Bad News: A Zack Walker Mystery #4

by Linwood Barclay

  No. Not sleep. That was the voice I’d heard just before I’d hit my head on the post. Mrs Bennet. That’s who it was.

  Speaking of which, fucking hell, the headache I had. The pounding was at its worst at the back of my head, but the whole thing hurt like a son of a bitch. I went to put my hands on my head, but found I could not move them. They were restrained somehow behind me. And I was lying down. I moved my head, ever so slightly, and felt my face rub against cold earth and straw.

  ‘I didn’t actually drag him the whole way,’ Mrs Bennet said. ‘I backed the van up to the porch, dumped him in, then I tied him up. Then I drove him into the barn. I had to work fast while Katie ate her lunch.’

  That made sense. That explained why there was tape over my eyes, why I couldn’t move my arms. I tried moving my legs, but there wasn’t much happening down there either. I was bound at the knees and ankles. And, breathing through my nose, it became apparent that there was a piece of tape across my mouth as well.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I said.

  ‘At least he’s not dead,’ Mrs Bennet said.

  ‘Not yet,’ said the man.

  I swallowed. This was not good. ‘Mmmm,’ I said again.

  ‘We can’t kill him,’ Mrs Bennet said.

  I waited for the man to say something along the lines of yes, that was true, they couldn’t kill me. But instead, he said nothing.

  ‘If he’s working for them,’ the man said, ‘if we let him go, he’ll lead them right here.’

  ‘But what if he isn’t?’

  ‘You want to take a chance like that? Is that what you want to do?’

  I could hear Mrs Bennet’s breathing, like maybe she was on the verge of tears. ‘I have to go check on Katie. She can’t know what’s going on in here.’

  ‘Maybe take her into town or something,’ the man said. ‘I’ll take care of things here.’

  ‘What does that mean? Taking care of things?’

  ‘Jesus, Claire, what the fuck do you want me to do?’

  ‘I don’t know, okay? I don’t know!’

  They both took a moment to calm down. ‘Where’s the car?’ the man asked.

  ‘I got the keys out of his jacket, moved it around back of the barn. You can’t see it from the road.’

  ‘It’s her car, isn’t it?’ the man said.

  ‘Yes,’ Mrs Bennet said. ‘But just because it’s her car, that doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I said, a little louder this time.

  ‘I knew this was going to happen someday,’ the man said. ‘From the first day, this sort of thing, it was inevitable. Jesus.’

  Mrs Bennet, agitated: ‘Why don’t you go into the house then, tell Katie you’re sorry, this whole thing was a big mistake, but we won’t be looking after her anymore. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Jesus, Claire, that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to do that.’ His voice went quiet. ‘I love her. I love her as my own.’ He paused. ‘All I want to do is make sure she’s safe, and whatever that takes, I’m prepared to do it. For Katie, and for you.’

  ‘Including murder?’

  Again, the man had nothing to say. I heard shuffling on the straw floor, the man pacing back and forth, trying to decide what to do.

  ‘Mmmm!’ I said, stirring about on the barn floor, trying to roll over.

  ‘Shut up!’ the man shouted.

  ‘We need to ask him some questions,’ Claire Bennet said. ‘We need to know why he’s here. We need to know if he’s a threat or not.’

  I tried to nod. ‘Hmmm mmm!’ I said.

  ‘Of course he’s a threat,’ the man said. ‘If he’s here, if he’s found us, found Katie, then he’s a threat. Because if he can find us, anyone can find us.’

  Some more pacing, then footsteps right up next to my head. Someone kneeling next to me.

  ‘I’m gonna ask you some questions,’ the man said, his breath hot on my face. ‘Okay?’

  I nodded. I felt fingers on my cheek, working their way under the tape, and then he ripped it off suddenly.

  ‘Owww!’

  It took my mind off how much my head hurt. I moved my jaw around, did a bit of moaning. ‘My eyes,’ I said. ‘Can you take the tape off my eyes? Please?’

  ‘Whaddya think?’ he asked Claire Bennet.

  ‘He’s already seen me,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s not that big a deal.’

  He was working his fingers under the strip that went across my eyes when my cell phone went off.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. He stopped taking off the tape. ‘Who the hell is that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  ‘Is it the people you’re working for?’

  ‘I’m not working for anyone. The phone, it’s in my jacket.’ I felt his hands reach in across my chest, fumbling about with my inside pocket. The phone’s ring got louder as he brought it out.

  He said, ‘There’s a number showing.’ He rhymed it off quickly, the phone ringing in his hand. It was the Metropolitan. Sarah, most likely.

  ‘It’s my paper,’ I said.

  ‘Paper?’ the man said. ‘A fucking newspaper? You’re a reporter?’

  ‘Yes, well, not exactly. I’m suspended. Are you going to answer it for me or not? If they can’t get me, they’ll wonder what’s happened to me.’

  Well, maybe. With cell phones, you didn’t get someone, you blamed it on the network. Your first assumption was not usually that the person you were trying to reach was bound with duct tape, on the floor of a barn, with some guy who was weighing the pros and cons of whether to kill him.

  ‘Okay,’ the man said. ‘But one word about where you are, you’re a dead man, okay?’

  I nodded, heard the phone flip open, felt it pressed up against my ear.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘Zack?’ Sarah. Even in my present situation, I was thrilled to hear her voice.

  ‘Hey, honey,’ I said.

  ‘You okay? You sound funny.’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ I said, trying to spit a bit of dirt from between my lips. ‘It’s good to hear from you.’

  ‘I just, I don’t know, I thought I should call.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s good. It was kind of, you know, awkward yesterday morning.’ It was only yesterday, wasn’t it? When we’d had our chat in the bedroom, when Sarah had thought I was packing up to leave indefinitely? Unless I’d been unconscious for a day or two and didn’t know it yet.

  ‘Yeah, well, yeah,’ Sarah said.

  ‘How’s it going? How are things, you know, at the paper?’

  ‘Having a wonderful time here with Frieda.’ Sarah paused. ‘This is the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a home writer, okay?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. My duct tape blindfold, at least the half that was still stuck to me, was starting to itch.

  ‘But to get busted down from management and end up here, working for Frieda. Honest to God, she should be running a fucking flower shop.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. In addition to massive headache, having my arms tied behind me was making my shoulders sore as hell.

  ‘Where are you?’ Sarah asked.

  I felt the man’s hand on my neck. Clearly, he was able to make out both sides of the conversation. I was going to say, ‘I’m kind of tied up right now,’ but it seemed like such a cliché, so I said, ‘Canborough? You know Canborough?’

  ‘Okay, I know.’

  ‘Just talking to some people, you know.’

  ‘Listen, Zack, I’ve been thinking,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And, I don’t know, I love you, you know.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I want you to know that. That I love you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘But I need something from you. I need you to understand me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I want you to understand what I need. And I need some stability. I need some calm.’

  ‘S
ure,’ I said, feeling the man’s grip on my throat relax somewhat. ‘I could use some of that too.’

  ‘You seem to have this knack lately, it’s like, I don’t know, you’ve become this magnet for trouble,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Well,’ I said, trying to shift my duct-taped legs, ‘maybe a little, sure.’

  The man whispered, ‘Wrap it up.’

  ‘What was that?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Nothing. I was just saying yeah, a little, about the magnet thing. Attracting trouble.’

  ‘You never used to be like this.’

  ‘It is kind of new, I know. I can’t explain it. I think maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong kind of people.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ the man whispered.

  ‘Is there someone else there?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘No, it’s a coffee shop. Just some other people.’

  ‘Anyway, Zack, the thing is, I can’t go on this way. I can’t take the stress. It’s not just hard on me, it’s hard on the kids. If you were a cop or something, you know, maybe I could understand, try to live with it. But you’re not really cop material.’

  ‘No,’ I said, twisting a bit more. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Look, I have to go. Frieda’s looking for a linoleum update. Maybe we can talk again in a day or so. Think about what I’m saying.’

  ‘Sure, honey,’ I said.

  ‘Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  The man flipped the phone shut. ‘That was touching,’ he said, and then, without warning, ripped the rest of the tape from my eyes, taking half my eyebrows with it.

  I screamed, even more than when he’d ripped the tape off my mouth. Then, as light filled my eyes, I blinked to let them adjust.

  He was a big guy. Work shirt, John Deere hat, jeans, work boots. Gray stubble, needed a shave.

  Claire Bennet stood further back, and she looked taller than I remembered her, although that might have had something to do with the fact that my face was pressed against the barn floor. ‘Mrs Bennet,’ I said, trying to be cordial. ‘And you,’ I said, my eyes darting toward the man in the tractor hat, ‘are Mr Bennet?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I’m looking for Trixie,’ I said.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Zack Walker. I used to be Trixie’s neighbor, we became friends. Just, you know, friends, nothing more than that. Then we moved away from Oakwood, but Trixie and I, we kept in touch.’

  Claire Bennet said, softly, ‘She’s mentioned him, Don.’

  Don Bennet said, ‘How do we know that’s who you really are?’

  ‘Check my wallet, my driver’s license. In my back pocket.’

  He rolled me over onto my stomach, wriggled my wallet out of my pants. Suddenly, this all felt a little too intimate. I rolled back over and watched as he opened it up, looked at my various cards. He held my license up, compared the image to the person before him.

  ‘That would have been when I still had eyebrows,’ I said.

  He tucked my license back into the wallet, set it aside. ‘So what do you want with her?’

  ‘She dragged me into this mess. Now I want to know what’s going on.’

  ‘How did you get here? What led you to this house?’

  ‘Do you think you could untie me first?’

  Don shook his head. ‘You answer my questions and then we’ll see.’

  ‘A gas station receipt in Trixie’s car. It led me as far as Groverton. I asked around, in the kids’ clothing store—’

  Claire Bennet drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘And that led me up here.’

  ‘It sounds legit, Don,’ Claire Bennet said.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t trust him. I think I may have to try a little harder to get the truth.’

  ‘This is the truth,’ I said.

  ‘Honey,’ Don said to his wife, ‘you go into the house, make sure Katie’s okay.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Just go. Mr Walker and I just need a moment here to talk, alone.’

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not lying to you. This is the God’s honest truth I’m telling you here.’

  ‘Okay,’ Claire said, turning to leave. ‘Just do what you have to do.’ And then she left.

  ‘Now it’s just us,’ Don Bennet said. He took one of his meaty hands, made it into a fist, and pounded it into his other hand.

  ‘Jesus, Don, do I look like some kind of thug? Do I look like—’ and I searched for the right word, ‘some sort of biker?’

  His fist, on its way into his palm again, froze in midair. ‘Biker? Why do you say biker?’

  ‘Isn’t that who Trixie’s on the run from? Some ex-bikers? From Canborough? I figure Trixie must have seen something, that she’s been on the run ever since.’

  ‘How do you know this shit?’ Don’s face was a mask of desperation. ‘I need some real answers, pal.’

  And he brought the fist back, winding up for a punch I’d never forget.

  ‘Don!’

  He whirled around.

  ‘Don! Stop!’

  I knew the voice instantly, even before I could see her. As she moved into the barn, she appeared first as a head, then a torso, then legs.

  ‘Jesus, Don, what the hell are you doing?’ Trixie asked. ‘Don’t you know who this is?’

  ‘You know this guy?’ he asked her.

  ‘Trixie,’ I said.

  She cracked a smile at me. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘most recently.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  We were all sitting around the kitchen table.

  Claire had put on some coffee and was thawing a Sara Lee cake from the freezer. ‘Maybe I could just put that on my head,’ I said, rubbing my noggin where it had hit the post.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

  ‘Better,’ I lied. Getting knocked unconscious wasn’t like on TV. As a kid, I’d watch private eye Joe Mannix get knocked out every week, wake up a few minutes later and carry on without taking so much as an aspirin. But there was a sizeable bump on the back of my head, and it pulsed with pain.

  ‘Maybe you should go to the hospital,’ Claire said. ‘There’s a small one in Groverton. You could go there. You might have a concussion, you know.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I think I’m okay.’ I paused. ‘You got any Tylenol?’

  ‘We’ll have to watch you tonight,’ Trixie said. ‘Wake you up every once in a while, make sure you’re okay.’

  I gave her a tired look.

  ‘You can’t drive back today, Zack,’ she said. ‘It might not be safe, getting hit in the head and all.’ She paused. ‘You’ll have to sleep here tonight.’ She tried to say it neutrally, but her words seemed to carry some extra meaning.

  ‘I hope the couch is okay,’ Claire said. ‘Miranda’s in the guest room.’

  ‘What?’ I said, wondering if there was still someone here I’d not met yet. ‘Who’s Miranda?’

  ‘That’s me, Zack,’ said the woman I knew as Trixie. ‘We might be able to get you something more comfortable than the couch.’ And I saw that twinkle in her eye, the one I’d seen shortly after I’d first met her, before I knew how she made her living two doors down from our house in Oakwood.

  ‘So, what’s your real name?’ I asked. ‘You’re Trixie, but you’re also Miranda, but I think you might also be Candace.’

  Her eyebrows went up at the mention of the third name. ‘You’ve been asking around,’ she said, impressed. ‘But my real name, the one I was born with, is Miranda.’

  ‘Miranda,’ I said softly. ‘What would you like me to call you?’

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it’ll be easier for you to just keep calling me Trixie.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘Trixie.’

  Don Bennet, his green tractor hat sitting on the table next to his coffee cup, said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry about all this.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You threw a real scare into us. We’ve always
been afraid someone might figure out the connection, come looking for … Miranda, or Katie.’ The little girl was in the next room, watching cartoons. ‘And now, knowing there’d been trouble, we were kind of on edge.’

  I took a sip of my coffee. It was hot, and I blew on it. Quietly, I said, ‘Would you have done it, Don?’

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘Would you have killed me?’

  He ran his hand over his mouth, and I could hear his rough palms going across his whiskers like sandpaper. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘If I had to do it to protect Katie, yeah, I’d have done it.’

  ‘You ever killed someone before?’ I asked.

  Don Bennet shook his head very slowly. ‘Shit, no.’ The question surprised him. ‘I’m a machinist. Worked on the Ford line for a while, building vans. Now I work in Groverton, fix tractors.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘I would hope I’d never have to do anything like that. But a man does what he has to do to protect his family.’

  Trixie wanted to know how I’d found her. The gas station receipt, I said. From the center console of her GF300.

  ‘Shit, that was pretty careless, wasn’t it?’ she said, then, worried that Katie might have heard her obscenity, glanced over her shoulder into the living room, where the little girl was flipping the channels. I heard Bart Simpson crack wise.

  ‘Put it back on six!’ Claire shouted.

  ‘It’s The Simpins,’ Katie said.

  ‘Your show’s on six!’ She shook her head. ‘She’s not watching The Simpsons yet.’

  Trixie, ignoring the exchange, said, ‘I was afraid I’d left some clue on the GPS thing. I’ve programmed the route to get up here before, but I always delete it from the trip record, to be safe.’

  ‘I haven’t even used that thing,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got a clue how it works.’

  ‘Actually, I’m kind of surprised the cops let you take the car.’

  ‘They didn’t, at first,’ I said. ‘But once the forensics people were done with it, they gave it to me.’

  Claire was serving the chocolate cake. It was still pretty frozen, and I had to force my fork in, but it was still good. I’d had no lunch, and despite the headache, was ready to eat.

  ‘So,’ I said with some formality, looking at Trixie, ‘maybe you’d like to tell me what’s going on. I mean, I’ve come all this way and all.’