Guess Who

by Chris McGeorge

  “I tried not to think of the man after that. I tried to forget the whole thing. But for the last few weeks, I haven’t been able to sleep. Because when I shut my eyes, all I can see is him.”

  “Do you think he’s the one doing this to us?” A man in a suit and a red tie. Constance’s “evil man.” He seemed to be a thread connecting them together. Sheppard thought—had he ever seen anyone that fit this description? Maybe—he saw lots of people in suits. There was no way someone like that would stand out to him. Also, most of the time he wasn’t exactly on “high alert”—he was usually a little “washy.” He hadn’t seen anyone who had seemed particularly “evil.”

  Constance looked up at him, sadly. “Of course he is, Mr. Sheppard. Because that man wasn’t just evil. That man knew what I’d done, just like he knows everyone else in this room. He knows you. He knows what you’re hiding. He is the Devil.”

  Constance took a few steps backwards. Moving away. Sheppard couldn’t move. The way Constance put it, this man did seem evil. And he was talking to Winter. Constance had stared into the eyes of their captor. It had to be.

  Sheppard almost forgot. Grateful to change the subject. “The mask the man is using? Do you recognize it? Maybe from your show?”

  “No. I don’t... Maybe. We did use horse masks for a dream sequence once. Is it important?”

  No idea. “I don’t know.”

  “We have a prop department that makes everything in-house.”

  “So it would not be possible to acquire one elsewhere?”

  “Why do you care about this? We have been put here by the Devil.”

  “I...” No good answer, except he had to stay grounded. Would be all too easy to get swept away, with Constance.

  And not be any use to anyone.

  “Please hurry, Mr. Sheppard. That man, he’s coming. And he’s coming for you,” Constance said, and stepped away.

  Sheppard let her go. His breath caught in his throat. The evil man, behind the horse mask. The man who knew him all too well. The glasses, the show, the psychologist dead in the bath. The evil man knew him better than he knew himself.

  And he’s coming for you.

  The devil didn’t exist.

  Why didn’t that make him feel any better?

  Constance found her way back to Mandy’s side, while Sheppard stared out at the room. Her words still ringing in his ears.

  Tell me, do you think you are a good man?

  He had no idea.

  23

  Headphones was watching him. He didn’t know if he’d seen her blink yet which was slightly disconcerting. Sheppard wanted a break—to do as the others were doing, a period of silent reflection. But he couldn’t. He had to move on. He beckoned to Headphones.

  On her black hoodie, the sticker HELLO MY NAME IS... Rhona. Headphones stuck in his mind though. She looked at him for a moment longer and then shuffled out from under the desk. She got up and made her way over to Sheppard, keeping her purple headphones clamped to her ears.

  They looked at each other, the silence unnerving, till Sheppard dared to speak.

  “Hi.”

  Headphones said nothing. “Rhona? Is it?”

  Standing still like a statue. “What are you listening to?”

  She just stared at him. Maybe she couldn’t hear. But there was something in her eyes. A glint of understanding.

  “What are you listening to?” he tried again. Nothing.

  Sheppard was suddenly very annoyed—everything suddenly peaking. “Okay, we’ll just stand here for the next two hours. I wonder what exploding feels like.” He regretted it as he said it. It was all taking its toll on him, but that was no way to go about talking to a defenseless kid.

  Headphones frowned, opened her mouth and closed it again. She looked around, probably to make sure no one else in the room was looking, and slipped her headphones off, hooking them around her neck.

  “You’re rude,” she said, her voice younger than she looked and softer than her expression implied.

  “I’m not the biggest fan of talking,” she said. “I’m listening to the Stones. Greatest Hits. Volume Two.”

  “Ah, the Stones. What’s your favorite song?”

  “People like ‘Paint It, Black,’ but I prefer ‘2000 Light Years from Home.’”

  Sheppard smiled. “Unconventional choice, but I can definitely agree with that decision right now.” The evil man. Winter. And a hotel room full of truth or lies. He felt two thousand light years from home too. “You’re a bit young to be listening to the Stones.”

  “I’m seventeen,” she said. Defensive. As though she’d had to say that many times before. “I also have taste.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Sheppard said. “I don’t suppose that thing you’re listening to can connect to the internet or make a call or anything.”

  Headphones’s mouth twitched at the edges. She pulled the device from the pocket of her hoodie—an old retro Discman. “You’re welcome to try and call someone on it if you want.” Kids her age would usually have an iPhone or something, and she must have seen his look because she added, “Better audio quality.”

  Sheppard looked from the device to her. “Why are you not more freaked out by this situation? Have you heard anything that’s been going on?”

  “I heard the TV. When you were still cuffed to the bed. I heard there’s a dead man in the bath. I heard there’s a murderer here. Otherwise, I don’t really care what these people have to say. I don’t need to hear anymore. If I’m going to die, I want to sit in a corner and listen to my music. I can’t think of a better way to go. At least not with the options available.”

  “That’s...” Sheppard struggled for the word. The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was the sanest thing he’d heard in the room so far. “That’s very grown-up,” he settled with.

  Headphones’s face screwed up at grown-up. “My dad taught me to prepare for the worst. Anything else is a pleasant surprise.”

  “He sounds great at parties,” Sheppard said. “But you know that I can’t just sit in a corner and wait to die.” Although that sounds enticing. “I’m not going to let anyone else get hurt, not if I can help it.” Keep telling yourself that. “So I need to ask you a few questions.” Sheppard knew the type of girl Headphones was. A girl who hadn’t seen the good in the world so just assumed the darkest parts were normal. Sheppard had seen his fair share of terrible but he knew that there was good out there, like the good he thought he saw in Dr. Winter. Even if he didn’t always feel that that good was inside himself. “First off, do you remember where you were before you got here?”

  “I was at home,” Headphones said, “in my room on my laptop. My dad and some of his friends were downstairs, watching football. I try and drown it out with music but I can always still hear them cheering. Idiots. So instead of my stereo, I used my headphones. It works a little better. Then I heard them go to the pub after the match, as usual.”

  “Do you live with anyone else?”

  “You mean like a mother? Nope, I don’t have one of those.”

  “Everyone has a mother.” A flash of his own. A dreadfully insufferable woman.

  “There was a woman. But she left.”

  “Okay,” Sheppard said. Giving up. He scratched his chin. The backs of his hands were itching with want. “So you just blacked out? And then you woke up here? Did you maybe smell something?”

  A flash of recognition came across Headphones’s face. “Yes. There was. I smelled something weird, something chemical. And my head got all swimmy, you know. I couldn’t focus on anything. And then I was here.”

  “The same as everyone else.”

  “Yes. I remember. But why did I forget?”

  “It’ll be the drugs. Making it all feel like a dream.”

  “Right.”

  “I need you to rememb
er—I need to know if you were alone in that room.”

  “Of course I was—it was my bedroom.”

  “And you were alone in the house?”

  “Yes,” Headphones said, like she were talking to a toddler.

  “And you were sure everyone had gone out? You know these people?”

  “Yes. My dad. His friend Bill and his friend Matthew. Although I have to call them Mr. Michael and Mr. Cline to their faces.”

  “But how well do you know them?”

  “I don’t know them really, not very well at least. My dad does though. He’s known them for years. They all work at an estate agency in Angel.”

  “Do either of them wear glasses?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Headphones said. “No, neither of them.”

  Stupid really. These people didn’t sound important.

  But you never knew...

  Sheppard had a picture in his mind. The evil man. Rectangle glasses. Red tie. Straight suit. The man that Constance described. The man that Mandy might have seen this morning. So he couldn’t be in two places at once, right?

  “It’s always the same on a Friday. My dad and his friends get a half day. Isn’t it weird how no one high-up seems to work on Friday afternoons? Anyway, they always come back to our house and watch whatever sports are on, then they go to the pub. I go to college, go to therapy and then I come home.”

  Sheppard froze. “What?”

  “I go to college. St Martin’s. I’m doing a Foundation in Art and Design.”

  “No. You go to therapy?”

  Headphones narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. What’s wrong with that? Jennifer Lawrence went to therapy.”

  “No. It’s...” Pick your words carefully.

  “I go mainly because of unresolved family issues. I also have claustrophobia, which I thought was getting better...until I got locked in a hotel room with five other people and a dead man.”

  That explained Headphones’s conduct a little more. Why she had squashed herself under the desk, closed her eyes and kept her headphones on.

  He decided not to press the issue. “Did you see your therapist today?”

  “No, I went around his house as usual, but no one was home. It was weird, Dr. Winter’s never missed an appointment before. I guess it must have been serious.”

  “Dr. Winter.” Of course, it’s him. That’s how everyone’s connected, isn’t it? Surprised. Why was he surprised?

  “Yes.” Headphones obviously saw something in his face. Maybe it was as pale as he thought. “What?” She hadn’t heard. She was listening to the Stones. She had no idea.

  Sheppard took a shaking hand, got out Winter’s wallet and opened it. Held it up to Headphones.

  “Is this him?”

  Headphones, confused, looked at the driver’s license. “Yes. How did you...” She stopped. Her brain making connections it didn’t want to make. She looked up at Sheppard with big eyes. And before he could stop her, she rushed into the bathroom.

  Sheppard was taken off guard and rushed after her.

  He was used to the bathroom now—the bright lights and the smell, but it was still revolting. Headphones had pulled back the curtain to see into the bathtub. When she saw Winter lying dead, she dropped to her knees, her hands gripping the side of the tub.

  “What...” Headphones croaked. “No...”

  Sheppard stood behind her, not knowing quite what to do.

  Headphones didn’t cry. She just sat there on her knees and looked.

  Any question that Headphones had murdered this man was immediately wiped from his mind.

  Sheppard made his way around her and sat down in front of her... No, the blood. No closer...

  Headphones looked down at Dr. Winter as though he were someone very close. A father figure. Sheppard hadn’t expected such emotion would appear on her face.

  They sat there for a while. Until he knew he had to move her on.

  “I’m sorry,” Sheppard said.

  “Who did this?” Headphones said.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  “I’ll kill them,” Headphones said. And he believed her. “I’ll make it worse for them. Why would they do this to Dr. Winter? He never did anything to anyone. He just tried to help.”

  He didn’t do anything. He was good and kind. And naïve.

  “How long have you known him?”

  Headphones dragged her gaze from Winter to look at him. “I’ve been in therapy for five years.”

  We could’ve bumped into each other. “Do you mind me asking why?”

  “I had social anxiety. Really bad stuff. That’s why I don’t participate much. I’ve got a lot better but it’s still there. Dr. Winter helped me. Showed me how to cope with it. He is...was...a good man.”

  Tell me, are you a good man? The pangs of pain in his head accentuated with every word. He mentally swatted at the air trying to get them to disappear.

  A jolt of confusion on Headphones’s face. And Sheppard realized he had actually swatted the air. Keep it together.

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  Her eyes back on Winter. “A week ago. My normal session. He was telling me that I really didn’t need him anymore. But I did... I do. He says I’m better. But I’m not. I need him.”

  “Was there anything weird about the session? Maybe something he said?” Maybe something he was planning. Sheppard still couldn’t comprehend Winter being involved in all of this.

  Headphones wiped her eyes, although she wasn’t crying. “He cut the session short. I usually see him for an hour and about halfway through, there was a knock at the front door. His office is at the front of the house, so he looked through the window. He didn’t waste any time after that. He told me something had come up and I had to leave. He was really apologetic. He said we’d make the time up this week. I didn’t mind. He ushered me out the back way, into his living room. Then he shut the door to his office and I heard him opening the front door to the next person. And that was that.”

  “Did you hear or see who was at the door?”

  “No, I just assumed it was another one of his friends...” He called them friends because “patients” was too clinical, too cold, Sheppard remembered. “Anyway, I thought, maybe someone needed to see him urgently. So I didn’t mind.”

  “But you were still in his house?” He has an entrance door and an exit door. You know that?

  “Yes. Usually I go out the kitchen door and leave. The back door. But... I don’t know why, this time I stuck around. I feel safe in his house. And my dad wasn’t expecting me home, so I just sat down. I knew Dr. Winter wouldn’t mind. I was there about ten minutes. Just sitting. And then...”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m not a nosy person,” Headphones said defensively. In that way someone said something before saying another thing directly to the contrary. “I don’t know what came over me. But...after about ten minutes, the printer on a desk at the far side of the room started spitting out stuff. Maybe it was just instinct. But I got up. And I went over to it.”

  “What was coming out?”

  “Pages and pages of stuff. Loads of text. I didn’t really read any of it. It looked like someone was faxing it over. I thought it was never going to stop. But then the last page came out or the first page I guess... I picked it up. It was a diagram of something. Filled with boxes, and measurements, and even coordinates I think. Then I looked at the second page. It was a deed to some land somewhere. I remember being confused, like why Winter would want any of this. I thought maybe it was a mistake, but on the first page at the top, someone had handwritten ‘TO WINTER.’ It was signed ‘C.’ I didn’t understand any of it.”

  Sheppard said nothing. A diagram. With measurements. Could it have been a diagram of this room? There was no question about it. W
inter was deep into this. But what else had Headphones said? A land deed? What the hell did that have to do with anything?

  “I just put the paper back. And I turned around. And I jumped. He was standing there. Dr. Winter. He must have heard the printer or something. I thought I was going to get into real big trouble. But the strangest thing happened.”

  “What?”

  Headphones was silent for a moment, looking down at her dead doctor. “He started to cry. Really. He rushed over to me, and was blubbering words I didn’t understand. He saw what I was looking at. He saw it. And I saw it. Just some stupid document, but he was going crazy, saying something like ‘No, not you.’ To me. I was still so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. So I got my bag and I got out of there. As fast as I could. And I looked back, and he was there. Bawling. Sinking to the floor. And that was the last time I saw him...until now.”

  Headphones bit her lip.

  Sheppard didn’t know what to say. Still thinking about what she’d seen. She made the connection before he could.

  “Do you think that’s why I’m here?”

  Still not getting it. “What?”

  “Because I saw those things. He said ‘No, not you.’ Like he wanted to protect me, but couldn’t. I ran out of there, when I should have helped him. Like he always helped me.”

  “We don’t know anything for sure yet,” Sheppard said. But it fit. Headphones saw the plans. Constance locked eyes with the evil man. Alan stirred the wrong pot. Ryan walked in on Winter. Mandy worked with Winter’s daughter.

  The evil man had used Winter. To get information on the hotel room. And now, to be the murderee in a game of Cluedo. But who did it? Who killed him? Assuming it wasn’t the evil man himself...that meant someone in the room was lying.

  Sheppard got to his feet and held a hand out to Headphones. “C’mon, you don’t need to keep looking at him. It won’t do any good.”

  Headphones took a moment, then accepted it. He pulled her up and drew the curtain again.

  “I can’t quite believe it,” Headphones said. She seemed lost. “I can’t believe he’s dead.” She gravitated toward the door—no real sense of purpose.