Joe Victim: A Thriller

Melissa is tired and excited and nervous. It’s not a good combination. It’s been a long day, albeit a good day, and she did manage to get some nap time a few hours ago. She’s been trying to relax since getting home after stashing the gun back in the office ceiling. Her house isn’t in the middle of nowhere, but her nearest neighbors are a two-minute walk away and she’s never seen them. It’s nice and private and she prepaid her rent the same way she prepaid her gardener. When she stopped being Natalie and became Melissa, she cleaned out her bank accounts. She has cleaned out bank accounts of others since then too. It’s how she survives.

The day has gone now, as has the heat, and what’s left is a cold winter evening of the type nobody in their right mind could enjoy. Her shoulder is hurting too from all of that gun use this morning and she wanted to pop some painkillers and anti-inflammatories, but decided against it.

She left the van she hired earlier parked in the driveway rather than putting it into the adjoining garage. She paid for the van in cash and used a fake ID and took out insurance on it not because she needed it, but because that’s what most people did, and she wanted to be considered part of the most-people culture.

The van is important.

She locks the house behind her and walks to the van, tightening her jacket around her. It takes two minutes for the van to warm up, by which point she’s tightened her jacket so much it’s almost strangling her. The windshield is frosted over. Everything is frosted over. It’s a still evening. No wind. No clouds. Cold, but perfect shooting conditions.

She turns on the wipers and tries to use the jets to spray water onto the windshield, but the jets are blocked. The wipers don’t help, they just swish back and forth over the thin ice. The heater warms up the windshield and then the wipers start tearing at the ice. A few minutes later she can see.

There are a few other cars around. Not many. She turns on the radio to break the monotony of the van engine. Like she knew there would be, a radio DJ is talking about the day’s events, and those that will follow tomorrow, and perhaps later this year. A body—most likely to be that of Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun—has been found. Found by a psychic, of all people. She finds that hard to believe. Impossible to believe, and wonders what the real truth is and suspects Joe may have played a hand in giving up the location. If so, for what? Something to do with the trial, no doubt.

“And of course tomorrow is the big day, ladies and gentlemen,” so the DJ tells her and anybody else who’s listening. “Tomorrow the trial of Joe Middleton begins. The Christchurch Carver. The man for whom the death penalty is being voted on.” She’s expecting the DJ to open up the lines to callers from around the country to give their views on the death penalty, but he doesn’t, not that that matters because she, like everybody else, has heard them all before. Everybody thinks that it’s a dividing issue, that you’re either strongly for it or strongly against it. She doesn’t care one way or the other.

It takes her fifteen minutes to get to the house she wants, the van warming up early in the drive. She rubs her hands together. Warms up her fingers and grabs her handgun. It’s an okay neighborhood. Not great. Not cheap. Just okay. The kind of place people living by themselves tend to flock to. Two-bedroom dwellings, small yards, not old, not modern, but okay—heaven for people who are in love with all things bland. TVs are glowing from behind windows, lights are on in lounges and bedrooms, but otherwise there are no signs of life, other than a couple of cats sitting at opposite ends of a fence. Last time she was here was three months ago. It was warmer. A lot warmer. She made a mess. A big mess. There was blood and tearing flesh and crying. A lot of crying. Through it all she knew that she would be back here tonight.

She parks the van out on the street and locks the door and knows the entire plan will fall apart if somebody steals her ride. She walks up the path. The garden is neat and tidy. There are the legs of a garden gnome and no body, just jagged edges where the body used to be attached. Out there other gnomes are suffering the loss. There are lights on inside the house. She can see patterns of moving colors from a TV behind the curtain. She climbs up the step and holds her finger on the bell for half a second. She doesn’t have to wait long before the footsteps come toward her.

Melissa holds the gun down by her side, just slightly out of view.