by David Beers
Alan wasn’t worried. Not yet. He could see The Land of Worry just over the hill, though—like a tall town that he always seemed to be speeding to. If something didn’t pan out soon, within the next couple of days, this trail would go cold—Antarctica cold. And he couldn’t let that happen. By any and all means, he had to keep the trail warm; he had to find this motherfucker.
He went to Teresa’s husband’s house yesterday.
He told Rashard what he could.
“It’s the same guy.”
“You’re sure?”
Alan had nodded.
Rashard invited him in and they both sat down on the couch.
“Do you have any leads?” Rashard said.
“We’re looking for them. I promise that.”
Both of them were quiet, though Alan could see Rashard was holding back tears.
“You ever think about her?” Teresa’s husband asked.
“I do. A lot.”
Neither of them said anything else until Alan finally stood. “I’ll let you know what we find out,” he said and that was the end of it.
Now he heard footfalls from inside this shabby apartment, hoping to God that this lead panned out. Alan would go back to Rashard one way or another, and he wanted to go back with more than, we lost him.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice called through the door.
“Ms. Rickiment? My name is Detective Tremock and I’d like to discuss a few things with you. You’re not in any trouble, you just might be able to help me on a case I’m working.”
The woman opened the door and Alan saw himself standing in front of someone much closer to a girl. He knew Rickiment’s stats, twenty-three, lived alone, etcetera, but he hadn’t expected such youth. Her hair was cut short with strands of purple throughout it. She had a stud nose ring as well as earrings in both ears. She was thin, too—real thin. The Curse of The Aging Metabolism hadn’t fallen upon her yet.
“You’re here about the customer at Starbucks aren’t you?” she said, looking Alan straight in the eye.
“I am.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting calls the past twenty-four hours. Everyone saying that we might be able to help, but no one knows anything.”
“You remember the victim?” Alan said. Normally he would try to get in the house, to make the interviewee feel more comfortable, but this one hadn’t budged an inch since stepping out. And he felt she wanted to talk, too. Maybe because she lived alone, or maybe because when Alan looked around the apartment complex, he saw she might be the only white girl living in it.
“Yeah. He came in every day, every shift I worked. When I saw his picture on the news, I mean, I couldn’t move.”
He waited for her to say something else, but she didn’t, just looked off the railing down to the first floor.
“We’re really hoping that he met someone that day,” Alan said after a few seconds. “We’re hoping he had coffee with someone and that we can find that someone, then go talk to them. I don’t know how well you remember that day, but do you happen to remember anyone else in there?”
The girl shook her head slightly, almost to herself rather than Alan. “He never came in with anyone, was always alone and carrying a book or a newspaper or something.”
Alan nodded, feeling a few more embers from the fire in his chest die.
She turned her head back to him. “Except for that day. Someone sat down with him.”
“Alright, you ready?” Harry said.
John nodded, trying to keep his breathing normal.
“You’ve got your story down pat and I’m going to be in there with you. All you have to do is keep repeating it over and over, then it’s going to be truth. To you and them.”
John nodded again. They sat outside of the police station—finally that bitch detective called John’s cell and asked him to come down for an interview. She said they could do it at his office, but she thought he’d rather not have the cops show up there. Right about that, Detective.
He had five more minutes before he was supposed to actually arrive, and he only pulled in one minute before, parking in the very back of the lot. He didn’t know what kind of cameras they might have looking at this place, but he didn’t want them watching him nod to himself in his car.
“Let’s go do this then,” Harry said.
John nodded once more and then turned the keys in the ignition, pulling them out. He shut the door to his car and started walking across the parking lot, knowing that Harry was right behind him. Both silent, like two men walking to God’s judgment.
“This isn’t God’s judgment, so stop thinking so negatively. God loves you, right?” Harry said.
“Yes.”
“Then he’s going to deliver you from this. Either he or I will. So start acting calm.”
John went through the police station’s doors and to the front desk, walking in one smooth motion, focusing on each step and making sure that everything looked natural.
“Hi, I’m here to see Detective Merchent.”
“Have a seat,” the police officer behind the glass said.
John did as he was told; the place was relatively busy, with only maybe ten chairs available in the lobby, the rest filled with people either staring at their phones or the floor. Harry stood to the side of John, not looking at him.
“This place isn’t that busy, really. I mean, the receptionist isn’t all that friendly but then again, she works for the state. You know what they need here, John? They need someone from the business sector to come in and clean up. Really get some customer centric cops, ya know?”
John said nothing, only tried to keep his energy in check.
“Who would you pick? Mitt Romney or Donald Trump?”
John smiled. “I’d go with Trump. Better hair.”
“More money, too. Smart choice. That’s why I always liked you; you use your noodle.”
“Mr. Hilt?”
John looked up from his shoes and saw the same woman from the church standing at the doorway which led to the back.
“Yes, ma’am,” John said as he stood, feeling his confidence return. He had looked at the degrees on his wall when Harry told him who they would murder next, thinking he threw it all away. Now, he leaned on those degrees and all the experiences since. Because he was at a business deal, nothing more. He would go in there and sell himself the same as he had in every interview that allowed him to hang those degrees in such a large office.
“There ya go,” Harry whispered. “Get her.”
John shook hands with the detective.
“Thanks for coming down,” she said. “If you’ll just follow me back here, we can get started.”
They walked down the hallway, John eyeing every room he could. He wondered if he would see anyone else from the meeting here, but doubted it, given that she seemed to be doing all the interviews.
“Here we are,” the detective said, opening the door and letting John go in first.
“Would you like anything before we get started?” she said. “Water, coffee?”
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
“Okay,” she said as she sat. “Again, I appreciate you taking the time to come down here. First, I want you to know that this interview is being video recorded.” She pointed to a camera in the corner of the room. “That okay?”
“Perfectly fine,” John said.
The detective started asking questions and John started answering them. Harry hung out just under the camera, his arms crossed, saying nothing and looking slightly retarded with his one burst eye. John didn’t glance over at him at all, instead answering the questions just as he would have in any business venture. Logic. Truth.
Maybe not actual truth, but the truth that he and Harry invented, certainly.
“I knew Paul through the group. You know, I don’t really hang out with people after I leave the meeting. A lot of guys are really active in the community, attending multiple meetings each week and reaching out to people daily. I go to that one meeting
and don’t make a lot of calls.”
“Why is that?”
“Which part?”
“Well, that you’re not super active,” Merchent said.
“I suppose because I don’t need it. There’s different degrees to this addiction, and mine doesn’t control me as bad as it does other people.”
“I see,” Merchent said. She didn’t drop her eyes from John. “So you never really spoke with Mr. Stinson?”
“I spoke to him at meetings sometimes. I did once, maybe a week before he was murdered. I was having a tough go and he came up after and gave me his number.”
“Did you ever call him?”
“No,” John said.
“Why not?”
“My urge to act out,” he used his hands to make air quotes around the phrase, “passes once I talk about it. I talked about it in the meeting so I didn’t have any need to discuss it elsewhere.”
“So he came to you after the meeting, right?”
“That’s right.”
“But that wasn’t the meeting you were at the other night, right? That was a different meeting. ”
“Fuck,” Harry said.
John didn’t even look over at him, didn’t break eye contact.
“That’s right, too,” he said.
“But you just told me you don’t attend meetings regularly?”
John’s eyes glanced up to the closed door as he saw someone walking by it.
“Look back at her. Look back at her!” Harry shouted across the room, having obviously seen the same thing John did.
John’s eyes flashed back to Merchent. “I don’t, usually. Sometimes, though, I need extra help and so rather than cheat on my wife, I head to a meeting. I needed some help that day and Paul lent an ear.”
The detective nodded. “Sure. Makes sense.”
“I really wish I could be of more help,” he said. His stomach had risen all the way to his throat and he was shocked she hadn’t said something about the huge bulge rising from his neck.
“Not your fault that you didn’t murder him,” she said, smiling. “We’re talking to everyone we can and seeing what we can put together. Do you mind if I give you a call if anything else comes up?”
“No, of course. Anything I can do.”
The detective walked John out but he wasn’t aware of it. He smiled, shook hands, and had no idea he had done it at all. Reality only made progress back into his brain once he exited the police station.
“That was him,” John said, focusing on walking—not wanting to simply freeze.
“Yup,” Harry said, setting the pace for the two of them.
“He’s on the case. He has to be,” John said as much to himself as Harry.
“Yeaaaahh, he probably is.”
“We should have killed him back then,” John said. “We shouldn’t have let him go.”
Harry looked over the top of the car at John, his eyebrows raised as John fumbled to get his keys in the lock.
“Look at you, Mr. Norman Bates,” Harry said as he got in the passenger’s side.
“I’m serious.” John kept moving forward, starting the car, putting it in gear, and driving through the parking lot. “We killed his partner and I’m sure he doesn’t hold that against us at all. Did you get a look at who followed him? I couldn’t pay attention to anything but his face.”
“A woman, a young one,” Harry said, putting his seatbelt on.
“What was she there for? Did you recognize her?”
Harry shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
John sighed, trying to keep the anger down in him. The anger was bad. The anger led to irrationality and further problems. The anger would make Harry a lot more … active.
“If he’s working on this, he’s gunning for us.”
“I’d imagine so,” Harry said.
“I want to know who that girl was.”
“Do you think she would recognize me?” John said.
“There’s a reason they brought her down to the police station, and I’m sure it wasn’t to try their coffee. Which you should have got, by the way. I’ve aways been curious if they drink shit coffee.”
“What if she could ID me?” John said.
“That won’t be good.”
John didn’t say anything. Both hands sat on his lap though balled into fists. The car idled just outside the Starbucks, with the two of them staring straight ahead. Looking at the same girl they watched walk past the interview room. Someone had seen John here, at least that’s what it appeared like.
“We have to kill her,” Harry said.
John turned his head and looked at him, no expression on his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“What else do you want to do?” Harry said. “Look, if she gave them a description of you, you’re already fucked—but killing her would mean she couldn’t testify.”
Harry made sense …
But this was getting out of control.
“I can’t kill everyone, Harry.”
“I know that, but this isn’t for fun. This is a necessity.”
John shook his head slightly.
“I’m not saying we have to do it right now,” Harry continued. “If for some reason the cops call you back in, then she has to go. Right now, I think we’re set up fine with Larry from Marketing—”
“Larry from Marketing? Are you insane? There’s no way we’re going forward with that right now. No way. We were just at the police station, in case you didn’t remember.”
“It’s already set up, John. Why would we waste that?”
“Hello?” Alicia answered the phone.
“Hey, it’s me,” Diane said.
“Hey! How’s it going? How’s John?”
“That’s what I’m calling to talk about.”
Alicia paused for a second. She stood up in her cubicle and looked around the office, quickly deciding she didn’t want to take this call on the floor.
“Give me one sec, Diane.”
“Sure.”
Alicia lowered the phone to her hip and left her cubicle, walking down the hall to the exit and then out onto the sidewalk.
“Okay, just wanted to get outside. What’s going on?”
Diane sighed into the phone. “I should probably be happy, but I’m not. He’s … acting too cheerful.”
“What do you mean?” Alicia said.
“The night you and Mark came over, I woke up and John was gone. Must have been four in the morning, just gone. The next day he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. So, I know he’s lying, because there isn’t any way he left without knowing about it. Last night, though, he acted like none of this had happened for the past few weeks. He acted like he didn’t miss your mom’s anniversary, wasn’t gone the night before, wasn’t a completely absentee father. I mean, he actually played video games with the kids last night. He hasn’t done that in months …”
Alicia stared out into the parking lot, not seeing any of it. Her mind was completely wrapped around Diane’s words.
“So you’re upset he’s acting like himself again?”
“I don’t buy it,” Diane said immediately. “There’s still something different about him, even if it’s not the despondent John I’ve seen recently. It’s the way he smiles, Alicia. It’s like he’s not smiling at me, but at someone else in the room. Someone I can’t see. As if he’s smiling to say, see, I can play nice at home.”
Alicia felt a chill run down her spine and the hair on her arms stand up. Something about her brother smiling at another person in the room creeped her out in a way that she couldn’t fully voice. As if he was seeing things.
“Did you say anything to him?”
“No, not a word,” Diane replied. “I mean, he was much better with the kids. Tim and Drew loved him playing games and I wasn’t going to ruin that.”
Alicia was quiet for a moment, looking down at the tiny blonde hairs on her arm still standing at attention as if in the military. “What do you want to do?
”
“Have him committed?” Diane said, laughing as she did, a laugh that sounded forced and lacking any fun. “I don’t know. I want him to go see someone, like he did before.”
Alicia remembered when John went to see their mom’s psychiatrist. It had been just after she got sick.
Don’t think about that.
She shoved it from her mind as quickly as possible; Diane brought it up because Diane didn’t know anything about it.
“Do you think he would see anyone?” Diane said.
“You know him better than I do.”
Another sigh across the line. “I think I’m going to talk to him about it tonight. Will you give him a call?”
“Yeah,” Alicia said. “Of course.”
27
A Portrait of a Young Man
“Can I go?”
Lori looked at her son, and wondered the same question.
Could he?
She knew he was asking a very different question than the one that came to her mind. John wanted to know if she would let him go to the beach with Harry’s family. She wanted to know if he could be let out of her household. Lori knew what Dr. Vondi said, but she also knew that she didn’t tell him everything. She couldn’t. To tell everything would sentence John to some kind of home, or perhaps penitentiary—though, admittedly, that was a stretch.
“His mother’s going?” she said.
“Yes, Mom. And his dad.”
“I need to think about it,” she said. “Go outside and play and I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Okay, but they have to know by tomorrow,” John said.
“That’s fine. I’ll have an answer tonight.”
John looked at her for another second as if judging his chances of being able to go. As usual, she didn’t know what his eyes saw or what his mind did with that information, but he did turn around and head out the front door.
She watched it close and then sighed.
Things were getting worse and she couldn’t deny it any longer. She kept it hidden, perhaps even from herself, over the past five years. They didn’t talk about it in therapy and she ignored what she saw, just swept it under some mental rug. Now, though, things were starting to poke out of the rug’s sides, refusing to stay hidden any longer.