his head. “I don’t like it. This is getting too damned complicated to suit me.”

  Travathan said, “Complicated? It just got a lot simpler.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Sherry Galina was having sex with three men. Those men were also part of the dead letter drop. That’s not a coincidence. She’s involved.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, but this is way more than just a case of a horny housewife who jumped into bed with the wrong men. Look, Max, so far, we’ve been looking at the men who were sleeping with her. It’s about time we started looking at her. I’d like to find out more about her background. And her husband’s.”

  Janner shook her head. “The husband had an alibi.”

  “You’ve never heard of alibis being faked or coerced? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have great confidence that the police dug into his in any depth. This sounds like a safe assignment for you, Ruth. I’d like you to find the man who said he was with the husband and question him again.”

  She shrugged. “What’s the point? He’ll just repeat his story.”

  “Ms. Janner, you work with lawyers who know how to spot
inconsistencies or tell when someone’s not being truthful. Surely some of that rubbed off on you.”

  “Okay. I’ll call him after lunch.” She looked at her watch. “I have to leave. I’ll call you when I get something.”

  Travathan said. “In the meantime, I’m going to do some background on our victim.”

  “Gord, I’m not sure we shouldn’t just back off and hand what we’ve got over to the cops. This is getting dangerous. Someone tried to kill you on the river, remember? You can’t ignore that.”

  “The river. Good point. I think that whoever took those shots was going for Kevin Winters, trying to complete the job that got Ron Mahmoud killed by mistake. I was just in the way. I don’t think I'm at risk, but thanks for reminding me. Max, if you can spare the time, why don’t we head to the shooting site? I think I can find it. Maybe if we look around, we can turn something up.”

  Kagan grinned. “I was getting jealous watching you two. Yeah, I can swing a day. It’ll be a hoot.”

  “I’ve got some things to do, but what say we leave this evening after dinner and the rush hour. We can grab a motel near there and look for the site first thing in the morning.”

  “Done. We’ll take your car. It’s a rental. It’s newer.”

  Travathan grimaced. “I’ve already driven there once in that econobox, and I sure don’t want to go through that again.”

  “Well, if you’d spend some money, you might get a car where you don’t have to roll down the windows with a handle.”

  “That wasn’t on purpose.”

  “It’s either your econobox or we take the bus. My clunker won’t make it.”

  Travathan walked out of the room scowling. “If I’m lucky, mine won’t make it back to the hotel.”

  He pulled onto the street. Behind him, a van pulled out from the curb and followed.

  Travathan handed his keys to a valet. The van driver followed the car into the parking lot and cursed. This complicated things. He had planned to wire a bomb into the car’s ignition, but that would get the valet, not the target.

  He pulled into a space near the valet parking area. A video camera sat high up on a pillar. He could see no others. He drove to a spot outside the view of the camera and sat back to think.