Prey (Jefferson Winter)

by James Carol

  He hit the shower, blasting it as cold as he could stand for as long as he could stand in order to blow away the worst of his fatigue. By the time he’d towelled himself dry he was feeling almost human. Not all the way there, but close enough to pass a casual inspection. He dressed quickly, smiling to himself as those playful variations from the third movement filled the room.

  The world he inhabited was one where the human imagination had been set on ‘destroy’. From time to time he needed a reminder that it was also a place filled with light, a place where incredible and wondrous things could be created. That was where Mozart and Lennon and Hendrix and all those other amazing musicians came into their own. To hear the world as they heard it, even just for a moment, gave him reason to hope.

  He whistled along to the music as he got dressed, improvising countermelodies and harmonies, and just having fun. Even in his darkest moments there had always been music. The movement reached its conclusion and a blissful silence settled across the room. Winter took a moment to appreciate this, then shut down his computer and headed out to meet his date.

  28

  Willow Avenue ran parallel to Main Street and was filled with large houses that looked like they’d been built back when the town was founded. It was a short ten-minute walk from Myrtle House, a one-cigarette walk. Winter took out the note Granville Clarke had given him and unfolded it. An invitation to dinner was tagged on the bottom, the wording old-fashioned and kind of endearing.

  Winter checked he’d got the right house then climbed the steps to the porch and gave the old iron bell pull a sharp tug. Deep inside the house, a lonely bell sounded. Footsteps in the hall, then the door rattled open. Clarke stood there, the dull light softening the sharp angles of his face. He was dressed in tweed trousers and a plain white shirt that had the top button undone. He waved Winter inside and shut the door.

  ‘Hope you like takeout Chinese,’ he said.

  ‘Always. Do you want me to go pick it up.’

  ‘Not necessary. I’ve got an arrangement with Mr Li. He knows where I live. At least, his son does. I slip the kid a couple of bucks and he brings the food straight to my door. I’ve never been much of a cook. That was Jocelyn’s department.’

  Winter held up the half-full bottle of Springbank that the NYPD had got for him. ‘I wasn’t sure what meds you were on, but I brought this along in case you fancied a drink.’

  Clarke smiled. ‘Let me go grab a couple of glasses. Ice?’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘Good man. People who put ice in a single malt ought to be shot.’

  Winter laughed and followed Clarke through to the kitchen. The inside of the house looked as old as the interior of Myrtle House, with one major difference: this wasn’t fake. Maybe the grandfather had bought it, and it had been passed down through the generations, like the Gazette. Clarke got some glasses down from a cupboard, placed them on the antique oak dining table and Winter poured out two decent-sized measures. He handed one of the drinks to Clarke. They clanked glasses and said ‘Cheers’. Sips and smacked lips followed.

  ‘This is good.’

  ‘It’s not bad,’ Winter replied.

  ‘So what do you want to eat?’

  ‘I’ll leave that one to you since you’re obviously the expert.’

  ‘I guess you could say that. I’m thinking about buying shares in the place. Of course, the only problem with that is that I won’t be around to see them mature.’

  Clarke chuckled gently then pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles back into place. He picked up the phone, dialled a number from memory, and ordered the food. No name, no address. No need. Winter glanced over at the stove and wondered if it had been used since Jocelyn passed away. Breakfast at the diner was a regular thing, so was Chinese takeout from Mr Li. With those meals bookending the day, you’d only need a quick sandwich at lunchtime to keep you going. Winter tried to work to a similar dietary plan. A large breakfast, a large dinner, and regular snacks in-between to keep his blood sugar level on an even keel.

  They walked through to the living room, their footsteps loud on the bare wooden floors. The room had a lived-in feel. One wall was made up entirely of wall-to-floor bookcases that were crammed to overflowing. There were a real mix of titles. Classics at the upper end of the scale, trash at the lower. This library wasn’t here for show, this was the library of someone who loved to read.

  Clarke saw where he was looking and said, ‘Most of those were Jocelyn’s. She was the reader.’ He let loose with another soft chuckle and added, ‘My contribution are all those airport thrillers. Jocelyn used to give me such a hard time about those. Said I was turning my brain to mush.’

  Clarke fell into a long silence, and Winter had a pretty good idea what he would have said next if he’d been able to get the words out. He would have told him that he’d give anything to be with Jocelyn for just one more day, even if she was nagging him half to death. Winter walked over to the chessboard that was set up on the coffee table. Like the board back in Clarke’s office, this one was frozen mid-game too. Winter took a closer look and saw that it was the same game.

  ‘You used to play with Jocelyn?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘And this was the last game you played together?’

  A nod.

  ‘White or black?’

  ‘Black.’

  ‘She was kicking your ass all the way into the middle of next week, you realise that, don’t you? Checkmate in five.’

  Another chuckle. ‘Yeah, I know. She always won.’

  Winter nodded down at the board. ‘Fancy a game. And don’t worry I can put the pieces back where they are.’

  Clarke gave him the look.

  ‘I’m good at remembering things.’

  ‘How good? Photographic-memory good?’

  Winter grimaced. ‘I’ve never been a fan of labels.’

  For a moment, Clarke looked like he was about to snap into journalist mode. Instead, he started moving the pieces back to the start position. ‘Loser pays for dinner?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Clarke held out a couple of pawns in his closed fists and Winter tapped the left one. Black. The old guy sat down and moved his pawn to e4. Winter countered by moving his pawn to e5. As opening moves went, it was pretty uninspiring.

  They were a couple of dozen moves in to the game when the doorbell rang. The Li boy with their food presumably. Clarke excused himself and Winter killed time studying the board. As things stood it was pretty much a tie, which was what he was aiming for. If he wanted to, he could get checkmate in nine. That said, if he didn’t move his bishop, then Clarke could push forward and get checkmate in six.

  The game eventually ended in a draw and Winter reached for his wallet. Their empty plates were pushed to the side of the coffee table, chopsticks lying neatly on top. The smell of Chinese food hung in the air.

  ‘Put your money away,’ Clarke told him.

  ‘We had a bet, remember? Winner pays for dinner. Since it was a draw, I say we split it.’

  Clarke narrowed his eyes. ‘You threw the game. That was a nice touch, by the way. Playing for a stalemate. Now, if I’d actually won, then I would have been really suspicious.’ Winter said nothing and Clarke added, ‘You’re way smarter than the average bear, right?’

  There was no point denying it, so he kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t the only person in the room who was smarter than the average bear. Clarke might be on the last lap, his body failing, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He began moving the pieces back to the start position.

  ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to play again, and this time you’re not going to pull your punches.’

  ‘You sure? I’m warning you now, it won’t be pretty.’

  Clarke laughed softly. ‘I’ll get over it.’

  Winter played white this time, and showed no mercy. As soon as Clarke moved, he responded. Attack, attack, attack. The game was over in minutes. Clarke sighed out a �
�Phew-wee’ and sunk back in his seat, clutching his whisky glass to his chest. He was grinning, though, a wide ear-to-ear beamer.

  ‘That was mighty impressive, young man. Where the hell did you learn to play like that?’

  ‘Books and computers.’

  ‘You could have been a pro.’

  ‘I don’t have the discipline.’

  ‘So, what are we talking about here? Have you got one of those freakishly high IQs?’

  Winter answered with a shrug.

  ‘How high?’ asked Clarke.

  ‘Let’s just say that I’m way above average but a mile behind Da Vinci, and leave it at that.’

  ‘You know what Da Vinci’s IQ was? How the hell does that one work? I didn’t think the IQ test was around in his day.’

  ‘It wasn’t. The figure attributed to him is just some expert’s best guestimate.’

  ‘Yet you still know what it is. So what does that say about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. What does it say?’

  ‘It says that you’re an overachiever.’ Clarke paused for a moment and studied Winter closely. ‘Also, you’re bright, that much is obvious. And you like people to know that, but pretend you don’t. You’ve got a high degree of empathy, too. I’m sure if I asked you what you’re doing here this evening you could give me a dozen justifications, and they’d all be bullshit. And it really doesn’t matter anyway. The truth is that today has been one of the best days I’ve had in a long, long time. You’ve no idea how much I appreciate this.’ He lifted his glass and chuckled softly. ‘And this.’

  Winter gave him the look. ‘I don’t believe it. You’re trying to profile me. Me!’

  Clarke chuckled again, but didn’t deny it. Winter reached for the whisky bottle and topped up their glasses. He glanced over, trying to figure the old guy out. He might have been able to beat him at chess, but he’d think twice before taking him on at poker.

  ‘Okay. How do you fancy playing cop?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to say that it sounds way better than being annihilated at chess.’

  Over the next ten minutes Winter outlined everything that had happened. Clarke had promised he wouldn’t breathe a word, and Winter believed him. You didn’t survive this long as a small-town journalist without knowing how, and when, to keep a secret. And it was good to have his thoughts out there in the open. All the same there were still far too many questions and nowhere near enough answers.

  Never enough answers.

  After he finished, Clarke didn’t say anything for a long time. He just sat there and nursed his drink. Little thoughtful sips. He placed his glass back on the table.

  ‘You feel guilty about the cook’s death?’

  ‘Not guilty as such, but I need to catch this woman. Let’s face it, if I hadn’t been there, he’d still be alive. Incidentally, his name was Omar.’

  ‘So what can you tell me about Omar?’

  ‘Not much. He’d been living in the US for almost a decade and was married with a couple of kids. And he was a really good cook.’

  Clarke smiled and they fell into another long silence. Winter picked up his glass, swirled the whisky around and took a sip. Clarke was staring off into space, miles away. Patience wasn’t Winter’s strong suit but he was happy to wait this one out. He was enjoying the old guy’s company, enjoying the whisky. It was good to get off the merry-go-round for a short while.

  ‘Way back when, I did a front-page lead about a boundary dispute,’ Clarke said eventually. ‘On one side you had the town committee. They owned the disputed land. At any rate, they claimed to own it. I can’t remember the name of the person involved because we’re talking decades rather than years, so, for argument’s sake, let’s call him Mr X. With me so far?’

  Winter nodded for him to go on.

  ‘Anyway, Mr X was adamant about where his boundary lay, and was very vocal on the subject. As far as he was concerned the committee was made up of scum-sucking bottom feeders. And that was one of the more polite phrases he used. So I write the story, get a few quotes from the mayor to balance out Mr X’s argument, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of things.’

  ‘Except that wasn’t the end of things.’

  ‘No it wasn’t. The mayor accused me of being biased, and he probably had a point. So the next week I write the story again, this time from the committee’s point of view. The thing is, all I did was rewrite the first couple of paragraphs of the original story and rework a few of the other paragraphs.’

  Clarke stopped talking and repositioned his spectacles, pushing them back into place with his fingertips. Winter sat patiently waiting. Yet again the only time that had any real meaning was time as defined by Granville Clarke.

  ‘For all intents and purposes the two stories were identical,’ Clarke continued. ‘To this day the thing that gets me is that nobody noticed. Nobody. Not even my father, and he edited both of them. Don’t you find that incredible?’

  ‘Yes and no. If I’m honest, nothing much surprises me any more.’

  ‘So cynical for someone so young. The point is, you can take a whole bunch of facts and use them to tell a dozen different stories. Now, it seems to me that what you’ve done here is take the facts as presented by your mystery woman and weave your own narrative from it. I can see why you’ve done that, but I think it’s a mistake. The story you manage to divine from the facts is irrelevant. What you should be asking yourself is what story is your mystery woman trying to tell you? That’s all that matters here. The story she wants to tell.’

  29

  Winter walked up to the tall iron cemetery gates and peered through the bars. Hundreds of gravestones stretched out into the distance, following the gentle downward slope of the land. At the far edge of his vision the gravestones and darkness merged together, making it difficult to tell them apart.

  The gate was padlocked shut, but that was no real deterrent. If anyone wanted to get in all they had to do was climb over. Winter was betting that plenty of kids had done that over the years. This was the perfect place to come and share a bottle, or a few stolen teenage kisses. He rattled the chain a couple of times. It was pulled tight and, at first glance, it seemed secure enough.

  He checked both ways along the street to make sure he was alone. There were a few lights on in the upstairs rooms of the nearby houses, but aside from that this stretch of Main was deserted. Winter reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and found the leather wrap that contained his lock picks. He took one last look to make sure no one was watching, then inserted the torsion wrench into the big brass padlock and pushed it all the way to the back of the lock, away from the pins. Next he inserted the feeler pick and used it to put pressure on the pins. Ten seconds later there was a click and the padlock sprung open.

  Winter put his picks away and loosened the chain, carefully so he didn’t make too much noise. He opened the gate just wide enough to slip through, then pulled it closed behind him. Within a dozen yards the darkness had claimed him, the night turning him into a shadow. He followed the access road a bit further then stepped on to the grass and wound his way between the headstones.

  Clarke had mentioned that Lester and Melanie were buried here and he spent the next half an hour trying to find their graves before giving up. The problem was that the cemetery was just too big. Locating theirs in the dark would require a whole load of luck, and the whole concept of luck was something that made him uneasy. He’d been looking out for Nelson Price’s grave, too, but wasn’t expecting to find it. Cremation was more likely there, the symbolism of the flames too strong a lure for a small town like Hartwood.

  Winter stopped at the next grave, flicked his beat-up Zippo to life, and read the inscription in the dancing light.

  VICTORIA BURGESS

  24th SEPTEMBER 1911–30th MARCH 1944

  LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER

  CALLED HOME TOO SOON

  Winter did the math. Victoria had been thirty-three when she’d died, which was definitely too soon.
He wondered how many kids she’d had. However many there had been, they would probably have been young when she died. And how had she died? Long and slow like the way Granville Clarke was dying, or quickly like Jocelyn Clarke?

  What story is your mystery woman trying to tell you?

  The memory of Clarke’s words drifted through his mind. Winter had to concede that the old guy had a point. The problem was that he was just too close to this one. Usually when he walked into a crime scene, he was able to view it from at least one step removed. That hadn’t happened here because he’d been part of the scene. Yes, he’d approached the investigation in his usual logical, methodical manner, and, yes, he’d listened to what the victims had to say and followed the trail step by step. But that was where the similarities ended. Instead of looking down from the high ground, he was looking up from the low ground, and the perspective was all wrong.

  Question: if he walked into this scene cold, what would he see?

  To begin with he’d see an incredibly well-executed murder. It was unlikely that this was the blonde’s first. Nobody showed that level of proficiency first time out. If it had been, she would have hesitated. She would have pulled that punch. Stabbing someone wasn’t as simple as the movies made out. How hard did you have to thrust? What angle did you go in at? Where did you need to be standing? And that was before you got on to all the added complications, like the fact that she’d been punching through the bone at the back of the eye socket. Also, her choice of weapon made life difficult. Stabbing someone in the eye with a food knife wasn’t easy.

  Another thing that would have jumped out at him was the fact that this wasn’t a robbery. Nothing had been stolen from the till. And nothing had been taken from Omar. The reason Omar had been killed was because she’d wanted to get Winter’s attention. The problem with this motive was that it spawned a whole load of new questions. Like why did she want to get his attention?