The Watcher

by Jennifer Pashley

  “I know that,” I say, and my throat locks up.

  “He hurt you,” she says.

  I bite my lip and try to listen to the diminishing Pepsi instead of her voice. “I need to talk to him,” I say.

  “So do I,” she says.

  “Don’t,” I say then, pleading. “Don’t. He didn’t do it either,” I say. “I swear.”

  “Do you know that?” she says. “For absolute sure?”

  I feel like I’m drowning. Like water is rising up from my lungs and flooding me from the inside out.

  “Why would he?” I whisper.

  Kateri taps her fingers on the table, thinking. “Let me get Detective Hurt, okay?”

  “Why would he kill my mother?” I say again. I can’t stop seeing his face when he bares his teeth, the pure anger, like a white fire behind that.

  * * *

  Kateri comes back in with Hurt and Brewer, who sits down across from me. Brewer clicks his pen a few times, and Hurt puts a small digital video camera on a stand and turns it on. He announces who’s present into the lens.

  Hurt has a look. A kind of dad look, but not an out-of-touch dad. More like a dad who cares what his daughters think. A dad who can cook, maybe. I don’t know anything at all about him. I’ve barely talked to him. But it’s a feeling I get. The way he wears a suit, if he does. There’s something soft, something still about him. Calm. He stands close enough to Kateri that their sleeves touch. I wonder about that.

  “Has Bear Miller ever talked to you about your mother’s house?” Hurt asks me.

  “Yes,” I say, before Brewer can stop me, and he huffs about it.

  “Please, please,” he says. “Look at me before you answer, okay?”

  “What was the status of your mother’s house when you met Mr. Miller?” Hurt says.

  I look at Brewer but answer at the same time. His eyes flash with anger. “It was about to be seized for taxes,” I say. Then I add, “These are just facts,” to Brewer.

  “Did Mr. Miller help you with that?”

  “Client declines to answer,” Brewer says.

  “Why?” I say. “Why does it matter? I was trying to save the house.”

  “Have you heard of Kerpak Industries?” Hurt asks me.

  “No.”

  “Has anyone ever contacted you about the house?”

  “The county,” I say.

  “I’m not sure how any of this is relevant,” Brewer says.

  “Anyone offering to buy it from you?” Hurt says. “For cash, maybe?”

  “No,” I say. “Who would even want it?”

  But I think about Bear. Someone always wants real estate.

  “Client declines to answer,” Brewer says, before I can open my mouth.

  “Have you seen his house?” I say. “He doesn’t want mine,” I say. “He told me to sell it.”

  “Stop talking,” Brewer says.

  “To who?” Hurt says. I watch his eyes narrow. I want to know what he knows, or what he thinks he knows.

  I shrug. “Just to sell it,” I answer. “Why?”

  “Did he give you any indication as to why that might be a good idea?” Hurt asks.

  “Before it went to auction,” I say. “He said I could get maybe ten thousand dollars for it after everything—you know, once the taxes were paid.”

  “Ten thousand dollars,” Hurt says.

  “Yeah.”

  Hurt looks at Kateri, who looks at the floor.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Brewer leans back in his chair again, his ankle crossed over his knee. He smells like a harsh cologne, grassy and acidic.

  Hurt nods to Kateri.

  “Shannon,” she says. “Your house is on a piece of land that is very, very valuable to Bear Miller.”

  “What?” I say. My eye twitches again. “How? That doesn’t make any sense at all,” I say.

  “Do you know what he does for a living?” Hurt asks.

  Brewer holds up his hand to silence me, and I push it away from my face. It’s a reflex, a hand coming at my face, and even though he doesn’t touch me, I smack him away.

  “Dude,” Brewer says, and stands up. He shoots a look at Hurt and says, “Can you do something about this?”

  “Real estate,” I say.

  I invest her interests.

  “For?” Hurts says.

  “His mother’s company?” I say. I’ve never actually seen him work. I had no idea what he was doing. “But not my house,” I say. “There’s a huge difference, if you haven’t noticed. Like a billion-dollar difference,” I add, which makes me sound like a stupid kid, and Brewer laughs at me.

  Kateri draws a calm breath before she starts talking. “Kerpak Industries is developing luxury real estate,” she says. She nods at me. “That is his mother’s company.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, “up on the hill. Not by my house.”

  “Actually,” Kateri says, “they are. But they can’t build where your house is because your family, the Jenkins family—you,” she says, “own the land now.”

  I shake my head. My stomach turns sour. “No,” I say. And I can’t think of anything that might disprove her, so I just say it again. “No.”

  Hurt adds, “Well, he’s not officially doing that. He’s not officially doing anything,” he says. “He’s not even drawing a goddamn paycheck from Kerpak. Who knows how they distribute the wealth.”

  “He invests her interests,” I say.

  “Exactly,” Kateri says. “Your property is of great interest.”

  I look at Brewer, who just shakes his head.

  “Did you know about this?” I ask, annoyed.

  “No,” he says. “I don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, or why it makes a difference.”

  “Oh, come on,” Hurt says.

  “It totally makes a difference,” I say to Brewer.

  “Would you excuse us?” Kateri says to Brewer.

  “I’m not leaving my client alone with you,” he answers.

  She looks at me.

  “Just go,” I say. “Like, for good, okay? Call Bear and tell him I fired you.”

  “Against my recommendation,” Brewer says, but he snaps his pad into his briefcase.

  “I’ll take my chances,” I say.

  * * *

  Only Kateri stays in the room with me. We sit there at the table for a long, silent moment.

  “We took some evidence from the model home,” she says finally, “that proves his interest in the property. I don’t know yet if he’s willing to cooperate with us.”

  “I need to talk to him,” I say.

  She takes me out to the lobby to make a phone call and lets me call Bear from the office phone, not the pay phone.

  All it does is ring. There’s no voice mail. It rings fifteen times, with me just holding the receiver, listening while Kateri stands a few feet away, watching.

  I shake my head and put the phone down.

  I had no idea I had anything of interest, anything that was worth anything to someone other than just us. It was just our house. I never thought beyond that. And I was stupid enough to think I was the thing he wanted.

  When she walks me back to my cell, Kateri gives me a Twix bar she got out of the machine.

  “Are you going to arrest him?” I ask.

  She presses her lips together and nods.

  Two hours ago I would have said he didn’t do it. I swallow, my throat still sore. “I just want my sister back,” I say.

  Kateri touches my shoulder then, and I don’t mean to, but I crumple up against her, and for just a second she puts her arms around my shoulders and cups the back of my head like no one has hugged me in a long, long time. I smash my face into her collarbone. She smells like sandalwood, like soap my mother used to use. Then I jump away abruptly and wipe my face.

  “He has more of a motive than you do,” Kateri says.

  I look at the floor. “Did Brewer know that?” I say.

  She tilts her head. “It’s likely
,” she says. “Bear’s been controlling more of this than anyone knew.”

  “It’s all different than I thought,” I say. “I can’t trust anyone.”

  “You can trust me,” she tells me. “I promise.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT: KATERI

  THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2

  “I don’t know if they can convict him,” Hurt tells her. “He’s slimy, and I’m sure he’s got resources. But you definitely have enough to arrest him.”

  They sit side by side in an unmarked car, not Kateri’s and not Hurt’s, but a squad car. A big, gray sedan.

  “He’s capable of anything, Fisher,” Hurt says, as if she needs reminding. It will be a long time, she thinks, before someone touches her and she doesn’t think of his urgent, searching fingers.

  Hurt drives this time, stuck in traffic in the small town, where the road slows to fifteen miles per hour in front of the school. Kids come out. Kids close to Shannon’s age. Boys, laughing. They drive trucks and smoke cigarettes and call out to girls who walk over to Stewart’s.

  “Don’t second-guess it,” Hurt says. “My gut is that we’d better act quick.”

  “Do you think he’ll flee?” Kateri asks.

  “I hope he hasn’t already,” Hurt says. “He’s got places to go. He could disappear pretty easily.”

  She feels wired taut, trembling. She’s afraid of what Bear will say and is sure that he’s a sociopathic liar, that he’ll implicate her, that he’ll retell everything in his own best light. And her worst. She leans her head back against the passenger seat. I should have said something, she thinks. I should have recused myself the second it happened. But she couldn’t. She’d been waiting for months for a decent case to come along, and she’d be damned if he was going to ruin that for her.

  When the traffic frees up, Hurt turns the car onto Fountain Street and heads toward the developing tract of houses, on the corn hill that sits above town. It looks down onto the village, over the train tracks. Over the ravine and over the park, which sprawls to the north of town where the house that Shannon still owns sits, empty and cordoned off, tainted with blood and tissue.

  She got him to say it.

  She watched Shannon steel up, his jaw clenched, his face blank of emotion when she knew inside he was crumbling.

  “What exactly did Bear say to you?” she asked. It was late. The camera ran in the corner, and he didn’t even seem to notice anymore.

  “That he could get me out of it,” he said. “He kept talking like I had done it, like it was obvious, but that I had blacked it out or whatever. I didn’t remember. So he kept saying it would be okay. I just needed to trust him.”

  “He said he could get you out of it,” Kateri repeated.

  “Yeah,” Shannon said. His lips were white around the edges. Pressed. Tight. “Because he had gotten out of it before,” he added.

  He knows, she thought. She waited for him to go on.

  “He’s done this before,” Shannon said. “He killed someone,” he said, and his voice broke. “You know this, right? And they covered it up—it was sealed, or whatever that means.”

  “It was sealed,” Kateri said softly.

  “You know,” Shannon said.

  “I do,” Kateri said.

  * * *

  From the hill, the town looks like a postcard. The steeple and the school tower. The green grass replaced with colored leaves. From Fountain Street you can see the Hub, where by now another blond boy, similar in size and shape to Shannon, has replaced him. The justice center. The train, barreling through, filled with freight.

  Hurt leaves the squad car at the foot of the driveway, with Bear’s monstrosity of a house looming above. The lawn is fresh and clean, not a leaf out of place, the edges sharp and the driveway blown out.

  “Not a good time,” Bear says, a little louder than Kateri expects, when he opens the door. They don’t even ring the bell; he just sweeps it open and shouts.

  “It’s never a good time,” Hurt says, and pushes his way past Kateri into the open great room. There are tools on the kitchen counter, a paint can, a roll of blue shop towels.

  “Do you have a warrant?” Bear asks. “I’m kind of busy.” His hair is loose and sweaty, his face flushed with anger. His eyes dart in agitation. Kateri swallows, watching him. He seems coiled and ready, like he will strike at any moment.

  Hurt humors him. “Doing?” he says.

  “The work that Shannon’s not here to do,” Bear says.

  “Oh yeah?” Hurt says. “Can you suck your own dick? Actually, don’t answer,” he says, holding up a hand. “I’m sure you’ve figured it out.”

  “Hurt,” Kateri says, trying to shut him up, but she sees it happening, Bear’s fist as it clenches, the knuckles white, the spring of his arm as he pulls back and clocks Hurt cold. She can’t stop it, and Hurt can’t get out of the way fast enough. The punch jolts his jaw upward; she hears the smack of his teeth and the knock of his head on the marble floor of the entryway.

  Kateri stands still for a moment, staring down at Hurt on the floor, and realizes that in the action, as a reflex, she has drawn her gun. Bear looks at her and laughs, his teeth bared and his face devoid of humor.

  “Let’s not get dramatic,” he says.

  “I have a warrant for your arrest,” she says. Her heart pounds in her ears, and her armpits start to itch.

  “For what?” Bear shouts. He is still smiling his mean grin, not mirth but rage. He massages his knuckles where he connected with Hurt’s face. His shoulders square up; his chest pushes out. He makes himself bigger than he is, and he comes toward Kateri.

  “For the murder of Pearl Jenkins,” Kateri says. She has to clench her arm, deep in the shoulder socket, to keep her hand from shaking. A bead of sweat rolls down her back, collects at her waist.

  Bear creeps closer, his eyes bright and intent, and he shakes his head. Kateri knows she needs to call for backup, but she can’t take her gun or her eyes off him. She needs Hurt to get up.

  “Don’t come any closer,” she warns.

  “Or what?” Bear says. His eyes flash.

  She steadies her gun on him, suddenly settled, still at her core. Her arm is rod straight.

  “You don’t have any evidence,” Bear says, turning the power play against her.

  “I do,” Kateri says. She hears Hurt stirring on the floor, his limbs slow, his head, she’s sure, ringing from the inside out. She’s been punched like that. Once. By a woman whose son Kateri was arresting. It made her head feel like a bell.

  “Why would I kill Pearl Jenkins?” Bear asks.

  “Because you were tired of waiting for Shannon to do it,” she says. “Like you wanted.”

  She puts herself between Hurt and Bear while Hurt rolls over and pushes himself to standing. He leans on all fours for a minute, still steadying himself. She watches bloody drool drip from his open mouth. With her free hand, Kateri unloops the cuffs from her belt.

  “No cuffs,” Bear says. He keeps his shoulders wide and open and keeps stepping toward her, the way a cat creeps through grass when it stalks.

  “Not negotiable,” Kateri says.

  “You’re an idiot,” Bear says, suddenly louder. He laces his fingers together, gripping. “You’re in so far over your pretty little head,” he hisses.

  She sees Hurt wipe his mouth. He straightens up, draws his weapon, and nudges his elbow at Kateri. “Cuff him,” he says, his mouth wet and slurry. “Let’s go.”

  “Is that what Shannon told you?” Bear asks, taunting. Of course she believed the kid. It’s her weakness.

  “We can add resisting,” Hurt says.

  “Did Shannon tell you,” he shouts at Kateri, “that I told him to kill his mother?”

  “We can go over the details later,” Kateri says.

  “Shannon couldn’t kill a dog,” Bear says. “Shannon couldn’t even throw a punch,” he says.

  “That’s why I’m arresting you,” Kateri says.

  “Do you think I would have act
ually done it myself?” Bear asks. “I don’t even sweep my own floor. I’m not getting my hands dirty over Pearl Jenkins. Shannon’s a stupid kid,” Bear says. “Delicious,” he adds, with another menacing grin, “but poor, and stupid.”

  His eyes lock on Kateri’s, like he’s trying to outstare her and he’s winning. “He’s not so different from you,” he says.

  Bear steps closer, his hands open, his body like it’s gliding through water.

  “Stop,” Kateri says, holding her arm taut.

  “You’ve never shot anyone,” Bear says. He moves slowly, and she watches every inch, his feet as they creep closer. He catches her eye and holds her attention, and then in a snap motion, he grabs the nose of her gun.

  She sets her jaw and fires, afraid for a split second that she saw it wrong, that she imagined his quick grab at the barrel of her weapon. It doesn’t matter. Her shot knocks Bear to the floor screaming, and she fires again. Her ears fuzz over with the noise from the gun, and Hurt is yelling, his mouth moving, but she can’t hear his words.

  “Jesus Christ, Fisher,” he says. He pulls her toward the door and yells again, and this time she can hear him. “Jesus Christ.”

  Hurt steps out onto the sidewalk and backs Kateri up against one of the huge pillars holding up the second-floor balcony on the house. “Stay there,” he says to her. She watches him pace the sidewalk and then go back into the house, calling for medical, for backup.

  Kateri’s arm shakes clear up to the socket, her teeth on edge, her mouth filled with metal and blood from biting her tongue. Her hand, sore and cramped from clenching the gun, is spattered with a fine spray of blood.

  Around them is nothing but open lots, poured basements, phases of construction, all of them stalled. Razed land and stubbled grass. The cellars are like graves, waiting. Foundations behind orange plastic fences. Beyond that the cornfield, moving in the breeze, a sound like paper crinkling.

  She doesn’t know if he’s dead.

  From the back of the house, the dog comes bolting toward her, stuck with burdocks, his mouth stained with blood. He leans down and barks at Kateri, but when she crouches, he comes slinking forward, his head low, and his whole backside wagging.