Joe Victim: A Thriller

“Let me help. I don’t have to be on the team chasing him, but let me help figure out where he’s going to go. Sally said they had a baby. We can start—”

“Listen, Carl, this is me staying calm, okay? This is me acknowledging it’s been a tough day for you. But I swear to God if the next word out of your mouth isn’t good-bye as you leave for the hospital then I will have you arrested.”

“But—”

Stevens winces as if he’s just been hurt. “That wasn’t a good-bye,” he says.

“Please—”

“Don’t test me on this, Carl. Like I said, this is me calm. In about five seconds I won’t be.”

“Joe will—”

“Fucking hell, you don’t get it, do you? Okay, we’ll do it your way.” He calls out into the hall for two men to come in. “Take him down to the station,” he says. “Sit him in an interrogation room and leave him there until—”

“Good-bye,” Schroder says.

Stevens stops talking. He looks at Schroder. His face is expressionless. He’s working away at a decision and Schroder stays still and silent as the superintendent makes it. He looks down for a few seconds. Then he looks back up. Stevens nods.

“Belay that,” he says to the two men, and tells them to go back into the hall. “Not one more word,” he says, then crouches behind Schroder and undoes the cuffs. Now it’s Schroder’s turn to wince as he brings his broken arm back in front of his body. He says nothing. He nods at Stevens, who nods back.

Schroder knows he needs to take the risk. He can’t imagine Stevens arresting him for his next request. But you never know.

“Can I have the syringe back?”

“No.”

“Can I at least get a glass of water?”

“Make it quick.”

He moves to the sink. Pours a glass of water and gulps it down. He keeps his back to Stevens the entire time. He grabs the tea towel with the gun inside and makes a show of drying off his hand, his back still to Stevens. He slips the gun into the sling and tucks it between his arm and chest. If Stevens sees it he knows he’ll go straight into a holding cell. But Stevens doesn’t see it. Then he makes his way down the hall and outside. Sally is being treated by a couple of paramedics. Hutton is talking to another detective. He throws Schroder an angry glance. Schroder gives him an apologetic smile, which doesn’t work.

The paramedic looking Sally over finishes up with her, and she’s escorted back into the house. “Let’s take a look at the arm,” the paramedic says. Schroder gives him a look. “Okay, climb in back and we’ll get you sorted.”

So Schroder climbs into the back. The ambulance doors are shut. He stares out the window at Sally’s house. But he’s not seeing the house. Instead he’s seeing Joe and Melissa and he’s thinking about what Sally said, about the reward money, and that makes him think of the fifty thousand dollars Joe earned from Jonas Jones.

The ambulance doesn’t start. The paramedic is outside chatting to somebody.

Schroder reaches into his pocket. He finds the business card for Kevin Wellington. He drags out his cell phone and dials the number.

Wellington answers.

“It’s Carl Schroder,” he says. “I need your help.”

“I’ve seen the news,” Wellington says. “So whatever you’re going to ask is covered by client-lawyer confidentially,” he says.

“Goddamn—”

“Hear me out,” he says. “Middleton is on the run and I didn’t become a lawyer to help bad people, I became one to stop bad things from happening. So I’ll answer anything you have to ask and in return you don’t tell anybody where you got your information from. I think that’s a pretty amazing deal under the circumstances. Agree?”

“Completely,” Schroder says. “Do you know where he might go? Anything like that?”

“No.”

“The fifty thousand dollars, has it been transferred?”

“Last night.”

“Which bank does Joe use?”

“The money didn’t go to him. It went into his mother’s account.”

“His mother’s?”

“Yeah. She’s a strange one, I’m telling you.”

Schroder has met her and he agrees. You can’t get much stranger. So Joe’s mother has the money. That means Joe will go to her to get it. Hutton said before the police were at her house and there was no sign of her. Joe might have contacted her already. She might be at the bank.

“What bank does she use? Which branch?” he asks, and the front door of the ambulance opens and closes and there’s a transference of weight and then the engine starts.

“She’s already drawn it out,” Wellington says. “She said on the phone that the money was a wedding present, and she was going to go in first thing this morning and draw it out in cash.”

“She just got married?” Schroder asks, and the ambulance is moving now. Sally’s house disappears, the cop cars appear, then some media vans and onlookers and then they break through. Hutton’s car appears. It’s parked where they left it with the doors still open. It must be Miracle Monday because it hasn’t been stolen.

“Getting married,” he says. “In fact it’s happening today.”

“Today?”