by David Beers
What Harry started concerning himself with was Detective Dick Face. Alicia mattered, the Starbucks’ girl mattered, but Detective Don’tcha Wanna Dick In Your Face was what Harry would call the Big Enchilada. The force of this investigation lay on his shoulders, because he pushed it forward the way a man moving a boulder up a hill might. Stubbornly. Against all odds.
Harry knew John felt they shouldn’t have killed the other cop five years ago. John thought it was stupid, irrational, and would only bring more heat—though it was necessary. John had been right, but Harry knew his time was almost up, so he wanted more.
Now, John’s feelings had become reality and Harry needed to deal with it. Which he would. Harry didn’t spend too much time wracking his brain about Detective Dick Face, because when you had a hammer, everything looked like a nail. They needed to kill him and that meant Harry had to start watching him.
Which was where another problem developed.
Watching the man who was watching you could prove to be difficult.
Harry had to figure out a way to do this, and while he realized John possessed a lot of worries with his wife, Harry didn’t really give two fucks. Things had to be done and little Diane could wait until they were finished.
Unless she wanted to be visiting John with a piece of glass in between them.
Though, truthfully, Harry didn’t care much about that either. He told John those things because it made John more likely to move. To act. To kill.
Harry needed to watch the detective, because the detective needed killing and was going to die one way or another. Harry could tell John was nearing a breaking point, and perhaps that was fine, too. Perhaps their run was almost finished, and while Harry didn’t want that, he could accept it if the finale was big enough.
5
A Portrait of a Young Man
Dr. Vondi felt odd about his last conversation with John.
He hadn’t said anything to Lori when he saw her next, instead he told her everything was fine, and that he would need more time to truly understand John.
Dr. Vondi didn’t believe that, though. Everything, in his professional opinion, wasn’t fine. Dr. Vondi didn’t know if the problem was stemmed from Lori or John, though. Certainly, it wasn’t fine that the boy knew his mother thought him complicit in his friend’s death.
That’s what worried Vondi. The almost prescient knowledge the boy possessed. At thirteen, to sit there and say what he said, like he said it … wasn’t chilling, necessarily, but certainly not warming either.
The other thing weighing on Dr. Vondi was that he didn’t want to see John again.
He hadn’t told Lori that, either.
So when Dr. Vondi heard the knock on his door, he didn’t exactly jump with excitement to answer it.
“Hi, John,” he said.
“Hey,” the boy said as he walked into the room.
Vondi watched him go to the couch and sit down, while Vondi remained at the door for a second longer than usual.
Finally, he took his chair.
“Have a good week?” Vondi said.
“Was okay.”
“How are things at school?”
“Things are as good as they can be, I guess,” John said.
“I get it,” Vondi said and then let the room fall silent for a moment. “Have you talked to your mom about Harry since we spoke?”
John shook his head. “She doesn’t want to talk to me about it.”
“Do you want to talk about it with her?”
“Not really.”
“What about with me?”
John met his eyes. Normally brown eyes were associated with warmth and intelligence, but Vondi saw cold running beneath these.
“We can, if you want,” John said.
“How does it make you feel, thinking your mom feels you had something to do with Harry’s death?”
“I don’t feel she does. She does.”
“Well, why do you say that?”
“Because I know her.”
“I understand,” Vondi said, “but why would she ever think you were capable of something like murder? I mean, that’s a very, very big charge against someone.”
“I think she’s found some things and she believes I did it.”
“Like what?”
“A dead animal in the woods behind our house. I saw it one day and I think she may have too.”
“Animals die every day, John—why would she be concerned with it or think you had anything do with it?”
“Well,” John said, “It didn’t die … normally, I guess. The thing’s eyes were carved out and it had been skinned.”
Dr. Vondi nodded and tried to keep his face calm, but felt his eyebrows raising at the thought of a raw, fly covered, skinned animal. The boy couldn’t know if it had been skinned alive, but why else would someone skin a rodent, if not torture—especially if they left the body?
“Has she said anything about it to you?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think she feels that way?” Dr. Vondi said.
“Because if I saw it, then I’m sure she did, too.”
Vondi nodded again; something about this conversation made him not want to venture any further, plus a dead animal really shouldn’t take precedent over a dead friend.
“Would you mind talking about what happened with Harry?”
“No, we can if you want.”
“What happened at the beach house?”
John looked out the window to the right, just as so many other clients did. “He drowned.”
“You saw it?”
John nodded.
“How did it make you feel? How does it make you feel now?”
“I dream about it,” he said. “At night, every night. I see him out there and I hear him calling for me. I want to help him, but I don’t.”
“Why not?”
John didn’t say anything for thirty seconds or so, only stared out the window, thinking. Vondi couldn’t read the boy yet. It always took longer than one or two meetings to know what was going through people’s heads, but … he wondered if he would ever see into this kid?
“I don’t want to talk about that,” John said finally.
“Why not?”
“It scares me.”
“What does?”
“Why I don’t save him. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I won’t judge you,” Vondi said. “That’s not why I’m here, but I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.”
John turned to him again. “I don’t want you to know what’s going on.”
6
Present Day
Kaitlin stood at her living room window, the blinds drawn, but looking through the small cracks. She held a cigarette in her right hand, a few inches from her mouth, with her left hand folded across her stomach just below her breasts. The ash at the end of the cigarette had grown long.
She didn’t see anything outside the window, but that didn’t matter really. She knew what she felt and Kaitlin relied on her feelings more than anyone else she knew. On her right shoulder blade, a tattoo read intuition, and Kaitlin only put art on her body that she felt strongly about.
She felt extremely strong about her intuition.
Right now it told her something was wrong. Something with that customer’s murder and something involving her.
She should never have gone to the cops. She should have said she served the guy but didn’t pay any attention to what he did after and let the whole thing go.
Someone was watching her. She’d felt it for a few days now and it had come on very strong tonight. Kaitlin lived alone because roommates were shit and she’d rather be with her cat. Less complaints. Now, though, with this feeling spreading over her like a diseased blanket, she wished she had a roommate or a boyfriend, or anything at all to give her comfort.
Nothing, though.
Just her, these blinds, and whatever was outside.
She thought about calling the police,
but why? This whole thing was because of them, that and her big mouth.
The ash dropped from the cigarette and Kaitlin’s eyes flashed to it.
“Damn it,” she said, looking at the scattered gray across her otherwise clean carpet. She took a drag on the cigarette and then walked to the kitchen. Kaitlin placed the half finished cigarette into an ashtray and sat down at her small kitchen table.
She didn’t know what to do.
And, she was scared to death.
She picked up the small phone sitting alone on the table and found Eve’s number.
“Hello?” Eve answered, her voice a whisper, asleep.
“Hey,” Kaitlin said. “I’m waking you up aren’t I?”
“Yeah, you are. What’s up?”
“I think someone is following me.”
“What?” Eve’s voice strengthened, the comment pulling her out of sleep like a rope to a person in quicksand.
“Yeah, I just have a feeling that I’m being watched. What time do you work tomorrow?”
“I don’t. I’m off. Do you want me to come over?”
“Yes, please. I’m sorry. I’m just scared and don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Eve said and Kaitlin could hear her getting out of bed. “I’ll be over in twenty, okay? Will you make coffee?”
“Sure. Thank you, Eve.”
“No worries. See ya in a minute.”
* * *
Diane was becoming a problem.
John didn’t realize it yet, but Harry certainly did.
She was making it harder and harder to get out of the house and Harry didn’t like it one bit. Tonight, for example, she woke up when Harry was walking out of the room, fully clothed, ready to go. She asked what he was doing and Harry—for the first time—spoke to John’s wife.
“Going to get some air,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
He hadn’t waited for a response because he didn’t know what else to say. John would already be pissed, and if somehow Diane started to think something else might be wrong—well, the problem she created would grow much more severe.
Harry would deal with Diane later, though he wasn’t sure how to break it to John.
Now, though, he breathed in the fresh air of Royal Lane and looked up at Kaitlin Rickiment’s apartment. He stood across the street, his car parked a mile down the road, far away so that no one could associate it with where he sat. A small park was located across the street from the chick’s apartment, something for the kiddos to play on while the mommies and daddies did whatever they did—Harry didn’t know and Harry didn’t care.
He sat at the top of one of the ladders, a play thing that had a box around the top platform just before the kids went down the slide. The box was plastic and solid red for the most part … except for the side looking at Kaitlin’s apartment. That piece was transparent, and Harry could get a clear view of the complex, lit up by street lights all around the place—for safety of course. No one inside the complex could see him, though, because the lights in the playground shut down shortly after sunset.
Harry thought she was looking for him, though. He thought Ms. Starbucks’ Girl had an inkling that she messed up, and that she might be in for trouble. An hour ago, at about one in the morning, she had lifted up the blinds and peered out for a few seconds, before letting the blinds close and backing away.
He didn’t know what he’d done to give himself away, but he thought she knew she was being watched. Maybe not by him personally, maybe not John, but she knew something was up.
Which was okay, of course. Harry didn’t sweat the small stuff, ever. That was for the birds. And John.
Regardless of what Ms. Starbucks’ Girl did, in the end, she would die. Harry was realizing he didn’t care too much if she sunk John’s whole ship—indeed, had either of them really thought anything else would ever come out of this? No, all that mattered was that she died.
Everything else … well, that shit could fall by the proverbial wayside.
7
Present Day
“What did he say?” Susan asked.
Alan had been thinking about that for hours. What John Hilt said. Marie had told him some very important things—all of which Alan listened to and agreed with, logically. He wanted to give her the life she deserved, but as the night crept on and he couldn’t find sleep, John Hilt’s words slowly replaced his wife’s.
Now he sat in the office, his feet on his desk, staring at computer monitors.
“You know where he works?” Alan said, ignoring Susan’s question.
“Where?”
Alan smiled, not looking away from the screens. “Var Technologies.”
A second passed before Susan spoke. “No fucking way.”
“Yup,” Alan said, smirking and meeting her gaze.
“He works at the same place as Lawrence Kolzet? And he was seen with Paul Stinson the day he died?”
“Check both boxes,” Alan said.
“Jesus Christ,” Susan said, looking away. “What did he say when you showed up?”
“Does it even matter at this point?”
“Well, yeah, it does. I went through his background. It’s immaculate. He has a pedigree either one of us would love to have; two degrees, the first from Penn State and the second from Wharton. Before all that, he went to a really prestigious prep school in London. I hadn’t heard of it before this, but it’s a pretty big deal apparently. Want to know an interesting tidbit about it?”
“Sure,” Alan said, still smiling.
“Well, it has produced more billionaires than any other prep school in the world. I stopped reading after that. Didn’t really see the point.”
Alan waved his hand, dismissing the information. “What else? He’s done more than go to college and business school.”
“There’s not a lot else, Alan, and I’m serious. No record of any kind. Mother is deceased. Father is still alive. He has a sister, a wife, two boys. His record is immaculate.”
“What about in London?” Alan said. “Did you look into that at all?”
“No arrest records. Anywhere.”
“But did you dig into what happened at his school? He was there alone, I assume. Did you see if anyone died in the school while he was there?”
“No, Alan,” Susan said. “I didn’t because the man is rich, white, and educated. There’s nothing to find over there. I’m not saying he didn’t do this, all of it, but I’m saying it’s a waste of time to look into his past.”
“Do me a favor, please. Just look. Go through some newspapers that they have across the pond and see if anything strange shows up.”
“And what are are you going to do while I waste my time?”
“I think I might turn the heat up on Mrs. Hilt a bit, to be honest. I want this guy to understand that nothing around him is safe,” Alan said.
* * *
“Mrs. Hilt?”
Diane looked at the man standing on her doorstep and suddenly felt like ice water was dripping down her spine.
“Yes, can I help you?” she said, but that was only perfunctory. She didn’t want to help this person, nor did she want anything to do with him at all.
“My name is Alan Tremock; I’m a detective with the Dallas Police Department,” he said, moving his jacket slightly to the right to show the badge on his belt. It hadn’t been needed, though, because Diane knew the moment she opened the door what kind of person stood on her doorstep. Everything seemed to lead up to this moment, cause and effect that went further back than she cared to remember. John’s recent escapades had led to this, without doubt. Perhaps he plowed into someone, multiple levels above the legal alcohol limit. Maybe he got in a bar fight somewhere, and either died or killed someone.
A lot of maybes, but Diane knew for certain why this man was here: John.
“What can I do for you, detective?” she said, her voice as calm as the rest of her body, the chill having dissipated. Diane felt like she had been waiting all her l
ife for this, and now that it was here, what else could she do?
“Well, I would like to talk to you about your husband.”
Just another nail in the coffin, sliding in easily as the hammer slammed down on it.
“Do I need a lawyer?” she said.
“I don’t think so. I’d just like to talk to you about a few things. He’s not under arrest or anything. Neither are you.”
Better news than she had expected.
“Come on in,” she said.
Diane hadn’t dealt with police officers before, not outside of routine traffic stops, and to her, they should be trusted. Whatever John had gotten himself into, she wanted to know about it—and John clearly wasn’t going to tell her.
She led the way across the foyer and into the living room where she gestured to the love seat.
“I suppose this is where I ask if you need water or coffee?” Diane said.
“Maybe just in the movies. Truly, this is a courtesy visit more than anything else, Mrs. Hilt.”
“Okay,” she said and sat down in a chair on the other side of the coffee table. “Why are you giving me this courtesy?”
“Well, ma’am, to be completely honest I’ve never begun a conversation like this before, so forgive me if I’m not as good at it as I could be.” The detective paused and looked down at his hands for a second before looking back to Diane. “How well do you know your husband, Mrs. Hilt?”
Diane laughed despite the seriousness of both the question and the voice asking it. “What do you mean? John? I’d say I know him pretty well after ten years of marriage.”
Tremock nodded. “Again, forgive me, Mrs. Hilt. I’m trying my best not to offend you, but there are some very serious matters I want to discuss.”
“Then why don’t we discuss them rather than whatever it is you’re trying to do.”
The detective nodded, looking at his hands again. “There have been two murders that are in very close proximity to your husband. One of them—your husband, as far as we know, was the last person to see the man alive. The second victim was someone that works in his office.”