Joe Victim: A Thriller

“So you’ve been saying. So how about you tell me about the first time you suspected that you’d hurt somebody.”


“Well, that would be when the police came and arrested me.”

She slowly nods. Looks down at her hands. Makes a note. “So you’re telling me you never woke up covered in blood? See, the problem we’re facing here, Joe,” she says, and I like the way she thinks we’re facing the problem and not just me, it makes me feel like I’m part of a team, “is that if you don’t remember any of it, why were you carrying a gun? Why did you try to end your life when the police surrounded you?”

“Well, that’s tricky,” I tell her, “and also a good point,” I say, and I make out I haven’t heard her ask this already. “I mean, I remember the police coming and getting me, and I know I got hurt pretty bad, but I don’t remember trying to shoot myself, and I certainly don’t remember ever owning a gun.”

“The gun belonged to Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun.”

“So I’ve been told. I just don’t remember any of it.”

“Okay, Joe,” she says. “You want to stick with that story?”

It’s the story I’ve been sticking with, and changing it now would make me look like an idiot. “Yes.”

She nods. She accepts my story. Then she stands up. “We’re done here, Joe,” she says, and she knocks on the door and I know all I have to do is say the right thing and she’ll stay.

“There was one time when—”

She puts her hands out to stop me. “I don’t want to hear something you’re making up on the spot, Joe. But I’ll come back tomorrow. And that will be your final chance.”





Chapter Thirty-Seven


I’ve been back in my cell, lying down, staring at the door, waiting for Caleb Cole to show up, trying to decide what I’m going to do when he does. The timing of it all is pretty unlucky, but maybe that’s just how I roll. I may be a bad-thoughts kind of guy, but also an unlucky kind of guy too—my surroundings are proof of that. All I have to do is make it through to this evening. That’s all. Then I’m out of here. Caleb Cole, the prison guards, Santa Suit Kenny, they can all go to Hell.

I don’t have anything to defend myself with. I’m not sure whether or not I’d be safer in the common area or whether that would just make it harder for the guards to get to me if I start screaming. Every time I hear footsteps I tense up.

“You missed shower time,” Adam says, stepping into my cell. I relax when it’s him and not Cole.

“I don’t need a shower.”

“Yeah, you do,” he says. “You stink. And I hear you’re going on some kind of field trip later on today, and the people you’re going with don’t want you stinking up their car.”

He leads me out of my cell. My neighbors are sitting in groups or pairs shooting the breeze, only a few of them are alone. I can’t see Cole and figure he must be in his cell, probably filing down a toothbrush. Adam leads me down to the showers. He opens the door and there’s nobody else in there. The door closes behind me, then it’s just him and me and a really bad feeling. I turn to face him.

“You heard the saying that life is a shit sandwich?” he asks me.

I don’t answer him.

He nods toward a bench where there are towels folded and half-used cakes of soap. Sitting on the closest towel is a paper bag. “Pick it up,” he says.

I back away from the bag. He reaches out and grabs my collar and pulls me forward so my face is only a few inches from his and I can smell onion on his breath.

“You owe me, Middleton,” he says. “Remember? For the phone call. This was the deal.”

“I’m not playing.”

He lets go and pushes me back slightly. Then he reaches out with his left hand and points at the wall. I turn my head to see what he’s looking at, then suddenly his other fist connects with my stomach. I double over, my breath knocked out of me, then he pushes me onto the floor where there are still a few footstep-sized puddles of water from the previous group who cleaned up here. I end up sitting on my ass and the water soaks into my jumpsuit and underwear.