Prey (Jefferson Winter)

by James Carol

  ‘It was Maddie who suggested we meet. I didn’t want to at first, but she can be very persuasive. So we met up in a bar and hit it off straightaway. She really got me. Got me in a way nobody ever had before?’

  ‘No she didn’t.’

  McCarthy went to fold his arms and the handcuffs rattled tight. The spark of rage that flashed in his eyes was there and gone in seconds. He leant forward, moving towards Winter, and put his hands back on the table. ‘So you say.’

  ‘Let me guess how it went down. You both loved the same movies, the same music, the same TV shows. Right?’

  McCarthy stared across the table, eyes narrowed. His small pink tongue snaked out and moistened his lips.

  ‘She was mirroring you, Ryan. You’d tell her that you loved The Sopranos, and she’d come back telling you that was her favourite series too. So she takes that on board and a little while later she tells you that one of her favourite movies was The Godfather, just slides it into the conversation real casual. No bite there, so she tells you that she loved Goodfellas too, and you’re all, Oh my god that’s my favourite movie in the whole universe. Now chances are she hated the film, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you loved it, and you think that she loves it. So what’s your favourite movie?’

  ‘It’s not Goodfellas, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘No it’s not. It’s either The Usual Suspects or The Shawshank Redemption.’ Winter was watching McCarthy closely. ‘The Shawshank Redemption it is then. But that’s only just moved up to the number-one spot, hasn’t it? For obvious reasons.’

  McCarthy scowled. His lips were pressed hard together, turning them into two narrow strips. ‘What me and Maddie had was special. I don’t care what you say.’

  Winter shook his head. ‘You were in love with her, weren’t you?’

  McCarthy said nothing.

  ‘Oh this is priceless. She really got you good, didn’t she?’

  McCarthy’s cheeks turned red and he went to stand up.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Mendoza.

  They were all staring at each other. Winter counted off thirty-three seconds before McCarthy sat back down. Mendoza let him settle, then said, ‘Help me out here, Ryan. I thought you were gay.’ When McCarthy didn’t respond she turned to Winter. ‘So what? He’s bi?’

  Winter aimed his answer at McCarthy. ‘This isn’t about sexuality, it’s about power. Isn’t it, Ryan? When those men were begging for their lives I bet it felt so good, didn’t it? I bet you felt like a god. But what you had with Amelia, that was love, wasn’t it?’ Winter shook his head. ‘Except it wasn’t. You believed that she loved you, and she let you believe that. Because she was the one who held all the power, right? It’s like you said, she was leading the dance. You might want to believe that it was the other way around, but it wasn’t. And do you want to know something else? She’s still leading it. Think about it. While you’re stuck in here, she’s out there living it up. I doubt she even thinks about you these days. That’s how much she loved you, Ryan. You know, when you get right down to it, she has as much respect for you as you had for your victims.’

  ‘We’re done here,’ McCarthy said.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. We’re done.’ Winter did another quick rat-a-tat-tat on the table top, then got up and headed for the door. He banged on it hard and a couple of seconds later there was a heavy clunk as the lock released. The door swung open and the same guard as earlier was standing there filling the doorway. Mendoza went out first, but Winter didn’t follow straightaway.

  ‘One last thing, Ryan. Where did you and Maddie stay when you were hanging out together?’

  ‘My place.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You suggested it, but she didn’t take you up on the idea. No offense, but she’s much cleverer than you. And she’s a planner. She wouldn’t have wanted there to be anything to connect her to your life. So there’s no way she would have gone to your place where your neighbours would have seen her. Secondly, it would have put her at a psychological disadvantage. Your place, your rules. No way would she have gone for that. So try again, but this time imagine how uncomfortable I could make things if you lie.’

  For a moment he was convinced that McCarthy wasn’t going to respond. He looked broken. Winter had a sudden flash of what his relationship with Amelia had been like. In his own way he’d loved her but she would have kept him at arm’s length. She would have given him enough attention to keep him interested, but not too much because she wouldn’t have wanted him getting too comfortable. She was in charge. She held the power. That was one of the big problems with love. There was no guarantee that it would be reciprocated to the level you needed. McCarthy had learned that the hard way.

  ‘We stayed at a hotel,’ McCarthy said softly.

  ‘The same one each time?’

  A nod. ‘The Hyperion. It’s on the Upper East Side.’

  51

  They stepped out into the early evening sun and just stood there for a moment breathing in freedom. Winter lit a cigarette and took a drag. His exhale was part sigh, part smoke. He hated prisons. The way the walls pushed in on him made him feel claustrophobic. His father had been in prison for two decades, most of that on Death Row. Every day the same, your world defined by the walls and the bars. Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, and the only thing you have to look forward to at the end of it all is your execution. Ryan McCarthy said his glass was half full, but Winter didn’t believe that. How could it be in a place like that?

  He took another drag and looked out over the water at the ghost city rising from the mist and thought about the interview with McCarthy. Then he thought about the photograph. Amelia had left it on Eugene’s body for them to find, which meant that she wanted them to head straight to Riker’s to question McCarthy. And she knew McCarthy well enough to know how he’d react and that he would eventually cave in and give them the name of the hotel.

  ’We need to go to the Hyperion,’ he told Mendoza.

  ‘Why? Amelia’s not going to be there.’

  ‘Agreed, but I’m betting she’s going to be somewhere close by, watching. She’s laid her trail of breadcrumbs and this is where she wants us to go next.’ Winter took a final drag and crushed the cigarette out under his boot heel. ‘Amelia is a textbook psychopath. She’s sitting right up there at the top of the psychologists’ charts. Now, the one part where her score is off those charts is the section that deals with the Machiavellian traits. Look at how she operates. With McCarthy she pulled the strings then stood back and watched. I’m betting she did the same thing with Nelson. She wasn’t hiding in the shadows on the night the Reeds were murdered, she was out there front and centre, cheering her brother on. That’s what she does. She jerks the strings and makes those puppets dance.’

  ‘She’s making us dance too. You realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘She’s trying.’

  ‘She’s doing more than that, Winter. Think back to that first time you saw her in the diner. She knew who you were, she chose the venue. Basically, she was running the show, even back then. She left the newspaper behind knowing you’d go charging up to Hartwood, and she left the photograph of her and Ryan because she knew we’d come here. Which brings us back to our earlier question: why you?’

  Winter stared out over the city, looking for answers in the tall towers, concrete and steel. He smiled to himself as another piece of the puzzle finally dropped into place. ‘It’s all about revenge, and that’s one of the oldest stories there is. I helped catch Ryan McCarthy and she wants payback.’

  ‘Yeah, that makes sense. She’d invested in him and he was doing what she needed, and then he got caught. No Ryan McCarthy, no more games. So she went looking for a new game.’

  Winter nodded. ‘She’s mightily pissed off, but open warfare isn’t her style. We’ve seen that. So she took a long, deep breath and pushed the anger down, and kept doing that until she was thinking clearly again. Then she worked out what she could do to redr
ess everything she perceives as being wrong in her world. McCarthy is history and there’s nothing she can do about that, but she can affect the future. That’s where I come in.’

  He stopped talking and looked out over the water at the misty city again. Noises filtered in from all directions. The industrialised clang and bang of the jail behind him, the distant clatter of the city in front, the screeching of some high-wheeling birds. Everything seemed dull, like the fog was acting as a muffler. The sharpest, most defined sound was the sound of Mendoza breathing less than a yard away. A light breeze was blowing in from the water, bringing an unpleasant smell that was difficult to categorise.

  ‘Clarity,’ he said finally. ‘That’s important to her. She doesn’t act unless she sees the board clearly. So when the anger and disappointment finally fade, what does she see?’

  ‘She sees that everything has gone to hell, so she starts looking around for someone to blame.’

  ‘Exactly. She knows that the cops are responsible for spoiling her fun, but she can’t go up against the whole of the NYPD. She needs the target to be more specific. So she does a bit more digging and my name comes up in connection with the investigation. Now she has someone she can target.’

  Mendoza went quiet while she considered this. ‘It’s all about control,’ she said. ‘Or to be more precise, it’s all about the loss of control and doing whatever she needs to do to get that back. So here’s a question: how do we take control of the board?’

  It was Winter’s turn to fall quiet. ‘Her overconfidence is her biggest weakness. That’s how we’re going to catch her. We’re going to follow the breadcrumbs, but we keep our eyes wide open. At some point she’s going to make a mistake. When she does we need to be ready.’

  They walked back to the parking lot where they’d left the car. Mendoza went around to the driver’s side and stood there expectantly with her hand held out. ‘Key, please.’

  ‘But I’m a much better driver than you are.’

  ‘The deal was that you drove back to New York. We’re in New York, so hand over the keys, or I will shoot you.’

  ‘A threat is only effective if the person being threatened thinks it might be carried out.’

  Mendoza unbuttoned her jacket, took out her gun and aimed at his head. ‘Give me the key.’

  Winter craned his head around so he could see the side of the gun. ‘The safety’s still on.’

  ‘Don’t push it. Just give me the damn key, Winter.’

  52

  The Hyperion was a six-storey building with dirty stonework and a sense that its glory days were long gone. The owners no doubt wanted their customers to believe it was on the Upper East Side, but that was stretching things. Winter reckoned it was closer to East Harlem. Parking was a nightmare and they’d ended up abandoning the BMW four blocks away and walking. They still had a couple of blocks to go when his cell phone started ringing. He looked at the number flashing up on the screen, but didn’t answer. It was a number he was unfamiliar with.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ Mendoza asked.

  Winter ignored the question. ‘Whatever happens over the next couple of minutes, I want you to look straight ahead and keep walking. Nod if you understand.’

  Mendoza’s eyes narrowed, but she did what he asked and carried on walking. ‘I want to know what’s going on, Winter?’

  ‘And I’ll tell you. Just not now, okay?’

  For a second it looked as though she was going to argue. Instead, she nodded once and kept on walking. Winter was charting a route that took them right down the middle of the sidewalk. Anyone dumb enough to play chicken got bumped out the way. He barely noticed the collisions, or the abuse. He was concentrating on the cell phone, counting the rings. His cell died halfway through the fourteenth ring. Three seconds, four seconds, five. The phone started ringing again and he smiled to himself.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mendoza asked again.

  Winter ignored her and kept walking. The phone was still ringing in his hand, insistent and annoying. Nine rings, ten rings. They were a block and a half away from the Hyperion. Directly opposite was another hotel. Architecturally, it looked different, but in every way that mattered it was identical. Same location, same clientele, same three-star rating. Twelve rings, thirteen. The cell cut off halfway through the fifteenth ring. Winter held the phone up. ‘It’s Amelia.’

  Mendoza stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. ‘Why the hell didn’t you answer it?’

  ‘Keep moving,’ he replied without breaking stride.

  She took a large step and came back in line with him. ‘I need to know what the hell’s going on, and I need to know now. If I’m going to be any help here, you need to let me in.’

  ‘We’re taking control of the board. Amelia is in the hotel opposite the Hyperion. She has to be. My cell started ringing the second we came into view. It’s the obvious place to watch from.’

  Before he could finish, Mendoza was already sprinting along the sidewalk, arms and legs pumping. Winter’s cell phone rang again. He counted the rings off, waiting for the thirteenth, then stopped walking and connected the call.

  ‘Hi Amelia. How’s it going?’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Hello, Jefferson. How did you know it was me?’

  He’d hoped that ignoring her calls would wind her up, but she sounded as calm as ever. He glanced across the road, eyes searching the hotel’s windows, wondering which one she was behind.

  ‘I didn’t recognise the number so I assumed it was a junk call. A telemarketer might have phoned back a second time in quick succession but not a third. So I asked myself two questions. Who might want to speak to me so urgently, and whose number didn’t I have? Yours was the name I was left with.’

  ‘How clever of you.’

  ‘Not really. This isn’t exactly rocket science.’

  ‘Modesty doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘Clever is developing a cure for cancer, or picking up the ball from Einstein and finally coming up with a Unified Theory of Everything. Using deductive reasoning to work out who might be calling your cell phone is not clever. That’s just a parlour trick. So what do you want Amelia? Or should that be Maddie?’

  ‘You’ve been to see Ryan, then? How is he?’

  Her voice had changed. It sounded as though she was talking while she was walking, the rhythm of her feet dictating the beat of her words. Winter listened harder, trying to hear her footsteps. Nothing. Perhaps they’d been muffled by carpet. In which case she was still inside the hotel. A door opened and the rhythm changed again. It sounded like she was descending a flight of stairs. Mendoza needed to hurry or Amelia was going to get away.

  ‘I think he’s probably been better. Prison life isn’t agreeing with him. You really enjoy pulling those strings and making people dance, don’t you?’

  ‘You have no idea.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘I’d love to, but it would take too long. I want to meet up, Jefferson.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Since when does there have to be a reason?’

  ‘Of course there has to be a reason. It isn’t like we’re friends getting together for lunch and a chat. You’re a killer and my job is to catch you.’

  ‘I’m sensing that you’re still upset about the cook’s death. What was his name again? Oscar?’

  ‘Omar. His name was Omar.’

  ‘Poor Omar. But then, if I hadn’t killed him, we wouldn’t be here now. So you see, his death was necessary.’

  ‘Why do you want to meet, Amelia?’

  ‘That would be telling.’

  Before Winter could say anything else, the high-pitched sound of a fire alarm ripped through the earpiece. He jerked the cell phone away from his ear. An old trick, but a good one. He put the phone back to his ear. The ambient noise had changed. Clanging metal and bright echoes. A kitchen. Not good. While Mendoza was working her way towards Amelia’s room, Amelia was down on the first floor, escaping out the back way.
/>   He looked along the sidewalk towards the hotel entrance. Nobody had come out yet, but it wouldn’t be long. And while everything was in chaos she’d just slip away. Judging by the sounds coming through the earpiece she was still in the kitchen. But she wouldn’t be there much longer.

  ‘You’ve gone very quiet,’ she said. ‘I can almost hear those cogs turning inside your head.’

  ‘You want to meet? Fine let’s meet.’

  ‘I want you to come alone.’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘I’m serious. This one’s a deal-breaker. If I get even a hint that you’re not alone then I disappear.’

  ‘You’re going to have to give me some time. A couple of hours at least. I need to give Mendoza the slip.’

  ‘No you don’t. You could give her the slip right now. Just walk away while everything’s going crazy, and don’t look back. New York’s a great place to lose yourself in.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that, Amelia. As long as you’re in that hotel I’ve got to come after you.’

  ‘But what’s the point? I’ll be gone long before you get here. I know that, you know that, so why bother?’

  ‘I’ve still got to try.’

  Amelia let out a world-weary sigh. Winter could almost see her shaking her head on the other end of the line. ‘What is it with you men? You’re all so stupid.’

  ‘Two hours,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll give you half an hour.’

  Winter noticed a new change in the background noise. She was outside. Which meant they’d lost her. ‘I’ll be there in an hour.’

  ‘Be where?’

  ‘If you think about it, I’m sure you’ll work it out.’

  He killed the call and broke into a run, his thumbs working his cell phone. He found Mendoza’s number, typed shes gon out thru kichn, then hit send.

  53

  Winter scanned the abandoned kitchen, taking everything in. The discarded pots and pans, the pile of half chopped vegetables, the open back door. He crouched down and picked up a large knife that had fallen on the floor. The blade was shiny and sharp. He laid the knife on one of the work surfaces. A door banged open behind him and Mendoza came rushing in.