Watch Me (Jefferson Winter 2)

by James Carol

  For the longest time nobody moved. They just stood and stared, mesmerised. Barker whispered another breathy ‘Jesus Christ’. He had a hand over his mouth and was shaking his head from side to side in disbelief.

  I stood up and switched on my flashlight, making everyone jump. Shepherd looked like he was about to have a heart attack, and Barker looked like he was about to lose his breakfast.

  ‘Jesus, Winter.’ Shepherd stared at me from behind his spectacles, then took a deep breath and pulled himself together. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘And where should I be?’

  ‘You know what I mean. This is a crime scene, goddamn it. There are protocols that need to be followed. Protocols that have been put in place for a good reason. You can’t just go wandering around a crime scene. That’s how evidence gets destroyed.’

  ‘I’ll make sure your guys have my fingerprints and an impression of my boot tread so you can eliminate me from the investigation. See, no damage done.’

  ‘Not the point. You should have waited.’

  ‘Follow me. There’s something you need to see.’

  We headed next door to the workshop. Shepherd looked pissed and I didn’t blame him. Everything he said was true. I should have waited. The thing was that I’d always had a problem with that concept. I hunkered down beside Dan Choat’s corpse and pointed to the note in his pocket.

  ‘Take a look at that.’

  Shepherd hunkered down beside me and used a pair of tweezers to remove the note. He unfolded it as carefully as I had, then read what was written on it. Barker, Romero and Taylor were all crowding around him to get a better look. Taylor glanced over, a dozen questions in his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut. Judging by the widened eyes and the sharp intakes of breath, the other three had all leapt to the same conclusion. No great surprise there. It was a compelling narrative.

  ‘Did you touch this?’

  ‘I was careful to hold it by the edges.’

  Shepherd glared at me through his heavy-framed glasses. His mouth was a tight thin line and all the muscles in his face were tense. He looked like he wanted to punch me out. ‘Christ, Winter, what other damage have you done?’

  ‘That’s it. Just the letter.’

  Barker said, ‘I don’t believe this. There’s no way Choat killed Galloway. No way in hell.’

  ‘Why? Because he was quiet, polite, friendly? What you seem to be forgetting here is that some serial killers are experts at hiding out in plain view. Also, Choat fits the profile. A white male, college-educated.’

  ‘You knew all along that the unsub was a cop, didn’t you?’ There were accusations in Barker’s voice, a ton of questions.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Shit,’ hissed Shepherd. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say something?’ He shook his head, stroked his moustache. ‘This is so screwed up. A complete and utter mess.’

  ‘I’m going to hang around until tomorrow in case you have any questions. Then I’ll be moving on to my next case.’

  I held out my hand and waited for Shepherd to shake it. He just stared at it.

  ‘Look on the bright side. Not only have you got a crime scene, you’ve got yourself a dead bad guy as well. If nothing else this is going to save the taxpayer a fortune. No lengthy trial, no jail time. The only losers are the lawyers.’

  Shepherd was still staring at my hand and making no move to shake it. ‘Don’t leave town,’ he said finally.

  I lowered my hand and walked out the workshop, and had almost made it outside before Taylor caught up.

  ‘You’re going to hang out here,’ I whispered. ‘Watch everyone. Anyone you see acting suspiciously, I want to know straightaway. Anyone taking an unhealthy interest in what’s going on here, I want to know. The unsub’s got an idea of how he wants this to play out, and he’s going to be pushing to turn that idea into a self-fulfilling prophecy. He’s going to screw up. It might be a big mistake, it might be a small one, but he is going to screw up, and we’re going to be all over him when he does.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going back to Choat’s place with Hannah to see if we missed anything.’

  46

  We detoured via Horton Street to drop off Elroy Masters and arrived in Kennon Street a little after noon. This was a typical suburban street in a moderately prosperous area, an area where most residents were on an upward trajectory rather than a downward one. Detached one- and two-storey clapboard houses sat in their own compact parcels of land. All had porches where you could sit and watch the world go by.

  The front yards gave a good indication of who owned the houses. Green grass and tidy colourful flower beds indicated a retiree, someone with both the time and the inclination to fight off the effects of a long hot summer in northern Louisiana. A parched, recently mown lawn indicated someone who worked during the week and struggled to find time at the weekend to keep up with their chores. Toys strewn across the yard obviously indicated kids.

  We parked outside Choat’s house. The sun was beating down through the windshield and the temperature was pushing ninety degrees. I let the air-conditioner run, enjoying the cool air for as long as possible.

  The pretty little picket fence surrounding Choat’s house had been newly whitewashed, the grass had recently been mown and was a healthy green, the flowers were blooming. The garage was in good condition and the driveway was free of weeds. This was an old person’s yard. It was not the yard of a twenty-something single guy who had a full-time job.

  A banana landed in my lap, startling me from my thoughts. I looked up and saw Hannah grinning.

  ‘You haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

  ‘What is it with you and all these bananas? Have you got shares in a fruit importers or something?’

  ‘They’re good for you, and they’re packed with potassium.’

  ‘Whatever.’ I went to put the banana down.

  ‘Eat,’ Hannah ordered. ‘We’re not going inside until you do.’

  I peeled the banana and started to eat it.

  Hannah waited until I’d finished then said, ‘Let’s go.’

  I killed the engine and we got out. The sun was burning through my T-shirt. It was hot and sticky, and it was only going to get hotter and more humid. We started across the sidewalk to Choat’s front gate.

  ‘So, how long have you and Taylor been together?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Why so defensive?’ She shot me a hard stare and I added, ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. I like you, and I like Taylor, and I think you’re good together. Also, I’m a sucker for a good love story.’

  Her expression softened and she looked at me for a second longer. ‘We’ve been together since his last year in high school.’

  ‘Cradle snatcher.’

  ‘Hey, I wasn’t the one doing the snatching. Taylor came after me.’

  ‘Slowly and carefully and no doubt taking his own sweet time.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘Okay, once I realised he was interested I had to steer him in the right direction, but that was kind of fun. The guys I’d been with before were all typically Southern, and they didn’t last long. Taylor was different. Despite his size, he’s the gentlest gentleman I’ve ever met. And he is a gentleman, Winter. The last of a dying breed.’

  We reached the top of the narrow path that led through Dan Choat’s neat garden and climbed the stairs to the porch. Hannah shielded me from any curious eyes while I went to work with my lock picks. Twenty seconds later the last pin gave way and I pushed the door open just enough for us to squeeze inside. Hannah pulled the door shut behind us. Slashes of sunlight cut through the window, making sharp angles on the wooden floor.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘We bumped into each other in town one day. He said he liked my hair. I had a go at him for being a sarcastic, chauvinistic brain-dead jock. He almost died on the spot. That’s when I realised he was being serious, and that’s the point that I wanted to die on th
e spot. I offered to buy him a coffee by way of an apology.’

  ‘And he had a Pepsi.’

  Hannah laughed ‘Yes, he had a Pepsi. We got talking and before we knew it four hours had disappeared. Turned out he wasn’t a brain-dead jock, after all.’

  ‘No he’s not.’

  ‘We spent the whole of that summer together. Saw each other every day. I was working at the guesthouse but my mom was still alive, so I had plenty of free time. I’d just got back from spending a year travelling and I was killing time before going to college.’

  ‘The same college as Taylor?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘I managed to swap colleges so we could be together.’

  ‘And then your mom got sick.’

  Another nod, this one accompanied by a sigh. For a moment she looked much older. This was an aging process that resulted from hard experience. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror I’d catch the same look in my own eyes.

  ‘Taylor went to college and I stayed behind to care for Mom. He said he’d be faithful, and I thought yeah, right. He promised, but that just wasn’t going to happen, was it? I mean, he was at college. There would be plenty of partying and plenty of temptation, particularly for one of their star football players. He even got down on one knee and did the whole proposal thing, and I just told him he was being ridiculous.’

  ‘But he was faithful, wasn’t he?’

  Hannah nodded, then smiled, then laughed. It was a warm sound, the sound of a woman who loved her man and would do anything for him, someone who’d lay down their life if it ever came to that. This wasn’t the romanticised love you saw in the movies, or the pragmatic love that had existed between Sam and Barbara Galloway, this was the real thing. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

  ‘Yes he was. He’s a good man, Winter. Too good for me.’

  ‘And you’re selling yourself short. He needs someone like you as much as you need someone like him.’

  ‘What about you? Who do you need?’

  I laughed. ‘That is so the wrong question.’

  ‘And what’s the right question?’

  ‘Who would put up with me?’

  I laughed again, but Hannah wasn’t laughing. She was staring at me with an expression that was part pity and part sadness. It felt like she was looking right through me and finding me wanting. Before she could say anything else, I said, ‘I want to know what Dan Choat was hiding.’

  ‘How do you know he was hiding anything?’

  ‘Because everybody’s hiding something. You, me, everyone.’

  ‘And what are you hiding, Winter?’

  Hannah was still staring, the silence between us growing more uncomfortable by the second. She wasn’t just expecting an answer, she was demanding one. I thought about the swirl of guilt that had run through my gut yesterday when she joked that I was a serial killer. And then I thought about my father lying strapped to a padded prison gurney, aiming his last words at me. We’re the same.

  More staring. More silence.

  ‘Dan Choat was hiding something.’ I said finally. ‘We’re going to find out what.’

  47

  We started downstairs. Hannah took the kitchen while I searched the living room. I could hear her going through the cupboards in the next room. She was doing her best to keep quiet but that’s hard in a kitchen because there’s so much metal.

  The living room hadn’t been changed since Choat’s mother died. Floral patterns dominated, a swirling kaleidoscope of pinks, violets, yellows and greens that would give you a headache if you stared too long. The bookcase was filled with hundreds of brightly painted porcelain animals and figurines. There wasn’t a single book because there wasn’t space for any. I ran a finger along one of the shelves. Not a speck of dust.

  There was one book in the room, though. A large well-thumbed bible sat on the coffee table in easy reach of the living room’s only armchair. It had a cracked black leather cover that the years had faded to a dark green. The gold leaf had rubbed off long ago, leaving a dark shadow of the letters. The bible could easily be a hundred years old, maybe even two hundred, a family heirloom passed down through the generations.

  On one wall was a reproduction of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. On another was a large crucifix. There was no TV, but there was a radio. A heavy Bakelite model that dated back to the early sixties. I switched it on and a hollering good-time Baptist preacher demanded to know if I’d let Jesus into my heart yet. I quickly switched it off.

  Choat had made one addition to the room since his mother passed away. He’d commissioned an artist to paint his mother’s portrait. The end result was almost as horrific as the floral drapes. The picture hung above the sofa and had been positioned directly opposite the armchair.

  The portrait was huge, four feet by three feet, way too big for this room. It wasn’t even remotely flattering. Choat’s mother looked as severe as the most extreme of the Old Testament prophets, ancient and desiccated. You could almost smell the fire and brimstone.

  This had to have been commissioned by Choat. It was the only explanation that made sense. Usually when you commissioned a portrait you’d ask for something that made the subject look good. You’d maybe get a decade or two shaved off the age, and you’d lose the wrinkles, lines and imperfections. You would not waste money on something that looked like this.

  My guess was that this was the way Choat remembered his mother, the way he thought about her, which would explain plenty. It was not the way she would have wanted to be remembered. This wasn’t the way anybody would want to be remembered.

  It was easy to imagine Choat in here on his days off, listening to sermons on that old Bakelite radio and reading bible passages. I could see him dusting the ornaments while his mother gazed disapprovingly from the painting.

  Was Choat gay? The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. If he was, then he’d been buried so deep in the closet he would have suffocated under all the guilt. I’d only been in the house for a short time and already I could feel the walls closing in. What must it have been like to spend your whole life living here?

  I sat down in the armchair. There was a notepad beside the bible, the edges absolutely parallel. Next to the pad was a pen. This had been positioned parallel, too. Bible, pad, pen, all laid out in a neat row. The top sheet of the pad had the imprint of a single word in the middle, right where the fold would go. Lower case, no punctuation: sorry.

  That narrative just kept unfurling, new details being added all the time. This room encouraged guilt. There was guilt written large in the pages of that big old family bible. One look at that portrait would have an innocent man confessing to sins he’d never committed.

  It was easy to see how the unsub wanted the narrative to play out.

  Choat had spent his last hours in here. He’d done a lot of pacing and a lot of thinking, the guilt eating him up. He might even have done some dusting. And then, when the guilt got too much, he’d sat down and written his suicide note, folded it neatly, tucked it into his shirt pocket and then driven out to the old oil refinery.

  There was a grey area, though. A potential plot hole. Why would Choat murder Sam? What was the motive? Chances were that the unsub had a whole narrative strand unfurling there too. One that we hadn’t uncovered yet.

  Jealousy was a possibility. I could imagine Choat being stuck here in his locked-down neat-freak life, the pressure building. He would have seen Sam swanning around town in his Ferrari, without a care, playing the big man. Sam would have been the perfect focal point for Choat’s rage. The pressure would have carried on building until he finally snapped and killed him.

  I could think of a dozen other possible motives off the top of my head, but until we had more information it was just so much speculation. One thing I did know was that this unsub was too careful to leave a plot strand dangling. If anyone bothered to dig deep enough they would find something.

  Hannah came in from the kitchen. She saw the portrait and sto
pped dead.

  ‘That’s really, really bad,’ she said in an awed whisper. ‘And a little bit scary. I told you he had serious mom issues.’

  ‘You told me. So, how did you get on?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. Not unless it’s a crime to eat Cheerios when you reach your twenties. How about you? Did you find anything?’

  ‘Yes and no. I’m building up a clearer picture of Choat, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.’ The unsub had something on Choat, something embarrassing enough to use against him. Something that he could use to control him.’

  Hannah nodded at the painting. ‘And that’s not embarrassing?’

  ‘Not embarrassing enough. I’m talking something so embarrassing that Choat would rather die than have it revealed. Something that would make him drive out to an abandoned oil refinery to meet up with the unsub.’

  I led the way up to the second floor, Hannah a few steps behind. Halfway up, my cellphone trilled, making us both jump. Even though the house was empty, we’d slid into a burglar’s silence. Sneaking around like this, it was inevitable. Hannah swore under her breath when she realised what the sound was, her relief evident in every clipped syllable.

  I checked my cell and saw that a text had come in from Taylor. The only reason he would text us was because he’d found something and didn’t want to call in case he was overheard.

  I held the phone up. ‘It’s a text from Taylor.’

  She crowded in closer to get a better look and a second later the message flashed up on the screen. It was only two words long, and it was my turn to swear. nothing yet. I texted back, telling him not to contact us unless he had something worth sharing, then put my phone away.

  I took the main bedroom while Hannah checked out the spare room. It didn’t take me long. Hannah had searched it last night. If there had been anything worth finding, she would have found it. When it came to breaking and entering, she was a natural.

  Hannah was on her hands and knees looking under the bed when I caught up with her. This room looked like it belonged to a teenager. Except that wasn’t quite right. What it actually looked like was an idealised version of a teenage boy’s room. And not a modern teenager. This was a kid from the fifties or sixties.