Hollow Man (24 page)

“That I'm spending a few nights with my girlfriend. You know, the truth.”

She thought about it for a moment. “I don't know, letting you go back into a closed environment with—”

“Look, if he's that dangerous, why don't you just arrest him?”

“We're not there yet. We have enough for a search warrant, but I'm not ready to arrest him.”

“So execute the search warrant. While you guys are in there, I'll pack and go.”

She looked at her watch. “It's being prepared as we speak. Funnily enough, we're having trouble getting hold of a prosecutor to review it before we show it to a judge. And no, Dominic, you're a witness for this case, not a prosecutor, so you can't review it.”

“So what, a couple more hours?”

“Yep, no more than that.”

“We could go hang out at your place.”

“Jesus, you don't quit, do you?”

“Then take me back. I'm not in danger and I'm not hanging around here until you've finished your bloody paperwork.”

She acquiesced with a tilt of her head, and I followed her down the hallway and out of the building.

As we got into her car, she said, “But I'm waiting until you come out. And I'll give you my number, just text ‘911' to me, or call me, if he so much as looks at you funny.”

“If he's not there, can I call you in for a cup of tea?”

I walked into the apartment to find Tristan locked in his room, as usual. I heard him moving about, the sound of music seeping into the living room, and I stood there for a moment, watching his door. He had no idea I was there, no clue that the police were lining up all the right paperwork so they could kick their way in and help themselves to his stuff. He had no idea, either, that the cops had concluded that he was trying to frame me.

I went into my room and looked through my things. One final check before the cops nosed through them, just to make sure everything was where it should be. I looked at my gun, my lovely Smith & Wesson that I'd tucked at the back of my bottom dresser drawer. I wanted to take it out, touch it, because I missed carrying. I knew I couldn't, not yet, anyway. I tidied a little and took out a piece of paper I didn't want anymore, crumpling it into my pocket for later disposal. I packed a couple of days' clothing, work and home stuff, then slung the bag over my shoulder.

I knocked on Tristan's door and called his name. He opened the door.

“Oh, hey,” he said.

“Hey. Going to head out in a few, just checking in. All okay?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

I saw the trashcan just inside his door and pulled out the scrunched-up ball of paper. “You mind? Mine's full.”

He shrugged. “Go ahead.”

I tossed it in and then headed down the hall to the living room.
He must have noticed my bag because he followed me and asked, “Going somewhere?”

“Yep. Gonna spend a few days with my special lady.”

“Ah.” I could tell he wasn't sure whether to believe me. For my part, I was deciding whether to give him one last chance to make it. He was so clueless and in so much danger, like a blind man standing near the edge of a cliff, enjoying the air. Maybe a baby antelope wandering under a leopard's tree. Looking at him, I remembered another lesson from my childhood, one about giving our targets a sporting chance, and I resisted a smile as I mentally transposed his head onto the body of a low-flying pheasant. Giving him an option seemed like the decent thing to do.

“You should pack a bag, too,” I said.

“Why?”

“I just spent the afternoon with the police. They know you're involved in the murders.”

His eyes widened. “What? You're joking. Fuck, Dom, that's not fun—”

“I'm not joking. They're preparing a search warrant right now. You probably have an hour or two.”

“What? How's that possible?”

“They're the police. It's what they do. And they know you're responsible.”

“Me? You, too.”

“No. Just you, actually. So you might want to pack that bag pretty quickly, assuming you can avoid the cops in the parking lot who're watching this place.”

He stared at me for a moment. “You cut a deal?”

“No, not at all. I just had nothing to do with it, and the cops know that. They also know, by the way, that you're trying to frame me.”

“What?” he gasped. His face was a kaleidoscope of confusion, his head shaking, eyes wide one minute, narrowed the next, and his cheeks coloring and then blanching by the second. He felt his way to the sofa and perched on the arm.

“Yeah, I'm afraid so. They got a call, someone saw you and your car at the scene and called it in. ‘Anonymous tipster,' I think they call them.”

“But…but…you were there, too. It was
your
car.”

“Nope, they saw one person and even gave the license plate.”

“How's that possible?” He shook his head, still trying to figure it out. “Who? Who called?”

“Like I said, an anonymous tipster.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“I'm just saying.” I cleared my throat and hoped he was catching up. I wanted him to get there while I was explaining why he was going to prison, why he deserved to go to prison. And not for the murder. “Your secret little drawer in there. The one you keep locked.”

His head snapped up, but he said nothing.

“Things aren't looking good, and maybe it won't make any difference, but you might want to do a better job of hiding that shit. I'm told pedophiles don't do well in prison, though it's possible things are different on death row. And by different, I mean there are more murderers around.”

“I'm not a pedophile.”

“Yes, you are. I saw your stash of pictures, and I may not have any kids, but I recognize children when I see them. Especially when some of them are in diapers.”

“That's not…I'm not…”

“Things happen in threes, Tristan. You're the third pedophile I've known, and you might want to bear in mind that the other two wound up dead.” I shrugged. “You might too, of course, but you're white and middle-class, so I doubt it. Especially in Austin.”

“You turned me in because I'm…because of those pictures?” He was getting there and his eyes flicked from side to side as he put the pieces together. “Otto?”

“Otto's still dead.”

“Jesus. You killed him.” I didn't respond to that. “Are they really coming here?” he asked.

“The police? Yes. They've been watching you since they connected your car to the crime scene. One car is out there now, plus the cop who brought me here from the police station. You can probably make it out the back way, through the laundry room.”

“There's no back door in the laundry room.”

“Come on, Tristan, you're a fucking idiot. The police are coming to arrest you for capital murder. Which you committed, by the way. The laundry room has a big fucking window, so you can pack your shit and squeeze your skinny body through that. Use your imagination.”

For an empath, he wasn't as freaked out as I expected him to be, and it was pissing me off. Of course, maybe he was so freaked out he was paralyzed. Either way, his self-preservation instincts were crap.

“If they catch me,” he said. “I'll just turn you in, you know that, right?”

Ah, he still thinks we're in this together.
“Dear chap, listen to me. The cops know I didn't have anything to do with it. They believe you've been trying to frame me. So if you start telling them I'm involved, that just strengthens their theory. The more you protest that I had something to do with it, the more in the clear I am.”

“How? How did you—?”

“Plus I have an alibi.”

“An alibi?”

“You don't recall all the wild, kinky sex I was having that night?”

He nodded slowly as he remembered. “Yeah. But that was later, after we got back.”

“Two things about that. First, neither the police nor our neighbor have a good timeline. Second, I have a witness who says she was with me all evening, as well as all night, doing rude things to each other. You remember our neighbor, how mad he was?”

He stared at me. “Why are you doing this? This is evil.”

“Right, and fucking kids is a harmless pastime.”

“I didn't do anything to you. I gave you a room, a place to live.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I treated you like a friend, I never did
anything to you. Now I'm going to die, in prison or in…in an execution chamber. A fucking needle in my arm. All because of you.”

“Grow up, Tristan. You'd fuck a little baby if you had the chance. And you're the one who pushed yourself into this thing. You remember that?”

“But I never wanted anyone to get hurt.” He rose. “You, you're the one who shot someone. I'll tell them that. I'll fucking tell them everything, and yeah, maybe I'll go to prison, but so will you. No way you're getting away with this, no fucking way.”

“Relax, you're sounding like a Scooby Doo movie. I already got away with it.”

His mouth opened and closed and I knew he was looking for something, some tiny foothold, not even so he could get himself out of trouble. So he could get one up on me.

“The money,” he said. “All this, all this shit, this killing, this planning, you evil fucker, and someone else stole your money.” He smiled and his eyes gleamed like a crazy person's. “The fucking money. You think you're so smart, but some asshole took your money, and you've done all this for nothing. I may rot in prison, but you'll have that on your conscience and not a penny of that money.”

I hesitated because I realized at that moment that he was right about something, that after all, the money was the fulcrum of this little jaunt. Not just the motivation, that's obvious. But even afterward, when two people had been killed, the money was what we focused on. We even made a risky trip to get it, placing ourselves in huge danger. The excitement, the terror, the death, the risks, all revolved around our desire for the money. And if he knew that I had it, he'd lose his mind.

So I told him.

“You ever see the movie
The Sting
?”

His eyes narrowed for the tenth time that afternoon. “What?”

“The movie with Robert Redford.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It's a very old trick, Tristan. And I'm telling you because I don't want you to think all this was for nothing.”

“Telling me what?”

“You remember how I put the bags of money in the trunk? Then I went back and took them out, and buried them. Remember that?” He nodded so I went on. “You never looked in the trunk, did you?”

“Why would I?”

“Right, why would you? Great point. But if you had, you'd have seen
four
camo bags. The two I brought to the trailer park stuffed with paper, and the two with money. Now, guess which ones I took out to the woods?”

“Oh, no. Oh my God.”

“And guess which ones were in the trunk of the car when we came back here?”

“The money,” he whispered.

“So yeah, I have the money. All of it.”

I could see the wheels turning in his head, the cogs clicking into place as he searched for a hole in my plan and didn't find one. His breathing quickened as the panic rose in him, but then he looked at me, a glimmer of hope, or at least doubt, in his eyes. “The camera from the woods. Was there ever really a camera?”

“Yes, actually, I had to do the surveillance. That was my one risk, an unavoidable one. When I left the bags, I took it down and threw it into the trees, after wiping my prints off it, of course. Someone must have found it and sold it, like we saw.” I gave him a cold smile. “Of course, that whole business following the schmuck who was selling it, that was just for show. A fun expedition with no downside and a good way to keep you guys busy.”

“That guy never had the money, any of it.”

“Nope. I did. All of it.”

Tristan looked at me and his spine seemed to stiffen. The air between us crackled for a second, and then he rushed me. He covered the five feet between us in a flash, and I barely had time to hit the
right button on my phone. I'd planned on him losing it, so I had “911” typed in. When that anger flashed in his eyes and his skinny little body flexed taut and hurtled toward me, I pressed
Send
. He hit me head on and we both went to the ground. My phone skittered away but I didn't care. I was too busy trying to stop him hitting me. He was a man possessed, swinging his fists at my face and my body, spittle streaming from his mouth and spattering me as he cursed and yelled, a hatred so intense that I was caught off guard. My rages burn cold and lingering, my revenge is always deliberate and emotionless, whereas this was a passion I'd not seen in any human, ever. For a moment, the sparest of seconds, I felt envy that one man could feel so much, so deeply and, even though it was anger, I resented him for it because I knew I'd never feel it, that my body would never explode with the passion of rage, horror, agony. Or love. This scrawny little fucker about to spend the rest of his life getting raped and bullied by inmate thugs had something I'd never had, and never would have. And to punish myself for that, I let him hit me, my forearms acting like shields but letting in his fierce punches, softening but not ending the pain from his sharp little fists.

And then Ledsome and two detectives were there, pulling him off me, screaming at him that he was under arrest, driving him to the floor with knees in his back and his wrists pinned between his shoulder blades. He was in pain now, wailing and crying, his feet kicking at the floor, but in despair, not in any real attempt to be free. He knew it was over, and I wiped the blood from my nose as I watched him, knowing why he'd chosen to attack me instead of escape, to hurt me rather than save himself. Because of the money.

In seconds he was handcuffed and lying still on the floor, crying quietly and moaning the occasional phrase that neither the cops nor I listened to. Ledsome still had one knee in the small of his back.

“Are you okay?” she asked me.

“Yeah, fine. I'm fine.”

“What the fuck happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, everything was fine, I was getting my stuff, then he came out. I think, I don't know, but I think he knew you guys were coming. He must have.”

“How could he know that?”

“I have no idea. I mean, he works at the DA's office and is a computer geek; maybe he hacked into something. I don't know. Maybe he saw these guys out in the parking lot and guessed. Anyway, I was getting my stuff together, and I opened my bottom drawer to get some trousers. In the back corner was my gun.”