by Jack Heath
Maybe the point wasn’t to kill her but to scare her. Though if that was the case, why not stop after the first bullet hit the car? Instead, he fired three more shots, reloaded, and then fired once more before vanishing. It didn’t make sense.
I watched the flashing lights on top of the tow truck. Lynne’s car had three bullet holes—two at the bottom of the driver’s-side door, one in a hubcap. Given the grouping, the two shots that missed had probably gone under the car rather than over it or to either side.
I walked closer and confirmed my theory. There was a chip in the asphalt, where a round might have ricocheted off the car, and a bullet hole at the base of a tree in the public park across the street.
Suddenly I realised what the shooter must have been trying to do.
‘Wait,’ I called out.
No one paid any attention to me. The driver couldn’t hear me over the beeping of his tow truck. The other police were still interviewing witnesses.
I ran towards the truck, but one of the local cops stopped me.
‘Move along, sir,’ she said, assuming I was homeless.
I dug a worn lanyard out of my pocket. ‘I’m a civilian consultant with the FBI.’
‘In that case, fuck off.’
‘I need to examine the victim’s car.’
‘Too bad. As I was just explaining to your colleagues, this isn’t your case.’
‘Blake.’ Richmond approached. ‘What are you doing?’
While the cop was looking at him, I darted past her and climbed up onto the back of the tow truck.
‘Hey!’ the driver yelled.
Ignoring him, I lay down on the slowly tilting tray and peered at the undercarriage of the car. A second later, strong hands grabbed me and dragged me off the tray—but not before I saw it: a lump of white-flecked grey powder, wrapped in plastic, taped underneath the car.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Richmond demanded.
‘The shooter wasn’t trying to hit the victim,’ I said. ‘He was trying to hit the explosives he’d planted under her car.’
The beat cop looked, and her face went grey. After that, they evacuated the block and called in the bomb squad. The FBI got jurisdiction because the bomb made it a case of domestic terrorism.
Richmond was supremely pissed at me. ‘Do you know how many open cases I already have?’
‘Next time I spot a bomb, I’ll ignore it,’ I told him.
As it happened, Richmond didn’t have to worry, because two hours later, the Hermann Park protest happened. A local congresswoman got on Facebook and announced a plan to ban semi-automatic weapons. The announcement was shared by the NRA and some far-right groups. Someone else announced that the congresswoman would be making a speech in Hermann Park, and suddenly the park was full of masked, gun-toting protestors. The congresswoman never showed up. She later claimed the initial Facebook post was fake and that she supported the second amendment.
The point is, the FBI’s resources were stretched too thin to chase an angry ex-husband who had been misclassified as a terrorist, which was why I was meeting Lynne at the diner. I was supposed to gently lower her expectations, with Richmond’s help. Richmond didn’t turn up.
‘Misclassified?’ Lynne said, angry now. ‘I survived two years of Rick’s domestic terrorism.’
The baby, who had been asleep in a carrier next to her chair, started crying. Lynne huffed and began unbuckling the straps.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But the trail has gone cold.’
‘After two days?’
‘Yup.’ I’m not good at gently lowering expectations.
‘Look.’ With Joey on her lap, Lynne pulled a brown folder out of her backpack and slid it across the table. ‘There’s a photo of Rick, and some of his friends. Emails that I managed to print out before he deleted them.’
I opened the folder. There was Rick—thin, hollow-cheeked, with long hair, his face partly obscured by a baseball cap, sunglasses and a huge beard. ‘Is this the only picture you have?’
‘He took the others with him when he realised I’d gone to the police.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I pushed the folder back. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
Lynne’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was there a point to this interview?’
Partly I was there because I was told to come. Partly it was my pathological need to know stuff. ‘I hoped that hearing the full story would provide context. That’s all.’
A beat. ‘Fine. I guess you can go.’ She took the folder back, exposed one breast, and helped Joey latch on to her nipple.
I was about Joey’s age, feeding on my mother when she was shot. Her blood trickled into my mouth and pushed my whole world out of orbit. Watching Joey drink was like seeing the moment it all went wrong. I wanted to tackle Lynne, to save her from the bullet. And to save myself from what I had since become.
But I couldn’t change the past. And maybe there was already something wrong with me, even before my mother died. I could have been wrong from the moment of conception.
Joey sucked happily, staring up at his mother. His father was a monster. How much of his destiny was already written in his DNA?
‘Do you think Rick will leave me alone now?’ Lynne was asking.
‘No,’ I told her. ‘Like you said, he loves Joey.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘He tried to blow Joey up.’
‘There were four shots, then he reloaded, then he fired one extra shot, then he left. He had three more in the magazine and he hadn’t hit the bomb yet. Why do you think he stopped shooting?’
‘Maybe he thought someone was about to spot him.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Or maybe he saw the baby in the back seat. You said Joey wasn’t supposed to be with you, right? That it was a last-minute thing.’
She put her face in her hands. ‘Oh God. What am I supposed to do?’
‘I was told to give you a list of websites that have good advice for managing a violent ex-partner.’
‘Websites.’
‘Yeah.’
Lynne stared down into her coffee cup. ‘So I’m supposed to spend my time on the internet, just waiting for him to show up and ruin my life again.’
Maybe I felt sorry for her. Or maybe I just hadn’t eaten lunch yet. But Richmond wasn’t there, so I took a risk.
‘Do you have a gun?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said cautiously. ‘I bought it recently.’
It sounded like we were already thinking along the same lines. ‘Are you staying in Texas or going back to Delaware?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. Delaware might be safer, but I don’t want to lose my job.’
‘Rick may be less likely to find you in Delaware,’ I said. ‘But only slightly.’
I pulled out the list of websites and wrote a phone number at the bottom.
‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘A helpline?’
‘Kind of.’ I lowered my voice. ‘If you stay in Texas, and Rick shows up, are you willing to kill him?’
She just stared at me.
‘You have to decide now,’ I said. ‘You need to be ready to pull the trigger as soon as you see his face. You can’t rely on a self-defence scenario. If you wait for it to be him or you, it might be you.’
There was a pause.
‘I’m willing,’ she said, committing conspiracy to murder in one breath.
‘Well, if he shows up, and you do kill him, you can call that number.’
‘For a lawyer?’
‘You won’t need a lawyer,’ I said. ‘No one will ever know for sure that he’s dead.’
I gently put the package back in the vent and close the grille. This mixture, known as ammonal, isn’t supposed to explode if dropped, or hit with a hammer, or even touched by a lit match. Only a high-velocity bullet will ignite it, according to the pointy-heads at the FBI. But something tells me to be cautious.
The white crystals are ammonium nitrate and the grey powder is aluminium. The two substances are fairly safe unless mixed
or stockpiled, which is why it’s legal to buy them in small amounts.
This isn’t a small amount. The package under my bed would be more than enough to set me on fire as I slept.
Except that can’t be the point of it. To set it off, someone would have to crawl under my bed and fire a gun into the vent. They’d die a split second before I did.
So the bomb must be en route to somewhere else. But where? Why?
I think of Fred, taking the gun out of Samson’s dead hands. The whole house could have gone up. Jesus.
Did he mean the bullet might have tunnelled through two walls and the floor before igniting this small package? Seems unlikely. Unless …
With an awful sinking feeling in my chest, I drag the bookcase sideways. A spot high up on the wall has been repaired. Someone made a hole, and then patched it up. Like everyone in it, this house is beautiful until you start looking behind things.
I press my ear to the plaster, and knock gently. It’s an interior wall, so it should sound hollow. It doesn’t. Something has been packed inside.
I tap a different spot, just in case I was knocking beside the stud. Then I try a different wall. I hear a dull thud each time.
I hope I’m wrong. Because if I’m not, the walls of this house are packed tight with bags of ammonal, mixed and ready to blow. If the cops ever show up, it would be easy to turn the building into a fireball, destroying all the evidence.
I think of Fred, ready to push the red button on his phone. Are you sure? This action cannot be undone.
CHAPTER 26
Sometimes I am the ground beneath your feet, sometimes I am the air above your head. I swallow men whole, yet they die without me. What am I?
‘You unscrew these two, lever out the battery, put in the new one, and screw those back in. It’s not rocket surgery.’ Donnie chuckles at his own joke as he inspects his handiwork.
It’s Thursday morning. I’ve volunteered to help change the batteries, mostly so I can learn the position of all the cameras.
I hardly slept last night. It wasn’t just the knowledge that I was surrounded by explosives—it was the fear that I wouldn’t be able to get Thistle out of here before the Guards resume their torture tomorrow.
‘How often do you have to do this?’ I ask.
Donnie wipes some sweat off his brow and peers down at the checklist. ‘Every four days.’
‘You must go through a lot of batteries.’
‘We recharge them at a wheel upstream. Hydropower. Disposable batteries are really unethical. Mining of lithium and zinc and cobalt destroys animal habitats. It’s the main reason that gorillas are endangered.’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘But all these assholes keep buying them.’
‘Don’t the rechargeable ones also require mining?’
Donnie shoots me a suspicious look. ‘What’s your point?’
‘No point.’ I follow Donnie downhill through the brush towards a narrow creek. ‘How often do you move the cameras?’
‘We don’t move them, exactly—just point them in different directions. There’s no real schedule, but we last did it on Sunday, so there’s no need for a while.’
Four days ago. Right before the hiker showed up. ‘Why not do it every time you change the batteries?’ I regret suggesting this as soon as the words are out of my mouth.
‘Planning a new layout is pretty complicated,’ Donnie says. ‘You can’t just point them in random directions. We don’t have enough cameras as it is, so we need to make sure we’re not doubling up.’
‘You don’t want two covering the same ground?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Can I change the next battery?’
‘Sure.’
We both jump over the creek. It’s shallow and muddy. I see why the Guards don’t make the prisoners wash in it. As I look around, I spot two more cameras up ahead. It’s not easy to memorise the locations and angles, since all the trees look so similar. Harder still is knowing that I won’t spot all of them. Thistle’s life depends not only on my memory, but on sheer luck.
‘Is this where the water for the house comes from?’ I ask, looking back at the creek.
‘A little further upstream, yeah.’ Donnie looks proud. ‘I rigged up the purifier myself.’
‘You did? How does it work?’
Donnie explains that he was an apprentice plumber, once upon a time. At first, he was drawn by the money—he’d heard from a friend that plumbers made more than office drones or store clerks—but after going on a few house visits, it started to feel like a calling.
He and his boss would park their pick-up truck in front of a suburban home. A woman in sweat-stained clothes would answer the door, her hair all over the place, a screaming baby in her arms and another two dirty kids yelling on the floor. Everything would smell terrible. After only two hours without water, their lives had fallen apart. Donnie soon realised that every living thing on Earth needed water. It was the world’s most important resource.
‘What about oxygen?’ I ask.
He ignores me. ‘Did you know that once the human population hits eight billion, there won’t be enough fresh water to keep everyone alive?’
‘I did not.’
‘Three days without water and you’re dead.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘Like that. Some countries have already started water rationing. We’ll all have to do it pretty soon, especially if certain people keep breeding.’
He catches himself. Glances over his shoulder. I guess the other Guards aren’t very tolerant of intolerance.
‘Which people?’ I ask. If I can work out who he’s prejudiced against, maybe I can use it to turn him against the rest of the group, or the rest of the group against him.
But he doesn’t bite. ‘Whichever. You heard of “day zero”? It’s when City Hall switches off the water. Then everyone has to go to collection points to get it. Suddenly water isn’t just valuable—it’s currency. People steal it. So other people guard it. Fights break out. Wars start. You know how the Arab Spring got started? All those revolutions in the Middle East?’
‘Twitter?’ I guess.
‘Wrong. Twitter gets the credit, but the real reason was the price of grain got too high. And that’s just bread. People don’t even need bread.’
‘Right. They can just eat cake.’
He ignores me again. ‘Imagine what it will be like when it’s water. Something you die without. Every population rises up. Every government tries to suppress it. The death toll rises and rises.’
He says all this with increasing fervour, like he’s looking forward to the water wars. The veins bulge in his neck and his hands.
I’ve been thinking about the bullet wound in Samson’s skull. If the killer really wanted to make it look like a suicide, they would have forced Samson to hold the gun, then twisted his arm and made him shoot himself. That would minimise the risk of the shot missing, and would also put powder residue on the victim’s fingers.
I don’t know for sure that the killer did that. But I do know that Donnie is the only person in the house strong enough.
‘So how come you’re not a plumber anymore?’ I ask.
‘What’s the point?’ Donnie finds another camera and starts unscrewing it. ‘If everyone’s plumbing is gonna get turned off anyhow? So after Fred made the offer—oh, wait. You wanted to do this one.’
He hands me the screwdriver. There are flecks of old blood on the blade. I remember Fred’s voice: You don’t need all this stuff to hurt someone. You can just use an electric kettle, or a screwdriver, or a hockey stick.
I squeeze the grip. Now I’m armed and Donnie’s not. I could kill him and hide his body. The others would assume the hiker had done it.
But having the Guards search the woods again won’t help me sneak Thistle out of here. The opposite, in fact.
I unscrew the casing for the camera, exposing the battery. ‘What offer?’
‘I’m just like you.’ He claps me on the shoulder. ‘I saw a wrong and I tried to right it. The poli
ce got all in my face about it, so I came here to lie low.’
Donnie tells me that he saw a busted pipe out the front of someone’s house flooding the street. He knocked on their door, but they didn’t answer. He tapped on the windows. No answer. He knocked on the doors of some neighbours. One guy—a Black guy, Donnie specifies—opened up, but he didn’t know the occupants of the house and certainly didn’t have a spare key.
‘He just shrugged.’ Donnie gives me the new battery. ‘Like, “What can you do?” All this water spilling into the street, while half of California is on fire and rivers everywhere are drying up. And this son of a bitch just shrugs and closes the door on me.’
I slide the battery into place and seal the casing. ‘So what did you do?’
‘I went back to the house with the leaking pipe,’ Donnie says, ‘and I broke in.’
As he describes his method, it’s clear that this wasn’t Donnie’s first attempt at breaking and entering. He casually describes the steps, which include things only an experienced burglar would think of. He moved his pick-up so it wasn’t parked too close to the house, broke some branches in the tree out front so they obscured the line of sight between the street and the side gate, then rattled the gate in case a dog came running. He even pulled some condoms on over his shoes so he didn’t leave identifiable tracks. ‘You’d be amazed how far those things stretch,’ he says.
I wonder how many of the homes he visited as a plumber got robbed later.
There was a crawl space under the house, accessible from the backyard. Donnie slid back the bolt and wriggled in. Half of the space was flooded, and the other half was thick with spiderwebs. ‘You ever seen spiders trying to escape from a flood?’ he asks. ‘It’s like they go web-crazy. They turn everything above the waterline into cotton candy. I could hardly breathe in there.’
Donnie dragged himself through the mud and cobwebs until he reached the water main, and switched it off. The water stopped. When the occupant returned, they would notice that their faucets didn’t work and their toilet didn’t flush, and they would call a plumber, who would turn on the main and immediately spot the leak. Problem solved. Maybe Donnie would even get the job.
