The Inside Dark

by James Hankins

  “My wife.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sophie’s not my ex. She’s still my wife. We never got a divorce. And let me ask you something—are you doing this same song and dance for Ian Cobb? Because he escaped from Crackerjack, just like I did.”

  “Sure, but Jason? The guy got busted up. Broken arm. Broken ribs. And he had his face painted like a schoolkid at a county fair. You? You got away without a scratch.”

  “Five days with no food and barely any water? I wasn’t exactly having a picnic in that stable.”

  Briggs nodded. “I’m not saying you were having fun. But while you were supposedly held for days—which hadn’t been Crackerjack’s MO up to that point, by the way—Cobb got the business the same day he was taken. So why the difference there? What made you so special that he wanted to keep you around for a while? Seems odd to me.”

  Swike laughed but he was forcing it. “Are you implying that Wallace Barton wasn’t Crackerjack and that I was?”

  “I’m not implying that Barton wasn’t Crackerjack,” Briggs said without addressing the second part of Swike’s question.

  Swike made a scoffing sound.

  “Now that you bring it up, though,” Briggs added, “there was talk about Crackerjack maybe being two people. I’m sure you heard it.”

  “Sounds ridiculous.”

  “Seems plausible to me.”

  Swike shook his head. “There’s nothing here, Detective. You can keep digging but I can’t imagine what you’re looking for. And you can keep rattling my cage but I’m not hiding anything, and I don’t know why you think I am.”

  “Did I rattle you?”

  “Just my cage. Me personally, I’m fine.”

  “Glad to hear it. How’s the book coming?”

  “Making progress.”

  “I’ll have to buy a copy when it comes out.”

  “I’ll autograph it for you.”

  “That would be great. See you around,” he said as he walked away, back toward his car. He was doing literally what Lieutenant McCuller wished he would do figuratively: just walk away. Close the case down. Box it all up. It’s over, the lieutenant had said more than once now. The good guys won. Let it go. Dusty was saying the same thing. So was Bonnie. Soon Briggs might have to listen to them.

  But not yet.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Jason watched Briggs drive off and hoped that he was truly gone and not simply waiting around the corner to tail him, given that Jason was on his way to the house of a suspected contract killer. As he drove, he kept an eye on the rearview mirror for Briggs’s car. And for Cobb’s white van, just in case. After a quick stop at the bank right before it closed, where he withdrew $7,000 that might be a little difficult to explain later, he headed for Lowell, Massachusetts, not far from the New Hampshire border. Late-afternoon rush hour had begun, so he knew it would be slow going.

  It took almost an hour and a half to get there. Ten minutes later, he found the address where he hoped Ronald Wheeler still lived. Jason parked two houses down, facing the little two-story house. On the passenger seat were several bottles of water—Poland Springs, not Dasani—a few granola bars, and an empty plastic milk jug, in case the stakeout lasted too long. He looked at his watch: 6:40 p.m.

  It was nearly eight o’clock when a Honda SUV that had seen far better days turned a little too quickly into the driveway and came to a stop a bit crookedly. Jason watched, anxious, as the driver’s door opened. Ronald Wheeler—or someone who looked a hell of a lot like the guy in the news story on the Internet—stepped out and walked with slow, heavy steps to his front door. He took a moment longer than he probably should have to unlock it, and Jason figured he had stayed until the bitter end of happy hour somewhere. Jason gave him a few minutes to get settled, then stepped out of his car, leaving the money behind, and walked to the house. He took a deep breath and, with a disturbingly shaky finger, rang the doorbell.

  His heart thundered. The man inside this house was quite possibly a murderer. At the very least, he had once wanted to be.

  Footsteps thumped inside; then the door opened. Ronald Wheeler—it was definitely him—looked fifteen years older than he had in the picture Jason had seen, a photo that had been taken only two years ago.

  “Yeah?” Wheeler said. Jason could smell the whisky.

  He had decided that approaching Wheeler at home and surprising him was best. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about the man trying to record the conversation, either to protect himself or perhaps to try to blackmail Jason later. He’d also decided on a direct approach.

  “Mr. Wheeler, I’m here to offer you a job.” He hoped the man didn’t notice the tremor in his voice.

  “I already have a job. Who the hell are you?”

  Wheeler wore stained denim coveralls, so whatever job he was holding down now wasn’t an office position like the one he’d occupied before his arrest. Maybe he didn’t mind that—office work wasn’t for everyone—but then again, maybe he didn’t like it one bit.

  “I’m going to just lay it all out for you, Mr. Wheeler, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to finish, because you’re going to want to close the door in my face pretty soon.” Wheeler said nothing, merely frowned, so Jason continued. “First, you need to know that I’m not a cop, and I can prove that beyond a doubt. I swear to you. And I really do have a job offer. Good money, tax-free.”

  “Sounds too good to be true, Officer,” Wheeler said.

  “I’m really not a cop. You don’t recognize me?”

  “Should I?”

  “A lot of people do lately. You have a computer, Mr. Wheeler?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Go inside and Google the name Jason Swike. You’ll see who I am and know I’m not a cop. I’ll wait here.”

  Wheeler shook his head, as though Jason were an idiot, and pulled a smartphone from his pocket. He opened a browser and searched for Jason’s name. A picture of Jason’s face popped up. Wheeler looked from his phone to Jason’s face and back again.

  “What the hell is this?”

  “You believe me now that I’m not a cop?”

  “I heard about you. I know what you did. Says here you’re a writer.”

  “And not a cop, right?”

  “What do you want from me?”

  The time had come. Jason took a breath. “I need you to kill someone for me.”

  There. He’d said it. No turning back now. He waited for the door to slam. Wheeler squinted at him. Finally, he said, “Is this a joke? If so, it ain’t funny. Not at all.”

  “No joke.”

  Wheeler looked him up and down and Jason tried to keep his hands from shaking.

  “I can’t figure this out,” Wheeler said. “I can’t see the angle.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  Wheeler looked past Jason toward the street, perhaps looking for cops crouching behind shrubs. “Is this legit?”

  “It is.” After Wheeler stared at him for another long moment, Jason said, “Why haven’t you slammed the door on me yet?”

  “Because I don’t know how you chose me in particular—I guess you read about my trial or something—but I can’t for the life of me see why you’d be here if you didn’t really want someone killed. I just can’t see it. You’re taking a hell of a risk, you being famous and all.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. And yeah, I read about your acquittal online and figured you might, just might, have some experience in what I’m looking to have done. If not, then I made a big mistake coming here. But if so . . . well, I thought maybe you could help me out. I also figured maybe you could use some money.”

  “I could turn you in.”

  “No offense, but who’d believe you?” he asked, dismayed at the tiny nervous crack in his voice. “You being an accused contract killer and me being famous and all?”

  “Good point. So why are you here? I know what you say you want done, but why are you here, on my porch?”

  “B
ecause I’m desperate.” It wasn’t the best negotiating tactic but he didn’t know what to do, where to turn, if Wheeler refused the job. “I need this done and I need it done soon. And I don’t know any other way to make that happen.”

  Wheeler studied him for several long seconds. Jason could almost hear the gears grinding away in the man’s head, the rusty wheels turning as he tried to see all the angles.

  “I just don’t see why the hell you’d be here if you weren’t on the up and up about this.”

  “I told you, I am.”

  Wheeler frowned at him for a second or two. “Well, you might as well come on in. I don’t do the kind of thing you’re looking to do, of course, and those charges against me were BS, but if you want to come in for a little while, I won’t stop you.”

  There seemed to be a disconnect between Wheeler’s words and the look in his eyes, so Jason followed him into the house, hoping Wheeler couldn’t hear the conga beat in his chest. Like its owner, the place seemed to have fallen on hard times. The top of a wooden coffee table rested on three legs with a stack of books in place of the fourth. Against one wall was an entertainment center where a thirty-six-inch television occupied a space big enough for a sixty-inch set. Wheeler had apparently been forced to downsize.

  “Take off your clothes,” Wheeler said.

  “What?”

  “Not that I have something to hide, or that we’ll be talking about anything illegal, but I don’t like talking to some people unless I know they’re not wearing a wire.”

  “And I’m not big on stripping for strangers.”

  “Suit yourself. You know where the door is.”

  He turned away.

  “Wait a second,” Jason said. “How about just down to my underwear?”

  “Seriously? You got a tiny prick or something? What’s the big deal?”

  Jason sighed and slipped off his shirt. When he was completely naked, Wheeler gathered up his clothes and carried them into a bathroom. He closed the door on them and then, with Jason standing there stark naked and self-conscious as hell, his hands over his private parts, they discussed the job.

  “Ian Cobb?” Wheeler eventually said. “The guy you escaped with, right?”

  Jason nodded and expected the man to ask why he wanted Cobb killed. But Wheeler was more of a professional than he’d expected, because true professionals didn’t ask those kinds of questions. They didn’t care about your reasons for wanting someone dead. They cared only that you could pay and keep your mouth shut. All of which was frightening as hell.

  “I don’t want to go to jail,” Wheeler said.

  “I don’t, either. I have just as much to lose as you do,” he said, thinking that he probably had a lot more to lose than Wheeler did.

  “But if I did go, I’d take you with me.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The man nodded, seemingly to himself. “How fast do you need it done?”

  “As soon as possible. A day, two at the most.”

  “Whoa. That is soon. Makes it a lot trickier. Cost you more.”

  “Okay.”

  “A lot more.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Plus, this Cobb guy is as famous as you. Costs even more if you want a famous person killed.”

  Jason sighed. “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand, half up front.”

  Jason could afford that these days, but he didn’t want to cave too easily or Wheeler would get greedy and ask for more. Plus, he didn’t have ten thousand with him.

  “I’ll give you ten thousand. Five up front.”

  “I’ll do it for fifteen. Final offer. We both know you’re desperate.”

  Jason had known that would come up again. “Seven up front. It’s . . . all I brought with me.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, then Wheeler stuck out his hand. “Agreed,” he said.

  Jason kept his left hand over his privates and took the man’s hand with his right. They shook, and it felt to Jason like he was closing a deal with the devil. Inside, he shuddered to think it was that easy to order the death of another human being. They might as well have been negotiating the sale of a pickup truck.

  Wheeler retrieved Jason’s clothes, and once he was dressed again, Jason went back to his car for the money, which he’d never actually touched with his bare fingers. Back inside, he tore open the small bank envelope and tipped the cash onto a table, pocketing the crumpled envelope.

  “Now,” Wheeler said, “what can you tell me about Cobb that will help me do the job?”

  “Not much you can’t find on the Internet. He owns a plumbing business. He has no wife or kids and his father’s in a coma or something somewhere, so I assume he lives alone. Other than that, I don’t know much about him personally. But a lot has been written about him. You should be able to find anything you need, including pictures of him, the name of his business, whatever. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how to do your job.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Jason nodded. He started to say something, then stopped. He started again before aborting a second time.

  “Something to say?” Wheeler asked.

  “You should know that Ian Cobb is . . . well, he’s dangerous.”

  Wheeler squinted at him a long moment. “So am I.”

  “Really dangerous. You won’t find that about him on the Internet, but take my word for it.”

  Wheeler nodded. “I hear you. I’m guessing this is why you came to me. Well, don’t worry. Like I said, I can take care of myself. Just because I didn’t go to jail for what they accused me of doesn’t mean I was completely innocent . . . or that I hadn’t done that kind of thing before. More than once. So don’t worry about me. Just get the rest of the money.”

  Jason swallowed. The man had just confessed to multiple murders. “Okay. So how will I know when it’s done?”

  “You guys killed Crackerjack just two weeks ago. If Cobb dies, it’ll be on the news, right? You’ll hear about it.”

  “I really need it to happen soon.”

  “It will. I’ll give it some thought tonight, but I might even call in sick tomorrow, check him out. If everything goes okay, if I get the chance . . . well, let’s just say I’ll finish the job as soon as I get an opening. Now, about the rest of my money. I’ll expect it no more than two days after I do it. There’s an empty flowerpot on a windowsill at the back of the house. Leave it in there. And do it during the day, when I’m not home.”

  “Okay.”

  “And from this moment on, we never see each other again. We never talk. We’ve never even met. You got me?”

  “Works for me.”

  Wheeler held Jason’s eyes for a good long moment before nodding, apparently satisfied with what he saw there. Then he asked Jason, “How do you know you can trust me?”

  “I don’t. But I need this done and I figure you need the money.”

  “Here’s a more important question . . . how do I know I can trust you?”

  “Because a lot of people know who I am and I have a lot to lose. Because I didn’t even know who you were before this morning and have no reason on earth to try to set you up. And because I know that you don’t mind killing people, and you probably sure as hell wouldn’t mind killing me if I crossed you.”

  Wheeler nodded. “That’s all true. Especially the last part.”

  Jason believed him.

  In the car a short while later, he thought about all the people he had killed in his stories over the years. He’d shot some, strangled some, poisoned one, bludgeoned another, and drowned yet another. It had all been so easy, killing them on the page, putting glib lines of dialogue into the mouths of the characters doing the deeds. But this was different. This was real.

  He could tell himself that he never would have hit that man on the road that horrible night, the last night Sophie could walk. He could tell himself with perfect honesty that he had killed Wallace Barton in what he thought was self-defense, and maybe convince hims
elf that there wasn’t a single part of him that found it exhilarating. But this? It was cold, calculated, premeditated murder of a real, living, breathing human being. And Jason had paid for it. It would be hard to forget that.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  At the Sleep Easy Motel in Danvers, Massachusetts, Jason paid cash for a room for seven nights, hoping he wouldn’t need it that long. It was the same motel in every television show and movie he’d ever seen. Same cheap furniture, tasteless curtains, and tissue-thin bedspread. But he didn’t care. He only needed someplace to hide out that wasn’t his apartment or Sophie’s house . . . somewhere Cobb wouldn’t find him, if he was even looking.

  There wasn’t much for him to do but stay out of Cobb’s sight and wait to hear from Wheeler. Every few hours, to establish an alibi, he walked down to the small reception area on some pretense—asking about Wi-Fi, which the motel didn’t offer; buying a newspaper from the lobby vending machine; asking directions to the nearest ATM. Each time, he made sure to chat with the clerk behind the desk—a gray-haired man whose hands shook gently with some sort of palsy. Figuring it might make him more memorable, he mentioned once or twice that he was an author writing a book there. As the hours passed, he made runs for fast food and bottles of water, always stopping by the reception desk and asking the clerk if he needed anything from the store.

  In between alibi-establishing forays out of his room, he actually did try to work on his book, assuming there would still be a book deal after all of this. He kept finding, though, that the ability to concentrate was as far beyond his grasp as the power of telekinesis. His mind wandered unceasingly. At one point, he thought about Cobb’s brother, the one who reminded Cobb so much of Jason. Curious, he called up a search engine on his laptop and typed in John Cobb.

  The first few hits were for John D. Cobb, purportedly one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century. Wrong John Cobb. The next John Cobb was a British race-car driver who died in the 1950s while trying to break the water speed record in a jet speedboat on Loch Ness, in Scotland. He hit an unexplained wake in the water, which, of course, many claimed had been caused by the famous monster of the lake. Interesting, but again, not the right John Cobb.