Watch Him Die

by Craig Robertson

  He just glared, trapped by the conversation.

  ‘Tam here didn’t take it too well when she ended it. Sent her threatening texts, said he’d hit her harder. Said he’d make her sorry she’d treated him like that. Then she disappeared. All that was left was her blood and her abandoned car. Doesn’t look good, does it?’

  The older man looked at Harkness, clearly intimidated by his size and belligerence, deliberating before making the slightest shrug of his shoulders that he could get away with.

  ‘Oh it doesn’t. Trust me. I’ve been doing this job a long time. Someone who does what Tam did to a woman, he’s done it before and he’ll do it again. And again. Can’t help themselves, men like Tam. And they can’t take the rejection. Their poor little egos can’t handle it. They build themselves up into such a rage that they can’t do anything else except explode. I’m betting you practised screaming at the mirror, didn’t you Tam?’

  Harkness moved closer, eyes bulging, his neck red as the blood pulsed, his face contorted into a picture of hate. She felt his breath on her face, smelling beer, cigarettes and bile.

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘Oh yes I do. I know you and I know your type. Coward. Bully. Thug. Those steroids you take for the gym won’t be helping with the rage either. I bet you’re just busting to lash out right now, aren’t you? Aren’t you, Tam?’

  He clearly was but settled for leaning further forward again to snarl in her face, flecks of spittle landing on her cheek. ‘I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction of hitting you.’

  ‘But you want to.’

  ‘Aye, but that’s no a crime. Not wanting to. You want it so you can arrest me and save you the bother of fitting me up like you’ve been trying to do. I’m no that stupid.’

  She whispered. ‘I think maybe you are.’

  He took a step back to give himself some room and seemed on the verge of proving her right. She steeled herself but the blow didn’t come. Instead he grabbed his right forearm with his left hand and held on.

  ‘What happened to Eloise, Tam? Is she dead?’

  ‘How do I know? So there was blood but that doesn’t mean anything. She could have just cut herself. She’s just done a runner. Probably off with her new fancy man. Or if something’s happened to her then it’s him.’

  The fancy man. The mystery beau. The unknown stranger who was the unseen witness for the defence. Eloise had told friends how she’d met someone, a school-teacher named Jamie. She hadn’t dated him but was keen to. He seemed lovely, kind and caring and liked all the things she did. Dogs, hill-climbing, old movies and Oasis. The fancy man had ticked all the boxes. Harkness’s lawyers were, of course, all over this.

  The only problem was that no one could find Jamie. Narey’s team had asked for a surname but none of her friends knew it. They contacted every school in the central belt and there wasn’t one teacher named Jamie. There were nine named James in its various forms but none of them admitted to going by Jamie, none of them claimed a passion for classic movies or fitted the fair-haired, six-foot, blue-eyed description.

  Jamie was their main lead other than Harkness but it got them nowhere. Some suggested that Eloise had just made him up, that she was trying to convince her friends that things were better for her than they were. Her friends insisted she wouldn’t have done that.

  Some of the squad latched onto Jamie, drawing comparisons with the Suzy Lamplugh case from the mid-1980s in London. The young estate agent disappeared after going to show a house to a client she’d referred to as Mr Kipper and was later declared dead, presumed murdered. Jamie was their Mr Kipper, that was the way many saw it.

  Narey didn’t rule it out but she was focused on the devil she knew. Harkness had previous, Harkness had motive, Harkness had threatened her. Harkness was someone she could go after.

  ‘It’s him you should be looking for,’ he was telling her. ‘Find that Jamie character and you’ll find her. She’s run off with this guy.’

  Narey snorted. ‘No chance and you know it. Eloise’s mum was in hospital. Treatment for blood cancer. There’s no way Eloise would have disappeared and left her like that. She and her mum were really close. She visited twice a day every day. You really expect us to believe she’d leave her?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s killed her then. Whatever, it’s nothing to do with me.’

  She pursed her lips as if considering that. ‘And of course, nothing to do with you that her mother took a turn for the worse, sick from worry, and that she ended up in intensive care.’

  ‘No, nothing. And she pulled through.’

  ‘Yes, she did. And now she lives every day in the knowledge that someone murdered her daughter.’

  She’d held the word back deliberately, saving it for maximum impact. He reacted as if it were a red-hot poker and she’d just rammed it up his arse.

  ‘You can’t . . . I didn’t. I liked Eloise. I really liked her.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s why you smashed her in the mouth. That’s why you threatened her. That’s why you told her you’d make her sorry. Is that how much you liked her, Tam?’

  The man’s mouth started making words that he couldn’t finish, managing just guttural sounds instead. He jabbed his finger at her repeatedly, backing towards the door as he did so. His eyes were reddening and, for a moment, she thought he was going to cry.

  Job done. Sort of.

  She turned back to the man at the counter, who was standing with his hands spread wide.

  ‘Sorry about that. It looks like I’ve just cost you a customer. I guess you never know who you’re going to bump into when you’re buying supper.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he told her graciously. ‘I’m thinking maybe he wasn’t a good customer anyway.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Not good at all.’

  *

  Narey drove for a few minutes until she spotted a figure sheltering from the rain in a shop doorway. One glance was enough to know he was intending to bed down there for the night. She parked and got out of the car, striding quickly through the rain.

  He saw her coming, just a kid, probably no more than seventeen, grey skin and panda patches around wary eyes. She’d no doubt that his street radar had pegged her immediately as a cop.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m not here to hassle you. Nothing like that.’

  He was still cautious, ready to spring up and grab the handful of belongings that were stuffed into a scruffy backpack, but he didn’t run. She walked with the plastic carrier bag in front of her and he eyed it up, doubtless able to smell the contents.

  ‘Want this? From the chicken place up the road. Just made and still hot.’

  The boy’s brows furrowed. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Well, it’s high in trans fats and saturates, has far too much sugar and salt and it will play havoc with your blood cholesterol. But it will probably taste good.’

  He was still confused. ‘Why did you buy it if you don’t want it?’

  She smiled. ‘I just lost my appetite.’

  CHAPTER 3

  The kid was still in the garden of the house on Finley when the cop car rolled in. He stood where he’d called from, pale and scared, a set of headphones around his neck, obeying the emergency operator’s orders not to move.

  The uniforms eased their way out of the car like it was a Sunday morning.

  ‘You Caleb?’

  The boy nodded then thought better of it. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Kovacic made for the kid while Rojo headed to the window.

  ‘What were you doing here?’ It sounded like an accusation because it was.

  ‘Working.’

  ‘Working for the homeowner?’

  ‘No.’

  Kovacic – broad, bulky and close-cropped – furrowed his brows and stared. ‘Then who you working for?’

  ‘A company – nViron. They pay me to check folk’s lawns. I look for ones that don’t use too much water and put up a thank-you sign.’ He gestured over the cop’s shoulder to the b
ack of the sign he’d staked earlier.

  The cop shook his head, sighed heavily and produced a notebook. ‘Spell it. The company.’

  ‘Small n, capital v, iron.’

  Kovacic looked up from his pad. ‘That’s not a word. You don’t spell like that. I hope you got a number for them so I can check your story.’

  Caleb held up one of the signs from his bag: nViron, the company’s number below it. Kovacic scowled and jotted it down. ‘What’s your full name?’

  ‘Caleb Ashton Washington.’

  ‘You got a real job?’

  ‘Just this.’

  Kovacic stared hard. ‘Address.’

  Caleb gave it and the cop called it in. ‘You don’t go anywhere till that comes back exactly as you say it is. Understand?’

  ‘I just found the guy,’ Caleb protested. ‘I saw him lying there and called the cops. What else should I have done?’

  ‘You go around looking in people’s windows?’ Kovacic shouted. ‘Casing the joint or are you some kind of creep? Maybe something worse.’

  Scared, Caleb began to stammer out denials, cut off only by the other cop striding over and pushing himself between Caleb and Kovacic. Rojo walked his partner a few yards away.

  ‘What are you doing, Mario? The kid’s shitting himself.’

  Kovacic grinned. ‘Just busting his balls. Because I can. And because I was waiting on you.’

  ‘Not because he’s black?’

  ‘Fuck you. What’s going on inside?’

  ‘One dead guy. No sign of foul play. I’m guessing he’s been deceased a few days. Neighbours say the homeowner is an Ethan Garland. Late fifties, lives alone, keeps himself to himself. They don’t know much about him. Say he’s lived here ten years, works from home, something to do with online magazines.’

  ‘We going in?’

  ‘CSI are on their way but they could easy be a couple of hours. No reason to wait. Don’t want to deprive you of the chance to break a door down.’

  Kovacic smiled. ‘Let me at it.’

  It took just seconds for the burly cop to smash through the lock and the door to fly back on its hinges. They stepped inside, cutting through a haze of dust motes swirling in the sudden burst of sunlight. They smelled death immediately.

  ‘Man . . .’ Kovacic groaned. ‘The stink. A stiff in near a hundred degrees. We don’t get paid enough for this. Annie’s making black risotto tonight and this is killing my appetite.’

  ‘Mario, it’s why we get paid,’ Rojo reminded him. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’

  They moved from the hallway to the backlit murkiness of the room facing the street. Standing in the doorway, they saw that the curtains screened the strong daylight rather than shut it out. A shard of sunlight cut through the middle of the gloom like a laser, showing dust and flies dancing together. Rojo flicked a light switch to avoid tripping over anything but they could have found their way to the body blindfolded.

  The neighbours had described Ethan Garland as being in his late fifties, stocky, broad-shouldered build with receding fair hair and glasses. The bloated corpse on the floor was either Garland or someone impersonating him.

  ‘Jesus, I hate it when they’ve been unattended,’ Kovacic moaned. ‘We don’t get paid—’

  ‘You said.’

  Rojo couldn’t argue with the sentiment. The stench of the putrefaction was almost overwhelming and the trail where foam-filled blood had leaked from the mouth and nose was enough to turn even a strong stomach, and his partner didn’t have one of those. Kovacic backed off, leaving Rojo to examine the body.

  He knelt, a handkerchief covering his mouth, and examined the body without disturbing it. He’d seen enough corpses that he could do his job but not so many that it didn’t still affect him. When that day came, he figured it would be his cue to quit and work mall security.

  There was no sign of trauma, no visible injuries or wounds. There had been no indication of a break-in. Nothing suspicious at all. The man was dressed in light brown chinos, now stained darker round the groin, and a white short-sleeved shirt hanging loose at the waist. His spectacles lay halfway off his face.

  ‘Heart attack,’ Rojo conjectured aloud. ‘Most likely. Maybe a brain haemorrhage or a blood clot. Heart attack most likely though.’

  ‘Charlie,’ Kovacic called to his partner. ‘Take a look at this.’

  Carlos Rojo looked up, irritated at the interruption. ‘What?’ He followed the other cop’s gaze, seeing a number of framed pieces on the wall. ‘Art? Didn’t think that was your thing.’

  ‘It’s not. But this ain’t art. Like I said, take a look.’

  Rojo caught the tone in the other cop’s voice this time and huffed his way to his feet. Kovacic was standing before a thick black frame. Behind the glass, a black Jack Daniel’s T-shirt was pinned to the canvas.

  ‘Who’d frame that?’

  ‘Read the plaque,’ Kovacic told him, before taking a couple of paces to his right where the next frame hung.

  Rojo read the engraved gold plaque screwed to the wall as if they were in some art gallery.

  ‘Shirt worn by Richard Ramirez aka the Night Stalker.’

  There was a black and white photograph in the bottom right-hand corner of the frame. Ramirez, flinty cheekbones and piercing stare under the tangle of dark hair, being led into court with a detective on each arm. He was wearing a Jack Daniel’s T-shirt. White lettering reading: Old Time. Old No. 7 brand. Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey.

  Rojo hadn’t gotten close to getting his head around the T-shirt when Kovacic’s voice pulled him away.

  ‘And there’s this. Christ, Charlie, check this out.’

  Rojo moved towards him while still looking back at the worn T-shirt under glass. He nearly walked into Kovacic, who was standing in front of another object hung on the wall.

  The square frame was black ash, in stark contrast with the pure white canvas behind. It took Rojo a moment to work out what he was looking at, just a curl of dark on a second, raised white mount in the middle of the piece. It was a curl of hair. The attached plaque told him whose.

  ‘Charles Manson.’

  ‘The fuck?’

  ‘Right?’ Kovacic felt vindicated. ‘There’s more. Check out the clown.’

  Rojo did. The painting was garish, heavy-handed daubs of red, white and blue. A heavyweight clown in red stripes, the white podgy face swathed in blue at the eyes and red at the mouth. There was no plaque on this one, just the artist’s signature at bottom left. J. W. GACY.

  ‘Gacy. John Wayne fucking Gacy. What is this, Charlie?’

  Rojo lifted his shoulders. ‘He’s a collector, I guess.’

  ‘A collector? What’s wrong with fucking stamps or baseball cards?’

  ‘Damned if I know, but today it’s going to be someone else’s problem.’

  Kovacic turned to him. ‘You’re not calling this in? Are you kidding me? You said yourself it’s a heart attack. We don’t need help with this.’

  ‘This . . .’ Rojo waved an arm at the wall. ‘This changes it and you know it. This is weird shit, Mario. And given we have a body, it gets to be someone else’s weird shit.’

  *

  It was half an hour before Detectives Bryan Salgado and Cally O’Neill got to the property on Finley. That was partly down to the inevitable LA traffic, officially the world’s worst, but also because Salgado and O’Neill weren’t exactly busting a gut to get to a heart attack victim.

  Rojo met them at the front door.

  ‘This better be good, Carlos. Forensics say it’s natural causes.’

  Salgado was long and lean, well dressed in a blue suit and tie over a white shirt, a pair of Gucci aviators over his eyes. At six four, he towered over O’Neill and contrasted with her pale skin and red hair pulled tightly back on her head, just as his tailored clothes contrasted with her functional black trouser suit and blouse.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m sure forensics is right,’ Rojo told him. ‘It’s the other stuff.’


  ‘What other stuff? The message I got was there was some weird shit on the walls. Unless the weird shit killed him, I’m not sure why we’re here.’

  ‘Tell us the weird shit killed him, Carlos,’ O’Neill chimed in. ‘Please tell us it was the weird shit. Is today going to go all X-Files?’

  Rojo closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. ‘Why didn’t they send someone else? As if the smell isn’t bad enough, I have to listen to you two play Mulder and Scully. Come inside, I’ll show you.’

  The detectives followed him through the front door and into the lounge where Garland lay. The room now held two crime scene investigators and they’d taken charge of the remains. Rojo guided Salgado and O’Neill past the body, all three cops now wearing protective masks, to where Garland’s collection hung.

  They moved from piece to piece in silence, Salgado and O’Neill sharing the kind of unspoken conversation that only long-term partners can fully understand. Raised eyebrows, stolen sideways glances, murmured noises.

  ‘What the hell is this stuff?’ Salgado asked finally.

  ‘Murderabilia,’ O’Neill answered before Rojo could. ‘Collectibles. These freaks buy artefacts connected to serial killers. It’s big business.’

  ‘You’re shitting me.’

  ‘I shit you not. There’s serious money in it. This painting by Gacy? There’s a ton of them out there but this would still cost a few grand. Maybe five.’

  Salgado and Rojo looked at her. ‘How do you know this stuff?’

  ‘Same way I know anything. I read. I learn. You should try it.’

  Salgado laughed. ‘I’ll stick to getting by on Puerto Rican good looks and charm. So, who collects this stuff and what does it tell us about the dead guy?’

  ‘About him?’ she shrugged. ‘Maybe not much. I’d wonder about the psychology of anyone who collected this shit but it wouldn’t mean a lot. The theory goes that many of them are just fascinated by serial killers, like half the population, but they go a step further and buy stuff that gives them a kind of connection to the killer.’

  ‘Sick fucks.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but the world’s full of them. It’s what keeps us in a job. Does it mean the dead guy, Garland, was up to no good? Not necessarily. But I’d say it warranted a look around.’