The Chase

by Candice Fox

  And then Randy saw a man whose face he had spent hours memorising. Burke David Schmitz walked up and stood over him with the AR-15 still clutched in his hands, his finger on the trigger guard. The crew from the van talked, their voices barely reaching Randy as he lay dying at their feet.

  ‘One more roadblock,’ Burke said. He let out a long, disappointed sigh. ‘We were so close.’

  ‘Sorry, Burke,’ the woman with the rope tattoo said. ‘I’ll go get the shovel.’

  ‘Hurry up,’ Burke said. ‘I’m hungry.’

  Randy reached up, tried to say something to them, but all he got for his efforts was them staring down at him as Burke lined up the barrel of the gun against Randy’s forehead.

  CHAPTER 36

  Celine parked the car on a side road leading to a ballpark and looked around. There was no game, though the street seemed to tell the story of a recent celebration, the asphalt festooned with French fries and take-out containers. She sat with the phone in her lap, watching a rat inspecting the contents of a brown paper bag, the thrumming of a nearby club leaking into the brick walls around her, making it sound as though she was waiting in the artery of a great living being. She counted down ten minutes on her phone, then got out, looked up the alley towards the stadium entrance, then back the way she had come, to the main street. A night jogger passed and was gone before Celine could really focus on her. With her nerves making her scalp itch, she dropped her keys and her phone on the driver’s seat and raised her hands in the air.

  ‘Would you just get in the damned car!’ she yelled. ‘I haven’t got all night!’

  John Kradle emerged from his hiding place: a stairwell above a dumpster twenty or more yards down the alley. A large black dog trotted out from behind the dumpster itself. The dog walked up and, without acknowledging Celine at all, leaped in the open driver’s side door, crossed to the front passenger seat and sat down.

  Kradle glanced nervously behind him as he approached. In the thin light Celine saw that he sported thick grey stubble. His hoodie was bloodstained and there was dirt on the knees of his jeans. A dirty hand with blackened fingernails rose and swiped nervously at his face.

  ‘This isn’t a trap,’ Celine said.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You look terrible. I’ve watched The Fugitive a thousand times,’ she said. ‘Great movie. Harrison Ford looks immaculate throughout, even after he jumps off the dam. Look at you. Four days in Mesquite and you’re an island castaway.’

  Kradle seemed distracted, didn’t take the bait. Celine chewed her lip. It was her nerves making her babble, the blaring alarm bells ringing in her head at the very sight of inmate number 1707, one of her men, walking and talking in the free world, wearing civilian clothes, going to the passenger side of her car. She was walking in a nightmare. She slid into the car as Kradle shooed the dog into the back seat and sat down.

  ‘Did you bring the key?’ he asked.

  She opened the glove compartment and took out a handcuff key. He lifted the wrist that had the cuff connected to it. Celine looked at the swinging, empty cuff that was covered with blood.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s why you . . .’

  ‘The thumb.’

  ‘Don’t say it.’ She held her throat.

  ‘Why I cut off Homer’s thumb? He shackled himself to me.’

  ‘Are you deaf? I said don’t say it.’

  ‘Harder to cut off a thumb than you might think,’ Kradle mused. ‘Lots of connecting tissue. Sinew. Veins. Tendons.’

  ‘Stop!’

  Kradle laughed as he uncuffed himself, pocketed the cuffs and key. They sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘This is weird,’ he said.

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you in civilian clothes.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  ‘This is your car.’ He ran a hand over the dashboard. ‘I’m in Captain Osbourne’s car.’

  ‘It’s my neighbour’s car. I borrowed it. Mine’s in the parking lot of a wildlife park. But let’s not talk about that, either,’ Celine said. She started the engine. ‘The less we put into words what I’m doing, the better I’ll feel about it.’

  ‘You mean, assisting a fugitive?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a felony, but I’m sure you knew that. Five years in federal prison and a hefty fine. Certainly the loss of my job, my credibility, and probably my sanity. The worst thing that can happen to a prison guard is finding yourself on the other side of the bars.’

  ‘You’re doing a lot of talking for someone who says they don’t want to talk,’ Kradle said.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you bring food?’

  ‘At your feet,’ she said, and pointed. Kradle picked up the bag and pulled out a McDonald’s burger, unwrapped it with shaking hands.

  ‘Oh, god,’ he moaned. Celine cringed as she drove, listening to his munching and moaning. ‘Oh, god. Ohhhhh god. Oh god. Oh god.’

  ‘There’s a loudly orgasming fugitive in my car,’ Celine sighed. ‘So what’s with the dog?’

  ‘Just someone I met on my travels who recognised how great it is to be on the John Kradle train. Like you,’ he said through a mouthful of burger. He handed the dog a chunk of bun.

  ‘Don’t do that.’

  ‘He’s hungry.’

  ‘What kind of person spends five years in prison and four days on the lam waiting to have their first taste of takeout, and then shares that takeout with a dog?’

  ‘This guy.’

  ‘Talk to me about this message,’ Celine said.

  He opened his phone, looked at the message. ‘Will only talk about Kradle murders in person.’

  ‘No indication who it’s from?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you think it’s someone from In Focus Studios?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What even is The Frances Faulkner Show?’ Celine asked.

  ‘You’ve never seen it?’

  ‘I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t paid much attention to what it actually is.’

  ‘It’s trash TV.’ Kradle pulled up his hood as they stopped at a traffic light. People passed on the crosswalk before them, oblivious to his presence. ‘It’s in the Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Jenny Jones kind of category.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Christine never missed it. And she would watch the re-runs. Sometimes she would search for the people who had appeared in certain episodes online, try to find out what had happened in their lives after the show, how they dealt with the problems they’d presented to Frances.’

  ‘She sounds like a very serious fan,’ Celine said.

  ‘She was. She liked drama. Her favourite shows were all about people yelling at each other. Devastating secrets revealed, betrayals, backstabbings, scandals.’

  ‘And you weren’t into that?’

  ‘No.’ He smiled. ‘Christine and I were very different people. She was sort of . . . dramatic. Theatrical. You know me. I’m a bit more simple.’

  Celine shifted uncomfortably in her seat. His words rattled in her brain. You know me. She had indeed spoken to John Kradle almost every day for the past five years. She had passed his cell and seen him sleeping, eating, crying, bouncing off the walls with boredom bordering on madness. It made her uncomfortable now, how well she knew, and also didn’t know, him. The very sound of him breathing in the seat beside her seemed familiar, but she couldn’t say yet, one way or another, whether she believed he had killed innocent people.

  ‘So people come on the show to reveal secrets?’ she asked, trying to focus.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Kradle said. ‘I managed to track down the episode where she attended the taping. I’ve watched the footage. The subject was My Psycho Father Doesn’t Know I’m Gay!’

  ‘Seriously?’ Celine said. ‘In 2015?’

  ‘They’ve cleaned up their act lately, but not by much.’ Kradle was fishing around in a box of fries, shoving some in his face and handing others over his shoulder to the dog. ‘On this e
pisode, a bunch of people come out on the show to their crazy dads. There’s a woman who reveals she’s a lesbian to her father, who’s a welder. Pretty tough dude. There’s a lot of build-up to suggest he’s going to lose his shit, but he doesn’t. It’s kind of cute. There are other less gentle reactions. Some people throw chairs.’

  ‘You watched the episode in full?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you saw her in the audience?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Anything happen?’

  ‘No.’ Kradle drew a long breath, shrugged helplessly. ‘She sits in the audience, claps and cheers when everybody else claps and cheers. There’s an empty seat next to her. She bought two tickets but couldn’t find anybody to go with her.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go with her?’ Celine asked.

  ‘The show is not my thing. They basically just get people on camera and pay them to be publicly humiliated. And, aside from that, I was angry with her,’ Kradle said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. The silence swelled, and enveloped the car. With no food left, the dog sank across the back seat of the car and blew out a huge sigh, smacked its lips.

  ‘I’ve never denied the fact that when Christine returned, I was mad as hell,’ Kradle said.

  ‘What happened that day?’ Celine asked.

  Kradle smoothed the knees of his jeans and watched as the town rolled by, becoming suburbs stretching towards the desert.

  ‘Christine and Mason were at the house,’ Kradle said. ‘I went on a job by myself. The plan was that I’d be home by four o’clock. Audrey was going to be there already. We were all going to have dinner together. I kept meeting Christine for meals – first in a diner, then at the house, thinking eventually it would get easier. When you’re eating you don’t have to talk the whole time, and you’ve got something to look at. Your food.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Tensions were high.’ Kradle nestled back in the seat beside Celine, covered a yawn. ‘Audrey never liked me. I think she figured I was a meathead, and nothing I ever did around her challenged that theory. And all the time Christine was gone, we didn’t speak. She didn’t offer any help. So that was weird. What’s worse is that Christine was trying to build something with Mason, but it wasn’t really working. She was trying to slap a band-aid over a wound that was going to take a lifetime to heal, if it ever healed at all. About two o’clock that day I got a call from the kid saying Christine had bought him a bubble machine.’

  ‘A bubble machine?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Kradle sighed. ‘It’s like this: When Mason was a boy, a toddler, I bought him a bubble-making machine. It was this little box you poured dish soap into that spewed out thousands and thousands of bubbles. He went mad for it. Running all around the yard, squealing and laughing and trying to catch the bubbles.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I told Christine that at one of our meetings,’ Kradle said. ‘So she goes and buys him a bubble machine. She presented it to him at the house, poured the dish soap in and set it off in the yard. Well, it did what it was supposed to do. It spewed out all the bubbles. But the kid is fifteen now. Who buys a teenager a bubble machine? Mason found the entire thing incredibly forced.’

  ‘She was trying to recreate a magical moment,’ Celine said.

  Kradle nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And it didn’t work.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was wildly off target with him. He froze up and didn’t know what to say. Christine got upset that Mason wasn’t getting into the moment, and Mason got upset that Christine was upset. They both called me, angry. And I sided with him.’

  Celine said nothing.

  ‘Imagine this. I’m underneath some old lady’s house, trying to fix some creaky floorboards. I got dirt in my eyes and I’m drenched in sweat and I’m fielding calls and texts about this bubble machine.’ Kradle heaved a sigh. ‘I just snapped. I told Christine she was being a spoiled little princess. Mason rejected her and her bubble machine performance. Rightfully so. He’s fifteen, not five. And you know what? She needed to taste a bit of rejection. It was her getting exactly what she deserved.’

  Celine swallowed. She turned onto the highway.

  ‘What?’ Kradle said eventually.

  ‘You know how all this sounds, right?’ Celine said. ‘I was angry. I just snapped. Christine was getting exactly what she deserved.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Kradle said. ‘I know how bad it sounds, because I said all those things in my initial interviews, before I’d called in a lawyer, and then they were all played back to the entire courtroom. But I’m saying them again to you now because they’re the truth. And you want the truth, right?’

  ‘Right,’ Celine said, and she meant it. They fell silent, and the highway stretched ahead of them, a long, dark path that sliced the earth in half, forming two identical black slabs of desert. Celine thought about the truth – how precious it was, how she had never really received it. Because while she had sat as a teenager and listened to her grandfather tell her that he’d spared her life because of a fence, and psychologists had told her over the years that he’d murdered her family because he was a narcissistic sociopath, Celine knew she still didn’t have the truth of the matter. She would never know what those moments had been like when her grandfather made the decision to kill everyone. She imagined him sitting in his chair in the den and sipping wine and watching her little brothers playing with their trucks on the carpet. Him musing about his plan and deciding that they must be included. Had it been a moment like that, months or years before the murders? An otherwise ordinary evening filled with dark thoughts? Or had something shifted on the morning of the event? Had one last domino finally fallen? Had he gone down to the barn to shoot apples with the boys and relented to a sudden urge? She imagined him taking his gun from the cabinet, checking it, loading it, heading down the hill. Passing Nanna in the kitchen. Her father in the den. She didn’t know if he had said anything to anybody at the house before he left to kill the children. Whether there’d been some kind of cryptic goodbye that alerted no one to the danger that was approaching, yet satisfied some sick desire inside him to have the final word.

  As her thoughts turned darker and darker, Celine glanced over and realised John Kradle was asleep with his head against the window and his hands in his lap.

  If he was innocent, Celine thought, then he still had a chance to get that truth. To find whoever had done to him the worst thing a human could do, and ask him why. Celine might never have been able to understand the pain that had been such a large part of her life since she was child, the pain that had formed and deformed her as an adult. But John Kradle had a shot. And she was helping him. There was no denying it. He was in her car now, and her hands were on the wheel, and before them stretched the road that would take him to her house, to a plan, maybe to his freedom. Celine felt an aching in her chest, a joyful, shimmering kind of pain, relief and excitement at the idea of seeing the truth uncovered through the fight of another person. It wouldn’t be the same as having it for herself, but it was something.

  She wiped at a tear. Carefully, silently, she reached over and took Kradle’s hand. It was warm and hard in hers.

  And then it moved.

  ‘Whoa,’ Kradle stirred. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Celine snatched her hand back. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Were you . . . trying to hold hands with me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were.’

  ‘I was having a moment,’ Celine sighed. ‘Just . . . Just shut up.’

  ‘That was so awkward.’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘I would, but I’m afraid you’ll hug me or something.’

  Celine gripped the wheel, shook her head, her cheeks flaming.

  ‘God,’ she said. ‘I hate you so much.’

  Celine was pulling into her garage when Kradle roused in the seat beside her, giving a full body stretch and scratching at his scalp and stubble the way she had see
n him do inside Pronghorn. He snapped to attention as the walls of the garage enveloped the car, turning and watching the automatic door close behind them.

  ‘I told you, this isn’t a trap,’ Celine said.

  They had stopped twice on the road from Mesquite, Celine talking her way through searches at roadblocks with her prison ID while Kradle lay curled in the trunk of the car. Between the roadblocks, the inmate had slept soundly with his head against the window.

  They went inside, Jake the cat trotting to meet them at the door to the garage and arching into a defensive position at the sight of the dog.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Celine put a hand out. ‘It’s fine, we just—’

  Jake lifted wild yellow eyes with huge pupils to Celine, the glare of the betrayed, and darted away.

  ‘Of course.’ Celine let her hands fall. ‘Because it’s my fault you brought a dog.’

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ Kradle said.

  While Kradle showered, Celine went to the couch and opened her phone. Another message from Keeps sat on the screen.

  I’m not a bad guy, Celine, it read. And I like you.

  She swiped the message away, turned on her TV and connected the phone to the big screen in front of her. She opened YouTube and searched Frances Faulkner Psycho Father Gay.

  Celine recognised Frances Faulkner in the thumbnail image of the first video that came up. The petite brunette appeared on the screen wearing a turquoise pants suit and holding a microphone. Behind her stood a crowd, clapping and chanting her name, breaking into cheers as a guitar riff closed off the show’s opening credits. The camera swirled in to focus on Faulkner from above the stage, leaving glimpses of the studio set-up – hot lights in the rafters, a security crew guarding the edges of the brick room.

  ‘Wow! Wow!’ Frances flipped her hair, adjusted the question cards pinned between her fingers and the mic. ‘Thanks very much. Thank you. Good crowd. Back at ya, everybody! Have a seat! Have a seat!’