Every day since losing his job he’s still felt like a cop. It’s annoying. Every day for the first two weeks he woke up and wanted to put on the badge and ended up putting on sweatpants and a jacket and hung around the house all day helping his wife and being a better dad to his kids. Every night he went to sleep seeing the woman he shot and hating that he had to make that decision and knowing he’d make the same one again. The third week he worked. His new job doesn’t require him to shoot people.
This is now his second week on the job. The drive out to the prison is miserable. It was raining when he woke up, raining when he ate breakfast, raining when he got the phone call to come out here, and even though the forecast for tomorrow is supposed to be fine, he’s sure it’ll be raining then too. The window wipers make it all clear before the rain turns it back into a blur. There are paddocks full of cows standing in mud, sheep wearing drenched woolen jerseys, and still there are farmers out there making the circle of life happen, making food, making milk, making money, driving around in their tractors as the rain keeps on coming. The grass shoulders off the side of the road are flooded. Small shrubs are under water. Birds are flapping around in it. The window wipers are struggling to cope. Every few miles there are warning billboards about not driving tired, or speeding, or driving drunk. One says The faster you go the bigger the mess. Superman would disagree. The faster he went the more people he saved. He once went so fast he went back in time and fixed a lot of messes before they began. Christchurch needs somebody like him.
A truck coming toward him hits a flooded section of road, splashing water up over Schroder’s windshield—more than the wipers can immediately handle—so for two seconds he can’t see a thing, a scary two seconds when you’re driving blindly on a motorway. He puts his foot on the brake and slowly presses it down until the windscreen clears. When it does, the view doesn’t change. Just more rain, more gray sky.
He has the radio on as he drives. He’s listening to a national talk radio station. People are phoning in and the DJ is making conversation. It’s current events, and the current event people want to talk about is the death penalty. It’s been ongoing for the last few months. It’s the national debate. People are for it. Other people are against it. Emotions are strong. Those for it hate those against it. Same goes for the other side. There is no middle ground. No sitting on the fence. People can’t understand other people’s point of view. It’s dividing the country, dividing neighbors, dividing family and friends. Schroder, personally, he’s for it. He sees no problem dishing out a little of the same pain that killers have inflicted on this city. Half the people phoning in to the radio station share his opinion. Half don’t. Either way they want to be heard.
“It’s not about justice,” somebody says, a guy by the name of Stewart who is phoning in from Auckland, where, according to Stewart, the rain is of biblical proportions. “It’s about punishment,” he says, which is pretty biblical too, come to think of it.
It’s a twenty-minute drive to the prison that takes thirty-five in this weather. He hears a dozen different viewpoints. The DJ is trying to be impartial. Schroder could flick the dial and hear the same debate on about six other stations. The good news is that there is going to be a referendum. A vote is taking place. For the first time that Schroder can remember, the government is going to listen to the people. At least they are saying they will—after all, it’s an election year. The leading question to the prime minster and to those running against him is: Will the next government follow the will of the people? And the answer is yes. That means, technically, by the end of the year the death penalty could be back in place, if that’s what the people want. He wonders what direction that will take the country. Back into the dark ages? Or into a future where people aren’t killing each other as often?
Hard to know.
But depending on the vote, he may just get a chance to find out.
Joe Victim: A Thriller
Paul Cleave's books
- The Face of a Stranger
- The Dark Assassin
- Death of a Stranger
- Seven Dials
- The Whitechapel Conspiracy
- Anne Perry's Christmas Mysteries
- Funeral in Blue
- Defend and Betray
- Cain His Brother
- A Breach of Promise
- A Dangerous Mourning
- A Sudden Fearful Death
- Dark Places
- Angels Demons
- Digital Fortress
- After the Funeral
- The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding
- A Pocket Full of Rye
- A Murder is Announced
- A Caribbean Mystery
- Ordeal by Innocence
- Lord Edgware Dies
- A Stranger in the Mirror
- After the Darkness
- Are You Afraid of the Dark
- Master of the Game
- Nothing Lasts Forever
- Rage of Angels
- The Doomsday Conspiracy
- The Naked Face
- The Sands of Time
- The Stars Shine Down
- Pretty Little Liars #14
- Ruthless: A Pretty Little Liars Novel
- The Lying Game #6: Seven Minutes in Heaven
- True Lies: A Lying Game Novella
- Everything We Ever Wanted
- All the Things We Didn't Say
- Pretty Little Liars #15: Toxic
- Pretty Little Liars
- The Sacred Lies of Minnow Bly
- Homicide in Hardcover
- The Lies That Bind
- A Cookbook Conspiracy
- Charlie, Presumed Dead
- Manhattan Mayhem
- Ripped From the Pages
- Tangled Webs
- A Baby Before Dawn
- A Hidden Secret: A Kate Burkholder Short Story
- A Cry in the Night
- Breaking Silence
- Operation: Midnight Rendezvous
- Long Lost: A Kate Burkholder Short Story
- Pray for Silence
- The Dead Will Tell: A Kate Burkholder Novel
- Wherever Nina Lies
- Fear the Worst: A Thriller
- The Naturals, Book 2: Killer Instinct
- Never Saw It Coming
- Operation: Midnight Guardian
- Operation: Midnight Tango
- Operation: Midnight Escape
- Cut to the Bone: A Body Farm Novel
- Eve
- Nearly Gone
- Pretty Baby
- The Bone Thief: A Body Farm Novel-5
- Bones of Betrayal
- CARVED IN BONE
- Madonna and Corpse
- The Bone Yard
- The Breaking Point: A Body Farm Novel
- Bad Guys
- Bad Move (Zack Walker Series, Book One)
- Sin una palabra
- Stone Rain
- Broken Promise: A Thriller
- El accidente
- Bone Island 01 - Ghost Shadow
- Bone Island 02 - Ghost Night
- Bone Island 03 - Ghost Moon
- Deadly Gift
- Deadly Harvest
- Deadly Night
- The Dead Room
- The Death Dealer
- Unhallowed Ground
- The Night Is Alive
- The Night Is Watching
- A Grave Matter
- Alert: (Michael Bennett 8)
- In the Dark
- Mortal Arts (A Lady Darby Mystery)
- Picture Me Dead
- The Betrayed (Krewe of Hunters)
- The Dead Play On
- Breakdown
- Brush Back
- Critical Mass