A Killer Harvest

by Paul Cleave

  He stares at her for a few seconds, and then his body relaxes. “Okay, okay. Fine. Whatever. So what do you want from me? To talk to a sketch artist or something?”

  “Something like that,” she says. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and asks for his mom’s phone number.

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re going to go on a field trip, and I need your mommy’s permission.”

  Levi looks annoyed at her for saying mommy, before begrudgingly reciting the number. Vega makes the call. She introduces herself, and Levi’s mum immediately asks, “So what’s he done now?” Vega explains the situation, and she’s given permission to take Levi out of school to visit Vincent Archer’s house. It’s a whole lot easier than dealing with Michelle Logan. In fact, it’s so easy that she’s left with the impression she could have taken Levi into a war zone and his mom still wouldn’t have cared. It reminds her of what Kent told her yesterday after giving the death notification to Scott Adams’s mom. Some kids just don’t have a chance.

  She updates Mooney, then leads Levi to her car.

  “You got a boyfriend?” Levi asks, before they’re even out of the parking lot.

  “I’m not going to discuss that with you,” she says.

  “A hot chick like you, you must, right? How old are you?”

  “That’s none of your business,” she says.

  “I’ll be eighteen pretty soon. You’re what, forty?”

  She’s thirty-one. “How about we remain quiet until we get there.”

  “How about we go out afterwards, huh? Grab a couple of drinks?”

  “I don’t think so, Levi.”

  “Why? You’re a lesbian?”

  “No. Because it would be inappropriate. Because you’re a small boy trying to act all grown-up. Because you have a big mouth. Because I simply don’t want to. I could give you a hundred reasons. A thousand.”

  “So you are a lesbian,” he says.

  “Let’s kill the chitchat, Levi. I don’t want you tiring that brain of yours out before we get there. And I don’t want to have to pull over and shoot you.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Joshua pauses and listens for signs of life. He should have knocked first, then fabricated a story as to why he was here if somebody answered, but it’s too late now. He just has to hope the house is empty and, after a few moments, he’s satisfied that it is. His heart is still racing. He figures if he doesn’t get out of here soon it might even explode.

  He takes the bandage off his left hand, and wraps it around his right hand and fingers, but not so tight he can’t flex them. Now it’s like he’s wearing a glove, which means he can touch things and not leave fingerprints behind. There’s still padding on his left hand, but, with the bandage no longer holding it in place, he peels it away and folds it into his pocket. The graze on his left hand is exposed, and starts to sting. It looks shiny and raw and gross. As soon as he’s out of here he’ll bandage it back up.

  The kitchen is to the left. All the appliances are modern, and the kitchen itself is spacious. Everything is so tidy he’s wondering if anybody even lives here. He checks the walk-in pantry and sees it’s stocked with food, as is the fridge. The only thing out of place are the two bags of dog food on the table. In the lounge there’s no TV, which he thinks is strange. The bookcase has a few books he’s listened to in the past, and a whole bunch more he wants to read. There’s a really cool movie poster on the wall that has a giant monster striding through a city knocking aside buildings. It has to be fifty years old at least. There are some handmade wooden toys on some shelves against the wall, the kinds of things he’d never be able to make not even after twenty years of taking woodshop. The carpets are soft and the furniture looks comfortable and none of this is what he was expecting. He was expecting the place to smell like old pizza. He was expecting dirty dishes stacked in and around the sink and flies buzzing through the rooms and T-shirts hanging over the backs of chairs and beer bottles on the coffee table. He goes down the hallway and opens the wardrobe door in the master bedroom. All the clothes have been ironed and the shoes on the floor have been cleaned. The bed has been made and there are no crumbs anywhere, no empty cans on the nightstand. The room is so clean it doesn’t make sense anybody could sleep in here and dream the kind of evil dreams Vincent Archer was having.

  In the office he sits down in front of the computer. It’s already running. He nudges the mouse and the screen comes to life. His experience with computers is still limited, but his skills have increased over the weeks. He flicks through a bunch of photographs, recognizing Vincent Archer and Simon Bower, but not recognizing any of the other people he sees in them. Every time he sees Simon Bower, he wants to scream. This is the man who killed his father, and there’s no outlet for his anger over that. He forces himself to keep looking. Whatever needs to happen to draw a connection between these faces and his dreams isn’t happening. He thinks about what Olillia said earlier, that he’s recognizing people his dad saw not long before he died. If that’s true, then other than Vincent and Simon, his dad didn’t see any of the other people in these photos the day he died. Perhaps not ever.

  He looks at his watch. He’s already been here ten minutes.

  He goes into the adjacent room. This is the room he was told about. It’s so vastly different from the rest of the house. Photographs and newspaper clippings line the walls. Some faces look totally unfamiliar, but there are those he recognizes. There’s a photograph of Dr. Toni in the parking lot of the hospital. There’s an article next to it about the work she’s been doing with eye transplant technology. There’s a picture of his mother, and it sends a shiver through him. She’s in the parking lot of the veterinary clinic, stepping out of her car . . . and here’s another one, this time of her checking the mailbox at home. There are photographs of Detective Vega, of himself, there are more photos of Erin, of his grandparents. There are some of Uncle Ben, including a large one in the middle of it all that is made up from four separate printouts.

  There is so much wrong here. This guy, Vincent Archer, how could he have been a part of society for so long? What mask was he able to wear to hide his obsession? The answer is simple: the same mask he wore when he was in the other rooms of this house. Joshua doesn’t want to be in the house anymore, and he doesn’t want to leave the photographs of himself—or his mother—behind. They’re like a contagion, spreading the sickness that plagued Vincent Archer.

  His eyes stop on an article on Ruby Carter. He knows the name because his father was working on the case. He remembers they never found any trace of her or her bike. She went into the forest and never came out. He uses his phone to take a photograph of the article, then sends it to Olillia. A minute later he calls her.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey. How you getting on?”

  “Almost done here,” she says.

  “I recognize somebody,” he says.

  “The woman in the article you texted me?”

  “Yeah. There’s this room in here, it’s crazy. It’s full of photographs and articles. This guy was planning on hurting a lot of people.”

  “You think he hurt her?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “So . . . why would you—hang on a second.”

  The phone is muffled, and he can hear her talking. There’s a man’s voice responding, a small laugh, then Olillia laughs to, and he hears her thank him, and a moment later he hears a car door close.

  “I’m back,” she says. “What was I saying? Oh yeah, I was going to ask how you would recognize her. You think your dad knew her?”

  “It was his case.”

  “So he would have seen heaps of photographs of her.”

  “That’s true. Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “Except I’m sure she’s the woman from the dream I had after the operation. It’s like . . . it’s like I can picture her in the forest with her bike. I can picture Vincent there too, and their fishing rods. But
how could I picture something like that with my dad’s eyes if he wasn’t there?”

  It takes her a few seconds to respond, and he knows what she’s going to say, and then she says it. “Maybe . . . maybe your dad was there.”

  “Then that would mean he was part of what happened.”

  “There’ll be an explanation that makes sense,” she says. “But if you dreamed about what happened to her, then it means you can see things further back than the morning your dad died.”

  “That’s true,” he says.

  “I better move the car,” she says, “before the policeman gets suspicious. Your father, was he a good detective?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have his eyes now,” she says. “So why don’t you use them the same way he would have? To detect?”

  They hang up. He takes photographs of the room, then in the office he sits back in front of the computer and takes photographs of the photographs on the screen. He thinks about what Olillia said to him, about using his eyes the same way his dad would have used them, and there is something here that’s bugging him. He goes into the bedroom and opens the wardrobe and looks at the clothes. He doesn’t see what he’s looking for. He takes pictures of the room, then returns to the lounge and looks at the couch and the chairs. Again he doesn’t see what he’s looking for. There’s a door with internal access to the garage. The room smells like paint. There are tools everywhere of different designs, hand tools, power tools, things to shape and sculpt and build. There’s a birdhouse on a shelf, a wine rack half-complete, a coffee table on its end with clamps holding it together, even a stool like the ones they’re all making in woodshop. There’s a toy car carved out of wood, some spheres the size of soccer balls that might be part of a larger project or just spheres, there’s a small windmill that looks ready to be nailed to the roof of the garage. He has the urge to run his fingers over the tools. He doesn’t know what they’re called, but he knows what they do. He hated woodshop yesterday, and he thought earlier that even with twenty years under his belt he still wouldn’t be able to make a single thing, but all of that has changed. Looking at everything, the materials, the tools, he wants to start making things. He really wants to start making things.

  He goes into the hallway. He opens the closet and pulls out the vacuum cleaner. It’s a bagless one, the kind with all the dust and dirt sitting in a central cylinder. Since being back at home, his mom has given him a list of chores he can do, and vacuuming is one of them. He pops open the cylinder and uses his finger to search for what he suspects he won’t find, and he doesn’t find it, and now he knows for sure. He puts the vacuum cleaner back and goes to the dining room where the two bags of dog food are still on the table.

  No dog. No fur on the couches. No fur on Vincent Archer’s clothes. No dog kennel anywhere and no fur in the vacuum cleaner and no dogs in any of the photographs. Not even a dog bowl.

  Question—why dog food and no dog?

  Before he can come up with any answers, the front door opens.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Joshua knew this was a mistake. He knew he would get caught.

  You’re not caught yet.

  Footsteps in the hall. He has a couple of seconds to hide.

  Where?

  The pantry. There’s room enough for him. He gets inside and surely whoever is out there is going to hear his breathing. He can hear voices. One of them belongs to Detective Vega. The other he doesn’t recognize. They don’t come into the kitchen. He considers stepping back out of the pantry and telling Vega he’s here. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, aside from being grounded, it could lead to the man who helped him being arrested, even if that man is a good man. More important, it could lead to Olillia getting into trouble too.

  He takes his phone out of his pocket and puts it on mute.

  Vega and her companion move deeper into the house.

  He texts Olillia.

  Vega is here! In the house!

  What? Has she seen you?

  No. I’m hiding in the pantry. She’s here with somebody.

  Stay where you are. There’s no reason for her to check the pantry, right?

  What if more people are on their way?

  Stay calm. Hopefully she’ll leave soon.

  He can smell tea bags and cornflakes. The bottom shelf is digging into his calves. He can hear voices from the other side of the house, but he can’t make out the words. He opens the door. The voices become a little clearer. People have always thought that because he was blind, he would have superhuman hearing—but his hearing, and that of all his friends, wasn’t any better than anybody’s who could see. His phone vibrates. He closes the pantry door.

  We’re going to have to think of a way to get you out when she’s gone. The cop outside will see you if you go out the front.

  He realizes that was always going to be the case. Any ideas?

  Go out the back when you get a chance. Either that, or stay in the pantry until they get bored with the house.

  Don’t want to let down another tire and drive past?

  LOL.

  His phone vibrates again. It’s his mom. Where are you?

  At the library. We’ll be a few more hours. Where are you? Hopefully she won’t say she’s at the library too.

  On my way home. Call me when you want me to come and get you.

  Okay. How’d it go?

  Should I call?

  I think the librarian will tell me off if you do.

  It takes a minute for her response. Principal Mooney is thinking about it. Detective Vega was there earlier and put in a good word for you. He said she reminded him how none of this is your fault. I think it’ll be okay.

  That’s good. I’ll call you in a few hours.

  In that case, I’ll go to the hospital and see Ben and Erin. Ben is awake today. Apparently he can’t remember anything that happened yesterday. I’ll come get you when you’re ready. Be careful.

  I will.

  He doesn’t like lying to his mother and also doesn’t like how easy it is. The good word Detective Vega put in for him with his school will disappear if she finds him here. He definitely can’t go out there now and tell her that he’s here. He texts the photographs he’s been taking to Olillia. He’s sending the last one when the voices get louder. Now he can hear footsteps too. He opens the door a crack so he can hear what they’re saying.

  “. . . drive you to the station,” Vega says.

  “What? Why can’t you?” the person with her asks.

  “Because I’m busy.”

  “I didn’t have to help, you know. I could have said nothing.”

  “But you chose to help, which proves what a nice person you are,” she says.

  “Nice enough for that drink, then?”

  “Not that nice,” she says. “The officer will drive you to the station and once you’ve given the sketch artist a composite of the man you saw, you’ll be driven back to school.”

  Man you saw? Did somebody see who killed Vincent Archer?

  “And then what?”

  “And then nothing,” she says. “Unless you have more information to offer.”

  The front door opens. They walk outside. The conversation fades. He creeps out of the pantry and peers into the hall. The door is still open. He can see Vega and somebody from his school walking towards the parked car with the officer inside it.

  He calls Olillia.

  “They’re outside,” he says, “but Vega is coming back.”

  “Can you go out the back?”

  “That’s the plan. Then what?”

  “Then you climb the fence directly behind the house.”

  “What?”

  “I’m parked outside the house behind you. I don’t think there’s anybody home. It’s your only option.”

  He heads down the hallway to the back door. There’s a sliding lock. Once the door is shut behind him, he won’t be able to slide that lock back into place. But he has no choice. He gets outside and closes th
e door. He runs for the back fence. The garden has been barked, and there are flax bushes and ferns that run the length of it. The fence looks like it’s been recently painted. The planks are nailed in a way that means the beams are exposed on this side. It makes it easy to climb. On the other side is a house similar to the one he’s just left. He drops into the yard, landing in a vegetable garden. He picks his way through it. From the edge of the garden he can see into one of the bedrooms, where a woman is standing with her back to him. She has a baby over her shoulder. The baby stares at him, and points, but the woman doesn’t turn around. He moves to the corner of the house. The street is out there, and the only thing between him and it is a gate and the front yard.

  He goes for the gate, staying low.

  It’s locked.

  He reaches up, puts a foot on the beam, and pulls himself over. He runs across the front yard to the sidewalk where Olillia is waiting like a getaway driver with the door open.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Vega sees Levi off in the car with the police officer, who has agreed to take him off her hands. She’s glad to be rid of him. He had looked at the photographs on the computer, and those on the walls, and wasn’t able to identify anybody in them. Still, it was worth a shot. She wishes she could take that shot with Joshua too. There’s still a chance Levi can work with the sketch artist and come up with something useful.

  She goes back into the house. She’s thinking about Tracey, and the fact she still hasn’t called her, and that’s because she still hasn’t decided what she’s going to do. Ask her? Not ask her? Tracey might be completely unaware, and all Vega would be doing is implicating her before any evidence has hinted at her involvement—a really bad thing for a cop to do, she thinks. She’ll give her a call now. She’ll tell her everything is okay, and then ask her if she’s heard any rumors in the medical examiners’ office about organs being illegally harvested and see where the conversation goes, and hope Tracey doesn’t think she’s accusing her of anything. She gets her phone out and is at the threshold of the Room of Obsession when she notices it—the sliding lock on the back door is in the open position.