by Graham Smith
‘I want to know what you do know, not what you don’t.’ I soften my tone and relax into the chair to remove some of the confrontation from my words. ‘Like, if you knew Dad remarried. That he has two more children.’
I stop short of mentioning his grandchildren. She may be a domineering narcissist, but she’s still my mother and I have no intention of causing her pain.
She looks away without giving one of her normal snarky retorts.
I wait five minutes for her to speak.
When she does, her voice is frail and laden with unresolved pain. ‘I knew. I just didn’t know how to tell you and Sharon. I haven’t heard anything for years. I’m sorry but you and Sharon had a rough enough time without telling you that some other children got to grow up with the father who abandoned you.’
‘They didn’t though. He abandoned them too.’
‘He did? What a douchebag.’
I smile at Mother’s use of an American insult. When we’d moved here she used bawbag as her insult of choice. Now though, she does everything she can to Americanise herself.
‘When did you divorce him?’
Since hearing John’s mother was married to my father, I’ve realised Mother must have been aware. He couldn’t remarry without first divorcing Mother. I’ve only just figured that she too needed to have gotten divorced so she could remarry.
‘Three years after he left, I got a letter from a solicitor that said he wanted to divorce me. I spoke to your Grandpa and he told me your father was looking to marry some other woman. Trust me, Jake, signing those papers was the best thing I ever done.’ She takes a slug from the ever-present glass of water at her side. ‘What brought you here asking questions about him anyway?’
‘My half-brother turned up.’
‘He did, why?’
‘I don’t know. Curiosity I guess.’ I make a dismissive gesture. ‘I’ll find out tomorrow night. I’m meeting with him then.’
Pain and longing lace her next question.
There’s no way to soften the answer so I keep it as brief as possible. ‘Two daughters. His sister has a son.’
‘Does he look like you?’
‘Yeah. Why do you ask?’
‘Because you’re the double of your father. Always have been. Stands to reason his other son—.’
My cell interrupts her. It’s Chief Watson.
I walk into the kitchen and take the call. I listen to what he has to say and thank him for keeping me updated.
Returning to the lounge I catch Mother wiping tears from her eyes.
‘Damn that man. I thought he’d hurt me for the last time.’
I’m not through with my questions. ‘Tell me the truth. When did you last hear from him?’
She takes a few slow breaths to recover her composure. ‘A month after our divorce was finalised, he sent me a letter apologising for walking out on us.’
‘Have you heard much about him since?’
‘Only that he married that other woman at Gretna Green. I didn’t know he’d left her too. Serves her right anyway. She deserves to feel how I felt when she stole him from me.’
I recall Gretna Green being famous for weddings, but can’t remember why.
It’s hard to concentrate on the conversation with Mother when my thoughts are centred on what the chief has just told me about Will Pederson’s murder.
In a moment of weakness, I decide to brighten her day. ‘Keep next Friday night free will you? I’ll take you and Neill to dinner. There’s a girl I’d like you to meet.’
Her smile is wide as she walks me to the car. I’ve never done a ‘meet the parents’ dinner before and she’ll be getting all the wrong ideas about me and Taylor.
I just hope Taylor recognises what I’m doing. The act of kindness to Mother may well turn out to be one of cruelty to Taylor.
64
As I drive home, I call Alfonse to bring him up to date and request he grabs a copy of the latest video – if the feds haven’t already taken it down. He tells me he’ll email the coordinates for Pederson’s cell movement.
The information swirling around my head is threatening to overwhelm me. Tonight’s fight may turn out to be a good thing – I need a physical release from the contortions of my thoughts.
When I get back to my apartment I grab some energy bars and go back over what Chief Watson told me and try to work out how the details can be used.
Will Pederson’s naked body has been found on the Eastern boundary of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation. He’s been stoned to death: his entire body smashed with rocks.
Once again, the killers have used their victim’s cell to make a video and post it online. Pederson’s cell was left at his feet as was a message from the killers.
Spelled out in pebbles and small stones was the reference ‘Leviticus 20:13’.
A Google search brings up the right passage. Cutting through the biblical speak, it basically advises that homosexuality is punishable by death.
Again, the chosen way to murder ties in with the perceived offence from the victim. Stoning is an ancient method of execution with many biblical connections.
Pederson has been killed because of something in his biological make-up; a thing as fundamental as the pigment in his eyes or the genes that govern height and weight.
The killers are setting out their stall and defining their targets with more than just words. Every death makes a statement.
Each victim highlights an element of society.
Now they’re posting their kills online, their supporters will amass in every state. Decent people will of course decry them, but the potential victim groups will either live in fear or get angry and start fighting back.
The email from Alfonse comes in and I reference the location against Google Maps. It’s pretty much where the chief told me Pederson was found.
When I read more of the email I kick myself as I realise the mistake Alfonse and I have made in not keeping a full trace on Pederson’s cell.
If we’d done that, we’d have known the exact moment the cell came back online, and could have sent Chief Watson and the FBI towards the location.
Alfonse has included this data in his email. He’s also included the video.
The video was sent to the press at 9.24am and uploaded to YouTube at 9.25am. He goes on to list all the other places the video was uploaded to.
I don’t bother reading the list beyond a quick scan. There’s nothing to be gained from knowing where it’s gone and when. The FBI will chase all those leads down. We need to pursue something else. What the something else is, I have no idea at this moment.
Unable to delay the inevitable any longer, I click play and watch the video with a growing revulsion. I’m not the kind of morbid ghoul who delights in the suffering of others and this is a truly revolting spectacle. The video is fifteen minutes in length. I pause it after six.
It’s bad enough watching a man die, without having to listen to him screaming in pain and begging for mercy. I know I need to watch the whole video in case there are any clues, but right now I don’t have the stomach.
Time after time, fist-sized rocks were thrown at Pederson’s feet and shins until they were too smashed and broken to support him. As Pederson hung by the rope binding his hands, the rocks moved upwards onto his thighs as the killers worked their way up his body.
When I pick up the video, the rocks are thudding into Pederson’s waist. They move up to his chest, leaving behind a trail of bloody welts and torn skin from their rough corners. As they reach his chest there is enough focus on the video for me to see ribs being broken.
The step up to Pederson’s head is sickening. His chin starts off resting on his chest, either his heart’s given up or the pain has knocked him unconscious. With luck he won’t awaken to suffer more.
A rock thrown to his forehead knocks his head back, exposing his throat. The killers adjust their aim.
The next missile smashes Pederson’s jaw sideways. Others shatter his nose, cheeks
and eye sockets with repeated dull thuds, transforming his face into a bloody pulp.
Rocks continue to be driven into his face with vicious malice until a smaller one buries itself into one of his eyeballs. A larger rock thumps into the smaller one, driving it into Pederson’s skull, sending his body into a series of twitching convulsions.
The person recording the execution zooms in on what’s left of Pederson’s face and switches off the video.
I have to run to make it to the toilet before the heaves in my gut start ejecting the coffee, power bars and fruit I’ve consumed today.
65
A check of the major news outlets shows they’ve received the new video. None go so far as to display all of the footage, but each has taken screenshots to use in their updates. Nothing they say is anything other than wild speculation, or evangelical criticism against the horror of the killing.
They’ve pixelated Pederson’s face and privates in their copy. It doesn’t work, the images are still repugnant. The news outlets all state the existence of a second statement from the killers – I don’t want to think of them by their self-appointed moniker, to do so will legitimise their existence. The fact that none of them have printed, aired or even commented on its content tells me the latest communique has rhetoric nobody wants to broadcast.
I go back to the email from Alfonse and find he’s included a copy of the statement. He’s transcribed it from the video which he says is nothing more than a series of still photographs stitched together with online software; each still a photo of a typed sheet of paper.
A deep exhalation is necessary as soon as I click on the file:
Our beloved nation has become overrun with undesirables and it’s time to fight back.
We, the Christian Knights of America, are calling for all true-blooded patriots to take up arms and help us eliminate the many scourges defiling our wonderful country.
White Christians are welcome to stay and live in safety. Others are not.
Niggers, beaners, Japs and all other non-whites should leave.
Jews, Muslims, Hindus and those who worship anyone other than the Lord should leave.
Our latest victim was a white Christian, an ex-cop. These facts were not sufficient to save him. The man was a homo. Homos, gays, lesbians, transgenders or whatever they call themselves should leave too. Their acts of coupling are nothing more than an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and they shall be punished for it.
All who stay shall be executed in a way relevant to their ancestry.
Those who choose to leave will survive.
We’d rather there were no more deaths, but we will not flinch from the unpalatable acts necessary to cleanse this great nation of its diversity.
Again, we urge the white Christians of America to join us in this war against those dragging our nation down. Our economy, heritage and racial superiority are all suffering because of these infiltrators of our lands.
God bless America and its rightful inhabitants.
It’s no wonder this hasn’t been broadcast to a wider audience. At best, it’s propaganda. At worst, inflammatory rhetoric, designed to incite others to join their crusade and murder innocents in their name.
Any news outlet who published this in any context would find themselves the recipients of serious censure – not just from the public, but from the myriad of government agencies handed the task of extinguishing the fires their callousness has fanned the flames of.
I read the statement five times so I can absorb every nuance and shift in tone. With each reading I notice more and more amiss.
The rhetoric is both messianic and megalomaniac. While its message is clear, the writing is jumbled and repetitive. Too many specifics litter a document intended to be general.
No mention is made of Native Americans which is a contradiction to their message; surely no other group can have a higher claim to be the rightful inhabitants of the United States? The killers can hardly claim superiority over the people who preceded them, but Native Americans are neither white nor Christian which means they fit into their target demographic.
As much as I’d like a philosophical debate about irony and hypocrisy with the person who wrote this statement, I’d much prefer we spend five minutes in a dim alley with no witnesses.
Another factor to strike me is the intellectual feel of this communication. It’s not as polished or erudite as it should be, if the leader of this group is as intelligent as Dr Edwards suspects.
I wonder if the man is dumbing down on purpose so as not to alienate those in his target audience. If he is, he’s cleverer than I’ve given him credit for.
66
The keys chatter under Ms Rosenberg’s nicotine stained fingertips. The column flows unbidden – the way all her best ones do. Whenever hands take over from brain, she knows what they produce will be some of her finest work.
She clucks her tongue as she reads what her hands are communicating from her subconscious. Her very soul is being laid bare on the screen before her, as the affront to her beliefs and heritage is given voice.
Her plan had been to create a column praising the stoicism and bravery of the ethnic groups targeted by the killers, but the column she’s writing has a darker, more confrontational tone. Instead of decrying the killers for the heinous monsters they are, she finds herself crossing into more personal insults as the anger inside her spills onto the page.
In a brief crisis of confidence she wonders if she’s just venting at them because they didn’t include her, or the Casperton Gazette, in their first communique.
She shakes her doubts away. Her last column addressed that issue so well that the Gazette received the latest video, and a new statement from the Christian Knights of America.
The words keep coming and coming as her subconscious continues to pour forth with criticism and vitriol. She feels a paragraph about the newest statement may be too strong until the next one validates the anger with an eloquence she doesn’t recognise.
When finished, she gives it a quick read, changing the odd word here and there, before emailing it to her editor.
She lifts her cigarettes from her pocket as she strides outside. The flame of her lighter kisses the tip of one as she passes through the doorway.
Not being able to smoke indoors is a constant irritation to her. When she cut her teeth on the Staten Island Advance, the room had a constant blue-grey fug hanging from the ceiling. Every person who worked there was a character with a thousand stories and a unique way of telling them. Desk drawers were filled with used notebooks and bottles of whisky.
The act of looking back with nostalgia makes her feel old, but those had been good days. Each one was filled with laughter and enthusiasm, where all she feels now is a wearying outrage at the injustices of life.
Few things worked out the way she’d planned. An unreliable source had made her dangerous enemies, forcing her to leave New York and find a new home. An editor had taken a chance and hired her after a telephone interview, so she’d packed what she could into two suitcases and left the vibrancy of New York for the sleepiness of Casperton.
New York she could live without. Halvard’s refusal to come with her was what had broken her heart.
She’s never given another man a serious look since leaving New York. After all the years that have passed, she knows he’s never going to come for her, but if he does, she’ll be ready.
The temptation to look him up never leaves, yet she knows doing so will only cause her pain. If they are ever to re-unite, it has to come from him.
She arcs the cigarette butt into a drain and lights another. When it joins its predecessor, she turns and marches back into the office ready for a fight.
‘My office. Now!’ The words greet her as soon as she walks through the door. Forest Clapperton is the editor who took a chance on her. They have aged and raged together in a dance familiar to newsrooms the world over. Star reporters and editors have different agendas, they may be friends, lovers even, but they’ll
argue at least three times a week as each battles for supremacy.
‘Your column is likely to get us either killed or fired.’ Clapperton runs a shaking hand over his liver-spotted head. ‘Not only that, it’s fifteen hundred words too long. What the hell were you thinking, woman?’
Ms Rosenberg straightens her back, to maximise her meagre height, as she stands her ground. She’s known for twenty-five years how to win an argument with Clapperton, and only loses the odd one as a way to keep him thinking he’s the boss. The fact he’s already brought word count into play shows he doesn’t expect to triumph.
‘Are you white? Yes. Christian? Yes. Gay? With three failed marriages and countless affairs, I hardly think so. Tell me, Forest, what makes you think you’re going to be killed? Your name isn’t on the piece, mine is.’
‘Good God woman, you can’t antagonise killers like that. Calling them cowards, scum and what was it, oh yes, impotent weasels lacking the intellectual capacity to lead themselves out of a dead end, let alone lead a nation as great as the one they claim to love.’
Ms Rosenberg takes a seat and gestures for Clapperton to do the same. He does, oblivious to the fact it’s his office and he’s her boss. ‘What, d’ya think they’re going to target me because I call them a few names? Every sensible person in the world will be calling them worse than shit, and rightly so.’
‘Perhaps they will. And perhaps they should. But they don’t announce their Jewishness in a rant that practically throws down a gauntlet. Tell me, how many of these keyboard warriors live near where the killers are active? How many have newspaper columns?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. You know as well as I do, what’s in that column needs saying and I’m not afraid to say it, even if you are.’
Clapperton’s smile makes Ms Rosenberg uneasy. For the first time since coming back into the office she feels she might not get her way. ‘Don’t try that old line on me. And don’t ask for a box so you can clear your desk either. That article is as inflammatory as the killers’ call for support and you know it.’
