Joe Victim: A Thriller

He leads her down a hallway where there are photographs of the kids, of his dead wife. There’s even a photograph of the house he used to live in. Melissa has been to that house. A year ago she killed Detective Calhoun in that house. Joe was there. It turned out there was a video camera there too. Joe really could be a tricky little bastard when he wanted to be.

“Have a seat,” he says, pointing to a couch beneath the window in the lounge, “and make it quick. I don’t want you going into labor and messing up the carpets.”

She isn’t sure if he’s joking, then decides he isn’t. She sits down. The fat suit has a hollow in the side of it, and inside that hollow is the pistol. She rubs at her stomach the way pregnant woman do, feeling the end of the silencer pushing against her hand. Walker sits down in the couch opposite. The furniture is new. All of it. The couches, the coffee table, the TV—none of it older than a year. Walker is creating a new life for himself. Only that life is a little disorganized. She has an angle to the hallway they came in and she can see the calendar is displaying last month’s month. The carpet needs vacuuming—there are chip crumbs resting in the top gap between the cushions of the couch. There are empty coffee cups on the table and about fifty times as many rings on it, as if no drink was ever put into the same place twice. Everything may be new looking, but it’s also tired looking. The same way Walker is tired looking.

“So,” he says. “What is this job you’re selling?”

“Your wife was murdered,” she says.

“Listen—”

“By Joe Middleton,” she says.

He starts to stand up. “If this is about—”

“He killed my sister,” she says.

He pauses halfway between sitting and standing. He looks like a man about to grab his back before having to lie on the floor for three days. She isn’t sure whether he’ll keep rising or if he’ll sit back down. Then he slowly lowers himself.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he says.

“My sister never hurt anybody,” she says. “She lived her life in a wheelchair.”

“I read about her,” he says. “It was . . . I mean, all of it was horrible, but what he did to her was, well, was something . . . extra bad,” he says, his voice becoming sympathetic.

“It was,” she says, and she read about the woman in the wheelchair too. She never met her, but her own sister was murdered so she can imagine how it feels. Right now she is being relatable. It’s going well.

“Listen, I know you’re hurting,” Walker says, “but I’m not in the right space to come along to your group-counseling session, I’ve already told you that. I appreciate the offer, just like I appreciated it last time, but—”

“I’m going to kill him,” she says.

He stares at her and says nothing. The couch is uncomfortable. There are kids’ toys around the room, helping to mess up the floor and the rest of the furniture, and this is why she never wanted kids. They take up space and they take up time. They might be good for reaching under the couch for loose change, but beyond that all they do is give a room really bad feng shui. She holds back a yawn and rubs her stomach and carries on.

“You’re not here from the group?” he asks.

“I want you to help.”

“Help?”

“I want you to shoot him.”

He cocks his head slightly. “Why don’t you shoot him?”

“Because I’m in no condition to shoot anybody. Look at me,” she says. “And because it’s a two-person plan.”

He looks at her. “Just how are you planning on shooting Joe? Walking into the prison and asking if you can see him in his cell?”

“No.”

“Then what? Shooting him in the courtroom next week?”

“It’s not that either. It’s simpler than that. I already have a gun.”

“Listen—”

“Wait,” she says, and she holds up her hand. “You want him dead for what he did, don’t you?”

There is no delay in his answer. “Of course I do.”

“And don’t you want to be the one to make that happen?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can give you that. I can help you make him suffer,” she says, “and I can give you this.” She opens up the briefcase and turns it toward him.

“How much is in there?” he asks.

“Ten thousand dollars.”

“Is that what it’s worth? To kill somebody?”

“This, this is just money,” she says. “The payoff is in the satisfaction. He murdered your wife,” she tells him. “He broke into her house and he ripped off her clothes and he—”

“Stop,” he says, and he lifts up his hand. “Stop. I know what he did.”

“Don’t you feel it?” she asks. “It’s like a heat. It races around your body—this heat, this need, this desire for revenge. It burns inside you. Keeps you awake at night with bad thoughts. It runs your life and ruins your life and it doesn’t get better.”

“I feel it,” he says. “Of course I feel it.”

“I wake up at night sweating and shaking, and all I can think about is wanting to kill him. And we can do it,” she says. “Together we can do it and nobody will know it was us.”