Prey (Jefferson Winter)

by James Carol

  ‘The cell phone please.’

  Winter gave her the phone. He watched as she worked the screen with her thumb, watched as it disappeared into her laptop bag. She sat down on the bench and patted the space next to her. He sat down. Amelia moved the laptop bag to her side and rested one hand protectively on top of it. Winter found his cigarette pack and tapped one out.

  ‘Didn’t you see the signs at the entrance?’ she asked him. ‘No smoking.’

  He pushed the cigarette back into the pack but kept the lighter out. Click, click, flick with the flame. He did this a second time, a third time. He felt her watching him.

  ‘What’s the story with the Zippo?’

  ‘Who says there’s a story?’

  ‘There’s a story.’

  He clicked the lighter closed and looked at it for a moment. The brass was pitted and scratched. The combination of the park lights and the moon made the metal appear yellow. He pushed the Zippo back into his pocket.

  ‘It belonged to my partner in the FBI. When she quit smoking, she gave it to me. Like I said, there’s no story. Not really.’

  She leant towards him, eyes locked on his and kept going until the tip of her nose touched his cheek. Slowly she moved her head upwards, her nose dragging across his stubbly skin. Winter sat dead still, staring straight ahead. She reached the top of his cheek, paused a moment, then settled back into her own space, a hint of perfume trailing in her wake.

  ‘You’re lying. I can smell lies, you know.’

  ‘There’s no story, Amelia. She quit smoking and gave me the lighter. That’s all.’

  ‘This partner meant something to you. You wouldn’t have kept it if she didn’t. That’s a story in itself right there. So where did she get it from?’

  Winter hesitated. ‘Her father. He gave it to her when he quit smoking.’

  ‘See, it’s not just a lighter, it’s an heirloom. You two were as close as family. Close enough for her to want to give you an heirloom. So what happened? Did she die of lung cancer?’ When Winter didn’t respond, Amelia put her hands up. It was a gesture that could have been contrite or apologetic, but was neither. ‘You don’t want to talk about it, don’t talk. I get it. Personal is personal.’

  ‘Why did you want to meet?’

  ‘I wanted to see your reaction. It was dark the first two times we met, and I didn’t quite have the jacket right. This one’s much better, don’t you think?’

  ‘Okay, you’ve seen my reaction. Can I go now?’

  ‘What’s the hurry? It’s a beautiful evening. I thought we might chat for a while.’

  ‘You want to chat, fine. Tell me about your father.’

  Amelia smiled. ‘How about you tell me about your father first?’

  Winter smiled back. Move and countermove, just like a chess game. In another world, another life, it would have been so easy to be disarmed by her.

  ‘My father was one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Over a twelve-year period he murdered fifteen young women. He kidnapped them then took them out into the forest in the dead of night and hunted them down with a high-powered rifle. He was highly intelligent, but obviously not intelligent enough, because he got caught. He spent twenty years on Death Row and then he was executed. Okay, your turn.’

  Amelia shook her head. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that. You haven’t told me anything I couldn’t find out online. I want something that I can’t read on a computer screen.’

  Winter took out the Zippo and lit it. A thousand and one random images were flooding through his mind, pictures from the years before the arrest. Good times, fun times. Happier times. He narrowed the list down to six, then picked the memory that shone the brightest. He clicked the lighter closed and put it away.

  ‘He made the best banana pancakes you’ve ever tasted.’

  ‘Banana pancakes!’ Amelia shook her head. ‘Is that the best you can do? Your father was one of the world’s most notorious serial killers and you give me pancakes.’

  ‘Up until I was eleven my dad was my dad. He could be distant at times, controlling at others. Sometimes I hated him, sometimes I loved him. Like I say, he was my dad, the guy who made the best banana pancakes in the world.’

  She considered this for a moment, then nodded to herself. ‘You didn’t have a clue what he was, did you?’

  ‘No I didn’t. I should have, though.’

  ‘And this is where I’m supposed to tell you that you were just a kid? I mean, how could you have known? That’s what everyone else says, right?’ Her face brightened. ‘Yes, you should have known, Jefferson. You should have seen him for what he really was. But what then? Would you have turned him in? The guy who made the best banana pancakes in the world? Not a chance.’

  ‘Okay, your turn.’

  Amelia didn’t say anything straightaway. She broke eye contact and watched a middle-aged guy walk by, trailing a golden retriever on a lead.

  ‘My father loved music,’ she said eventually.

  Winter waited for more, but there wasn’t anything. ‘A lot of people love music. I love music. With all due respect, you’re not exactly giving me banana pancakes here.’

  Her eyes moved away from the guy with the dog and back to Winter. She smiled one of the most disturbing smiles he’d ever seen. ‘His favourite composer was Strauss. He had one LP that he would play continuously while we ate dinner. Over and over and over. As soon as it finished, he’d get up and put the needle back to the start again.’

  ‘I saw the CD player and the table in the bomb shelter. I’m guessing you carried on the tradition, right? You ate at the table, your father ate out of the dog bowl, and Strauss played gently in the background.’

  ‘Wrong again, Jefferson. Well, mostly wrong. Dinner time was quiet time.’

  ‘So what was the CD player for?’

  ‘That was so he didn’t get lonely in the dark.’

  The statement didn’t make sense to start with, and then it did. ‘The stockpile of batteries in the cellar was for the CD player, wasn’t it. Day and night, you made him listen to that same CD. Over and over and over.’

  ‘I told him that I’d turn it off if he burned his eye out. It took a while to convince him, but eventually he believed me. It took longer to convince him the second time.’ She paused. ‘When I was little I wanted to be a dancer. When my father found out, do you know what he did? He made me dance for him every night after dinner, and he’d just sit there laughing at me. I hate Strauss almost as much as I hate him.’ Another pause. ‘Okay, your turn. When we were in the diner, you wanted to kill that cook, didn’t you?’

  For a split second the world shrunk down until all it contained was the bench that the two of them were sitting on.

  ‘You’re way off the mark,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Liar. I saw the way your pupils dilated. I saw your breathing speed up. You were imagining what it would be like to stick that knife into his eye.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Go on, admit it.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  Amelia leant in close, closer. Her nose touched his cheek and she sniffed. She let out a long breath that warmed his skin, then settled back into her own space again.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he repeated.

  ‘We could kill someone right now, you know.’ Her left hand moved in a loose arc that seemed to take in the whole park and everyone in it. ‘Pick a sheep, any sheep.’

  ‘I’m not playing this game.’

  ‘Come on, Jefferson, loosen up a little. Okay, how about that guy over there wearing the red NYC ball cap? So tacky, and the way he’s staring up at the bridge, he’s got to be a tourist. He deserves to die just for that, don’t you think?’ She dropped her voice to a confidential whisper. ‘What about that old guy over there near the next bench? He must be at least a hundred. If we kill him, we’d be doing him a favour. He’s probably riddled with cancer.’

  Winter said nothing.

  ‘I could make you choose, you know.’ She patted her laptop ba
g. ‘I’ve got a gun in here. Either choose one or I’ll shoot both. I’d happily waste two bullets to put those little sheep out of their misery.’

  Winter sighed and shook his head. ‘Amelia, you’re not going to shoot anyone, so let’s drop it. How far do you think you’re going to get before you get taken down? Sure, you might make it out of the park, but I can’t see you getting much further than that. A gun goes off around here and someone’s going to call the cops. This isn’t exactly the Bronx.’

  ‘The question isn’t how far I’m going to get, it’s how many people will I kill before that happens?’

  ‘Both questions are irrelevant. Yes, you’re a psychopath, but you’re not a killer. At least you’re not one who likes getting their hands dirty. It’s much more fun to get other people to do the killing for you, right? That’s what happened with Nelson and Ryan McCarthy, wasn’t it. You wound them up then stood back and watched. Control and manipulation, that’s what you get off on.’

  ‘I killed Omar.’

  ‘But why did you kill him? That’s the crucial question here. Why? You didn’t do it because you wanted to see him suffer, or you wanted to hear him scream, or you needed to right some perceived wrong. You did it to get my attention. Basically, he was collateral damage. If you could have got my attention another way, you would have, but you knew that would work. What’s more, you were right. It was probably the only thing that could have stopped me catching my flight to Paris.’

  ‘But that’s not the only reason? People always hide from their true selves. They keep their secret desires locked down inside their heads. Nelson did that. Ryan, too. I just helped them to reach their full potential.’

  ‘Maybe so, but that doesn’t explain why you killed Omar.’

  ‘What secret desire do you keep locked away, Jefferson? Or, let’s put it another way, what do you fantasise about? I couldn’t find any online interviews with you, but I managed to find some that had been done with the people you’d worked for. The common theme was the way you got into the heads of your prey. So the question I’m asking myself right now is: how do I help you to reach your full potential?’

  ‘I know where you’re going with this, and you’re way off the mark.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It starts with the fantasies and progresses from there. One day you’re daydreaming, the next your hands are covered in blood. And it’s not as though you’ve never killed. Sure, you can try telling yourself that it was in the line of duty, that the kills were righteous, but we both know the truth. Killing someone is easy. The trick is getting away with it. With all your training, you know all the tricks, don’t you? So would you like to know what it felt like to kill Omar?’

  ‘No, Amelia, I wouldn’t’.

  She stared at him for a second, then her face broke into a wide smile. ‘Liar.’

  Winter took out the Zippo and lit it. He snapped the lid shut and put the lighter away. She was trying to rattle him. What’s more, she’d almost succeeded. He forced himself to put his personal feelings aside, forced himself to inject some ice into his thoughts, forced himself to look at what she was actually saying without taking it personally. Amelia said that she was helping Nelson, but that was bullshit. The only person that she was looking out for was herself.

  ‘What did Melanie do to you?’

  The smile slid away. ‘Melanie didn’t do anything to me.’

  ‘Then why did you want her dead? Was it because she was the popular girl at High School, and you were the girl everyone despised?’

  Amelia laughed. ‘Do you really think that I care about other people’s opinions?’

  ‘Okay, not that.’ Winter glanced over the water at Manhattan then looked back at Amelia. ‘How about this then? Nelson got a crush on Melanie and you couldn’t handle that. When you latch on to someone, you need to be the only person in their universe. You did that with Nelson, and Ryan McCarthy, and your father. And you’re trying to do it with me.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes I do. What’s more, it’s working. Right now, you’re right at the centre of my universe. You’re pretty much all that I’ve thought about for the last two days. But what happens when the object of your obsession starts to stray? How does that make you feel? Angry, I bet. Absolutely furious. I’m figuring that you filled Nelson’s head with poison. You took his love for Melanie and turned that into hate, then convinced him to kill her. You’re lucky Nelson didn’t turn on you.’

  ‘Nelson would never have hurt me.’

  ‘And you’re sure about that?’

  Amelia said nothing.

  ‘You lost control of him, didn’t you? But that’s the thing with fantasies. When they become real it’s never quite how you imagine. So why didn’t you stop Nelson killing himself? My guess is that it’s because you didn’t trust him not to implicate you. He was too unstable for you to trust with a secret that big.’

  A sly look came over Amelia’s face. It was an expression that Winter had seen during those FBI prison interviews. He was circling close to the truth. She wanted him to know, but she was going to make him work for it.

  ‘Where are you going with this?’ she asked gently.

  ‘You told him to kill himself. That was your idea. It’s the ultimate control game. Manipulating people into killing is one thing, manipulating them into killing themselves takes it to a whole new level.’

  Amelia smiled again.

  Winter took out the Zippo again. Click, flick, click. Click, flick, click. ‘Earlier you were talking about sheep. What does that make you? A wolf.’ He watched her closely. ‘Not a wolf then, how about a tiger?’ He studied her again. ‘Close but not quite. Okay, how about a lioness? That’s what this is really all about, right? You’re trying to nurture your inner lioness.’

  ‘Don’t mock me.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do? Take you seriously? No, that would legitimise you, and that’s not going to happen. You think that what you do makes you special, but it doesn’t. Take it from me, you’re not the first psychopath with delusions of grandeur, and you won’t be the last. Do you want to know the truth? You’re a nobody, Amelia. Just another nothing in a long line of nothings.’

  Her face contorted with anger, all pretence gone. One second she was doing a poor imitation of him, in the next he glimpsed the monster she was. The transformation was both terrifying and fascinating. Winter was waiting for her to say something. Waiting for the explosion. It never happened. She took a deep breath and by the time she’d finished her exhalation the mask had gone back up.

  ‘Sticks and stones, Jefferson. Sticks and stones. Okay, we’re done here.’

  Winter was watching her closely, waiting for the right moment. Timing was everything. Amelia went to stand and he stood up, too. They bumped arms and the laptop bag fell to the ground. Winter bent down and scooped it up. He held it out and waited for her to take it. Their eyes locked.

  ‘What are you up to, Jefferson?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘No it wasn’t.’ She snatched the bag back and started going through the pockets. Her hand went into the small side pocket and a grin lit up her face. She removed her hand slowly. Clasped between her thumb and forefinger was Winter’s Zippo. She held it up. ‘Lost something?’

  Amelia sat down again and dismantled the lighter. She examined each part then laid it neat on the bench. The tracking device was hidden in the wad of cotton wool used to soak up the lighter fluid. She held it up for him to see. ‘You’re so predictable.’

  Winter looked at the pile of parts on the bench, then looked at Amelia. She dropped the tracking device on the ground, crushed it underneath her sneaker, then stood up and walked away without looking back. Fifty yards on the path curved gently to the right. After another ten yards she’d disappeared from sight. Winter reassembled the light, then walked over to an old guy who was stood looking out over the river and asked if he could borrow his cell phone. The guy looked at him like he’d go
ne crazy. So did the next two people he asked. The fourth person actually believed him when he told her he was an undercover cop. She dug a cell phone from her bag and handed it over. Winter punched in 911 and asked to get put through to Mendoza.

  59

  The stoned Asian guy working the graveyard shift looked like he’d been teleported in from the sixties. His Grateful Dead T-shirt was faded and old, and his long grey ponytail was wound into a plait. He watched bug-eyed as the police filed through the door. At the same time he was trying hard to avoid looking directly at anyone. Up until ten seconds ago the world had been a mellow place, now it was a living nightmare. Winter felt kind of sorry for him.

  Given that this motel was two-star at best, the reception area didn’t look anywhere near as shabby as he would have expected. The computer monitor on the counter was reasonably up to date, the cheap furniture matched, and the plants dotted strategically around the room were both real and alive. The plastic holder next to the monitor contained business cards. The Paradise Motel was printed in bamboo letters above a nasty graphic of a palm tree. Beneath that was a Bellefonte number. The town was in Philadelphia, just off I-80. They’d done the four-hour drive from New York in a little over three hours and fifteen minutes, the BMW’s big engine working hard.

  Mendoza laid a tablet down on the desk and pointed at the screen. ‘See that flashing red dot? Which room?’

  The guy just stood there with his mouth hanging open, his gaze following three points of a triangle. Mendoza, Winter, the tablet, before moving back to Mendoza and starting all over again. The other six cops who’d come in with them no longer seemed to be registering on his radar.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Winter told him. ‘This isn’t a bust. What’s your name?’

  ‘Marty.’

  ‘Okay, Marty, how about we start with you killing the sound on the TV set.’

  Marty turned and looked blankly at the TV on the corner of the desk. A DVD of Pulp Fiction was playing. Samuel L. Jackson was on the screen, intense, righteous and cooler than cool. Marty broke out of his trance and leant over to hit the off button. Winter tapped the desk to bring his attention back to the tablet.