Edge of Crime: A Collection of Crime Stories

by John Moralee

“Did you kill Dane?”

  “What? No.” His face was sweaty. “Look. I didn’t kill anybody. Now I know where the body it, I can blackmail Swanson. You and me – we could blackmail him together. What do you say?”

  “If I say no, does that mean I get the wrench treatment?”

  Kelso scowled. “I need that money, man. You don’t understand. You, you have money. Me, I’m poor.” Kelso started walking towards him, wiping sweat from his nose and forehead. It was pouring off him. He was muttering something to himself, something like, “Don’t be a loser, Kelso. Hit him.” Kelso looked like he was struggling to work himself up for doing it, but he was raising the wrench now, readying himself.

  “Listen to me, Kelso. Right now, you haven’t done anything illegal. You could sell your story to the papers, appear on TV, get a movie deal. But if you try to kill me, you blow those deals.” Appealing to Kelso’s greed wasn’t working. The mechanic was still coming. Nolan fixed him with a wolf-like stare. He was older than Kelso, but his body was strong and fast, lacking Kelso’s flabby gut. He picked up a fist-sized rock, raising it ready to pitch like a hardball. “I’ve been to the moon and back, Kelso. You think I’m afraid of you? I eat guys like you for breakfast. Do you really want to fight me?”

  Kelso hesitated. Sweat dripped into his eyes.

  Kelso lowered the wrench – but held onto it.

  “A movie deal? You think I could play me?”

  “Yeah,” Nolan said. “Who else?”

  Kelso dropped the wrench. Then he dropped to his knees and burst into tears. “I’ll always be a loser. I just wanted to win one time. One time.”

  *

  “She knows,” Gina’s mother said.

  “How is she?”

  Her mother shrugged. “She wants to ask you some questions. Alone.”

  Nolan went into the hospital room, sitting down beside the bed. Gina was sitting up, supported by pillows.

  “Geoff …”

  He squeezed her hand. She looked very young without make-up, like a sick little girl. “My mother says Swanson confessed. Did he … Did he say why he did it? Why he killed my Toby?”

  Nolan told her what Judith had learned in the interview. Swanson, rejecting the advice of his lawyer, described how he had been enraged by Kelso’s remarks. He had gone to room 303, knocking until Toby opened the door. He accused him of sleeping with his wife. Toby’s denials further enraged him. He grabbed Toby and slammed him into the wall, much harder than he had slammed Kelso. Toby died instantly from a cracked skull. Swanson put Toby’s body into his own suitcase and cleaned up the room. Swanson then went to his own room, placing Toby’s suitcase into his larger one, so nobody would see it. In the morning he had the hotel take it downstairs. He had no time to drive it anywhere until after lunch, when he took the body to a place familiar to him, where he hoped nobody would find it. He dumped the rest of Toby’s possessions in another location on the way back. He could not remember where. He said he was very sorry for what he had done.

  “What will happen to him now?”

  “They made no deals with him. He’ll probably go for a temporary insanity defence, but Judith doesn’t think any jury will believe it. He’ll get a life sentence if he pleads guilty, death by lethal injection if he doesn’t.”

  “I don’t care about that, Geoff. All I ever wanted was for my baby to have two parents. He’s stolen that. Confessing doesn’t bring back Toby. Nothing does.”

  Gina stared at the ceiling and tears welled on her eyelids, which she did not blink. It was as if her body, in its grief, had forgotten its basic functions, like the simple act of blinking. She did not react when Nolan stood up, walked to the door and called her mother in. He left them alone.

  He walked out of the hospital. It was dark outside. He got a taxi back to the hotel, too tired to hear what the driver was saying. Nolan wished he could help Gina.

  As he thought about Gina, looking so vulnerable in her hospital gown, he realised how foolish he had been. He was in Las Vegas - a city built on lies. He should have recognised the truth when he saw it.

  There was somewhere he had to go.

  *

  The real killer opened the door, surprised to see him.

  “Geoff, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see you.”

  “I have to leave now,” she said. “I have to make arrangements for my husband.”

  He stood in her way. “I know it was you.”

  “Me?” Lucinda said. “What are you talking about?”

  “When Toby Dane was found, he was still wearing his suit. But Dane went to bed over two hours before your husband did. Dane would have taken off his clothes for bed. That means when he heard Swanson knocking, he would have answered the door wearing something else. Your husband could not have killed him in his suit. Now, why would you husband dispose of a body if he didn’t kill him? You know the answer. The question is, do you want Harlan to be convicted of first-degree murder, which, I believe, has a death penalty in Nevada?”

  “I never wanted to lie,” she said. “Harlan told me to. He thought he could solve it.”

  “What really happened?”

  “Dane and I were alone in the corridor. He asked me if I would agree to being hypnotised by him. He was convinced my abduction memories were false memories. He wanted to prove it. I would have said no, but I was mad at Harlan for behaving like an arrogant fool. I went into Dane’s room. I lay down on the bed and he sat across the room. He put me into a trance. I don’t remember what happened during it. The next thing I saw was a Grey standing over me. I was scared. The Grey was going to attack me, I was sure. I pushed it away. It grabbed me. I totally freaked out. I pushed it into the wall. Hard. It stopped attacking me then. It was over in two, three seconds. I saw it wasn’t a Grey any more. It was Dane. I’d killed him. He was probably trying to wake me from the trance when I … when I saw him as an alien. I went to my room and waited for Harlan. When I told him what I’d done, he said he would take care of it. He got rid of the body. For me.”

  “You’ll have to tell the police that,” he said. “You can’t let your husband take the blame.”

  She nodded. “I know. I really thought he was an alien, Geoff. I’d never hurt a human.”

  The convention ended a day early. Freda was not happy. She wanted to nail someone’s ass to the wall – Nolan’s. He was lucky she was in New York. Clients had turned to stone under her gaze.

  “Don’t blame me,” he said, sighing. “Blame the aliens.”

  He hung up before she could yell.

  The Good Samaritan

  Fletcher could see two figures standing next to a silver car shimmering in the desert heat. They were waving at his truck. A big figure and a small one. A man and boy.

  Normally Fletcher would have driven on without slowing down – letting someone else be a Good Samaritan - but in Australia’s Red Centre nobody else would come along for days. He’d been driving his eighteen-wheeler for hours through flat and endless desert without encountering any traffic in either direction because this road was in a remote area, hundreds of miles from civilisation in every direction.

  He was their only hope of rescue.

  Grumbling to himself, he slowed down his vehicle and brought it up behind the silver car. He stepped out of his air-conditioned cab, feeling the heat.

  “Got a problem?” he asked.

  The man nodded. He was tall with smooth black hair combed neatly in a left parting. He would have looked like a handsome Hitler if he had worn a small moustache. He was in his late thirties, wearing a Hugo Boss suit that was dusty and sweat-stained. His shoes were coated with red dirt. His nose and forehead were sunburnt and peeling. “We – uh – broke down. I think it’s the electrics because I can’t see anything wrong with the engine. I tried to get it going six or seven times.”

  “Have you called for help?”

  “Initially,” the man said, shaking his head. “Same old story. My cell phone’s not working.”<
br />
  “It wouldn’t. Not here. Nearest cell tower’s about a hundred miles that way. You’ve really picked the wrong road to break down. I’m not bad with engines. Want me to take a look?”

  The man hesitated. “I’d prefer it if you could just give us a ride.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The man nodded. “I’ll get a professional to fix it later.”

  Fletcher would have felt insulted if he had not been keen to get back on the road. “Okay – I’ll give you a ride to the next town. It’s about ninety miles away.”

  “Thanks,” the man said. He turned to the boy and said something Fletcher couldn’t hear. The boy was small and skinny with very pale skin that made him look sickly. He was wearing a baseball bat and a long-sleeved T-shirt as big as a tent - at least it looked it on his small frame. “You heard the man. He’s going to give us a ride, son. Do you want to get in his cab?”

  The boy nodded and ran towards Fletcher’s truck while his father picked up their bags. Fletcher climbed in the cab and leant across to open the passenger door. The boy climbed in, looking around nervously. He slipped into the back of the cab, where there was enough space for him to sit down on Fletcher’s fold-up bed.

  “Hello,” Fletcher said.

  The boy said nothing.

  “I’m Fletcher. What’s your name?”

  The boy answered in a barely audible whisper: “David.”

  “Don’t worry, David. I’ll get you and your dad some help.”

  “You can’t,” the boy said, very quietly. He looked like he was going to cry.

  “Why not?” Fletcher asked him.

  “Because he’s not my dad.”

  Fletcher frowned. “What do you mean?”

  The boy’s voice trembled. “He killed my dad.”

  Fletcher thought it was a joke. “He killed your dad?”

  The boy nodded. “And my mum and my little sister. He’s got a gun and a knife. You’ve got to help me! You’ve got to get us out of here before he -”

  The boy fell silent.

  “What?” Fletcher said, but it was too late. The man was there. He was only a few feet away from the cab, carrying two sports bags that looked like they weighed a ton. The boy looked terrified as the man reached the cab and started climbing aboard. The man tossed his bags into the back with the boy, then sat in the front of the cab with Fletcher. He slammed the door and wiped his sweating brow with a hand.

  “Thanks for stopping. We really appreciate it.”

  Fletcher’s head was reeling from the things the boy had said, but he didn’t show his fear. He grinned.

  “No worries, mate,” Fletcher said. “Lucky I came along. What on earth were you doing out here?”

  “Just on holiday,” said the man defensively.

  “I’m Fletcher.”

  “Steven O’Shaunessey.”

  The name sounded Irish, but the man didn’t have an accent. “You’re from Ireland?”

  “Initially,” the man said. “Same old story. We’re travelling around the country, looking at all of the sights, like Ayer’s Rock. My son David loved seeing that, didn’t you, son?”

  “Yes,” David said meekly. In the rear-view mirror Fletcher saw the boy’s scared eyes locked on his – pleading for him to do something. The boy chewed on his lower lip and sat as still as a statue, hands folded over his chest.

  Fletcher started driving. The road ahead and behind was straight and endless. It cut through a landscape of red rock baked under a hard white sky. “I’ll take you to the next town – it’s called Rock Point. It’s n-ninety miles away.”

  Fletcher hated himself for stuttering, but the man was making him nervous. Fletcher was aware he had already said something similar already about the distance and had repeated himself, but his mind was racing with thoughts of what he should do. He could behave as if nothing was wrong and take the man to the next town, dropping him off like he wanted, but what would happen to the boy if he did that? Even if he contacted the police afterwards, the boy could get killed in a hostage situation. No – he had to help the boy before they got there.

  Fletcher slyly looked at his new companion, trying to assess the danger. The man wasn’t physically a threat – Fletcher reckoned he could easily beat him in a fair fight – but he had two weapons concealed on him that could easily kill him.

  Fletcher wished he had a weapon handy. There were some tools in the back, but nothing useful in the front of the cab. What could he do unarmed? Maybe he could elbow the man in the face and push him out of the door …

  Fletcher thought of the horror movie starring Rutger Hauer called The Hitcher. That was one scary movie because it could happen. You could pick up a complete madman, but what could you do?

  He had to act like he didn’t know the man was a killer. He had to wait for the right moment. He concentrated on his driving, increasing his speed until a plume of orange dust was streaming behind the vehicle. The man didn’t say anything. He just looked ahead, staring at the road. The silence was uncomfortable.

  Rock Point was about an hour away, but he didn’t want to wait to get there before doing something. He could see the dead desert turning into scrubland. It always amazed him how plants could live in such dry conditions. Flashes of green went past the dusty windows.

  “How much longer?” asked the man.

  “No long now,” Fletcher said. He thought of the tools in his box. If the boy could pass him one of them ... “You both must be thirsty. Does anyone want a drink?”

  “David?” the man said. “Do you want a drink?”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “There might be a Coke or something in that box under your feet,” Fletcher told him. “Just see if there’s anything in it you want.”

  There were no drinks inside the box. Just tools. Weapons. Fletcher hoped the boy would understand what to do with them.

  Fletcher reached across to the glove compartment with the man watching him closely. “I don’t drink beers when I’m driving, but I do have some in here, Mr O’Shaunessey. You’re welcome to have one.”

  There was a six-pack inside the compartment. The man took one and thanked him for it. He popped it open and took a long drink, gasping at the pleasure of it. While he was distracted, Fletcher saw David opening the toolbox. He removed a large and heavy wrench, slipping it up the sleeve of his shirt with Fletcher nodding his approval. Fletcher was sure the man was too occupied with quenching his own thirst to notice.

  “You find anything in the box?” Fletcher said to the boy.

  “No, sir. It was empty.”

  “Oh – sorry, kid. Did you look in the yellow one or the red one?”

  “The red one.”

  “That’s the wrong one. Why don’t you look in the yellow one, then pass it to me so I can get one, too?”

  Fletcher watched the boy lift up the yellow cooler, which did contain several cans and bottles of water. The boy took out a Coke, slipped the wrench inside, then passed the cooler to him.

  The man pretending to be David’s father looked at the cooler, saying, “Maybe I should hold that for you since you’re driving?”

  Fletcher couldn’t give him the cooler with the wrench still inside. He would know immediately if it weighed too much. “I’ll – uh – just get a bottle of water out first.”

  He started opening, wishing the man would stop looking at it for a second, but his eyes were on the cooler as though he suspected something.

  Fletcher could see the wrench inside the cooler. His fingers wrapped around it -

  That was when the boy shook the can and pulled the ring-pull – aiming the Coke at the man’s head. The dark liquid sprayed all over him.

  “Jesus!” he cried out.

  Fletcher grasped the wrench and yanked it free, turning to face the man, his truck swerving as he let go of the wheel. He brought the wrench up and swung it at the drenched man’s head, but his aim was off and he just hit him a glancing blow on the shoulder. The man grunted in pain, but he wasn�
��t stunned. He saw the next blow coming. Before Fletcher could hit him again, he fumbled the passenger door open and flung himself out of the moving vehicle. The door flapped crazily as the truck veered off the road into the scrubland. The boy yelled and pointed at a gulley ahead. If the truck hit it, it would crash. Fletcher grabbed hold of the wheel and regained control. He steered the truck back onto the road, but didn’t dare slow down. His heart was thudding like a fist against his ribs. The passenger door stayed open, wind blasting into the cab.

  Looking back, he could see the man lying on the road, not moving. “I think he’s dead.”

  He hoped the man was dead.

  He slowed down enough to reach across to grab the other door and pull it shut. The man was just a dot on the horizon now. Alive or dead? He wasn’t sure – but he didn’t want to go back to check.

  The boy crawled forward into the passenger seat. He wound down the window and poked his head out. Looking back.

  “He’s not dead,” he said, with a certainty that sent a shiver down Fletcher’s spine. “You can’t kill him that easy. He’s just pretending. You have to go back. You have to make sure. Please.”

  Fletcher shook his head. “No, I’ll just contact the police when we get to Rock Point.”

  “He’ll be gone before they get here. Someone will stop to pick him up. That’s what happened to my ...”

  Fletcher sucked in a deep breath, wanting to say no again, but the boy was right. What if someone else did come along before the police? The man would escape.

  He slowed down the truck and stopped. “Listen, David, if I go back and he’s not dead, we could be putting our lives in danger.”

  “You can’t let him get away,” the boy said. “Look in his bag. See what he did. See what he did!”

  Fletcher had almost forgotten about the man’s bags, but they were in the back. He unbuckled his seat belt to get out of his seat, then went back to open the bag David was pointing at. It was a long black sports bag. Fletcher didn’t want to open it, but he was curious to see what was making the boy so agitated. The bag had a zip, which he grabbed and pulled, releasing a foul stench. There were at least a dozen things inside wrapped in plastic bags.