Joe Victim: A Thriller

Then why did you ask me?

It doesn’t matter, she said. All that matters is I miss him. I miss having a man around the house. Things tend to be let go. She lowered the crossbow. I wondered how far through the floor it’d go if she pulled the trigger. It was more relaxing than wondering how far it would have gone through me. How much money have you got there, Joe?

I don’t know.

Count it.

I counted the money. I had to count it twice because I was nervous and messed up the first attempt. I had grabbed all the notes, but left all the coins. I had three hundred and ten dollars. It was a good amount. I figured I could get through most of the school year with that amount.

That means you owe me three hundred and ten dollars’ worth of work. There’s plenty of things around here that need taking care of. The house hasn’t seen fresh paint in ten years. The vegetable garden out back is a jungle. You’ll come here when I need you and you won’t ever say no to me. Ever. Do you understand me, Joe? You help me, and I help you by not telling your parents I caught you here. Deal?

I have to work off three hundred and ten dollars, I said. That’s what? A few weeks’ worth of work?

No, Joe, it’s worked off when I say it’s worked off. I have to figure out an hourly rate. It might be five dollars an hour. It might be one dollar an hour. I’ll let you know when everything is done that I want done. Of course it’s up to you. We can run with the alternative and I can phone the police right now and see where that leads.

I couldn’t see any other option. Mowing lawns and painting walls were going to make up my immediate future—and they did. So would the Big Bang—only I didn’t know it then. At least she didn’t emasculate me by having a poodle I would need to walk and clean up after.

I suppose so, I answered.

You suppose so? You need to sound a little more enthusiastic than that.

It’s a deal. I said, trying to put some heart into it.

Good. Lock the door behind you on your way out, Joe, and I’ll call you on the weekend.

I didn’t move. I understood everything she had said, but I still felt unsure about it. I can go?

You can go.

Umm . . . thank you, I said, unsure what else I could have said.

“And then I left,” I tell my psychiatrist, having just relived the whole scene with my auntie for her.

Ali has a puzzled look on her face. “That’s it?” she asks. “That’s the traumatic experience you had when you were sixteen? Almost getting shot by your auntie?”

“That was only the start of it,” I tell her.

“Then what?”

Before I can answer, there’s a knock on the door, and a moment later a prison guard, one I haven’t seen before, comes in.

“You’ve got a visitor,” he says.

“I know,” I answer, shaking my head at his stupidity. “She’s sitting opposite me.”

“No, not her, another visitor.” Then he looks at Ali. “I’m sorry ma’am, but you’re welcome to wait here—should only be fifteen minutes.”

“That’s fine,” she says.

The guard uncuffs me from the chair and I behave just like any model citizen would behave. He escorts me down the hall. I’ve already figured out who I must be going to see, so when I’m put into another room and sit down opposite the former detective, I already know what it is I’m going to say.





Chapter Twenty-Seven


He hates being here. In many ways, Schroder knows he’s lucky, damn lucky, not to be an actual guest of the prison. The last case he worked got about as bad as it could have gotten. He and his partner, Tate, were forced to make a decision. A guy was starting to cut up a little girl. He gave them an option. Do his bidding, or the cutting would continue. He’d already cut that little girl’s finger off, and there would be more. That’s where the old lady that Schroder killed came into it. That was the guy’s bidding.

The crime was covered up. If it hadn’t been, he’d be in here, probably in the same damn cell group as Joe. He’d know a lot of people too. Others he’d arrested. Santa Suit Kenny is one of his. Edward Hunter. Caleb Cole. There are others too who would love the chance to see him every day in here. He would be joining them for fifteen years.