Be My Killer: A completely UNPUTDOWNABLE crime thriller with nail-biting mystery and suspense

by Richard Parker

  ‘Somebody get my scooter from the trunk!’ a piercing voice yelled before they even reached her.

  ‘Eve, Hazel. Good to see you face-to-face at last.’ She extended her hand inside.

  Eve didn’t take it and tried to swivel in her seat but her considerable body mass only allowed a slight turn of her head. ‘The door’s unlocked. Careful when you lift it.’

  Hazel joined Rena as she opened the hatch, and they both struggled out the mobility vehicle.

  ‘Just wheel it here. I’ll do the rest.’

  The two women positioned it, and Eve bounced her body to the edge of the seat, reached down to the handlebars and used them to shakily lift her bulk and swing it onto the scooter. She tucked her aquamarine dress back over her knees. ‘There.’ Wiping the few strands of hair poking from her camouflage print headscarf out of her red, perspiring features she passed the keys to Rena. ‘Lock it up for me. It’s sticky. Press hard for the alarm.’ Her scooter jerked forward. ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night.’

  Hazel tried to keep up alongside but its speed was too fast for walking and too slow for trotting. ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  They reached the open entrance doors, and Eve paused. ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Henrik Fossen?’

  Eve looked up at Hazel through heavy lids. ‘Who else?’

  ‘He’s on-site.’

  ‘Jacob’s back at the motel. He was going to drive me, but I told him to stay put. Good thing as well. Wants to pull Fossen’s arms out of their sockets. Can’t guarantee I can control him either.’

  ‘Eve, you promised.’

  ‘Yeah, I did. But Jacob didn’t. He was Caleb’s twin brother, and the two of them were real tight.’ She accelerated her scooter towards the doors but Hazel stepped past her and stood in her way.

  The wheel nudged her boot.

  Eve glared and raised her pencilled-on eyebrows.

  ‘I need your word there won’t be any trouble. I know Jacob has a history.’

  ‘He wants to know why you don’t want to interview him same time as me.’

  ‘Because we need some assurances.’

  Eve smirked and dimples deepened either side of her mouth. ‘Or because you want to keep us apart so you can see we get our stories straight?’

  20

  ‘Mind not smoking that in here?’ Eve grinned humourlessly at Lucas.

  Lucas met Hazel’s eye. He’d only just lit up. She nodded.

  ‘Am I the first?’ Eve asked before the cigarette had been extinguished. ’Cept for Fossen?’

  Hazel seated herself in the swivel chair opposite Eve’s scooter. It was the same interview set-up as Henrik. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You gonna be talking to her parents?’ She jabbed her thumb at the shrine.

  ‘In good time.’

  ‘Not like they’d have to travel far as I have.’ Despite the cold, Eve activated a small handheld fan and held it to her flushed complexion. It agitated the dark ringlets protruding from her headscarf.

  Hazel knew they weren’t real. ‘How’s the chemo?’

  ‘Lost a third of my weight so far.’

  Hazel tried not to look surprised. It was difficult to believe Eve hadn’t yet hit her mid-twenties.

  ‘Last year sucked and swallowed – fibromyalgia then leukaemia, then Caleb’s murder. Both my brothers have always looked out for me but Caleb was more a carer than Jacob. You filming now?’

  Hazel turned to Lucas to acknowledge this. He’d knelt to his Lumix, which was positioned low on the tripod.

  ‘Let me see the screen.’ Eve pointed at the monitor.

  Hazel turned it in her direction.

  ‘No good. Six chins. Shoot me from above.’

  ‘Sure. Lucas?’

  Lucas didn’t reply but extended the legs.

  ‘OK.’ Hazel swivelled the monitor back. ‘We’re set.’

  ‘Still haven’t told me why I’m first.’

  ‘Because you’re the only person to have given a description of the perpetrator to the police.’

  Eve smiled slyly, as if it were the answer she expected.

  ‘Wait,’ said Weiss adjusting his headphones. ‘Can we just kill the fan?’

  She looked sharply at him and switched it off.

  ‘Speak to me and not the camera. Take a breath and tell me what happened in your own time.’

  Eve played with the plastic blades. ‘If I’d been sleeping properly, Caleb would have died twenty feet from me and I wouldn’t have known.’

  ‘You’d already heard of the @BeMyKiller account?’

  She scowled at Hazel. ‘You know it was me that put his name on Twitter along with the hashtag.’

  ‘Forget the conversations we’ve already had. Imagine you’re talking to me for the first time.’

  Eve puffed her cheeks and filled out the dimples. ‘Caleb wasn’t very smart. Had an iPhone but didn’t know how to use it. I set up his Facebook and Twitter accounts for him but he was nervous about putting stuff out there.’

  ‘So you did it for him?’

  Eve’s expression became increasingly sullen. ‘We all baited the killers. It was Halloween, and we were bored. Jacob wrote “you ain’t got the guts”. I wrote “bite me”. As a joke,’ she mitigated.

  ‘And what did you write on Caleb’s behalf?’

  ‘“Want a piece of me?” Eve paused. ‘When I told him what I’d done he blew a fuse. Caleb wasn’t very good at managing his temper. Jacob had to lock him in the ute room till he’d calmed down.’

  ‘So you did it for fun and forgot all about it?’

  Eve shuffled her buttocks in her seat, straightened but quickly sagged again. ‘Everyone was doing it,’ she said sulkily.

  Hazel let Eve take a faltering breath. ‘So three nights later… ’

  ‘Three nights later I wake to hear Caleb. I was taking new meds and not getting a lot of sleep. Caleb was on one of his drinking jags, and I’d left him and Jacob downstairs in the den.’

  ‘And when did you realise something was wrong?’

  ‘I could hear him shouting for Jacob but I couldn’t work out why he sounded so weird. I told him to shut up, and that’s when he started hollering for me. I got out of bed and headed for his room, but my door was locked. Thought Jacob and him were playing a trick on me and told them to open it. When I stopped banging on it, Caleb was screaming. That’s when I realised his voice was coming from the backyard. I went to the window and lifted the blind.’ Eve focussed on an area beyond Hazel’s shoulder as if she were looking out of it.

  ‘What could you see?’

  ‘Caleb, first of all, lying there. Thought he’d fallen over drunk. Then I saw the black tape around his wrists and across his mouth. Opened the window and yelled down at him.’ Eve switched on her mini fan and played it around her face.

  Weiss held his hand up to Hazel to complain about the noise of the tiny motor, but she quickly shook her head.

  ‘I tried to wake Jacob.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  ‘Out cold, downstairs. Skull fractured by whoever slugged him with his own tyre iron. I see a stranger coming out the shed. I thought he was carrying a flamethrower in his hand. It was too much of a drop down to the yard. I would never have gotten out of the window.’

  ‘You didn’t call the police?’

  ‘They couldn’t have stopped it in time,’ she snapped. ‘Then I see whatever he’s carrying is plugged into the socket in the shed. He pulled the trigger and a blast of water came out. I thought it was just a hose. But it was one of those high-power jet hoses for blasting meat off bones they use in slaughterhouses. I freaked out, and the guy with the hose stared right up at me. It was dark but I could just make out his scrawny face. I looked straight into his eyes and begged him to stop. Then he started blasting chunks off Caleb with the hose. He’d stripped his ribcage clean by the time I got to him.’

  ‘You’d know him if you saw him again?’

  ‘The police did a drawing for me but it was all wrong.
I can still see him in my mind though: him with one eyebrow up like he was pissed for being interrupted.’ Eve swallowed and played the fan around her neck.

  ‘Do you still blame Henrik Fossen for Caleb’s death?’

  ‘That asshole in the yard murdered Caleb.’ Her expression was blank.

  ‘But do you blame Henrik Fossen?’

  ‘He was in a different state.’

  ‘That still doesn’t answer my question. Both you and your brother made threats against his life.’

  ‘We were all upset,’ she said flatly.

  ‘There have been stories about your association with a local hitman.’

  ‘Do I look like I could afford to pay a hitman?’

  ‘How do you think Henrik felt about that?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. Hope it makes him understand his actions will have repercussions though.’

  ‘So they’re still to come?’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech.’ Eve sniffed. ‘We’re human. He needs to be made accountable. Fossen’s just walked away from everything.’

  ‘You heard about his suicide attempt?’

  Eve turned off her fan. ‘I heard his story.’

  ‘And that’s not sufficient?’

  She peered around the concourse as if he might be hiding nearby. ‘He can’t duck out that easy,’ Eve said loud enough, in case he was.

  ‘So, what would you say to him, if he was sitting where I am?’

  ‘It’s not what I’d say. More what I’d do.’

  ‘Would you listen to what he had to say?’

  Eve pursed her lips and nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘So, if Henrik is guilty for something you believe he triggered remotely, does you putting your brother’s name and the #BeMyKiller hashtag in the Twitter timeline make you equally responsible?’

  Aggression bulged in Eve’s eyes.

  21

  ‘Like I said… we all thought it was a game.’

  ‘Don’t you think Henrik felt the same?’

  ‘I don’t care what he feels.’

  Henrik allowed the door to shut slowly, and quietly climbed the stairs. He’d read the reports about what had happened to Caleb Huber. Seen myriad interviews with Eve before. But hearing her reliving the experience, her words echoing around the space where Meredith Hickman took her last breath, churned up the sediment of dread that had been sitting in the pit of his stomach ever since he’d first been told about the shooting of Denise Needham.

  He crept back to the monitor in the production office and closed the door behind him.

  Henrik slammed a few pills then took his phone out and found the number he’d recently stored in his contacts. It rang for a long time before it was answered. ‘It’s me,’ he said when they eventually picked up and knew it would be sufficient. ‘Eve Huber’s just arrived, and Hazel Salter’s interviewing her. Huber’s brother’s here but he’s back at the motel.’ They asked the inevitable question. ‘Rifkin Lodge, just on the edge of town. She’s putting all of them up there and then calling them out here to do their piece.’ He heard footsteps outside the door. ‘Gotta go.’ Henrik hung up.

  Somebody knocked.

  ‘Yes?’

  Hazel leaned in. ‘You watching?’

  He nodded.

  She didn’t seem convinced. ‘Eve Huber has agreed to talk to you on camera.’

  ‘I’m really not ready for that.’

  ‘She flies back to Clearwater on Wednesday morning. It’s today or tomorrow.’

  Henrik turned his phone over in his sweaty palms.

  Hazel eyed it. ‘I don’t think you’re in any danger.’

  ‘And that’s meant to reassure me, right?’

  ‘I’ve asked her brother to stay away. It’s just her.’

  He shook his head.

  Hazel pushed the door fully open. ‘Henrik, you’ve already achieved so much by just coming here. I know I’ve already put you through a lot but this is probably the hardest thing I’m going to ask you to do.’

  ‘I thought I did that yesterday.’

  ‘Come downstairs. She’s outside getting some air. We’ll only bring her in when you’re ready.’

  Henrik didn’t budge. ‘Have you told her what you’ve told me?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She hasn’t tried to walk out.’ Hazel folded her arms.

  ‘Yet. So when are you going to? I want you to brief her. Before I go down there.’

  ‘I’d prefer to record it. The camera is your insurance.’

  ‘Or maybe you want to see her physically attack me. That would be even better, right?’

  ‘Henrik, she’s in a mobility scooter. I promise, you’ll be fine. Let’s do this.’

  22

  Hazel registered how white Henrik’s knuckles were as he gripped the edge of the ball pit. Had he requested his meeting with Eve Huber be played out in here so he could dive into the pool between them if things got ugly?

  Lucas rehearsed panning the lens from Henrik to the closed smoked glass door without getting Sweeting crouching with the mic in shot. ‘Running.’

  ‘OK.’ Weiss put on his headphones.

  ‘You ready, Henrik?’

  Henrik chewed his goatee then nodded at Hazel.

  She paused. Was this wise? He was visibly terrified. But Hazel’s instincts told her to precipitate the confrontation as soon as possible. ‘Send her in.’

  Rena disappeared through the door. A few seconds later she held it open from the other side, and the whirr of Eve’s mobility scooter announced her arrival.

  On entering she halted on the other side of the pool, looked first at Hazel then rolled her eyes slowly to Henrik. She absorbed him as he regarded her from under his eyebrows. ‘You look older than I thought.’ He remained silent. Eve switched on her handheld fan. ‘Caleb had started growing a beard. Didn’t suit him neither.’

  ‘What d’you need me to say?’ Henrik’s voice trembled as he released the edge of the pit. He momentarily wobbled before settling on his heels.

  ‘Nothing that’s going to make a difference.’

  ‘You’ve said you want me dead. That still true?’

  Eve waved her hand dismissively. ‘That’d be making it too easy. Plus I hear you nearly did the job yourself.’

  ‘But my death would make things right in your eyes?’

  ‘Certainly in Jacob’s eyes. He misses his brother. Wonder if you thought about that before you invented your little game.’

  Henrik plucked a blue ball out of the pit and squeezed it tight in his palm.

  ‘If Jacob were here he’d tear you limb from limb. Me, I want you to suffer as long as possible, and I hope every time you throw one of your fits you remember Caleb and the other people you sentenced to death.’

  Henrik kept staring at his hand pumping the rubber there. ‘But you played the game as well.’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say.’ Eve turned off her fan. ‘I know how you’re going to try and make this my fault.’

  ‘Not your fault. But, like me, you couldn’t have envisaged what happened.’

  ‘I’m not you.’ Eve’s voice quavered. ‘I don’t set traps for people. You weren’t the guy I watched from my window but the thing you did appealed to whatever sickness was in his mind.’

  ‘And what if he was standing beside me? Who would you be talking to then? Would I even be relevant?’

  Eve shook her head and blinked away a tear. ‘I want him crucified along with you.’

  Hazel felt her fingernails in her palms. Was it in Henrik to say sorry, even if it was just for Eve’s loss? But it was clear he couldn’t begin to empathise with her grief.

  ‘But the police haven’t caught him so I’m in the frame now.’ Henrik stopped squashing the ball and met her eye. ‘It’s got to be better than blaming yourself, right?’

  A shadow of something passed over Eve’s features, and Hazel watched Henrik’s gaze shrink from it.

  23

  Henr
ik flattened the ball again. ‘None of us can predict the consequences of what we put online. I couldn’t. You couldn’t.’

  ‘I’m done here.’ Eve sniffed and reversed her scooter. ‘Open the door.’

  Hazel held up her hands. ‘Please, Eve, keep talking,’ she whispered.

  Henrik stood upright. ‘No, it’s time you started talking, Hazel. Tell Eve why we’re here.’

  Eve turned, rolled forward and butted the doorframe with her front wheel. She backed up again.

  Henrik hurled the ball at Eve.

  It bounced harmlessly off her shoulder but she immediately halted.

  There was a collective intake of breath from the crew.

  ‘Just listen to what she has to say.’ He put his hands in his pockets, as if he hadn’t thrown it.

  After a few seconds, Eve arced around so they could see her incandescent features.

  ‘Tell her, Hazel,’ Henrik demanded.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  Lucas swung the lens to Hazel.

  ‘My intention here isn’t just to point a camera at emotional consequences. I’m looking to answer questions the police have failed to.’ It was part of the rehearsed speech she’d given Henrik when he’d threatened to leave.

  Eve glowered at Hazel. ‘And what makes you think you have an edge on the FBI?’

  ‘Because they’re looking for different perpetrators.’

  Eve sighed. ‘Jesus, you’re not going to tell me you believe that lone tourist theory.’

  ‘The police have asserted that, of the eight million people using the #BeMyKiller hashtag, a tiny percentage of them would have been murdered in any case. There was a ‘BeMyKiller’ victim in Europe, where it was categorically proven that the perp had never accessed social media. It’s why the investigation refuses to give the lone tourist theory any credence.’

  ‘They didn’t give it credence because it’s bullshit,’ Eve spat.

  ‘You don’t believe Caleb’s death was just a coincidence?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘It’s already been established that homicides in the US were linked to the actual words the victims made in the timeline alongside the #BeMyKiller hashtag.’