The Border: The Complete Series (24 page)

Part Four

Nine years ago

“Absolutely, Sir,” Jack said, remembering to keep his back straight and his shoulders firm as he stood in Mac's office. His father had drilled him on his posture, and he damn well wasn't going to slouch. “You can count on me, I won't let you down.”

“You won't, huh?” Sighing, Mac leaned across the desk and picked up a small white envelope, from which he slid a laminated card. “Get that rod out of your ass, boy, you're not in the goddamn army. This is a newspaper in a dusty little town in the back-end of nowhere. As long as you bring me some decent copy for each edition, that's all that matters, you hear me?”

“I've always been passionate about journalism,” Jack replied.

“Did you read that in a book?” Mac asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Did someone tell you to say that to me, to... I don't know, to
impress
me?”

“No, Sir.”

“Don't call me that. Call me Mac. It's my goddamn name.”

“Yes, Mac. I mean -” He caught himself just in time. It felt wrong to be so informal, especially after all the advice his father had given him, but at the same time he felt he couldn't disobey a direct order from his new boss. “Thank you, Mac.”

“For what?”

He paused. “Um... I'm not sure.”

Rolling his eyes, Mac took a look at the laminated card for a moment before sliding it toward him. “There's your press card. Fat lot of good it'll do you, but hang onto it anyway. Union rules say I've gotta give it to you, and the damn thing cost money. Plus, if you ever end up at a goddamn conference, you'll probably get a discount at the bar if you flash that thing. Only goddamn use for it.” Leaning back in his chair, he watched as Jack took the card and admired it with obvious pride. “I remember when I was your age,” he drawled finally.

“You do, Sir? I mean, Mac...”

“I remember when my old boss gave me my first press card. I thought...”

“You were proud?”

“Nah. I just wanted to know when I'd get my first paycheck.”

“I'm not in this for the money,” Jack replied. “I mean, I do need to get paid, obviously, but I happen to think that journalism carries a deeper spiritual meaning, especially in a small-town situation.”

“You really
are
keen, aren't you?” Mac said with a sigh. “Jesus Christ, all that crap about serving the public good and using journalism to maintain standards of discourse in society... You really meant it.”

“With all my heart, Sir,” Jack replied, slipping the card into his pocket. “I mean... Mac.”

“Well, we'll scrub it out of you before too long.”

“With all due respect, I don't know about that.”

“You sure you wanna be a reporter?” Mac asked. “Sure you don't wanna pop down the road and sign up for the police instead?”

“Absolutely not,” Jack replied. “My wife's just starting at the police station, actually. It was her first day just recently.”

“Well,” Mac muttered, “between the two of you, it seems like the town's in safe hands. A cop and a reporter, eh? I don't know whether to applaud or grab my sick bucket.” He paused. “I guess she's in the thick of the Caitlin Somers murder, huh? Hell of a time to show up for your first few days.”

“Yes, Sir. It's an awful business. She's certainly been thrown in at the deep end.”

“You're gonna have to cover that case, you know,” Mac continued. “Are you going to keep your private life out of your professional responsibilities?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” Mac frowned. “Why the hell would you do that? You've got connections with the local cops, you'd damn well better use them. I'm sure the little lady won't mind slipping some information to you under the dining room table, so to speak. And if she's reluctant, drill her good.”

“Wouldn't that be unethical?” Jack asked.

“Huh?” Mac replied, cupping a hand to his ear as if he was suddenly deaf.

“Wouldn't it be unethical?” Jack asked again.

“Huh?”

“Unethical, Sir.”

“What's that word? Don't use that word around here.”

“Okay,” Jack replied, forcing a smile.

“It'd be good reporting, is what it'd be,” Mac replied, picking up his phone. “Now get out there and start impressing me by filing some copy for the next edition. I've got some calls to make, so don't bother me until it's knocking-off time. I want five good, meaty stories on my desk by the time you leave, understood?”

“Five?” Jack replied, shocked by the scale of the challenge he was facing.

“Five,” Mac said firmly. “Now move. You don't have time to stand in my office looking gormless and lost, not if you want to have any kind of career in the newspaper business.” He looked down at his paperwork for a moment, before glancing back at Jack as the new hire headed to the door. “Your wife,” he called after him. “Is her name Jane?”

Jack turned back to him. “Yes, it is. Do you know her?”

“I've seen her about,” Mac replied, getting back to work. “This is one hell of a small town.”

***

“He's a little...” Jack paused for a moment, trying to think of the right word to describe his new boss. “Old-fashioned,” he continued finally. “I think that's all it is. He's, like, in his fifties at least. I think he doesn't really understand the modern world, and he's struggling to stay afloat.”

“Snap,” Jane muttered, taking a bite of her sandwich as she and her husband sat in the middle of the town square, under the shade of the old birch tree. It had become a tradition for them to meet for lunch, and one that was much easier now they worked almost next door to one another. “My boss is quite a character too. Sometimes I think Alex is actually...” She paused, and then she smiled. “I shouldn't say stuff like that. He's a good man. Different, but good.”

“Mac wants me to squeeze you for information,” Jack replied.

“Squeeze me?”

“You know, get you to let things slip so I can put them in the paper.”

“Fat chance.”

“That's what I told him.”

“I'd get fired,” she continued, “and then where would we be?” She took another bite. “Are you sure your mother doesn't mind picking the kids up from school later? I feel like we've placed such a burden on her.”

“It's fine. She likes helping out, and she's glad that we're both pursuing our careers.”

“But the kids -”

“Will be fine at my mother's for an hour after school each day,” he added. “Stop worrying.” He paused for a moment. “So is there
any
scoop you could pass on to me?”

“Seriously?”

“I need to impress Mac. I know it's wrong, but just on my first day, if you could -”

“Nope,” she said firmly, shaking her head.

“Damn it,” he replied with a smile, “why did I marry someone who has such strong morals?”

“You made a big mistake there,” she told him. “Shoulda found some dumb little thing who doesn't give a rat's ass.” Leaning over, she kissed the side of his face, lingering for a moment to breathe in the smell of his aftershave. She wanted to kiss him again immediately, but she knew she shouldn't get carried away so she pulled back. “You'll do just fine. Before you know it, Mac'll be out and you'll be the Herald's new editor.”

“Hah,” he replied, “that'll be the day.”

“I mean it,” she continued. “You're the future of that newspaper, everyone knows it. Mac's so set in his ways, it's unreal. I'm not being ageist, I just think his time has passed.”

“True,” Jack said with a smile. “He asked me today whether I thought the paper needed a website, and where we'd buy one. Not that he actually used the word website, of course. He called it a computer page.” He quickly launched into a half-decent impression of Mac: “Hey, kid, where do we get one of them computer pages from, eh? One that people can look at on their computer?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I told him I'd set one up in my spare time,” he continued. “He thinks it's a waste of time, but I told him, the internet's changing everything. He still thinks the idea of a website is that people can print it out to read on their porch.”

“Tell me about it,” Jane replied. “We've been going through records of Caitlin Somers' digital life. Social media, email, that sort of thing. I'm not that much older than her, not much more than a decade, but I already feel like I don't understand how kids do that kind of thing. Alex and I figured we might -” She stopped suddenly, as if she'd caught herself just in time. “Well,” she added with a smile, “there I go, almost shooting my mouth off and giving information away to a handsome journalist.”

“Perish the thought.”

“I've got to get back,” she added, getting to her feet and brushing crumbs from her lap before dropping the sandwich wrapper into a nearby bin. “Alex wants us to go and talk to Joe Baldwin at the hospital again. He's hoping that somehow Joe might -”

“You're doing it again,” Jack pointed out.

She sighed, before miming zipping her lips shut. “Habit,” she added, leaning down and planting another kiss on the side of his face, enjoying the aftershave again, before taking a step back. “It's gonna be a while before I remember that I can't just unload on you at the end of a hard day at work. Why'd you have to become a journalist, huh? Why couldn't you become something boring, like... a pharmacist, or a bookseller?”

“Well, you're stuck with me now.”

She paused, as if there was something else on her mind, something she couldn't quite get out. “And Jack,” she said finally, clearly feeling uncomfortable, “about your boss. Don't let Mac influence you too much.”

“Influence me?”

“Don't put him on a pedestal.”

“Of course not. He's a pretty cool old guy, though. There's a lot I can learn from him.”

“Maybe,” she replied, “but... Just be yourself. Mac's not...”

He waited for her to finish.

“Not what?” he asked finally.

She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out.

“Don't you like Mac?” he asked.

“I've never met him,” she continued. “I just think you should trust your instincts rather than letting him sway you, that's all.”

“I'll try to remember that,” he said with a frown. “Any other vague comments you want to make before you head back?”

“I love you,” she replied, turning and heading across the town square.

“Love you too, honey,” he said with a smile, watching as she walked away. Just as he was about to get to his feet, however, he spotted Jane's notebook on the bench next to him, and he reached out to pick it up. For a moment, he was about to open it and take a look, before stopping himself just in time. There was probably plenty of useful information in there, things he could use to knock out five stories for Mac in under an hour, but while the temptation was great, he just couldn't bring himself to betray his wife. With a sigh, he got to his feet and hurried across the square.

“Hey!” he called after Jane. “Honey, you forgot this!”

Today

With the sound of the shower running in the next room, Jack sat in bed scrolling through the emails on Jane's phone. He glanced at the door a couple of times, to make sure there was no chance of her walking in on him, before continuing his search, finally opening a message from Alex.

“Third autopsy ordered,” he whispered, reading out loud. He frowned. “Third autopsy? Why the hell are they running a third autopsy on Mel Armitage?”

Closing the email, he scrolled down a little further before opening another from Alex.

“Hermitage House,” he muttered. “What's Hermitage House got to do with anything? It's just doss house for people who can't afford a proper hotel.”

He clicked on some attached pictures and waited while they loaded, before wincing as he saw the first and realized it was from Mel's autopsy. He'd seen them before, but still, he couldn't get used to that kind of thing. Closing the page, he felt nauseous for a moment, but finally the sensation passed and he started dipping back into Jane's emails again.

Hearing the shower stop suddenly, he hurriedly closed the mail app and locked Jane's phone, before setting it back onto the nightstand and rolling over to look at the magazine he'd been pretending to read. A moment later, he heard Jane entering the room, and he turned a page in the magazine as casually as possible, keen to look completely innocent.

“Anything on my phone?” she asked.

He froze, before turning to see that she had a towel wrapped around her still-wet body as she grabbed her phone from the side.

“Honey?” she continued. “Did I get any messages while I was in the shower?”

“I didn't hear any,” he replied, realizing that he was just being paranoid. She had no idea. “No, nothing. Sorry.”

“Huh.” She checked for a moment, before setting the phone down and heading over to the chair in the far corner, where her uniform was laid out. “Can you pick the kids up from school and make dinner tonight? I'm probably going to be working late tonight. Alex wants me to be there for the -” She paused. “Oh, just for some stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Stuff.”

“Stuff you can't talk about at home?”

“Bingo.”

“Sure,” he replied, resisting the temptation to ask her about the third autopsy, and about any possible link to Hermitage House. “It'll probably just be microwaved lasagna, but I'll rustle something up. I'll even save some for you.” He paused, watching her for a moment. “Jane, were you talking to yourself in the shower earlier?”

She glanced at him. “No, why?”

“I just thought I heard you talking, that's all.”

She shook her head and started getting her uniform ready. Watching her, Jack could tell she was trying hard to seem casual, which meant she was hiding something. For one thing, he was certain she'd been talking in the shower, and for another he'd long felt confident that he could read his wife like a book. Any time she tried to keep something from him, he always knew immediately.

“I'd never ask you to divulge police information,” he continued finally, “but in general, is the case going okay?”

“Nice try.”

“I just want to know when you'll be less stressed,” he explained, “and when you'll stop having to work all those night-shifts.”

“When the case is done.”

“Which won't be any time soon?”

He watched as she awkwardly hitched the towel up to her knees, and then she stepped into a pair of panties and pulled them up until they disappeared beneath the towel. Once she was done, she dropped the towel but kept her back to him as she slipped into her bra, not even letting him see a glimpse of side-boob.

“Why did you do that?” he asked after a moment.

“Do what?” she replied, already stepping into her trousers.

“Hide yourself.” He paused. “It was like watching someone getting changed on a beach when there are strangers around.”

She turned to him with a frown. “Huh?”

“I
have
seen you naked before,” he pointed out.

“I should hope so,” she replied, continuing to get dressed. “After all, we've got two kids together. It'd be a bit weird if we'd managed that without getting naked in front of each other.” She grabbed her jacket. “You're being weird, Jack. Stop being weird.”

“
I'm
being weird? What about -”

“Come on,” she added, “let's leave it. And as for the Mel Armitage murder investigation, we have no further information at this time.”

“That's a direct quote from the press release,” he replied. “My wife is standing in front of me, apparently unwilling to be naked in our own bedroom, and she's speaking the words of a press release to me. That has to be a metaphor for something.”

“It's a metaphor for me being insanely busy,” she replied, as she slipped her phone into her pocket and then leaned across the bed so she could give him a brief peck on the cheek. As she did so, he tried to initiate a full kiss, but she simply smiled and stepped back. “Timing, honey?”

“But -”

“So I'll let you know when I know what time I get off,” she added, turning and heading to the door. “I'll try to get home at least slightly on time, I promise, but the next few days are gonna be crazy until we get this case sorted. I'm talking late nights, early mornings, mind on other things. And try to be less weird tonight, okay? You're over-thinking things way,
way
too much. Enjoy your day.”

“Enjoy yours,” he muttered, waiting until she'd left the room before grabbing his laptop and bringing up a browser window so he could look up Hermitage House and try to figure out how it was linked to Mel Armitage's murder. Even though he'd been through Jane's emails, and even though he had access to files passed to him by Doctor Tomlin, he still felt as if he wasn't seeing the whole picture. After a moment, he glanced over at the towel Jane had left on the back of the chair, and he realized he couldn't remember the last time his wife had seemed totally comfortable around him.

Fortunately, he told himself, there was no way she was hiding anything important, other than work-related things. Jane just wasn't that type of woman.

***

“Are you kidding me?” Jack asked a short while later, as he made his way to his desk with Daniel, the intern, following just behind. “Our circulation has almost doubled since Mel Armitage was killed. There's no way we're putting anything else on the front page, it'd be commercial suicide.”

“But wouldn't variety be good?” Daniel asked cautiously. “People might get burned out or bored.”

“Bored?” Smiling, Jack turned to him. “How old are you, again?”

“Um... Twenty, Sir.”

“I was twenty-seven when I started working here,” he replied. “Jesus, that makes me feel old. The point is, and I mean no offense by this, but you don't have the experience necessary to really know what people want on their front page.”

“I studied Journalism for three years.”

“I don't mean that kind of experience, I mean experience in life, and in -”

Spotting movement over by the main door, he saw an old man shuffling through, and finally he smiled as he realized that he was about to be blessed with a visit from his predecessor.

“Mac,” he called out, hurrying across the office, “what the hell are you doing here?”

“That's a charming welcome,” Mac replied, leaning heavily on his cane as he let the door swing shut. He gasped, as if the effort of getting from the curb to the door had been a little too much. “Can't an old man just drop by his former stomping ground now and again? I might be too old to work, but I'm not old enough to spend all my time in the retirement home. Not quite yet, anyway. I still like to get out and about.”

“Daniel,” Jack continued, “I want you to meet Mac. Mac was the editor here before me, he ran this place for fifty-two years non-stop. He's the man who hired me in the first place.”

“Fat lot of good that did me,” Mac muttered, turning to Daniel. “I was out on my ass so fast, I didn't know what'd hit me. This punky kid -” He winced as a jolt of pain shot up his leg, but he waved away Jack's offer of help and instead began to make his way across the office. “I became obsolete,” he continued. “There was no room here for the likes of me. Not that I should complain, of course. It's the circle of life.” Stopping at the desk, he turned to Jack. “How's this latest murder case going from your perspective? Are sales up?”

“Almost double.”

“That's what I like to hear. A good murder always gets people buying.”

“And website hits are through the roof.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It's definitely a good thing,” Jack replied, heading to the coffee machine in the corner and starting to prepare some cups. “We get advertising revenue from visitors. People have visited the Bowley Herald's website from Europe, Africa, Asia, all over the world.”

“What do people in Africa care about what's happening in Bowley?” Mac asked, as if the idea was insane.

“We live in a globalized world. Almost half our daily hits come from social media now. Daniel's helping to optimize our pages for sharing.”

“Huh?” Mac turned to him. “It's like you're talking a completely different language. In my day, we didn't want people sharing anything. We wanted them to buy their own damn copies!”

“Times change,” Jack replied. “We've had to change with them, but we're doing a good job. A lot of local papers are folding these days, but the Herald is actually showing a slight year-on-year increase.”

“So the talk around the retirement home,” Mac continued, “is that the cops aren't making much headway with the whole Mel Armitage business. With Alex Gordon leading the investigation, that lack of progress isn't exactly a surprise, the man's a buffoon, but still, the cops aren't the only ones who can ask questions around here. Do you happen to know if the cops have brought anyone in for interrogation yet?”

“I don't think so,” Jack replied.

“And have they definitively linked the latest victim to the murder of Caitlin Somers all those years ago?”

“I'm not sure.”

“What's the matter? Wife not giving you the juice?”

“It's complicated,” Jack replied. “I have certain sources.”

“In my day,” Mac continued, turning to Daniel, “this office was more effective than the police department. We knew our readers were waiting for more news, we knew each edition had to have something to get them interested, so we worked harder and faster than the cops. Especially once Alex Gordon took over that goddamn place, the man's a fruitcake of the highest order.” He turned back to Jack for a moment and paused, eying him with a hint of concern. “I heard your brother's back in town.”

Jack nodded.

“How does that figure into things?” Mac asked.

“I don't know that it does.”

“There's no need to be polite with me,” Mac replied, “I know what you were thinking about Ben nine years ago. Have you still got those suspicions?”

“I...” Jack paused. “He doesn't make it easy.”

“So you still think he might be the killer, huh?”

“I...” Another pause. “I can't rule anything out.”

“You should follow your gut,” Mac continue, raising his cane and using the tip to gently poke Jack's belly. “You've got good instincts, kid, that's why I hired you in the first place. Even if you're wrong, your nose is obviously leading you in that direction for a reason, and besides...” It was his turn to pause now, as if he was concerned about saying too much more. “I don't believe in coincidences,” he added finally, “not when they pile up like this. The murders in this town correlate
precisely
with the times when Ben is around.”

“I know,” Jack replied somberly.

“Can't ignore that,” Mac pointed out. “Can't. Won't do no good. The truth's the truth, might as well get to it as soon as possible. It won't get any less true if you leave it alone for a while.”

“I know,” Jack said again.

“I'm gonna tell you what I think,” Mac continued, “and you can discount it if you want, but maybe it'll help you see things clearly.” He paused. “Face it, Jack... Your brother's the one. We knew it back then, and it's even more clear today. I don't know why he's doing it, I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't fancy pontificating, but it's clear to me that Ben's the killer. I guess that's another reason I came by to see you today. I wanted to work out if you're too close to all of this to cover the story effectively.”

“I'm fine.”

“What does Jane think?”

“She isn't saying.”

“Tight as a clam, huh?”

He nodded.

“Then you need to un-tighten her,” he continued. “She's a good woman, so you need to get her to open up somehow. What's she like when she gets drunk? Talkative?”

“I'm not getting my wife drunk just so she'll give me details of the police investigation.”

“You checked her phone yet?”

“No!”

Mac stared at him for a moment, before turning to Daniel. “Step out for a moment, boy. Leave the men to talk.”

Daniel turned to Jack, as if he wasn't sure whether to obey, before finally heading to the door. He seemed a little reluctant, but soon he was gone.