Watch Me (Jefferson Winter 2)

by James Carol

  ‘I want him out of my house now. Do I make myself clear?’

  Barker and Romero had moved away from Clayton and were coming towards me. Barker was reaching for his gun. Romero was reaching for his handcuffs. I put my hand up to stop them, but they kept coming.

  ‘Before you kick me out, I need to say one last thing. Most of you bought that story about Clayton blackmailing Jasper, but that was flawed from the ground up, just like Dan Choat’s suicide. Doesn’t anyone want to know why?’

  ‘Get him out of here,’ Fortier shouted. The sheriff looked almost as furious as Jasper.

  ‘It’s because the guy you’re looking for is a cop.’

  I was watching Jasper carefully, studying him. Right now he was the only person in this room who mattered. Barker and Romero had stopped dead and were just staring around, waiting for instructions.

  ‘Okay that’s enough,’ Shepherd said. ‘You’re clutching at straws. There’s no way this guy’s a cop.’

  I walked up to Shepherd and stopped in front of him. We were so close our noses were almost touching, close enough that I could smell his aftershave. I was invading his personal space, but he was standing his ground.

  ‘You had no problem believing that Choat was the unsub. Okay, it turned out that he wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean another cop can’t be behind this. You, for example.’

  Shepherd laughed and shook his head. ‘Like I said, you’re clutching at straws.’

  ‘This explains why Taylor’s in hospital. That one really bugged me, you know. The actual why is straightforward enough. You wanted a distraction. However, because of Taylor’s size, the how was trickier to answer. If Barker or Romero or anyone else had tried to take him out, he would have knocked them into the middle of next week. It’d be them in the hospital, not him. And he would have been watching out for a move like that.’ I smiled at Shepherd. ‘You’re a different matter, though. You could have caught him off guard. You were one of the first names that went up on our list of suspects, and one of the first names that had a line put through it. So how did you do it?’

  ‘If this is another one of your stunts, it’s not funny.’

  We were more or less the same height. One second I was looking into his eyes, the next I was staring at my reflection in his spectacles, my perspective shifting and changing. I gave him a second to respond but he just stood there staring, his mouth shut tight.

  ‘Okay, I’ll tell you exactly how you did it. You waited until everyone else was busy, then asked Taylor to go fetch something from the trunk of your car. Then you wandered over, pretending like there was something else you needed. You were smiling and chatting and doing your best to keep him off guard. As soon as you were close enough, you injected him with a tranquilliser, something powerful enough to take down an elephant, and tipped him into the trunk. Then you drove around to the storage shed and parked as close to the door as possible and dragged him inside. Then you beat him half to death and headed back to the crime scene before you were missed.’

  ‘You’ve got an overactive imagination, Winter.’

  I laughed at that, and saw a flash of anger spark behind those spectacles. It was there and gone so fast I could have imagined it. But I hadn’t. That reaction was as good as a confession in my book.

  ‘And that’s the wrong response. Someone in your position gets accused of something like this, they come out fighting. They’re going to tell you they didn’t do it in no uncertain terms. They’re going to be shouting from the highest rooftop.’

  ‘What’s my motive?’

  I took a step back and turned to Jasper. ‘That’s a good question. So what’s his motive, Jasper?’

  ‘How the hell should I know?’

  ‘Because your first reaction was to look at Shepherd. By my reckoning he should have been third on the list. Clayton comes first, then Sheriff Fortier because he’s the most senior police officer in the room. And then Shepherd because he’s the second most senior officer. But you didn’t do any of that. You looked straight at Shepherd. Why?’

  I glanced at Shepherd, glanced back at Jasper. Another glance at Shepherd. Another glance at Jasper. Comparing and contrasting. I looked over at Clayton, then turned my attention back to Shepherd.

  ‘It’s the eyes. There’s obviously a dominant gene there. The glasses and the moustache are a nice touch, by the way. They take the focus away from your eyes.’

  ‘What’s he taking about?’ said Clayton.

  ‘Meet your other half-brother.’

  Clayton just stared at me as though I’d proclaimed Shepherd to be the reincarnation of Elvis. He had a dumb expression on his face and his mouth kept opening and closing like there were words trapped in his throat but he didn’t know how to get them out.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Shepherd. He nodded to Barker. ‘Get him the hell out of here.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ll go. But first I want Jasper to tell me I’ve got this one wrong.’ It was Shepherd’s turn to glare at me like he wanted me dead. I looked at Jasper. ‘The floor’s all yours.’

  Jasper walked slowly over to Shepherd and stopped in front of him. Standing together like that, more similarities became apparent. The shape of their noses, the cut of their cheekbones. They were the same height. Jasper’s hair was as white as mine. Shepherd’s was heading in that direction.

  ‘Why?’ Jasper asked.

  There was a long silence. Shepherd was looking at Jasper, Jasper was looking at Shepherd, and everyone else was watching the two of them, just waiting for something to happen. Shepherd broke the spell by laughing. His laughter was dry and brittle and completely devoid of humour.

  ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘I don’t, but I want to understand. I need to understand.’

  Shepherd sighed and shook his head like he couldn’t believe he had to spell out something that was so obvious.

  ‘Sam had that big house up in McArthur Heights and that Ferrari, all paid for by you. You could even argue that you bought his wife. A loser like Sam, if he hadn’t had your money to spend there’s no way he would have been able to afford a woman like that. Then there’s Clayton. When you die he gets everything. Where does that leave me?’

  ‘I’ve always made sure you were all right. You wanted to be the next sheriff. I was going to make that happen.’

  ‘And you still don’t get it.’ Shepherd shook his head and snorted. ‘I want the Ferrari and the Gulfstream and the big house, but even though I’m your son I can’t have any of that. A cop buys a Ferrari and people ask questions.’

  Jasper’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘This is about money?’

  Another shake of the head. Another snort of laughter. ‘Of course it’s about money. When you get right down to it, everything’s always about money.’

  ‘You should have said something, I would have given you money.’

  ‘And you’re still not hearing me. What was I going to say when people started asking questions? That I’d won the lottery? I guess you could have told the truth about me being your son. Except that wasn’t going to happen because then you’d have to acknowledge your relationship with my mother. The fact you fathered a child with a waitress really wouldn’t do your public image any good, would it? How’s that one going to look up at the golf club?’

  ‘I always made sure your mother was well taken care of.’

  ‘No, you bought her silence. Big difference.’

  ‘A quick question.’ The two men turned to me, surprised. They were so wrapped up in their own drama that they had forgotten there were other people in the room. ‘Your mother’s dead, right? And I’m betting this happened fairly recently.’

  ‘She died last month,’ said Shepherd. ‘But what the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

  I nodded to myself as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. ‘That figures. If you’re going to go crazy and start burning up your half-brother just because he’s got a better car than you, then there’s got to be some sort of
trigger. As far as triggers go, a bereavement is right up there near the top of the list.’

  Shepherd stared at me, eyes blazing, cheeks red. He looked like he wanted to kill me, and I realised that I’d inadvertently crossed that line again. Then his expression softened, but what it changed to was worse. One second his face was twisted with fury, the next there was a kind of blank serenity there. I’d seen that look before on some old CCTV footage during my FBI days. This was the face of a suicide bomber a second before the explosion.

  In the time it took my brain to catch up with what was happening Shepherd already had his Glock out. I started moving towards him with no idea what I was going to do when I got there. The instructors at Quantico had tried to teach me about self-defence and hand-to-hand combat. Tried and failed.

  Before I’d covered half the distance it was already too late. The first bullet hit Jasper in the chest, and the second took the back of his head off.

  67

  Shepherd swung the gun towards me and I skidded to a halt in front of him. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of the blue medical top, then spun me around and dragged me into a tight embrace. The Glock drilled into my right temple, hot metal burning into my skin. Shepherd ducked behind me so he could use my body as a shield. We were right up against that wide panoramic window, so close that Shepherd must have been touching the glass.

  There was a patter of footsteps, and Smithson and his buddy ran into the room. The two security men already had their guns out and were aiming in our direction. They looked pissed at having read this one so wrong, but they also looked serious, like they were anxious to make amends. Barker and Romero were fumbling with their holsters, panicked looks on their faces, guns popping out one after the other.

  I could see Hannah in my peripheral vision. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was frozen into an O. Jasper was lying off to my left, his blood draining out onto the expensive rug, red appearing black against the pale grey background. An average male has around eight pints of blood. All nice and tidy when it’s contained, but it makes a hell of a mess when it gets out.

  The smell of Jasper’s death filled the room. Death, the great leveller. It didn’t matter if you were a homeless guy wearing odd shoes or one of the richest men on the planet, there was little dignity in death.

  Shepherd pushed the gun harder into my temple. His left arm was snaked around my throat, restricting the blood flowing through my carotid artery. There wasn’t enough air getting into my lungs. I felt strangely weightless, like I was about to float away. My legs were tingling, my vision was turning to grey static, and I was getting close to unconsciousness.

  I fought the urge to struggle, fought the urge to fight. Do that and I’d just be using up precious oxygen. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to run, wanted to fight, but I still had enough of a grip on the situation to know that wouldn’t get me anywhere. I locked eyes with Smithson. The security guy was moving his gun around, searching for a clear line of sight. His face was expressionless. If he was frustrated, it wasn’t showing.

  ‘Shoot him.’ My words were aimed at Smithson. They were desperate and barely audible, the volume crushed to nothing by Shepherd’s arm.

  Shepherd drilled the gun even harder into my temple. It felt like he was pushing the gun right into my brain. ‘He does that you’re going to die. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Shoot him,’ I hissed again.

  It was all I could manage, and even that was too much effort. I had more to say, words that could buy my freedom, but they were lodged in my throat, lodged in my brain. Given time, I could unravel this puzzle. There was always a solution. I could find a way out of this. But my brain was slowing down and I couldn’t think straight. Nor could I see straight. Everything was a blur. I was vaguely aware of Smithson, vaguely aware of Hannah.

  The world was getting darker. Any second now it was going to turn black and that would be that. I was attached to this world by the thinnest of threads, and when that thread finally snapped I was going to float right through the glass and get picked up by the water, and then I was going to float right on out of here.

  A sudden blur sparked in the left side of my field of vision. This was it. This was the moment when the lights went out for ever.

  A single gunshot.

  The sharp high-pitched insistence of glass shattering.

  The thread snapped and I was floating through the air. Far in the distance, I heard the haunting sound of Mozart’s clarinet and I had time to wonder if I was finally going to get the answer to that particular puzzle.

  One by one the lights winked out until there was only darkness left.

  68

  I stood in front of the hospital with my face turned up to the sun, enjoying the moment. When you come face to face with your own mortality, for a short while afterwards you become hyper-aware. Your senses explode with the sheer majesty of the world around you. Sights, sounds, smells, taste, touch, everything is brighter and more vivid.

  It doesn’t last long, a couple of days, a week at most. Slowly the dials are wound back down until your feet touch the ground again and you discover that you’re just one more person amongst seven billion other souls, and like everyone else out there you’re just doing your best to get through another day.

  Nothing lasts for ever, everything is in a constant state of flux. That’s one of the basic truths that the universe turns on, and I accept that. For now, though, I was happy to enjoy the feel of the sun on my skin, and the symphony created by the world going on around me. I was happy to lose myself in the simple smells of a hot summer day.

  I really thought I’d died.

  Twenty-four hours had passed since then. I’d had a whole day to work out what had happened, to get some sort of perspective, and I’d filled in most of the blanks.

  It was Hannah who’d saved my life. She was the blur of movement I’d caught out of the corner of my eye just before I lost consciousness. She’d charged Shepherd, knocking him off balance, and giving Smithson the clear line of sight he needed to take his shot. The bullet had gone clean through Shepherd’s skull and shattered one of those big panes of glass, then the three of us had tumbled out and ended up in the lake.

  I’d already regained consciousness by the time I was pulled coughing and spluttering from the water. Somehow I’d escaped without a scratch. My throat was sore from where Shepherd had crushed it and there was a small burn mark on my temple from the Glock, but they were my only injuries. Hannah hadn’t got off so lightly. She’d caught herself on the broken window and had needed stitches. If I could have taken those injuries for her, I would have done so in a heartbeat. That girl was my hero.

  Taylor would have been proud.

  I walked into the hospital, a cheque for a hundred thousand dollars made out to Hannah Hayden folded into the back pocket of my jeans. Unfortunately, the money was coming out of my account. Jasper wasn’t around to sign off on my expenses, and Clayton was being an asshole. He blamed me for his father’s death and was withholding my fee.

  I could afford to take the hit. I had my stocks and shares, I earned good money, and my outgoings were negligible. Day-to-day expenses were covered by whoever I was working for. Hotel bills, meals, whisky. My mortgage was paid off, and since I hadn’t been back to Virginia in a while, my utility bills were next to zero. A nominal amount went out on electricity since the lights were on a timer to deter burglars, and I paid a security firm to look in on the place from time to time, and once a month a groundskeeping firm tidied the yard. And that was about it.

  The only thing I had to buy were my cigarettes.

  The elevator stopped at the third floor and I walked into a wide, brightly lit corridor that was filled with hospital noises and smells. A black couple were coming towards me. They were in their late forties. Tall, fit, lean. The woman smiled when she saw me. She was dressed in bright reds and yellows and had a large silver crucifix on a chain around her neck. She held her hand out and we shook. She kept hold of my hand in both of hers.
It was warm and soft. She smelled faintly of lavender.

  ‘It’s so good to meet you. Taylor has told us so much about you. I’m Rosa, by the way.’ She smiled at her husband. ‘And this is Malcolm.’

  ‘Good to meet you both. How’s he doing?’

  ‘Better.’ Rosa was still clutching my hand like she might never let go. ‘Thank you for saving my son.’

  Rosa smiled at me a while longer before finally letting go. Then it was Malcolm’s turn to take hold of my hand and shake it. He was almost as big as his son, only an inch or two shorter. In his face I caught a glimpse of the man Taylor would become. It was a good face. There was strength there, pride, integrity. Malcolm’s hand engulfed mine, his skin rough from a lifetime of hard, manual labour.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  I didn’t know what to say, or where to look. I’m not good with praise, and this praise was unjustified. If I’d read the situation better then Taylor wouldn’t be here. These people were thanking me when they should have been chasing me out of town.

  ‘Is he awake?’

  ‘He drifts in and out,’ Rosa said. ‘But he was awake when we left and I’m sure he’d love to see you.’

  We said goodbye and they walked over to the bank of elevators. I walked on for a couple of steps then came to a dead stop. Something Rosa said had just registered. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied I would have picked up on it sooner. I hurried back to the elevators and got there just as the door was opening.

  ‘Rosa,’ I called out.

  She turned around. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah, everything’s fine. When we were talking just now, you called your son Taylor.’

  She gave me a puzzled look. ‘That’s his name. What else am I going to call him?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re his mother. Mothers always call their kids by their first name. And no contractions, either, they always use the whole thing. Robert instead of Rob. Michael instead of Mike. I think there might even be something about it in the Constitution.’