Kill the Next One

by Axat, Federico

  “Funny you should ask that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because in the fantasy I was telling you about, I saw Lynch again a few days later, and the guy seemed to have gotten older—like, ten or fifteen years older. Just like that.” Ted snapped his fingers. “Like in a dream, when people instantaneously change how they look.”

  Ted remembered something. He shook his head and laughed.

  “What is it?” Laura asked.

  “I remember being here with you,” Ted said, looking around at the walls. “Your hair was like before. My tumor didn’t have any way of knowing you’d gotten it done. But God…I remember insignificant details. Do you think that’s possible? Imagining something like that?”

  “What were we talking about? In the session, I mean.”

  Ted put his hands on his pockets. He felt the semicircular shape of the horseshoe.

  “About why I gave up chess,” Ted said.

  Laura seemed surprised.

  “What do you have in your pocket?”

  Ted pulled out the horseshoe. He held it in both hands and studied it for a long time, with the expression of someone who was trying to work out a complicated problem. Laura spoke softly to him.

  “Miller gave you that before you quit chess, didn’t he?”

  Ted looked up at once. Laura smiled gently.

  “I have a good memory—what can you do?” said Laura. “When you told me about Miller and the horseshoe, I knew it was important for you somehow. I didn’t know you still kept it.”

  “Oh, this isn’t the same horseshoe Miller gave me. But it looks a lot like it. I found it…I don’t remember exactly where. I can’t remember,” Ted lied.

  Next to Wendell’s lake!

  “You told me earlier that this man, Lynch, proposed something to you. What was it?”

  “Jesus, it’s so crazy…He said he was part of a secret organization that recruits people like me to settle accounts, to deliver justice. To deal with murderers who got off on technicalities or whatever. In exchange, they’d let me join a sort of suicide circle, though that’s not what he called it.”

  “And that way your family and others wouldn’t suffer the consequences of your committing suicide,” Laura reflected, with some amazement.

  “Exactly.”

  “I can’t say it isn’t brilliant. And chilling. Was it the first time you’d heard of such a thing?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who did they want you to kill? To deal with, I mean.”

  “Some guy named Edward Blaine. He murdered his girlfriend and got off scot-free.”

  “Oh, right. I heard about it on TV. The woman’s sister is asking for a retrial because of the mistakes the detectives made.”

  Ted remembered Tricia Pendergast explaining the case at Arthur Robichaud’s house.

  “Apparently there was a commercial laundry under the apartment, and the heat from the dryer vents kept the body warm.”

  “What did you do in your fantasy, Ted?”

  “‘Fantasy.’ It sounds so ridiculous.”

  “I know.”

  “Laura, do you think these memories really come from my past?”

  “I guess it’s possible that some elements in them do. But let’s focus on what you can remember. What did you feel about Blaine?”

  “That I had to kill him. Today I thought it was the most ridiculous idea in the world, but in that other reality, killing Blaine seemed perfectly reasonable. As reasonable as committing suicide. So I went to his house; I remember every detail of the inside of his house, and I’m sure I’ve never been there. I hid in a closet and waited for the guy to fall asleep. Then I went to his bedroom and killed him.”

  “You killed him. In cold blood?”

  “No. Blaine noticed I was there, and he made it kind of hard for me. But I did kill him.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, after that, it starts to sound more like a dream. I went to the house of the other guy I was supposed to kill. His name was Wendell, and he was supposed to be waiting for me. After all, he supposedly belonged to the suicide circle. He lived in an enormous house, way off by itself in the middle of the woods, with a private lake. Supposedly Wendell was unmarried and had no kids. At least that’s what Lynch had told me. And yet, just a few minutes later, a woman shows up with two girls.”

  “Though Wendell wasn’t supposed to have any kids.”

  “So I thought. Lynch hid that bit of information from me because he knew that I’d never agree otherwise.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Lynch told me so afterwards.”

  “So you saw him again.”

  “Exactly. When I suspected he had tricked me, I turned to an old high school classmate, Arthur Robichaud, a lawyer. I hadn’t seen him in years. At school he was a shy kid who hardly hung out with anybody; I was one of the bullies who used to make fun of him and play jokes on him. The sort of thing that stays with you your whole life long, I guess. The thing is, I went to his house and it turned out it was his birthday. I saw other classmates there, all losers like Arthur, but I hardly recognized them.”

  “Wait a second,” Laura broke in. “You must have several lawyers working for you at your company. Why didn’t you use them?”

  “Arthur had helped me draw up my will,” Ted said. As soon as he said it, he realized it didn’t square with what he’d said earlier. In his fantasy, he had taken it for granted that they hadn’t seen each other in years, and that was how Robichaud had acted, too. But…

  “Did Robichaud help you find Lynch?”

  “What’s behind all this, Laura?” Ted clasped his head again. “It’s like I’m in a waking dream. Now that I think about it, at the birthday party at Robichaud’s house…there was also an animal, a possum, that kept appearing.”

  Laura sat up straight, alert.

  “A possum?”

  “Yes. I saw it several times. The first time was on the picnic table on the porch in back of the house; I barely remember that one. Then I saw it at Arthur’s house, hiding in an old tire swing. And again at Lynch’s office, when I finally went to see him.”

  “At his office?”

  “It crawled out of a filing cabinet.” Ted shook his head and laughed. “My God, such a stupid dream. I just wish it felt like it was only a dream.”

  “Let’s pretend that’s exactly what it was, Ted. Tell me what happened when you went to Lynch’s office.”

  “Lynch had aged. He was my age, or a little older. I had to threaten him, and he admitted that Wendell did indeed have a wife and two daughters, and also something much worse.”

  “What?”

  “That Wendell didn’t really want to commit suicide. Wendell belonged to the Organization”—Ted’s eyes fixed on the water cup—“but he had gone…off track.”

  “He was killing people on his own?”

  Ted was astonished. Laura’s guess sounded crazy, yet it was correct.

  “Yes. He had to be stopped.”

  “And why you?”

  It was time to come to the heart of the matter. If there was any point of contact between his delirium and reality, Ted was afraid it was Holly’s cheating. The rest might be nothing but the grisly packaging his unconscious had wrapped her deception in to disguise that devastating reality.

  “Lynch trailed Wendell and discovered that he had a lover…”

  Ted left the words hanging in midair. He clasped the horseshoe with both hands; without being fully aware of it, he was pulling on either end, as if he were trying to pull it straight.

  “Holly, right?”

  Ted silently nodded.

  “Would you like some water, Ted?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Did you talk with Holly today?”

  “Yes. It was a pretty friendly chat, in the end. I didn’t tell her any of this.”

  “I think we’d better stop here for today.”

  Ted seemed not to hear her.

  “What
is all this, Laura? Is it possible that I knew about it? About Holly, I mean. Now that I think of it, there were some signs, and maybe…”

  “That’s enough. Leave it for now.”

  “Okay.”

  “I want us to meet every day, Ted.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Try to get some rest.”

  Ted stood up. Laura did the same.

  “Ted?”

  He looked at her.

  “Don’t leave home, understood?”

  “Understood,” Ted said. And then he remembered something. A detail from that other, outlandish reality. “Your son is a Boy Scout, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “In that fantasy, he had some sort of problem with an authorization form for a camping trip. Somebody told you about it in a phone call in the middle of our session.”

  Laura smiled. She pointed at the phone, which of course hadn’t rung once since Ted had started going there.

  “Fortunately, nothing has happened,” Laura said.

  Ted went to the door. He was still holding on tight to the horseshoe.

  “Carmichael was right about therapy helping me,” he said, more to himself than to his therapist.

  18

  Ted was looking at the precise spot where he had found the horseshoe. He was on the dirt path that led to Wendell’s home. He caught sight of the house itself in the distance, through a gap in the foliage, and he raised his head to get a better look. He had been there before—he was sure of it. He knew that if he got any closer, if he went in and walked around the luxury home, his memories would commingle with reality and he wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two.

  He had promised Laura that he’d stay home, but his need to know had been too pressing. He closed his eyes and, taking several deep breaths, conjured up every detail he could recall: the private jetty, the vast great room with the panoramic lakeside view, the play area behind the house. And yet this was supposedly the first time he’d set foot here.

  Of course you’ve been here! You killed Wendell. When you found out he was Holly’s lover, you went off your rocker and murdered him. Simple as that. Then you joined the loony club so you wouldn’t have to deal with the truth.

  If that were true, he would soon find out. Just five hundred feet to Wendell’s lake house. He had left the Browning at home on purpose; in his right hand he held the horseshoe, which he might be able to use to defend himself in a fight, but for now he held it mainly to keep his courage up.

  The Lamborghini was parked in the same old spot, leading him to think that Wendell must be out on the lake, peacefully fishing. Not so. Ted stood on the shore by the jetty and scrutinized the lake, expecting to see the orange life jacket. No trace of Wendell. Maybe he’s sailing around the other end of the lake, Ted thought. He looked around and saw one of the many security cameras. He gave it a smile.

  The front door was locked—another difference from his prior visit. Ted went to one of the windows. It was tinted, and he had to put his hands around his face to be able to see in at all. He didn’t mind if Wendell saw him standing there; in fact, he hoped he would. He was entranced by the sight of the rug in the foyer where Wendell had fallen and bled out. Yet it showed not a trace of blood. This was the type of detail that exasperated him. He could accept the fact of having been at the lake house before without remembering his visit, but where had he gotten that image of Wendell lying dead on the rug?

  He circled the house, looking for another way in. He could have just knocked or rung the doorbell, but he wanted to poke around a bit before confronting Wendell. If Lynch was telling the truth, Wendell was a dangerous killer, and Ted had no difficulty picturing what the guy would do if he came across his lover’s husband, alone and unarmed. For a second Ted regretted leaving the Browning behind, though he had carefully thought through his decision not to bring it. He was no killer.

  Wendell wasn’t at the other end of the lake, either; his boat was tied up at the jetty. Ted ran around back and tried the door to the huge garage, large enough for several cars. No luck there. He was thinking that he might try breaking a window with the horseshoe when his eyes turned to the play area on the gentle hill behind the house. A pretty pink child-sized castle made of solid wood, which must have cost a fortune, stood there. A white gravel path bordered by stones led to it. Ted walked up the hill, his eyes focused on the castle. It was maybe seven feet high, with towers on each corner and Disney princesses painted on the walls. Belle, Tiana, Ariel—Ted knew them all. He couldn’t resist the temptation to peek through an open window. A small plastic table and two little chairs were arrayed inside.

  “Who are you?” someone called out behind him.

  Ted had been looking through the castle window when he heard the voice. It was Wendell. He’d never heard him speak before, yet there was something astonishingly familiar about his voice. That fact seemed very revealing somehow. Ted raised his hands as a sign that he meant no harm, and he slowly backed away from the window.

  “I’m Ted,” he said as he turned around. There was no real need to say it, since, after all, Wendell would recognize him as soon as he saw him. Unless he had already recognized him and was just playing games.

  But Wendell arched his eyebrows, disconcerted. He stood at the forest’s edge, dressed in the clothes Ted remembered: jeans, blue flannel shirt, orange life jacket. Why was he wearing a life jacket in the woods?

  “What are you doing on my property? Are you alone?” The disconcerted look was apparently not an act. There was something in his voice.

  Why do you look so familiar to me?

  “Yes, I’m alone.”

  Again, the disconcerted look on Wendell’s face. He kept checking his perimeter.

  “Did Lynch send you?”

  Ted smiled. At last they were getting somewhere.

  “Look, Ted,” Wendell said, “I don’t know who the hell you are. If Lynch sent you to kill me, he’s an idiot. You couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  A gun appeared as if by magic in Wendell’s right hand. Ted had been concentrating on his face, and when he looked down, there was the weapon.

  “Holly is my wife,” Ted said to defend himself.

  Wendell’s face immediately changed. He rubbed his chin with his free hand.

  “Interesting…Come on in.”

  Ted pointed at the castle.

  “Here?”

  “Of course. I’m not going to let you into my house. And this”—he indicated the gun—“is just for insurance. If we come to an understanding, you’ll walk out of here. I don’t want to ruin my daughters’ castle.”

  The castle had a double door big enough for a small girl to walk through without ducking, but Ted practically had to crawl in on his knees. The floor was rubberized. Besides the plastic table and chairs, there was a shelf with a tea set. Wendell followed Ted inside. They each took a chair, like a couple of invading giants. The air inside was several degrees warmer. It wasn’t circulating. Wendell placed his automatic on the table.

  “This is ridiculous,” Ted said.

  “So Holly is your wife,” Wendell remarked in the same tone of amazement as before. “And Lynch sent you to kill me. Let me guess. He told you your wife and I were lovers. Right?”

  “He told me a couple other things, too.”

  “So I see.”

  Wendell reflected for a few moments.

  “You’re going to tell me everything Lynch told you about me.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Funny,” Wendell said. “For a second there, I forgot I was the one with the gun.”

  Ted sighed. He felt a pounding in his head. He’d gone to the lakeside home to make sure Wendell wasn’t dead, but now that he had him sitting there, he wasn’t sure what to do next. The only thing he was clear about was that he needed to find out whether the guy was dangerous, for Holly’s sake.

  “Lynch told me about the Organization, straightening out the mistakes the system makes, dealing justice. H
e told me you had lost your way, that you had started acting on your own, outside the rules. He asked me to kill you.”

  Wendell shook his head. His face was slowly twisted by rage.

  “The fucking asshole,” Wendell said to himself.

  “Why?”

  “There is no Organization, Ted,” Wendell said angrily. “I’ve known Lynch since college, and it was just a stupid idea he had. We were pretty close back then, but that was more than twenty years ago. We saw each other once in a while over the years, but our friendship slowly faded. Then, a few months ago, he tried to blackmail me over something from the past. It doesn’t matter what. It was a stupid move on his part, because it was easy to find something on him. He’s smart, but he didn’t know how to cover his own ass. Understand?”

  “No.”

  “Lynch is your wife’s lover, not me.”

  “What?”

  “I hired two guys to find something on him,” Wendell explained. “They discovered he was going out with a married woman, and they took a ton of pictures. I sent him the photos and told him: next time he tried blackmailing me, things would get a lot uglier. That was the last I heard of him.”

  “Describe the photos to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Please.”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t look at them too closely.”

  “Was there one inside a restaurant?”

  “Yes. It was a sequence shot from outside, through a window. They were sitting at a table, across from each other, and he was giving her a bite to taste.”

  Ted remembered the photograph, but he’d seen only part of the scene. If Wendell was telling the truth, the man with Holly in that photo was Lynch himself.

  “Don’t you get it?” Wendell asked. “Lynch went and found you, and he drew you in with that nonsense about the Organization to kill two birds with one stone.”

  It made sense, but Ted didn’t want to believe him blindly. Believing Lynch blindly hadn’t worked out so well.

  “Why would he want you dead?” Ted asked, settling back in the tiny, uncomfortable chair.

  “Apart from the fact that I might reveal his love affair? Let me spell it out for you. Justin Lynch was jealous of me from the moment we met, and his jealousy only grew more intense and more blatant over the years. His resentment ate away at our friendship and finally destroyed it. Look at where I live. Look at my car. Look at my family. My company brings in hundreds of millions a year. Did you see where he works? A grimy office in a shitty building, where he takes on little dipshit cases—women with two-timing husbands, crap like that. Nobody can say I didn’t help him out at first—but for every right choice I made, he made two wrong ones. You don’t think that’s motive enough for murder? But the coward didn’t even dare to do it himself. So he turned to you and dug up his bullshit idea of the Organization.”