Outside Forces

by R E Swirsky

  ***

   

  The phone call from Jack came just as Nathaniel was loading Johnny into the back seat of the Citroen.

  “Nate, here. What’s up?”

  “We’ve got something from Metcalf.”

  Nathaniel shut the door hard and leaned up against the car before adjusting his hat.

  “I hope it’s good news.”

  “You have a listen and tell me what you think. It’s a recording taken about four hours ago from inside his house.”

  “Inside? I thought you only had cameras outside and the land line.” He glanced down to see Johnny shuffling across the seat towards him. Johnny opened the door.

  “Stay inside the car!” Nathaniel snapped. “I need a minute here.”

  Johnny left the door opened and pointed first at the house and then up at the cliffs across the river. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “I said, stay inside!” He pushed the door closed, giving Johnny time to just barely retract his arm before the door slammed shut.

  Jack continued to speak. “That young fellow, Antonio, has got magic up his arse. I couldn’t sleep a wink last night after he showed me some of things he could do. The recording I’m about to play came from the TV inside their home, believe it or not.”

  “The television?”

  “That was my reaction. Antonio says it’s one of those new smart TVs—one you can talk to. He says he hacked in and uploaded an app into the device on the carrier frequency to change functions inside the device. In the case of this particular Samsung TV, he turned on the audio microphone and is using it to listen in on conversations in the room.

  “He sent it to my phone. Just give me a second here to find it and…here it comes.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” A woman was speaking. [Metcalf’s wife.] Her voice was strong and opinionated.

  “I’m not being ridiculous.” [Metcalf.]

  “Our daughter is set to be buried tomorrow. He should be here.”

  A heavy sigh. Something heavy produced a ‘bang’.

  “I told you to drop it already. I’m not having some strange boy we don’t know at our daughter’s funeral.”

  “It’s not enough that you hide Jenny and Lisa away in some hotel for some godforsaken reason. You won’t even tell me the real reason! Now this?”

  “I told you why.”

  “You never told me anything. ‘For protection’ was all you said. Protection from whom, Harvey? Who have you crossed this time?”

  Harvey laughed.

  “I’m not laughing, Harvey.”

  “Just leave it, Cindy,” he said softly.

  “It’s that thing again, isn’t it? You received another message, didn’t you, threatening you. What did it say this time?”

  “It’s not that. And why you do you have to keep dragging that back up? I should never have told you.”

  There followed a few minutes of silence. A glass clinked in the background.

  “I don’t understand you sometimes. Why don’t you just go to the police?”

  More silence.

  “Harvey? I asked you a question. You send the girls away, have security crawling all over our home, and you’ve been holed up in your office making secret phone calls for two days now. You should’ve called the police when those accusations first began, even if they weren’t true.”

  “I told you already, I can handle it.”

  More silence.

  “Lucinda is being buried tomorrow. I’m not going to let whatever you have going on ruin Lucinda’s funeral. I won’t have it. And I want you to bring the girls back home this afternoon.

  “No. They’ll remain at the hotel for now—until the funeral.”

  “They should be here with us.”

  A pause. A glass clinked again.

  “I want to put it off.”

  “What?”

  “Just.…”

  “What did you want to put off? Lucinda’s funeral? No, Harvey.…”

  “Leave it, Cindy.”

  “You can’t!” Weeping sounds. “People are coming from everywhere!”

  “I was going to have Henri call them all. We need to put it off.”

  “But why, Harvey? What is this really about?”

  “It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “If it’s nothing to worry about, then why postpone the funeral? You’re not making sense, Harvey.”

  “Just for a week—until I sort it.”

  A soft shuffling sound rustled through the phone.

  “I hate how you do this to our family. I’ve about had enough of this. We are not moving the funeral, and I want that boy, Michael, out here as well. And we should be paying for his flight and hotel if he can’t afford it.”

  “Quit it already.”

  “Lucinda told me she was in love with him. I’d never heard her so happy. I at least want to meet him.”

  “Okay, okay. I said quit. I’ll leave the funeral where it is, just quit with that boy already.” He paused. “And have some clothes sent over to the girls then tonight. I’ll bring them home just before the service.”

  The recording went silent for a few minutes.

  “I also know it was Michael who called you earlier today, too. Don’t try to deny it.”

  “I said to forget about the damn boy!”

  More shuffling sounds.

  “I overheard some of your conversation with him. Well, at least your half.”

  Something slammed in the background.

  “What men were you talking about with him? Forget about what men?”

  “There are no men. You heard wrong.”

  “I heard quite well. A good, young.…”

  A loud crash interrupted her sentence.

  “Oh—you’re getting violent now? You think that will shut me up?!”

  Harvey mumbled something unintelligible.

  “Will you at least arrange for Michael to be here tomorrow?”

  A gap of silence.

  “He’s not coming out here.”

  “He must be absolutely heartbroken by what’s happened. I feel awful that I haven’t spoken with him. And why was Lucinda up there on that mountain alone? Did you ask him that when he called, Harvey? Did you? I should call, really, and speak to him myself. That poor boy.”

  “You stay away from him! You hear me? No one is calling him!”

  “Don’t you dare tell me whom I can or cannot call!”

  A small shuffling sound.

  “You want to hit me, Harvey? Go ahead!”

  Silence.

  “Well? Either put your fist back down or let me have it! I’m going to call him. He deserves that much at least. Go get me his number.”

  There were shuffling and grunting noises.

  “Ow, that hurts!”

  “Then stop pursuing this already! Let it go! We lost one daughter already, damn you! Isn’t one enough?” he shouted.

  “What?” She began to weep. “Is that what you meant?”

  There was a long pause.

  “You’re hiding them!”

  Harvey made a guttural sound that sounded something like “Shhhish.”

  “What’s really going on here, Harvey?”

  Harvey’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “It’s complicated.”

  She wailed uncontrollably and then screamed, “What did you do, Harvey? It has something to do with this boy, Michael, doesn’t it?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Doesn’t it?” she shouted. “Is that why you don’t want him here?”

  He stormed out of the room, leaving her alone.

  “Harvey!” she screamed. “Did that boy do something to our daughter? Is that why you won’t let me speak to him? Is that why she was up there on that mountain alone?” Silence and sobbing. “Harvey!” she screamed. “What has that boy done? I’ll find his number and call him myself! I will, Harvey! Harvey?”

  Gated breaths and sobs.

  “Did he hurt her, Harvey? Harvey!” she scr
eamed.

  The end of the recording was filled with more sobbing and ragged breaths.

  “I see what you mean,” Nathaniel said. He bent down to see Johnny staring out the far window inside the vehicle, his left knee bouncing up and down to show his impatience.

  “Do you understand any of it?”

  It was like being a fly on the wall inside someone’s home after a tragic event. What erupted behind closed doors was very different from what the outside world often saw. Hearing Metcalf’s wife’s pain left him feeling as if he had violated her in the worst way possible—more collateral damage.

  “Not really, no. All this proves is that if Kaito is involved in any of this, it’s personal and has been ongoing for a number of months. Metcalf clearly doesn’t want it known by anyone, the police included.”

  “Yeah. I’ve listened to this a few times already.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “It’s my guess that Metcalf is already in response mode to what happened to his daughter.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah, I do. He said he’s already taking care of it. We don’t know is what the ‘it’ actually is, but that would explain hustling his girls away and the added security.”

  There was nothing Nathaniel could do from where he was if Metcalf was taking action of his own against Kaito. He still didn’t know where Kaito was.

  “Who is this Michael? His daughter’s boyfriend?”

  “That’s what Harvey’s wife said. Look, Jack, I gotta run here, but call me if anything else comes up.”

  “Will do.”

  Nathaniel hung up, dropped his head, and stared in at Johnny in the back seat. Less than fifteen minutes ago Johnny told him he was Lucinda’s boyfriend. And now he just heard Lucinda’s mother say this Michael was her boyfriend. He smiled at Johnny, which Johnny half-heartily returned before he began shouting impatiently at him. “Let’s go already, for fuck’s sake!”

  Nathaniel jumped into the front seat and placed his hat on the passenger seat. He didn’t know what to make of the recording. He stared into the back seat at Johnny. Did this girl have two boyfriends?

  “So where the fuck are we? I can see French street signs out there on the road,” Johnny said. He pointed behind him out the rear window. “Are we in Quebec?”

  Nathaniel laughed. “I’m going to tell you a little story.…” He pushed the button to start the engine.