Joe Victim

by Paul Cleave

  “Hell no. I wish you the best of luck. I really do. I want nothing more than for somebody to nail that sick bastard. It just can’t be me. I’m sorry.”

  She makes her way to the front door. He follows her. She thinks about what Joe told her about this guy, how he used to beat up his wife. It was Detective Calhoun who figured out Tristan Walker was always around when his wife and door occupied the same moment in space in time.

  There’s nothing worse than a wife beater.

  “You’re sure you won’t help me?” she asks, picking up the wet newspaper.

  “All I want is to be left alone,” he tells her.

  She keeps rubbing her belly when she steps out into the street, leaving Tristan Walker alone just like he asked.

  Chapter Ten

  The air-conditioning in the TV station is a season behind, or so he’s been told, and Schroder believes it too since it’s still blasting cold air. No doubt it’ll get around to pumping out warm air just when spring starts turning into summer. The station belongs to one of the major networks, coming into existence around the same time Joe Middleton started making the news. Until then there was only a local TV station in the city, the major ones were up in Auckland. But then suddenly Christchurch became the capital for crime, it became the place where journalists wanted to be. It also became the place where producers wanted to shoot crime shows. He once had a guy theorize that flights into Christchurch take longer every year the further the city slips into Hell-though the current temperature makes it an arguable point.

  He catches the lift. There is elevator music, classical stuff he can’t imagine anybody ever liking. Especially him. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like being here. Another person gets on the lift next to him, and the two of them stare straight ahead, each of them making a big effort not to speak to the other. His stomach is rumbling, reminding him he skipped out on breakfast and he could end up skipping out on lunch too. On the fourth floor he steps into a corridor and makes his way past a makeup room, a cafeteria, offices, and down to Jonas Jones’s office. The studio itself where they broadcast from is on the floor below, and Schroder wonders if Jones has a certain satisfaction being above it all.

  He doesn’t knock on the door. He figures there’s no need when you’re going to see a psychic. He opens the door and walks inside. Jones is sitting behind his desk with his shoes off, polishing them.

  “Ah, I’m glad you’re back,” Jonas says.

  Schroder isn’t glad. There are a few reasons he lost his job being a cop, and Jones is one of them. Schroder had never killed anybody before this year, and the nightmares he has about that probably wouldn’t get any worse if he were to put a few bullets into Jonas.

  “I spoke to him,” Schroder says, sitting down opposite the desk. He’s tempted to put his feet up. The office has framed pictures of Jonas on the walls meeting other celebrities-a bunch of actors, some writers, some popular local figures. There are photos of him at book signings, even one of him signing a book for the prime minister that helps Schroder decide who he’s going to vote for.

  “And?” Jonas asks. “Or are you just going to keep me hanging?”

  “And he’s thinking about it.”

  “Thinking about it? Come on, Carl, I’m sure you could have done better than that. You offer him the twenty grand?”

  “Of course.”

  “How much more did he want?”

  “Fifty.”

  “Fifty is good,” he says, and Schroder thinks about what Joe said earlier, about Sally being paid out that fifty-thousand-dollar reward. It was police work that got them there last year, and Sally was part of that. Was she a big enough part to have earned a reward? No. Not in his opinion. But the money wasn’t coming out of his pocket, and he was happy to see it go to her. It was as much a publicity stunt at that stage as anything else. There will be more rewards in the future, and if the public see that kind of money being paid out, then they’ll be more willing to offer up the names of people doing bad stuff. It’s all part of their new Crime doesn’t pay, but helping the police does campaign.

  “Yeah, fifty is good,” Schroder says back to him.

  Jones pauses to look at him for a few seconds, then goes back to work on his shoes. “We had budgeted for a hundred,” he says, scrubbing at them even though they already look clean. “Can you imagine it?” he asks. “Imagine how it will be, with us finding Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun?”

  Schroder has been imagining it, and it makes him feel sick. “I just don’t get why you don’t use the psychic powers you keep reminding us that you have,” he says, and he’s said it before and he’ll say it again, just as Jonas has explained it before. It’s his way of reminding Jonas every day that he knows the psychic is full of shit.

  Jonas turns the shoe in his hand examining it, or perhaps examining his reflection in the shiny leather. “It doesn’t work that way,” he says. “If it worked that way every psychic in the world would be winning the lotto. It comes and goes, and it doesn’t work with everybody. I’ve been trying with Robert, but just haven’t gotten anything. It’s another realm we’re tapping into-there are no hard and fast rules, you have to feel your way-”

  “I get it,” Schroder says, and holds up his hand. He wonders if hating himself will reach a peak and subside, or whether it’s going to follow the current curve until he reaches the point he has to take up drinking and then smash every mirror in his house.

  “No, you don’t get it,” Jones says, “and you never will. Not everybody in the spirit world wants to be spoken to, Carl. You don’t get it because you don’t want to get it.”

  “Well, whether I get it or not, Joe has the offer. He’ll let us know tomorrow. Hardest part is giving him a reason to need the money.”

  “Surely he can use it to buy protection inside,” Jonas says.

  “He already has protection. He’s in a cellblock with a bunch of people who all need protection.”

  “Well, then he can put the money toward a better defense.”

  Schroder smiles at him. “Maybe. But after the last few lawyers wanting to defend him, I’m not sure there’ll be any takers.”

  Jonas stops scrubbing the shoe and stares at Schroder. “So what else do you suggest we offer him?” he asks, sounding annoyed.

  Schroder shrugs. He isn’t sure. “He’ll either accept it or he won’t. I guess with the timing and everything he doesn’t really need the body found right now.”

  “Well, let’s hope he sees the merit in telling us.”

  “It’s still not right,” Schroder says. “Doing it this way.”

  “He’s getting prosecuted for so much as it is,” Jones says, “and we all know he didn’t actually kill Calhoun. He may have staged it and set Melissa up, but he’s not the one who killed her and tied him up. When are you heading back to see him?”

  “Same time tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Okay, good.” He puts the shoe down and leans back in his chair. “What are you going to do with your signing bonus?”

  Schroder isn’t sure, and wishes Jonas hadn’t asked. The signing bonus is ten thousand dollars. That’s what he gets if Joe takes the deal. Joe gets fifty and Schroder gets ten and they’re both making money off a dead detective and Schroder’s curve of hating himself keeps reaching for the sky. “I don’t know,” he says, but he thinks he does know. As much as his family could do with it, it feels like blood money. He already has a few charities in mind-only when that check arrives he’s not so sure how willing he’ll be to part with it.

  “You must have some ideas,” Jonas says. “Why don’t you treat your family to something? A holiday, perhaps? Or a new car?”

  “Maybe,” Schroder says. “Or maybe I’ll treat my mortgage to an injection of cash.”

  Jonas laughs. “It’s a good bonus,” he says. “If it all works out as planned, there may be other bonuses in the future.”

  Schroder doesn’t answer him. He hates thinking of his future these day
s.

  “Tell me, Carl, what do you make of this referendum?” Jonas asks, changing the direction of the conversation.

  “I think it’s a good thing,” Schroder answers, happy to move away from the bonus that puts him deeper into Jonas’s pocket.

  “You agree with the death penalty?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he says, even though he will be voting for it. “I mean it’s a good thing that the people are going to be listened to.”

  “I agree. You know what I heard?”

  “What?”

  “I heard the prosecution will be asking for it if Joe is found guilty.”

  “I heard the same thing,” Schroder says. It’s not exactly a secret. “It makes it difficult to suggest to a man that fifty grand is useful when he’s going to be put down anyway.”

  “But we don’t know that. Even if the public votes for it, it may be years before it comes into play, and even more years before Joe is executed. Could be ten years away. Longer. Surely the money can be useful to him for that amount of time.”

  Schroder nods. He hates agreeing with Jonas, but he’s right.

  “Do you think there’s an angle here?” Jonas asks.

  “What kind of angle?”

  “I don’t know, not yet. But if Joe is executed, maybe that’s good for the show. Do you think that, if the referendum is voted in and the death penalty is reinstated, and let’s say the government makes an example out of Joe and executes him within the next year or two, do you think we can use that? Somehow, for the show? I’m thinking that if there are other victims of Joe’s, other bodies, we could get him to talk. Somehow. And then-”

  “And then after he’s dead you’ll be in touch with him and he’ll tell you where these people are?”

  “Something like that, yes. I don’t know. Not exactly. I can see the pieces there, I can feel the potential, I’m just trying to piece it all together. I don’t know what we could offer Joe that he would accept. But if we can figure something out, well, there could be a much bigger bonus in it for you. What do you think?”

  He decides not to tell Jones what he really thinks. Instead he goes with, “I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

  “I’m sure I will,” Jones says, his mouth stretching into a smile. He goes back to scrubbing at his shoe. “Tell me, have you heard anything about this morning’s homicide?”

  “Probably less than you.”

  “I’ve heard the victim was shot twice in the chest,” Jonas says. “Could be a professional killing.”

  “So I do know less than you.”

  “At the moment, yes, but you have the ability to find out more. Maybe there’s something in this for us. How about you look into it? Give some of those detective friends of yours a call.”

  The problem is the detective friends haven’t been great friends since Schroder started working for the TV station. “I’ll do my best. I’m due on set in an hour.”

  “You want some lunch first?” Jonas asks, putting his shoes back on. “I’m starving.”

  “I’ve already eaten,” Schroder says, and gets up and heads back to the elevator.

  Chapter Eleven

  Same view. Same voices. Every day like the last, only this week things are more exciting with all the visitors coming to see me. Once the trial is over I’ll be back home and never having to worry about jail again-or visitors, for that matter-unless I get sent to a psychiatric hospital for a year or two first. Then I just have to worry about being gnawed on by other inmates and getting used to pastel-colored rooms.

  I wait in my cell alone, which is the best kind of company in a place like this and really sums up the jail experience I’ve had so far thanks to the fact that nobody has tried to rape/stab me. After a while I need to stretch my legs a bit so I head out into the communal area where, if you were to take a poll, you’d learn I’m one of thirty innocent men. I’m Slow Joe. I’m a victim to my needs. I’m Joe Victim. I kill time chatting with a prisoner who was arrested and convicted after setting fire to a pet store. There were cats and dogs and birds, and there were fish. Lots of fish. I keep thinking of a way I could kill him. Fucking fish killer. There’s nothing worse.

  The pedophiles and other high-risk prisoners are chatting to each other, some playing cards, the damn weather a hot topic of conversation again. Others have retreated to their cells, and not all of them alone-laughing coming from some of them, grunts and whispers and the sounds of pillows being bitten coming from others.

  The day drags on. Every day does. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d rather be hanged than endure this for the rest of my life. This isn’t exactly living the dream.

  After a while we’re escorted into the lunch hall. Different cellblocks all eat at different times, and our slot is one thirty. Lunch is made up of food that has to encompass at least forty different elements on the periodic table. It’s a colorless and flavorless exercise that lasts fifteen minutes, but, surprisingly, always leaves me feeling full. The trays are made from thin metal that can’t be broken into sharp useful pieces. The tables are all bolted to the ground, as are the long seats we share. Half a dozen guards all stand around the perimeter of the room watching us. The food is wet enough so you can hear everybody else chewing. Another inmate, a guy by the name of Edward Hunter, stares at me as he eats, gripping his knife quite hard, while I stare at the man who burned down the fish store, gripping my knife hard. But even though I’m staring at him I’m thinking of Melissa and how much I miss her. We could have been great together.

  Or will be.

  Once the jury lets me go.

  I take my tray over to the table where Caleb Cole is and sit down next to him. There are scars on his arms and hands. He has the face of a man who has experienced a lot of physical pain. He has the kind of thinness and skin about him that suggests he’s lost a lot of weight in a short time. Prison food isn’t going to reverse that. He looks up at me then back at his food.

  “My name’s Joe,” I tell him.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “It’s Caleb, right?”

  Still nothing.

  “So, Caleb, I was thinking, maybe you and me could be friends.”

  “I don’t want to make friends,” he says, talking into his food.

  “Everybody needs friends in here,” I tell him. “You were in here for fifteen years, so you know that, right?”

  “Fuck off,” he says, which isn’t a great way to start a friendship.

  “We have a mutual friend,” I tell him. “A guy by the name of Carl Schroder. He arrested you, right?”

  “I can’t talk about Schroder,” he says, still looking at his food.

  “Why not? He’s the one who arrested you, right? Just before he was fired. I just want to know what happened that night. Something happened, I’m sure of it.”

  “Like I said earlier, fuck off, okay?”

  “You feel like you owe him something to stay quiet?”

  “Schroder is the reason I’m in here with you, and not in general population.”

  “Yeah? So why are you acting like his best friend?”

  He stops eating. He puts his knife and fork down and twists toward me because I haven’t fucked off like he originally asked. He puts his hand onto the side of my tray and slides it off the edge of the table. It crashes onto the floor with a loud bang and the food goes everywhere. Everybody in the room is staring at me. They’ve all gone quiet.

  If he were a woman, I’d know what to do. I’d stab her right where she was. But he’s not a woman. And he’s not a man that I’ve already clubbed with a frying pan or shot or stabbed in the back. I suddenly feel very much out of my depth.

  “I’m glad you came over to see me,” he says, and suddenly I feel nervous. “I was in the hospital for a bit after being arrested, then they had me on suicide watch. They thought I wanted to die, and back then that was true. Not now. See, I have more to do before I want to die. Things to take care of. That’s why I can’t talk about Schroder. See, I just ne
ed to be left the fuck alone for the next twenty years so I can get out and carry on with my life.”

  “I heard you carried on with it a few months ago,” I tell him. “Carrying on with your life doesn’t bode well for others. That’s why you’re back in here.”

  “You think you’re funny, don’t you.”

  Yes. “No.”

  Sound starts back up in the room. More conversation. We stop being the center of attention.

  “See, the thing is,” he says, “even if I do make it another twenty years, the people I want to see on the outside may not even be around. So I’d have put up with twenty years of bullshit for nothing. That’s a depressing thought. It’s been with me since getting arrested. It gets me down. It’s why I was on suicide watch. What got me through that was figuring I needed to focus on other things. And in a place like this, a man doesn’t have too many options.”

  “One option is to tell me about Schroder,” I remind him.

  He shakes his head. “I already told you I’m not telling you about Schroder. Never. I tell you about him, and I’m back in general population.”

  “Come on, what did he do?”

  “I think I’m going to start focusing on you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re talking to me right now. Because I’ve been thinking about you over the last few weeks. Everybody in the city has been thinking about you. Tell me about your trial. I’ve heard things. I’ve heard you’re running with an insanity defense.”

  “What of it?” I ask.

  “My daughter was murdered,” he says. “Fifteen years ago. You heard about that?”

  I shake my head. Other people and the things that happen to them don’t bother me unless it relates to me somehow.

  “She was murdered by a guy who should have been in jail, but you want to know why he wasn’t?”

  I shake my head. I don’t really want to know, or care. He takes the headshake as an indication to carry on.

  “Because he’d escaped conviction two years earlier of hurting another little girl because he used an insanity defense.”