Joe Victim: A Thriller

He reaches the house. The van has been reversed into the driveway and it’s easy to see the front is empty. Kent’s gun is back in his hand. The back doors of the van are open and he comes around the side of it and peers in and it’s empty too, except for some blood on the wall. Hutton is only a house away now, but he’s stopped running. Not because of the strain on his body, but because to catch Schroder now would be to create a confrontation. Still there are no sounds of sirens in the distance. Either they’re late, caught in traffic, or are running silent.

The house is a single-story dwelling with weatherboard walls and a concrete tile roof. The garden is tidy and looked after but uninspiring. There’s a headless garden gnome by the step to the front door. The front door is closed. Schroder peers through the window and can see into the lounge. There’s nobody in there. He ducks down and listens for any sound, but there’s nothing. He moves to the side of the house and looks through another window into the same room and gets the same view, but from a different angle. Next window looks into the kitchen. Small but tidy. He tries the back door. It rattles, but it’s locked. He puts the side of his face against it and listens. Nothing. No movement inside. No sirens approaching from the street. No sign of Hutton. Further around the house and now he’s looking into the bedroom window. There’s a body on the floor. It’s Sally. She’s face down. He can’t tell whether she’s dead or alive, but knows what he’d put his money on. The bed has blood on it. There are medical supplies scattered around the room. Some bloody clothes. A paramedic uniform. Joe and Melissa are gone, probably in Sally’s car.

He moves to the front door. He tries it. It’s unlocked. He pushes it open and moves into the bedroom, the gun pointing ahead. He crouches down next to Sally and has to put the gun on the floor so he can put two fingers on her neck. He looks for a pulse and finds one, steady and strong. He rolls her onto her back. There’s a big bruise on the side of her forehead and some blood.

“Sally,” he says, shaking her a little with his good arm. He wonders why they let her live. He wonders how Melissa and Joe go about putting a value on human life. “Sally?”

Sally doesn’t stir. So he slaps her slightly on the side of the face, and then a little harder. “Come on, Sally, it’s important.”

Sally doesn’t seem to think so. He moves into the kitchen. He finds a bucket beneath the sink. He fills it up with cold water. He thinks about the gun and knows what’s going to happen within the next few minutes. He takes it out and wraps it in a tea towel and sets it on the counter near the sink. He carries the water back into the bedroom. His arm is starting to wake up.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, and then he pours it over her face. She wakes up a quarter of the way into it, starts sputtering, and by the end she’s rolled onto her side and is coughing.

“Sally,” he says, and he crouches down next to her.

“Detective Inspector Schroder?” she says.

“You’re safe now,” he tells her.

“Where are they?” she asks. “Have you arrested them?”

“No,” he says. “Please, Sally, tell me what happened. Did they say where they are going? Do you still have your car? Did they take it?”

“The woman, Melissa, she came here last night,” she says. “She threatened to shoot me. She tied me up and used my uniform and took my ID card. Then she left this morning and came back with Joe. He’d been shot. They made me help him. I thought . . . I thought they were going to shoot me.”

“You’re safe now,” he tells her again. “What did they say? Do you know where they’re going?”

She shakes her head, then quickly puts one hand on the side of it and closes her eyes, the movement enough to bring her close to passing out. He helps her up so she can sit on the bed. Okay, his arm is really starting to hurt now. He pulls out the second of his three syringes.

“What are you doing?” Sally asks.

“Don’t worry, it’s not for you,” he says, and plunges the needle into his arm.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” she says.

“Tell me what happened here,” he says, and puts the cap on the syringe and dumps it on the floor. The numbness in his arm begins to return.

“They had a baby,” Sally says.

“What?”

“Not with them,” she says. “But . . . but Melissa made me help.”

“Wait. She had the baby last night?”

Sally shakes her head. “Three months ago. She came here and—”

“And you didn’t tell us?”

“I couldn’t,” Sally says, looking down.

“Why the hell not?”

She starts to cry. And she tells him why. He should be more sympathetic than he is, but all he can feel is the anger and frustration. People have died. Cops have died. She should have come to them. They could have done something with that information. They could have caught Melissa and the baby would have been safe.

“Tell me about today,” he says. “How bad was the wound?”

“He was shot in the shoulder. The bullet went right through.”

“And you’re sure neither of them said anything that might help?”