Jerry reaches out to pick up one of the bags.
“Don’t touch them,” Hans says. “Don’t get your prints on them.”
“Why not? The police are going to know I was here.”
“We don’t want them thinking you brought these things with you.”
“What are they?” Jerry asks, pulling his hands back.
“It’s hair.”
“What?”
“Hair,” Hans says, and Jerry can see it now, each of the four bags holding a little less hair than you’d find on a toy doll. “Four bags, four victims. He took jewelry to plant on you, and he took hair for himself. He probably found it more personal.”
“And the photographs?”
The photographs have all landed facedown. “Well that’s the best bit,” Hans says, and he flicks them over one at a time, like a blackjack dealer, each image worse than the other, not in terms of quality but quantity. Four photographs virtually the same, each showing four dead women. Except the last one shows Jerry Grey in the background, snoozing on the couch.
The horror at what these girls went through is too much for Jerry, and he finds he can’t speak. He moves to the edge of the bed and sits down just as his legs are beginning to give out. “Those poor girls,” he says, unable to keep the shock out of his voice.
“You didn’t do this,” Hans says.
“That doesn’t make what happened to them any less painful.”
“No, but it means you’re not responsible.”
“Not directly, no,” Jerry says.
“You want to explain that?”
“Eric killed them because I told him he had to write what he knows. He killed them because he knew he could get away with it by framing me. If I’d never gotten sick, if I were still at home and still had my old life, then I’d have never met Eric. Those girls would still be alive.”
“It doesn’t work that way. If it did, we’d all be responsible for everybody else’s actions all the time. Eric did this, not you. You didn’t hurt these girls, Eric did,” Hans says.
Together, Jerry thinks, they have just taken care of a serial killer.
“There is one small problem,” Hans adds, and any relief Jerry was starting to feel at not being a killer disappears, replaced by a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“What kind of problem?”
“The police are going to think you planted them here.”
Jerry doesn’t know what to say. Henry, on the other hand, knows. He’s absolutely right, but that doesn’t mean you should trust him. “But the photographs—”
“Could have been taken by you.”
“Not the last one.”
“Could have been taken with a self-timer.”
“The police will figure out when these photographs were printed, and where, and will see it was probably on Eric’s computer.”
“Which you’ve had access to,” Hans counters.
“Not for long, though.”
“They won’t know that. The police might think you’ve been here all day, after leaving the knife at the mall. Look, Jerry, in saying all of that, I think you’ll be okay. At the very least it will mean they’ll investigate him, right? They’re going to look into all the days those girls were killed, and they’re going to find a pattern. Maybe they’ll rip the place apart and find even more evidence. Maybe they’ll find some poor girl buried out in the garden. It could be the wife suspected something too, and she might talk. Could be this jewelry that belongs to the wife originally came from the girls.”
“But you believe me, right?”
“Of course I do, but I’m not the one who needs convincing. This guy has been exposed and taken care of because of you, not because of the police, and they’re not going to be too thrilled being made to look foolish by a crime writer dealing with Alzheimer’s. They’re going to look for any angle that could suggest your involvement. The flip side to that is you’ll be cleared, and once the media gets hold of the story, you’ll be a hero. The country won’t like a hero being convicted.”
“I’m not a monster,” Jerry says, and the relief is back . . . it’s back and it’s growing, it’s spreading its wings.
Hans is staring at him. He has that look he gets when he’s trying to figure something out.
“What?” Jerry asks.
“Let’s not forget the others,” Hans says.
“What others?”
“The others you’ve killed.”
Jerry thinks about Sandra, he remembers the florist, and Suzan with a z, whose real name is lost to him now. He looks down at the photographs, three of them representing women he has killed. Thoughts of his own innocence may have been premature.
“Is it possible I haven’t killed anybody?” Jerry asks.
“Two hours ago we dropped a man to his death,” Hans says.
“Other than him,” Jerry says.
“Possible? Anything is possible,” Hans says.
“Anything is possible,” Jerry says, letting the words hang in the air for a few seconds before chasing them with the reality. “But you think I did.”
“I’m sorry, buddy.”
“So now what?”
“Well I can keep looking around while you read the journal. Since he hid these,” Hans says, nodding towards the bags of hair and photographs, “then it stands to reason he might have hidden something else. It’s not uncommon for people to have more than one hiding space. Ultimately we—”
“That’s right! I haven’t told you yet, but I wrote in my journal that there is a second hiding place!” Jerry says.
Hans looks excited. “Where?”
“I didn’t say.”
“Well what did you say?”
“Just that there’s somewhere else. I think it’s where I used to hide my writing backups.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You need to remember, Jerry,” Hans says, sounding urgent. “And we need to head to your house and find it.”
“I need a drink.”
“Seriously?”
“Who knows when I’ll get another chance? Plus it might help me think.”
Hans slowly nods. “After all you’ve gone through today, you probably deserve one. Hell, I think we both do.”
They head out to the kitchen and Jerry leans against the bench while Hans goes through the cupboards. Hans finds a couple of glasses and sits them on the table, then starts going through the pantry. He finds what he’s looking for. Not quite what he’s looking for—there’s vodka, and no gin, but it will have to do. He grabs some ice from the freezer. There’s no tonic anywhere, so he ends up making a couple of vodka and orange drinks. They sit down at the table. All very social, Jerry thinks.
All very mad, Henry thinks.
“Why are you still wearing the gloves?” Jerry asks.
Don’t trust Hans.
“What do you mean?”
“With Eric being dead already, the police are going to figure out I’m involved.”
“That’s right.”
“And when they talk to me, they’re going to figure out you’re involved.”
“Not if you don’t tell them.”
“You don’t want them to know?”
“Of course not. I want to help you out, buddy, but I’d also really like to avoid jail too.”
“What if I forget that and tell them?”
“If you forget, you forget. But if you remember, and don’t drag me into it, then the police never need to know I was here. Look, Jerry, I know it’s not right of me to ask this, but I want you to take the fall for what happened to Eric. The police will go easy on you, and if they don’t . . .” Hans says, and doesn’t finish.
“If they don’t what?”
“You’re already a killer, mate. I’m just trying to help. I don’t want to be punished for trying to help you out.”
Jerry looks at his glass, then slowly sips from it. Not as good as a gin and tonic, but better than nothing. He sips a little more. It’s a fair point, he thinks, then tells Hans as such.
Hans starts sipping from his own drink. “You remember my dad’s funeral?” he asks.
Jerry looks up. He shakes his head. He wonders where Hans is going with this.