Life Is Short and Then You Die_First Encounters With Murder From Mystery Writers of America

by Kelley Armstrong

  * * *

  The next day was Saturday. Grant usually stayed in bed as long as he could on the weekends, but today he lurched upright at a little after seven, the world outside the window just beginning to brighten. The camera. Preoccupied with his clothes, he’d forgotten to go up the hill after school and reclaim the camera. Had it rained overnight? He didn’t think so, but this time of year he could have easily slept through a shower.

  Cursing, he pulled on jeans and went out to the kitchen. His father was already gone. A note on the table said he was at cabin 37 working on the air conditioner. Barely reading it, Grant darted out the door and started his Escort.

  The one part of school he got even a small bit of pleasure from was the photography club. An Ozarks arts promotion group had given the school dozens of high-end cameras, and Grant was fascinated with tinkering with them, making the world look different with filters and exposures and focus.

  Right now he was experimenting with time-lapse photography. He’d signed out one of the cameras on Thursday and taken it into the hills surrounding the lake to an isolated meadow off one of the uncounted, unnamed dirt roads that threaded through the countryside. He could see the lake glimmering far below, but the cabins were lost in woods and haze. It didn’t look like anybody ever came there, but to be safe he climbed a small tree at the northern edge of the meadow and carefully mounted the camera on a branch with a clear view. He set it to take a high-definition exposure every ten seconds and left it there. If he’d done everything right, he should have a nice short film now showing the moon rising over the lake and moving across the sky, compressing every hour into a few minutes. Depending on the battery life, maybe a second night, with a complete day in between for good measure.

  That was, if the camera hadn’t fallen, or gotten too wet, or simply been stolen. People went up into the hills for all kinds of reasons—to run meth, to tend small fields of pot, to make out, just to wander around. How could he have been so stupid as to forget about it? He couldn’t begin to guess how much the thing cost. If it was gone, he’d have to get a job in town this summer to pay it off. That would be a nightmare. Grant wanted to spend his summer the way he always did: alone.

  Up in the hills, he had a bad moment when he made a wrong turn and had to go three miles before he found a place to turn around. The Escort wasn’t made for this kind of driving; it bucked and wheezed, clattering like it was going to come apart at any second.

  Finally, though, he found the right place. He pulled the car over and jogged up the short trail as fast as he could manage.

  Climbing the tree, he let out a whoop. The camera was still there. It seemed absolutely fine, and the battery was still alive; even as he reached for it he heard the minute click of the lens opening and closing. Moving carefully, he loosened the bracket, slipped the camera into its case and slung it over his shoulder, then eased himself down out of the tree. There was a business center at Silver Waters, with computers that Grant often used for homework, but the internet connection there could be slow and sometimes went out completely, to the endless annoyance of summer people frantic to be in touch with the jobs they were supposed to be getting away from. If the time lapse had come out well, he wanted to add music to it and post it online. For that the school would be better. The computer lab was kept open over the weekend for the benefit of students who couldn’t get online at home.

  Driving down the hill, he kept one hand on the camera case in the passenger seat. He imagined the video online. The number of views mounting, the amazed comments about its beauty. If it looked good enough, he might even show Dad.

  What he should have remembered was that it wasn’t only computer users who visited the school on weekends. He was walking toward the side door closest to the IT lab when a group of kids exploded around the far corner of the building, jogging toward him in matching shorts and tank tops. The cross-country team, out for their early morning practice run. Grant shrank against the building, but it was too late. Several of the boys pounding past him shouted “Gnat!” a few reaching out to slap his shoulders or give his hair a quick yank. Bringing up the rear was Henry Spears, puffing and a little more out of breath than the others. He was too stocky for cross-country, really, but he did it in the spring to keep in shape for football.

  His head had been hanging low, but seeing Grant his eyes lit up.

  “Gnat!” he shouted. He pulled up next to the smaller boy. “Just the runt I wanted to see!”

  “Leave me alone,” Grant said. He tried to head for the door again, but Henry grabbed his upper arm and casually pushed him up against the wall.

  “Not so fast, Gnat,” he gasped out. “I stepped in some dog shit a couple of blocks back. Clean my shoe.”

  “No way,” Grant said. He squirmed, trying to break away, but the hand against his arm was heavy and relentless. Henry had ten inches and probably sixty pounds of advantage. “Get off me, you big asshole.”

  “Come on, Gnat,” Henry said. “Help a brother out.” He jerked Grant off the wall and slammed him back into it, jarring him and making the camera bag slip to the ground. He pulled him off again, but this time he flipped Grant around and shoved his chest against the wall, putting his hand on the back of Grant’s head to hold him in place.

  The brick against Grant’s cheek was rough and cold and he struggled harder, but without effect. Henry’s foot came up against his rear end, and there was a rubbing motion as he wiped the shoe against Grant’s jeans.

  “Spears!” came a sudden shout from off to the right. Grant was released. He almost fell as he and Henry turned to see the track coach, Mr. Sullivan, standing at the corner of the building about thirty feet off, his hands on his hips.

  “Yeah?” Henry said.

  Sullivan shook his head. “Leave Grant alone,” he said. “Get your rear in gear. I want you on the track in five minutes.”

  “On my way, sir,” Henry said. Sullivan turned and rounded the corner, and Henry pivoted and buried his fist hard in Grant’s stomach. Grant blew out air as stars exploded behind his eyes and he fell to the ground.

  “Be happy I didn’t make you use your tongue,” Henry said. He jogged off. Grant struggled to catch his breath. He watched to be sure that Henry was really going away and then closed his eyes and let his face settle against the grass. Sullivan had seen enough that Henry should be in big trouble, but Grant knew it didn’t matter. Henry’s not-so-secret power: His mother was the principal of the school and, against all evidence, believed her son to be a blameless angel.

  It was several long minutes before Grant had the air to push himself into a sitting position. He stayed there, his back against the wall, his head slumped. He couldn’t think of a reason to get up. He listened to the day grow silent and still around him. An occasional bird sang. Somebody a few streets away was mowing. The world hung in space, time ticking away to its next chance to hurt him.

  * * *

  It was more than an hour later when Grant finally went into the computer lab, wearing the gym clothes he had put in the car to bring back to school Monday morning. He’d cleaned his jeans the best he could manage in the restroom, but they’d have to go in the laundry when he got home. He no longer cared about the camera shots, but he couldn’t stand the idea of going back to Silver Waters and having his father read the raw scratches on his cheek.

  There was nobody else in the lab. He went to the station farthest from the door, booted up the computer, and got the memory card from the camera.

  At least the time lapse looked good. He had to work on depth of field, but he liked the framing, with the meadow sloping down to a line of trees on the other side. Part of the lake was visible through a gap in the trees, shifting to different colors as the light changed. The daylight image was a little washed out, but the night sky was appropriately black, and the moon and stars wheeling across it looked impressive.

  After the moon sank out of sight, the sun came up and started its own trek. The grass and leaves in the picture vibrated as the
camera caught them in slightly different positions because of the wind. He was about to reach for the mouse to fast forward to the second night when something flickered across the bottom of the screen, a brief impression of figures and a strange flash of light.

  Frowning, Grant paused the image. He rewound through several dozen frames, watching the tiny preview window until the figures had blurred through again. Leaning forward, he started advancing through the images one at a time.

  Click. The world jumped ten seconds.

  Click. Another ten.

  Click. Now two men appeared, walking across the far side of the meadow, about twenty yards from where he had placed the camera. In the next frame a third man appeared behind the other two, holding his arm at a strange angle. The men were walking in from the right side of the frame, coming from the side of the meadow near the road.

  Grant enlarged the bottom part of the frame. The men were mostly in profile, but he knew the one in front, Fred Jameson. He worked at a hardware store in town where Grant’s dad often shopped, and he had a daughter a couple of years younger than Grant in school. In the frame where Grant recognized him he had his hands raised up near his head, like he was about to try to kill a bee buzzing in front of his face. Behind him were Becker and Riddell, the men staying in cabins 9 and 10. Becker was in front, walking casually. Riddell was trailing behind, looking back over his shoulder. He was carrying something in his right hand, but the image was blurred from movement.

  Grant clicked forward, his vision tunneling. The ten second delay made it seem like he was watching the men in a strobe light, but the sequence was clear. The men reached the middle of the frame, just to the right of the break in the trees. Jameson turned and faced the other two, his hands still raised. Then he got down on his knees, stretching out his arms toward them. They seemed to be reaching toward him, too, but it was clear now that the thing at the end of Riddell’s arm was a handgun, and Becker had one as well. Grant paused on an image of the three posed like this, Jameson’s desperation clear.

  Click. Nothing had moved, but there was a sharp arrow of light at the tip of Becker’s gun, almost as bright as the sun at the top of the image.

  Click. Jameson had fallen out of sight behind the grass. Becker and Riddell had lowered their arms.

  Click. They had turned and were walking back toward the right edge of the frame.

  Grant realized he was standing up, and that his breath was coming fast and shallow. He looked around. There was still nobody else in the room. There was a security camera in the ceiling, but it was set to cover the door. It couldn’t see him or the screen he was looking at.

  He sat back down and closed his eyes, waiting to not feel lightheaded. He’d forgotten the scratches on his cheek, the lingering pain in his stomach. He wondered if he was going to faint.

  He couldn’t remember the name of Fred Jameson’s daughter. Sheila? Cynthia?

  He went back through the frames again.

  He couldn’t stop looking at that little flash of light from Becker’s gun.

  He let the rest of the short film run through, and then watched the whole thing again from start to finish. There were no other unexpected appearances, aside from a deer that had wandered through the meadow early Saturday morning.

  The machines around him hummed on smoothly, waiting for him to do something.

  * * *

  He stayed at the school until it got dark, eating some snacks from the vending machine in the cafeteria. Nobody else ever came in to use the lab on Saturday. Everyone was saving their work for Sunday.

  It was almost nine when he drove away from the school and, just a few blocks away, pulled into the parking lot of the diner across from the police station and stared at the sleek red-and-blue lights atop the parked cruisers.

  Half a dozen times he put his hand on the car door handle, thinking about Jameson’s daughter, picturing himself walking in and asking to talk to the chief. Leading the cruisers out to cabins 9 and 10 and standing in the flashing lights as Becker and Riddell came out in handcuffs. That was what he should want to do. What stopped him every time was the smell coming from his soiled clothes, the memory of Henry standing over him, and the vision of that little point of light in the photo. It was such a tiny thing, but his eyes kept coming back to it. The power in that tiny yellow flare. He seemed to see it every time he blinked.

  At last he put the car in gear and drove home.

  His father was sitting on the porch drinking a beer, with two empty cans crumpled under his chair. Grant climbed the steps and headed for the front door, carrying his backpack and another plastic bag for the laundry. He grunted something that might have been a greeting.

  “Hey,” his father said before he could go in. “Sit down a minute. Where you been all day?”

  “School,” Grant said, leaving his hand on the knob. “Working on the computers. I gotta put some laundry in.”

  “Laundry,” his father said. “Come here. Let me see you.”

  He put the bags down and walked over, keeping his eyes fixed on a point six inches over his father’s head. His father reached up and held his chin, turning his face to catch the light from the lamppost in the yard.

  “Fall down?” he asked.

  Grant nodded. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Nothing else you want to tell me?”

  Grant still couldn’t look him in the eyes. He shook his head. At last his father dropped his hand and turned his own face back to the still waters. “Bring me another beer after you get your laundry started,” he said. “Maybe a sandwich.”

  Not bothering to answer, Grant grabbed his bags and hustled through the door. It was a relief that Dad hadn’t asked to look in the backpack, which he did sometimes because he was worried about drugs. For some reason, it was also a disappointment.

  For a moment, coming up the stairs to the porch, he’d wanted to tell Dad everything, but somehow seeing those beer cans crushed on the floor had stopped him. If he hadn’t gone to the police, he sure as hell wasn’t going to run to Daddy, especially since he knew what Daddy would say. Don’t stick your neck out. Play it safe. Destroy the pictures and don’t ever talk about it again. Dad was an expert at keeping his head down and not talking about things.

  Grant had made his decision and, even though he still felt like he couldn’t really catch his breath, he was going to stick to it. He watched the washer shudder and clang through its cycle, telling himself over and over again that Fred Jameson must have done something to deserve being taken to that clearing.

  * * *

  The next morning, Dad left to go into town for church. He’d stopped trying to make Grant come with him years ago. Grant slowly ate a bowl of cereal, then got dressed. Picking up his backpack, he walked down the path that would take him to cabins 9 and 10.

  Becker and Riddell were scheduled to have the cabins through Tuesday night, but it was still a little surprising to see the blue SUV parked in 10’s driveway. He walked around to the lake side of the cabin, and found Becker sitting at the picnic table on the deck with a plate of scrambled eggs and a glass of juice. Grant started up the stairs as Riddell came out of the cabin with another plate and mug. He looked at Grant blankly and sat down.

  Grant thought the same thing he’d thought when the men had arrived a few days ago, that they were the most aggressively average-looking men he’d ever seen. Becker’s hair was a little darker, Riddell a little leaner, but they both had the kind of generic looks you’d give security guards in a video game.

  “Morning, kid,” Becker said. “You can tell your old man the fridge is working great. Appreciate the quick work.”

  “I will,” Grant said. He stood at the side of the table, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

  Becker squinted up at him. “Something else we can help you with?”

  Grant swallowed. He took a folded piece of paper and held it out.

  “What’s this?” Becker said. “Some kind of extra charge?” He put his fork down an
d took the page and unfolded it. He looked at it for a long moment and blew air out through his nose. “Oh, kid,” he said, sounding mournful.

  He passed the paper across to Riddell. It was a printout of two of the frames from Grant’s film. He’d chosen the one where you could see all three men’s faces most clearly, along with the one with Becker’s muzzle flash. Riddell looked at the page and folded it back up and put it in his breast pocket. He looked flatly across the table at Becker.

  Becker was shaking his head. “Let me guess,” he said. “There are all kinds of copies of these that will go straight to the cops if, for example, you were to go missing.”

  “Something like that,” Grant said. His mouth felt incredibly dry. He’d put the images on a flash drive and mailed it to himself from town.

  “Everybody’s seen a damn movie,” Becker said. “Your dad in on this? He send you?”

  “No,” Grant said. “This is just me.”

  He didn’t like the way Riddell cocked his head at that.

  “Okay, kid,” Becker said.

  “Grant.”

  “What?”

  “Call me Grant.”

  “Grant,” Becker said. “You got it, Grant. I don’t see a SWAT team coming through the woods, Grant, so what the hell exactly is it you want, Grant?”

  Grant put the backpack down on the table. “I want a gun.”

  Becker frowned. “You want a what?”

  “A gun,” Grant said. “And ammo,” he added. He’d reminded himself to specify this a dozen times.

  Becker and Riddell looked at each other. “That’s it?” Becker said.

  Grant nodded. Becker picked up his fork and finished his eggs and drank from his coffee. Riddell seemed to have lost his appetite. He sat with his hands flat to the sides of his plate, watching Grant watch Becker.