Addict

by Matt Doyle

  For a moment, Lori simply stares at me, tears glistening under the ceiling lights. She lets out a short, uncomfortable laugh, and rubs a shaking hand across her eyes. “Then…do we tell the police, or do we need more evidence first?”

  I shake my head. “If they’d wanted to, the PD could have figured this much out. When it comes to VJ Addicts, though, if it looks like an overdose, then as far as they’re concerned, it is an overdose. If they’d done some digging and come up with the same name, they would have still called it the exact same way.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lori replies, screwing her face up in confusion.

  “That’s where the Police Department is a big old bag of contradictions. See, the lower ranks are mostly good people. While the upper echelons are notoriously corrupt, the small fry do their jobs, following the letter of the law. The problem is, the law itself is broken, and it’s dictated by the self-same corrupt bosses that prevent them from being all that they could be. What that means is that, sometimes, bad people get away with things for no other reason than someone at the top wants them to. The knock-on effect of that is that the law allows some other bad people to sneak their way out of their due punishment too.

  “When that happens, the guys who just want to make the world a safer place for honest citizens, have to make a choice. They can let a couple of criminals slide on by, or they can act within the twisted rules that they’re forced to obey. Nine times out of ten, they can’t bring themselves to be what their bosses want them to become, and they turn a blind eye. Every now and then, though, someone just bad enough to get the good cops frustrated finds themselves walking scot-free.

  “When someone’s the wrong type of dirty, Devin Carmichael is the cleaner. See, a good cop can do a bad thing and still convince themselves that they’re the same person they were before the act. If it gets the scum off the street, even if it means putting them in a hole, then they can take solace in that.”

  “Wait,” Lori cut in. “Are you saying that the police wouldn’t touch this Devin Carmichael guy because they hire him to kill people?”

  “It’s not just the police, but that’s about the size of it, yeah.”

  “I…I can’t believe that. I mean, I know that they aren’t…but assassins?” She shakes her head. “I just can’t.”

  “Whether you believe it or not makes no difference. It’s still the truth.”

  Lori grips her tracksuit bottoms tightly and bows her head. Her tears fall freely, soaking into the lightweight material as she asks, “So where does that leave me? Am I supposed to just accept that Eddie was murdered and move on?”

  Yes. That’s what I want to say. Yes is easier, for me and for her. But I can’t do that because seeing her in tears like this reminds me of how I was back in Vancouver. I know how much I lost because I couldn’t just accept the way the world is. I know how many sleepless nights I’ve had since, the memories of one night haunting so many others. But I also know that, no matter how much I lost, I’d do it all again in a heartbeat because it was the right thing to do.

  “Not necessarily,” I say, and Lori looks up, surprise on her waterlogged face. “Devin Carmichael does not kill off his own back. If he killed your brother, then someone paid him to do it.”

  “But you said that if they see his name, then the police still won’t do anything about it.”

  I nod. “I know one who may, but only if we can give him something to prove who hired Devin and why.”

  Lori wipes her tears and takes a deep breath. “So what do I need to do?” she asks.

  “For now, just think. The report that you made for me focused mainly on the crime scene and what little he’d told you about trying to go Pro. What I need is for you to think about what your brother was like, who he hung out with, and whether he could have made any enemies. On top of that, I want you to think about whether anyone out there would have a reason to hurt you. Most likely, this is all about Eddie, but I don’t want to discount the possibility that he was a victim in a whole different vendetta.”

  Lori’s face tells me she hadn’t considered that as a possibility. It also tells me that I just scared the life out of her. Her mind’s probably racing right about now, running through every little moment of paranoia that she’s ever had, trying to fill in the gaps and link it back to her brother’s murder. Finally, she sighs, pushes up to her feet, and walks over to a small bookshelf tucked away opposite the door to the kitchen.

  She comes back with a large ring binder, and hands it to me. “My work portfolio. When I’m Ink, that’s what I’m running from.”

  I flip the hardback front open and find a photo mounted on a thin sheet of card. The picture is a wide shot from a protest a couple of years back. The protesters were simply marching for higher pay, and someone made an anonymous call to the police, shouting and screaming about violence in the streets. The then-captain didn’t bother checking and sent a squad out with orders to subdue the “rioters” by any means necessary. The resulting bloodshed cost the captain his job, and let Hoover step in. The violence was a tragedy, but I can’t say I’m upset about the outcome. From the way that the police are piling forward in the shot, Lori must have caught things just as the trouble kicked off and the second wave started trying to confiscate cameras.

  The next page is a photo of the artificial lake situated just outside the city. The synthetic greenery is smeared with a thick black substance that’s spilled into the water and entrapped what looks like a small bird. The oil, or whatever it is, is covered in pieces of litter, so it’s probably fair to assume that at least one person saw it and thought they may as well use it as a bin rather than call someone to clean it up. Hey, if it’s wrecked already, who’d care, right?

  Next is a shot that I recognise; the sorrowful visage of the elderly father of a local woman who had been falsely accused of murdering a child. She’d been arrested during a time when people were getting restless with the lack of positive action that the police seemed to take in relation to violent crimes, and so her guilt was presumed confirmed from the get-go. She was given fifteen years and was killed two days into her sentence. I know the case well because, less than one month after her murder, I proved her innocence beyond a doubt and helped win her a retroactive pardon. Her father was grateful, even more so when I told him that I’d waive my fee. What he really wanted was his daughter back, and that was something I just couldn’t give him. As far as I was concerned, he’d suffered enough already and didn’t need my jumped-up fees to add to his woes.

  Flicking through the folder, I see it’s full of photos like that; all capturing a side of the city that’s existed from day one but that the brochures promising a fresh start and a happy life in New Hopeland never show you.

  “You can’t help them,” Lori sighs. “Not straightaway. The photo has to come first, because that’s your job. The people suffering…It’s too late for most of them anyway. You know, every now and then you come across things that are just the perfect shot for an article that you know isn’t lined up, but needs to be written. And you know that you’ve got to snap what’s happening before you can even try to do anything else, because if you don’t, the article won’t ever exist, and telling people is all you really can do.” She shakes her head sadly and continues, “Most of the time, all we manage to do is to get people talking about an issue for a day or two. After that, they move on to whatever’s the next big talking point that it’s cool to get involved in. Sometimes, though, we do make a difference.”

  Lori flips a few pages over and stops on one large shot of a homeless person. The man is bloody, bruised, and lying unconscious outside the local government buildings. Less than five feet away, the former Local Housing Officer, I can never remember his name, stands talking to the press, ignoring the man on the ground.

  “The Local Housing Officer seat was never one that was up for election, but when the role opened up, Jed Wilson campaigned like it was. He went out and spoke to the citizens, made promises, kissed babies, all of i
t. By acting like a presidential candidate, he got enough people excited that the local officials had no choice but to give him the job.”

  “He lasted two years, didn’t he?” I ask.

  Lori nods. “Yeah. At the start, he seemed to be making good on his promises with housing development and shelters, but those of us out rooting around on slow news weeks started seeing things that weren’t what they seemed. Everything he did, he did on the cheap. That wouldn’t matter if he had major constraints on funding, but he was getting a lot of money coming in from both the public funds and the charitable donations the locals were making. On top of that, every success story that he threw in front of the press was always too good. These were down-and-out people that he was helping, sure, but they were clean. No major problems, no dark past, just plenty of sob stories and happily ever afters. We all thought that something was going on.”

  “So the guy in the photo wasn’t one of his successes, I take it?”

  “No. And there were countless others like him. I got lucky with that one, though. I was on my way to take some shots of Jed’s press conference when I found the guy. Seeing him that close by without the LHO batting an eyelid was too good a chance to miss. I snapped the shot, grabbed an interviewer that I knew was just waiting for a chance to take Jed down, and we took the poor guy off to the hospital. He’d been beaten by Jed’s security team when he went to try to plead for a place in one of the shelters.”

  “Overcrowding?” I try.

  “That’s what they told him. In truth, though? They weren’t even close to overcrowded. This guy, Bob Sherwood, just wasn’t the sort of person that they wanted about when the TV cameras were due to stop by. He was still an alcoholic, still wanted for multiple counts of breaking and entering, and he absolutely stank. Jed preferred the newly homeless with their down-on-their-luck tales of redundancy and marital splits. That photo and the accompanying interview kick-started a series of investigations that showed Jed had been taking around 85 percent of all funding for himself. He lost his job, his credibility, and his freedom. If Eddie was killed as a way to get back at me, it’d have to be something to do with my work. This photo is the only one that I’ve ever taken that’s had a long-lasting effect on anything.”

  Taking down crooked politicians, eh? I push back the gamut of painful memories and muster my best reassuring smile. “What you’re thinking makes sense. You’ll be happy to know, though, that there’s no way Jed Wilson could have hired Devin Carmichael.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause Devin may be a killer, but he has a moral code. There are certain types of people that he won’t work for, and crooked politicians happen to be among them. Now me, I’m a great believer in the theory that all politicians are crooked, whereas Devin believes in the old “innocent until proven guilty” shtick. Jed Wilson got jail time, so there’s no chance he’d take him on.”

  “So you’re telling me he’d work for a crooked cop, but not a crooked politician?”

  I shrug. “He used to say that if he worked for a crooked cop, then he was still broadly working in the public’s interest, but if he worked for a crooked politician, then he was only working in their best interest.”

  Lori’s shoulders sag, and she lets out a relieved sigh. She takes the folder back from me and shuts the cover, then walks back to the bookshelf. “You seem to know a lot about him,” she says. “Devin Carmichael, I mean.”

  I nod. “I work alongside the corrupt and the scum. You meet a lot of interesting people that way. Believe it or not, Devin’s one of the nicer ones you could come across. Unless he’s been hired to take care of you, of course.”

  Lori laughs bitterly. “He killed my brother. I don’t think that nice is a word I can apply to him.”

  “Fair enough,” I reply. “And if we’re being honest here, we don’t know one hundred percent that he killed Eddie yet. All we have is a set of numbers that make it likely. I’m gonna tackle that, though.”

  “How?”

  “I’m gonna ask him. He won’t tell me who hired him, but if I slap a warrant on him for information, he’ll tell me whether he did it or not. Until then, I’m working on the basis that he did, which brings me back to needing you to think things through. When you first came to me, you said that you thought someone in the company that was going to hire Eddie could have killed him. Did you have any reason in particular to think that?”

  “No,” Lori replies sadly, shaking her head. “No, you were right. I was just reaching. It was the only thing that came to mind.”

  “Well, given Devin’s usual fees, an executive in a high-powered company isn’t a bad bet. You’re sure that you don’t know which company it was that he was in contact with?” Loris shakes her head again. “There are ways to find out. I’m going to use one of the Governmental Monitoring Offices to try to discover if he had any lengthy virtual meetings with anyone working for someone of that level, and maybe check who else he saw regularly there too. I’d rather not go into that blind if I can help it, though, so I’m gonna need a favour.”

  “Anything,” Lori replies, her voice resolute.

  “Can you get me into your brother’s house? I want to see the place where he died.”

  Lori flinches, but says, “Sure. I can do that.”

  “Good. I noticed that the official photo the reports were using was one of yours. I know this is hard, but if you took any other photos of the place, I want you to bring them with you. I’m guessing the place has been cleaned, but if possible, I want to see what was about at the time that he died. Maybe that will give us some clues.”

  “I have a couple. I’ll get them loaded up on my tablet,” she says, and stands up again.

  “You don’t have to do it now. Look, Lori, thinking that your brother was murdered and having someone tell you that you’re probably right are two very different things. This can all wait until the morning. I never knew your brother, so I won’t know if anything was out of place. You will. For that, I’m gonna need you rested and alert. For now, the best thing that you can do is get some sleep.”

  Lori starts to protest, but a yawn cuts her words off. Funny how the mention of sleep can do that to you, especially if you really are tired and trying to hide it. “Okay,” she says at last. “Can we start early, though?”

  “Sure,” I reply, getting to my feet. “Eight good for you?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, eight is fine.”

  “Good,” I say, and make my way towards the front door. Lori follows behind me, her shoulders slumping under a mix of exhaustion and nervousness. “If you think of anything else, any names or even just some crazy random thoughts about either of you, write them down, but try not to dwell on them. We can sort through anything that you come up with tomorrow.”

  Lori nods, and I open the door. “Hey,” she says. “You don’t drive, right? Did you need a ride back?”

  I smile but shake my head. “You rest. I’ll get a cab.”

  “Okay,” she says, and her face drops.

  I step out into the night and let the cool air hit me. She’s hurting, I get that, but I can at least try to make her smile before I go. “Hey,” I say, turning back towards her. “When I come to get you tomorrow, I’m not gonna have to take you for walkies, am I?”

  Lori looks at me and blinks. A small giggle rises in her throat, and she replies, “Only if you want to. Good night, Cassie.”

  “Good night, Lori,” I smile, then turn and walk away. Fifteen seconds later, the door clicks shut, and I finally manage to drop the mild flirtatious glint from my eyes. “Damn you, Charlie.”

  “Caw,” Bert comments, gliding down to perch on my shoulder.

  Ten

  IT TAKES ME half an hour to make it to the apartment block in South Main Street. I’ve had enough of walking, so I take the elevator all the way up and head to the only door on the top floor. I give it five hard raps with my knuckles, and listen. When I hear the slow tromp of boots heading towards the other side, I place one hand against the outer d
oorframe and lift my phone up with the other, the screen already illuminated.

  The door swings inward, and a man steps into the light. He’s tall, a little over six foot, and built with what most would call a chiselled physique. Even if I didn’t already know that, it would be abundantly obvious now, as he seems to have decided that it’s the right weather to go topless. At least he’s wearing his jeans and boots, I guess.

  The man tilts his cowboy hat back and peers down at the warrant on my phone screen. He smiles. “Well, someone’s all business tonight,” he says, his voice dripping with a slow Southern drawl.

  “Devin,” I reply, “I’m tired, and I’m in no mood to fuck around, Okay?”

  Devin Carmichael laughs and runs his hand over the stubble littering his square jaw. “That’s fine with me, darlin’. If ya went to the trouble of getting a warrant all set up, ya must be pretty desperate.”

  “Eddie Redwood, Virtual Junkie Addict, died last week with the remains of over three hundred milligrams of Flash7 in him. Did you kill him?”

  “Now, if you’ve come all the way over here to be asking me that, I reckon ya already know the answer.” I glare, and he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I killed him. What about it?”

  “Who hired you?” Even though he’s confirmed my suspicions, I can’t believe he gave up the information quite so easily.

  Devin crosses his arms and leans casually against the other side of the doorframe, forcing the door all the way back. “Warrants don’t get ya that much, Caz.”