Watch Me (12 page)

‘He was a happily married man.’

‘A happily married man who had affairs.’

‘Just the one affair.’

I shook my head and Mary sighed.

‘I never understood it. He had a beautiful wife. Beautiful children. A beautiful home.’

‘His wife knew about the affairs.’

‘And I don’t understand that either. I’ve been married for thirty-three years. For better or for worse, and forsaking all others. Those were the vows we made, and we’ve stuck to them all these years.’

‘Those vows don’t work for everyone.’

‘Evidently.’ Another sigh. ‘His father was the same. He was married to a beautiful woman who turned a blind eye. Rich folk just live by different rules, I guess.’

‘Was it always with the staff?’

‘No, not always.’

‘But there was always someone, wasn’t there?’

A nod. ‘Most of the time. He was always discreet, though.’

‘That would have been part of the arrangement he had with his wife.’

Mary sighed again and shook her head. ‘How can you live like that? Sharing your bed with a man after you knew that he’d been with another woman?’

‘Judy said they slept in separate rooms.’

Mary raised an eyebrow.

‘I didn’t buy that one either. Anyway, back to your earlier question. Barbara Galloway accepted the situation because of the money. Like you said: rich folks live by different rules.’

‘She could have divorced him. Mr Galloway would have made sure that she and the children never wanted for anything.’

‘But then she’d have lost the status that comes from being married to one of Eagle Creek’s most important men.’

‘Is status really that important?’

‘For some people, yes. Okay, according to your interview with the sheriff’s department you left after Josh last night.’

‘That’s right. I left at around twenty to six.’

‘So, aside from the killer, you were the last person to see Sam alive.’

Mary’s eyes widened and she put a hand across her mouth. She looked shocked, like this had only just occurred to her.

‘Was there anything about Sam’s behaviour that struck you as out of the ordinary?’

Mary shook her head. ‘No.’

‘So he didn’t seem stressed or worried? Frightened?’

Another shake of the head, and another ‘No’.

‘Where was he when you last saw him?’

‘In his office. If he was still here when I was leaving, I’d always go and say goodnight.’

‘Can you show me his office, please?’

20

Like I thought, Sam’s office overlooked the park. It would have belonged to his father, and, before that, his grandfather. If Barbara Galloway had her way, one day it would belong to her son. I parted the blinds with my hands and peered through the crack. From this angle all I could see was the back of Randall Morgan’s head, but it was easy to imagine him staring back at me, as disapproving now as he had been when he was alive and breathing nearly a century ago.

Mary was hovering in the doorway. She looked worried, like she was witnessing a grave robbing. I sat down in Sam’s big leather chair, rocked back and put my feet up on the big old mahogany desk. Mary just stared at me like I was the one wielding the shovel.

‘Please sit down.’

I waved her into the seat opposite me. She hesitated then sat down.

‘Most interviews follow a tried and tested course. The interviewer asks questions and the interviewee answers them. The theory is fine, but the reality is that a lot of details are missed or skipped over. Worse still, answers are occasionally censored, with the interviewee saying what they think the interviewer wants to hear. Sometimes they do this because they’re trying to be helpful. Other times they’re being disingenuous.’

Mary nodded like this all made perfect sense. Keen to please. Keen to give me the answers I was looking for.

‘I want to try a cognitive interview. The difference with this sort of interview is that you revisit the incident through sense memory. Sight, sound and smells are explored to build up a more accurate picture of the event. Because of the way we access memories, a secondary benefit is that it’s much easier to spot a lie.’

‘I don’t lie.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I said, even though this was a lie. We all lie. Politicians, priests, everyone. From our first words to our last we’ll tell a million lies. And the person we lie to most is ourselves. ‘I’d like you to close your eyes, please.’

Mary gave me a concerned look. Modern society has conditioned us to trust our sight above the other four senses, so when a stranger asks you to make yourself temporarily blind, you’re going to be suspicious. She looked at me for a few seconds more then shut her eyes.

‘Talk me through what you do when you’re getting ready to go home.’

‘I always check my emails one last time before I shut my computer down. Then I tidy my desk and switch on the answering machine. Like I said earlier, if Mr Galloway was still here, I’d go and say goodbye.’

‘Okay, let’s go back to last night. You’ve shut down your computer and put the answer machine on. Mr Galloway is still working, so you head along to his office. How fast are you walking?’

‘Quickly. I need to get home to cook dinner. We’re having lasagne and that always takes a while to prepare.’

‘What can you hear?’

‘My footsteps echoing on the wooden floor.’

‘What can you smell?’

‘Museums.’ A faint smile. ‘It’s a dusty, old smell. I think it’s from the wood. This place has always reminded me of a museum.’

‘Okay, you’ve reached Mr Galloway’s office. Do you walk straight in?’

A shake of the head. ‘No, never. I straighten my skirt, make sure I’m presentable, then knock on the door and wait.’

‘Is that what happened last night?’

Mary’s head dipped three times. Three barely perceptible nods as she checked each action off against her memory. This was where I wanted her, living and breathing the past.

‘Yes.’

‘Then what?’

‘Mr Galloway calls out for me to come in and I open the door. He’s busy with some paperwork so I say a quick goodbye and leave.’

‘Does he say anything?’

A shake of the head. ‘No.’

‘Does he seem stressed or worried?’

‘No, he’s just his normal self.’

Mary smiled.

‘What?’ I prompted.

She opened her eyes. ‘When I closed the door he started humming to himself. It was something he did when he was concentrating. It was one of those unconscious habits, like a child biting their tongue when they’re trying to solve a math problem.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been really helpful.’

21

The first thing I did when we got outside was light a cigarette. The second thing I did was put my sunglasses back on. Even though my eyeballs were melting under the relentless onslaught of the sun, that’s the order it happened. Cigarette then shades. It was the prioritisation of an addict.

‘The interview with Mary Sanders was interesting.’

Taylor came to an abrupt halt and stared at me, eyes narrowed, brow furrowing. ‘You’re not joking, are you? Okay, this I’ve got to hear.’

‘Well, for a start, we know that the spirit of Martha Stewart is alive and well in Eagle Creek, Louisiana. I mean, how many people do you know would go home and bake a lasagne after a hard day at work? You just wouldn’t. You’d open the freezer, take out that plastic container, pierce that film lid and a few minutes later you’d be sitting down to eat.’

‘Seriously, Winter, how does any of what Mary Sanders said help us?’

‘Well, we now know with absolute certainty that Sam Galloway did not see this coming. What happened to him came as a complete bolt out of the blue. You don’t make a date with your lover if you think there’s even an outside possibility that someone’s going to abduct you, douse you in gasoline and set you alight.’

‘Great. But you got that from Judy Dufrene, not Mary Sanders.’

‘You’re the lead investigator here, you figure it out.’

I took a long drag on my cigarette. It was nine minutes to seven. I pictured the countdown in my head. White numbers on black. 05:08:32. In my mind’s eye, I saw a snaking line of 1,851 stick figures queuing up to climb the gallows. The line disappeared into the distance, stick figures getting smaller and smaller until they were just a pixelated blur.

Unless we found this unsub soon someone else was going to die. There was still time, but that time was running shorter and faster with every passing minute. I would chase this one down to the very last second, but I was enough of a pragmatist to acknowledge that things were not looking good.

I called Shepherd. It took ten rings before he picked up, which didn’t surprise me. Shepherd was old school. He didn’t strike me as someone who would walk around with a cellphone surgically grafted to the palm of his hand. I could see him in my mind’s eye, harassed and harried and stroking that neat moustache, while he tried to be in a dozen places simultaneously.

‘Have you found the crime scene yet?’

‘We’re working on it, Winter. I’ve got everyone out looking. The police department is out searching, too. We’re checking factories, storage units, the old refinery plant. We’re even looking at residential garages. But these things take time, you know how it is.’

I did. My perfect universe was a place where I had unlimited resources at my disposal twenty-four/seven. It was a complete fantasy. There was no way that was ever going to happen, but that didn’t stop me dreaming.

‘Have any missing person reports been filed recently?’

‘No, why?’

‘I’m wondering about possible victims. It’s a long shot, though. He didn’t keep Sam Galloway for long, and chances are he’s going to stick to this MO.’

‘Even still, it’s a good thought. I’ll make sure that I’m alerted immediately if anyone does get reported missing. How are you getting on?’

‘Sam Galloway was having an affair with one of his work colleagues.’

Taylor was watching me closely, ears tuned into the conversation.

‘How serious?’

‘Serious enough.’

The implications hung between us in hundreds of miles of empty air. Geographically speaking, there was maybe a half mile between us, but our conversation was taking the long way around.

‘I’ll get someone to look into it,’ said Shepherd finally.

‘As soon as you find that crime scene, I want to be the first to know.’

‘You can be sure of that.’

I killed the call, took a final drag on my cigarette and crushed it out in a nearby trash can. We got into the car and Taylor got the motor running and turned the air-conditioning to full. I could feel him staring from the driver’s seat.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked.

‘I was just giving Shepherd an update.’

‘No you weren’t. You were giving Shepherd a motive.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. To muddy the waters, perhaps.’

I smiled. ‘By his own admission, Shepherd is a small-town cop, which means he thinks like a small-town cop. A good old-fashioned motive like a spurned wife hiring someone to murder her cheating husband is going to make more sense to him than some sicko who gets off on setting people alight for the sheer pleasure of watching them burn.’

‘This theory about the unsub being a cop, you realise you’re gambling everything on it.’

‘It’s only a gamble when the outcome is uncertain.’

‘Ninety-nine per cent, remember?’

‘This guy’s a cop.’

‘Sam was humming to himself,’ Taylor went on. ‘If he’d been worried he would have been pacing his office or chewing his fingernails, or whatever he did when he got stressed. He wouldn’t be absorbed by his work. He’d be looking over his shoulder, waiting for that other shoe to drop.’

I nodded. ‘That’s how I see it.’

‘So what now?’

‘Now we eat. It’s going to be a long night.’

22

Taylor drove slow and steady, heading back to Morrow Street. We bumped gently across to the other side of the rail tracks, and I made an executive decision to do the driving in future. When you hit rail tracks you wanted to have a bit of speed up. You wanted to feel the car lift off. You wanted to hear the shock absorbers complain. Being a cop gave you driving privileges that your average Joe could only dream of, and ignoring those privileges was both pointless and crazy.

We parked outside Apollo’s, a squat one-storey diner with big windows and a flickering blue and red neon rocket blasting off from the sign that hung the length of the frontage. The diner was right across the street from Hannah’s Place. I could see my room from the doorway. Second floor, second window to the right.

There were rows of empty tables inside the diner and not a single customer. Not good. Empty seats usually equated to lousy food. I glanced up and down Morrow Street. It was like a ghost town. I looked back at the empty tables.

Taylor saw me staring. ‘It’s usually busier at this time of the evening. Sam’s murder has got everyone scared.’

‘Is the food here any good?’

‘Better than good. Would I be eating here if it wasn’t?’

That was good enough for me. One thing cops know are their diners. Which to use, which to avoid. When it comes to greasy, unhealthy food, they’re walking Michelin Guides. Even a rookie would be a connoisseur after six months on the force.

We went inside and a bell jangled above our heads. The smell of fried food hit us the second we stepped through the door. It was grafted into the worn black vinyl seats, the yellowing Formica tables, the once-white walls and the scuffed white floor tiles. It was embedded into the very fabric of the place. Black and white framed photographs from the Apollo space missions hung on the wall. In pride of place behind the counter was a shot of Neil Armstrong taking that one giant leap for mankind.

Because the place was empty we had our pick of the seats. I opted for a window table. Always my first choice since I like to people watch, although on this occasion the pickings were going to be slim. I didn’t bother checking the menu. A place like this, it was pretty much a done deal.