“At both,” I say.
“Uh huh. Okay, what happened next?”
“My aunt asked me what my parents would say if she told them,” I say, and as the words come out I travel back in time again, back to that moment leading up to what I would later think of as the Big Bang. My aunt’s exact words were What would your parents say if I told them? She didn’t say when I tell them, but if I tell them.
They’ll hate me for it, I told my aunt. And maybe they’ll want to kick me out. I didn’t think they would, but I wanted my aunt to feel sorry for me.
They probably would, she said, and yet she still didn’t lower the crossbow. Are you armed, Joe? she asked.
No.
Have you ever been with a woman, Joe?
What?
A woman. Have you ever made love to a woman?
I’m only sixteen, I told her.
That doesn’t mean anything, she told me. Every TV show on these days has teenagers screwing. It’s what soap operas are becoming about. They’ve gone from adult story lines to children story lines, giving the children adult lives. Forty years ago they were about differences between people, struggling to run pubs and businesses; these days it’s all about fucking. Do you know how long your Uncle Neville has been dead?
Have you forgotten? I asked.
No. No, of course I haven’t forgotten. He’s been gone six years now.
Then why did you ask me?
It doesn’t matter, she said. All that matters is I miss him. I miss having a man around the house. Things tend to be let go. She lowered the crossbow. I wondered how far through the floor it’d go if she pulled the trigger. It was more relaxing than wondering how far it would have gone through me. How much money have you got there, Joe?
I don’t know.
Count it.
I counted the money. I had to count it twice because I was nervous and messed up the first attempt. I had grabbed all the notes, but left all the coins. I had three hundred and ten dollars. It was a good amount. I figured I could get through most of the school year with that amount.
That means you owe me three hundred and ten dollars’ worth of work. There’s plenty of things around here that need taking care of. The house hasn’t seen fresh paint in ten years. The vegetable garden out back is a jungle. You’ll come here when I need you and you won’t ever say no to me. Ever. Do you understand me, Joe? You help me, and I help you by not telling your parents I caught you here. Deal?
I have to work off three hundred and ten dollars, I said. That’s what? A few weeks’ worth of work?
No, Joe, it’s worked off when I say it’s worked off. I have to figure out an hourly rate. It might be five dollars an hour. It might be one dollar an hour. I’ll let you know when everything is done that I want done. Of course it’s up to you. We can run with the alternative and I can phone the police right now and see where that leads.
I couldn’t see any other option. Mowing lawns and painting walls were going to make up my immediate future—and they did. So would the Big Bang—only I didn’t know it then. At least she didn’t emasculate me by having a poodle I would need to walk and clean up after.
I suppose so, I answered.
You suppose so? You need to sound a little more enthusiastic than that.
It’s a deal. I said, trying to put some heart into it.
Good. Lock the door behind you on your way out, Joe, and I’ll call you on the weekend.
I didn’t move. I understood everything she had said, but I still felt unsure about it. I can go?
You can go.
Umm . . . thank you, I said, unsure what else I could have said.
“And then I left,” I tell my psychiatrist, having just relived the whole scene with my auntie for her.
Ali has a puzzled look on her face. “That’s it?” she asks. “That’s the traumatic experience you had when you were sixteen? Almost getting shot by your auntie?”
“That was only the start of it,” I tell her.
“Then what?”
Before I can answer, there’s a knock on the door, and a moment later a prison guard, one I haven’t seen before, comes in.
“You’ve got a visitor,” he says.
“I know,” I answer, shaking my head at his stupidity. “She’s sitting opposite me.”
“No, not her, another visitor.” Then he looks at Ali. “I’m sorry ma’am, but you’re welcome to wait here—should only be fifteen minutes.”
“That’s fine,” she says.
The guard uncuffs me from the chair and I behave just like any model citizen would behave. He escorts me down the hall. I’ve already figured out who I must be going to see, so when I’m put into another room and sit down opposite the former detective, I already know what it is I’m going to say.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
He hates being here. In many ways, Schroder knows he’s lucky, damn lucky, not to be an actual guest of the prison. The last case he worked got about as bad as it could have gotten. He and his partner, Tate, were forced to make a decision. A guy was starting to cut up a little girl. He gave them an option. Do his bidding, or the cutting would continue. He’d already cut that little girl’s finger off, and there would be more. That’s where the old lady that Schroder killed came into it. That was the guy’s bidding.
The crime was covered up. If it hadn’t been, he’d be in here, probably in the same damn cell group as Joe. He’d know a lot of people too. Others he’d arrested. Santa Suit Kenny is one of his. Edward Hunter. Caleb Cole. There are others too who would love the chance to see him every day in here. He would be joining them for fifteen years.
Only a few people know what Schroder really did. Theodore Tate. A few other cops. And Caleb Cole, because Cole is the person who made him shoot that woman. There are two things Schroder is counting on. First, nobody would believe Cole if he told them what really happened. Second, Cole agreed to keep his mouth shut in order to stay out of general population. Cole had spent fifteen years in general population and it had not gone well for him. He would do anything to stop going back. Plus Cole has a somewhat fucked-up moral system, a real sense of what’s right and wrong. Making Schroder kill that old woman was right. Talking about it was wrong. Cole had wanted that woman to pay, and Schroder had made that happen. So Cole was indebted to him. In some weird way.
Schroder stands while he waits. He’s tired. His baby boy woke up every two hours, and his daughter crept down into their room around three a.m. for cuddles. Before he had kids, he never thought it possible to like them. Sometimes, like last night, he sees he was right in thinking that.
Joe is finally brought in. He doesn’t look healthy. Not many people in jail do. He can still remember last year when the Carver investigation was wrapping up. He was also dealing with another case that involved Theodore Tate and a bunch of corpses found in a lake at the cemetery, and he was dealing with being a dad. When the pieces all fell together at the end in the Carver case, he simply couldn’t believe it. He felt sick. Betrayed. For a few minutes he refused what the evidence was telling him. They all did. Joe Middleton wasn’t a killer. He couldn’t be. There was a mistake. Only there was no mistake. Not only could Joe Middleton be their guy, he was their guy.