What You Don't Know

by JoAnn Chaney

  “What’s he got that’s so great?” Sammie asks. Weber has had a new piece in the paper every day, about Secondhand, about Seever. It’s good, well written, although she hates to admit it. “Has he figured out who Secondhand is now?”

  “No, but if you figure it out, I’ll never publish anything else Weber writes,” Corbin says, laughing. “I’m not going to tell you what he’s working on.”

  “Oh, c’mon. What do you think I’m going to do? Sweep in and steal his story?”

  “That wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

  “Fine,” she says. A little hurt. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Okay,” he says, more smug than she would like. “I won’t.”

  She hangs up the phone and puts her head down on top of her folded arms, but her eyes are still open, staring at the table’s rough wood grain. She has to be at work in a few hours, she’s trying to use her free time for writing, but it’s not happening. The more you want something the harder it gets, and she wants to write a good story for the paper so badly it almost hurts.

  “You’re perfectly safe,” Hoskins had said when he’d called her back, right before she’d gotten on the phone with Corbin. “I have some officers keeping an eye on Loren, and I’ll know if he gets anywhere near you.”

  “Are you with him?”

  “No,” Hoskins said, drawing the word out.

  “Do you think he’s the Secondhand Killer?” Sammie asked, and he was silent for so long that she thought he might’ve hung up, except the phone was still picking up the background noise. The sound of the wind, and of people working, speaking in hushed, serious voices, the crunch of tires over gravel and slamming car doors. They were sounds she recognized.

  “He’s not,” Hoskins finally said. “Loren’s insane, but he’s not a killer.”

  “And you know that for sure?”

  “He’s not Secondhand, Sammie. I had someone clear him after I got your text, made sure he had alibis for the times the other victims went missing. And he does.” Hoskins sounded strangely satisfied. “Like I said, Loren’s crazy. But he hasn’t killed anyone.”

  “Are you at a crime scene?” she asked, and Hoskins paused, thrown off by the sudden change in questions.

  “Yeah, it looks like another Secondhand victim.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” she’d asked. “I’m trying to write these pieces for the paper, I would’ve come out—”

  “That guy you’re working with just got here,” Hoskins said, and she wearily closed her eyes. “You know, the one you wrote that last article with?”

  “I’m not working with him,” she said. “I have to go.”

  She’d cradled her head in her hands, felt the tears coming on. Chris Weber, who’d gotten his name attached to her byline, was already at the crime scene; he’d managed to snake his way into the place before she’d heard a single word about it. Maybe it’s a sign that she’s not cut out for this work anymore, she doesn’t have the time to call the police department every few hours, hoping for news. It was different when the paper was her full-time job, when she had all day to chase leads and track down sources, but she doesn’t have that luxury now. But that’s an excuse—a lousy one, because if she wanted a story more than Weber she’d find a way to make it work, and it wouldn’t matter if she had a job or not.

  Or maybe she has to get creative. She did it before, and it got her into Seever’s house, she’d landed the story of the decade. That’s all she needs now. She had to chase it differently from how most people would’ve, but in the end she got what she wanted. Maybe she’s going at it wrong, though. Maybe she needs to stop reporting, and start investigating. Corbin said he’d never publish Weber again if she found out Secondhand’s identity, and she knows he was joking—but what if she did find out?

  She rubs her fingernails on the top of the table, making an irritating rasping sound, but she’s so deep in thought she doesn’t hear it. She can’t keep up with Weber, so it’s best to let him go running around the crime scenes, trying to squeeze whatever information he can out of the cops. Let him wear himself out, skipping around in endless circles. She’ll chase this story down, reach between its legs and squeeze till it screams, until it tells her who the Secondhand Killer is.

  * * *

  ALBERT Q. THOMAS, the sign above the art gallery’s door says. She’d looked it up at home, flipped through the website, scanning the list of artists who’ve had their work featured there.

  Halfway down the list is Jacky Seever.

  “Can I help you?” the man behind the counter asks when she steps inside. He’s tall and serious-looking, with a thick beard, the kind that makes it hard to tell how old he is but also makes most men look like crazed lumberjacks. This man is no exception. “I’m about to close up shop for the night.”

  “Oh, I’ll be quick,” she says, smiling so big her cheeks ache. “I saw online that you sell Jacky Seever’s work.”

  There’s a pause, a long one, and she thinks she might’ve said the wrong thing but she can’t be too sure, this man has a poker face, more like a dead face, and she can’t figure out what he’s thinking.

  “You a cop?”

  “What? No. Why do you ask?”

  The man narrows his eyes at her.

  “I had this cop stop by earlier asking the same thing,” he says. “He had all kinds of questions about Seever.”

  Loren, she thinks. Hoskins has been busy at the crime scene.

  “So, you do sell Seever’s stuff?”

  “I used to,” he says slowly. He grabs the flap of his ear and rubs it. “I haven’t lately, though. There used to be a lot of interest in his work, those things were flying outta here like hotcakes, but that petered out after a while. I’ve had a few calls in the last few weeks asking if I have any of his work—Seever’s wife brought in a few pieces last week and they sold for quite a bit, but the good stuff would go for a lot more. And I could sure as hell use the cash.”

  “‘Good stuff’?” Sammie asks, genuinely puzzled. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, when Seever first started it was all blood and gore. Sexual. Portraits of his victims. Morbid stuff, but it sold fast, and for a lot. But then it was all landscapes and bowls of fruit, and people stopped buying.”

  “No interest in fruit?” she asks wryly.

  “Oh, people would buy a square of toilet paper if they think Seever wiped it on his ass. Especially with these new murders going on.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says blandly, staring out at the nearly empty parking lot. “That’s all it takes. A few dead women and people are constantly calling for Seever’s stuff. I should’ve started killing a long time ago.”

  She blinks, tilts her head to one side as she looks at him.

  “Not that I’ve ever killed anyone,” he says when he notices her watching. His neck had gone blotchy red. “That would be crazy.”

  She drums her fingers on the counter and looks around, tries to think while she keeps an eye on the guy behind the counter. His words might not mean anything, he might’ve just been thinking out loud, but you could never be too safe. Cold, hard cash was as good a reason as any to kill, and she’d have to mention this guy to Hoskins, make sure the cops were keeping an eye on him. The gallery is small, dingy, the art on display covered in dust. It’s a business in desperate need of a few good sales.

  “You sure you’re not a cop?” the man says, yanking on his beard. He seems nervous.

  She tilts her head, considering.

  “I’m not with the police, I’m with the paper,” she says, “I’m writing a piece on Jacky Seever, and the new Secondhand Killer. And if you can help in any way—well, I’d appreciate it.”

  He looks down at her hand like she’s a strange bug he’d never encountered before, and she wonders if she’s going about this all wrong.

  “How could I help you?”

  “What’s your name?” she asks.

  “Simon.”

  “You’re n
ot Albert?”

  “That was my dad.”

  “Okay, Simon. You mentioned you get calls about Seever’s work?”

  “Yeah. Quite a few lately, since these new murders started up.” He taps his knuckles on the counter. “For a long time it’s just been one guy. Same dude, every week. He calls and asks if I have anything new from Seever. Every week, never fails. Anytime there’s a piece available he buys it over the phone, has me ship it to him.”

  “One guy?”

  “Yep. Same one, all the time. He must have a real hard-on for Seever.”

  “How long’s he been calling?”

  “Oh, for a while now. The last few months, I guess.”

  “Do you have his shipping address on file?”

  “Nope. It’s never the same one, so I don’t bother taking it down.”

  “You know his name?”

  “I don’t remember, and I’m not even going to wager a guess. If my computer was up and running I’d tell you, but it crashed a few days ago and I haven’t had the cash to get it fixed.”

  “Did you tell the cop all this?” she asks. “About this guy who calls?”

  “No,” Simon says, pursing his lips. “He never asked about that, and I didn’t think it was important. Besides, I didn’t like him very much. He was rude, right from the moment he walked in, demanding information. I didn’t get into this business to be a slave to the police. Have some manners, or it’s good day to you, sir.”

  She laughs at that, and Simon’s eyes light up.

  “You’ve got a great laugh,” he says.

  “Thank you,” she says, reaching over and touching the top of Simon’s hand. She feels so stupid, trying to flirt with this guy, but she’ll do whatever it takes. “You’re sure you don’t know how to reach the guy who always calls about Seever?”

  Simon sighs. “No, but I’m sure I’ll get a call from him any day now, and if you want I’ll take down his number and make sure it gets into your hands.”

  “You’d do that?” she says.

  “Oh, yeah,” Simon says. He smiles sweetly. “For a fair exchange.”

  Here it comes, Sammie thinks. She’d been waiting for this.

  “What do you want from me?” she asks. “Dinner, or something?”

  He snorts, laughs so hard his beard trembles.

  “I’m not so sure my boyfriend would like that idea,” he says. “How about you write something about me for the paper?”

  “Like, an advertisement?” she asks.

  “No. More like an article about a struggling local business. I need to get some customers through these doors.” He gives another laugh. “And this article, I want it on the front page.”

  “I don’t decide those kinds of things,” Sammie says, tapping her knuckles impatiently on the counter. “I can’t promise anything like that.”

  “You seem like a persuasive woman. I mean, it seems like you could be, if you want me to put you in touch with this guy.”

  Sammie chews on the inside of her cheek. If she gets a good story out of this, she might be able to swing it. Besides, there’s always the chance that Simon won’t hear from the guy again, and this trip will be a complete loss. Better to blow on the dice and give them a roll.

  “I can try.”

  “Good enough for me,” he says, and pulls a business card out of his pocket. “Here. Write down your info. I’ll text you as soon as I hear from him.”

  “You’re the cherry Lifesaver,” she says, scribbling down her number. That nervous pit that’s been eating at the inside of her stomach for the last few days is gone, and she’s starting to think that everything might be okay. If this guy actually gets a call and remembers to text her the info, she’ll have a story and her ass will be saved. Better late than never.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re the best,” she says, and winks. “And I always save the best for last.”

  HOSKINS

  The idiots he had following Loren have already lost track of him. He’s not sure how it happened—maybe it’s because Loren’s squirrelly and Denver’s a big city with plenty of places to hide, or because they’re not putting all that much effort into it, because Hoskins isn’t anyone important these days; he’s been down in the basement long enough that the other detectives don’t want to follow his command anymore, he can see it on their faces, tell by how they react to his orders. He’s a joke these days, and not even a funny one.

  “He drives fast,” one of the detectives tells Hoskins in a slow, drawling voice. An I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-this voice. “It looked like he was heading toward the station, but he’s not there now.”

  “Check his house,” Hoskins says. “There’s a bar down on Wynkoop where he likes to go. Why do I have to tell you how to do your fucking job?”

  He hangs up without waiting for a response, because if he has to spend one more minute listening to the useless prattling of these morons he’s going to lose his shit. It’s all running away from him, being lost in chaos, and he didn’t want to work this case to begin with, he was ordered to do it. He’s called Ted, had the kid confirm Loren’s whereabouts when each of the victims went missing, and Loren’s clear. He’s not the Secondhand Killer but he’s definitely not right in the head. He’s called Chief Black, told him his concerns about Loren, how he’s dressing up like Seever and following Sammie and now vanishing, but the boss man isn’t concerned, says that’s how Loren is, it’s to be expected, that the Secondhand Killer is still out there, so shouldn’t Hoskins be focusing on that instead of babysitting his partner? And that shit makes Hoskins so mad he’s ready to tell Black to go fuck himself, to turn over his badge and his gun and call it done, he hasn’t been this mad in a long time. This was never supposed to be his problem, yet here he is, Loren’s gone and there’s a dead kid being zipped up in a bag and Sammie is upset because there’s another reporter here and Hoskins wants to go home, to catch up on the sleep he missed when he took Joe to the hospital. It’s been a long day, long enough that when he thinks back to that morning, to Joe screaming, terrified and sobbing, it feels like it happened weeks ago, not in the last twelve hours.

  He makes sure Jimmy Galen is all loaded up before he gets in his car and drives, heading back to the station but instead ending up at the coffee shop, and he doesn’t go through but parks and watches. Trixie’s working the window, wearing a yellow polka-dot bikini, like the one from the song, and her skin is perfectly tan and smooth, even though it’s the dead of winter. He’d gone through the drive-thru the day before, on his way into work, and he saw the new bruise on Trixie’s shoulder right under the strap of her bikini, where it looked like someone had poked her, hard. Too hard.

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” he’d asked her then, and her face had closed up, right away, snapped shut, and he’d seen that look before from other women, women who were afraid of the men in their lives, always scared they were walking into a trap.

  “Yes,” she said immediately, and Hoskins knew that if he pushed her she’d say her boyfriend was protective, but he knows that code, you aren’t a cop without seeing that shit all the time, men who think that women belong to them, like the way you can own a house, or a banana. He sits in the car and his eyes start to drift shut, he’s tired and he imagines Trixie going home to this guy, but in his head he’s the boyfriend, and he pokes her, smacks her in the face and chokes her, sticks her fingers in his mouth and bites down until those delicate bones start to break.

  Where the fuck are these thoughts coming from?

  He gets out of his car, paces back and forth across the parking lot a few times, and circles the Walmart, his head ducked against the wind. The walking’s not working the way it usually does; he’s still on edge, he feels like he’s chewing on glass, so he finally climbs back into his car and watches Trixie pass out coffee and make change and swipe credit cards, and he nods off, his head dropping down to his chest, and that’s not much of a surprise, because he’s exhausted, he was at the hospital a
ll night with his father and spent the morning with Loren, he’s running on nothing but adrenaline and caffeine, and those are both in short supply.

  But his dreams—God, his dreams. He’s being jacked off in this one, and while this isn’t unusual—most of his dreams are about sex, have been since he was thirteen—there’s something about this that isn’t quite right. And when he looks down, he sees what the problem is right away—it’s Seever’s fist pumping up and down on his dick, and he’s got a cigarette clenched in his mouth, in the odd way Seever always smoked, biting down so hard Hoskins can see the indentations left on the filter.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Hoskins asks, but he doesn’t push Seever away. It feels too damn good for him to want it to stop, no matter who’s doing the deed.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing, dumbass?” Seever growls, grinning around the cigarette. He pushes his glasses up his nose. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re slow.”

  “God,” Hoskins says, and he’s close, he’s so damn close, Seever has got both hands in on the action, he’s really working it now, and then suddenly he lets go, and Hoskins’s dick is standing straight up, hard as a rock, and it’s funny, the way it waves in the air, indignant.

  “You’re like me,” Seever says, slapping away Hoskins’s hands when he tries to grab himself to finish the job. “Once you start, it’s so hard to stop.”

  “What do you want?” Hoskins says, nearly screaming. One touch, that’s all he needs, and he’ll come, he’ll squirt like a fucking geyser. “I’m not anything like you.”

  And then he wakes up.

  * * *

  The first thing he sees is Trixie walking by, out of the coffee shop and toward an old car parked off to one side. She doesn’t see him, and he’s thankful for that, because if she’d come over to the window and taken a good look at him, hollow-eyed and sick-looking, a raging boner ready to split his pants, she would’ve run away screaming. But she doesn’t see him, and she slips behind the wheel of the old car and revs the engine. It doesn’t sound like much, he bets it never gets warm enough inside and will probably give up and die at some point in the near future, but what else could she possibly afford on her salary? He wishes he could help her.