Watch Me (36 page)

Everyone was staring at me, nobody saying a word. The room had gone very quiet. Not completely silent, though. This was a silence that John Cage would have understood, and appreciated. It was a dark silence, one filled with foreboding.

‘The answer is Morgan Holdings. The company is your legacy. It was here long before you were born, and you want to believe it’ll be here long after you’re gone. And you want it run by a Morgan. That’s important to you. The fact that Clayton hasn’t produced an heir really pisses you off. Your son is implicated in a murder and you still find time to be angry that there aren’t any grandchildren running around the place. That’s pretty screwed up if you ask me.’

I looked away from Jasper and turned to face the rest of the room. Six pairs of eyes stared back. I could smell my own sweat and, beneath that, the faint aroma of Taylor’s blood. It would take a week of showers to get rid of the smell of his blood, maybe longer. Maybe I’d never get rid of it.

‘For those of you not up to speed, Jasper received a blackmail demand for twenty million dollars last night. Now
that’s
the really cool part of Clayton’s plan. That first payment is just the start. Its main purpose is to get the ball rolling. Clayton would have chosen that figure carefully. It needed to be big enough to hurt the company, but not so big that it would kill it. If that had been the case, Jasper would have had no choice but to escalate this and bring in the FBI. Right now, he wants to keep things as quiet as possible. He wants to keep this in-house. If it gets out that he’s being blackmailed, that’s going to be bad for business.’

‘You need to make your mind up,’ Fortier put in. ‘One second you’re saying this isn’t about money, the next you’re saying it is.’

‘And you’re not paying attention. The blackmail demand is a means to an end. Clayton hates his father. He despises him. He wants to destroy him, and that means destroying the thing he loves most. The company. Work it through and you’ll see I’m right. Jasper pays up, then a few months later another demand comes through. A smaller amount this time. Five million, say. So Jasper liquidates some more assets and pays up. And so the cycle continues, the company slowly eroding away until there’s nothing left. It doesn’t matter if you’re dealing with millions or thousands, that’s how blackmailers operate. You get that ball rolling, then bleed your mark dry.’

I paused, gave it another second for everything to sink in. All eyes were still on me, and the room was as quiet as the station house just before the countdown hit zero. Clayton met my eye, then quickly looked away. His hair was a mess from running his hands through it, and his frown lines ran deep. Given another decade or two they’d be as deep as the trenches that lined his father’s weatherworn face.

‘But Jasper’s not stupid,’ I went on. ‘He’s an astute businessman. He’s going to hire an army of private investigators to hunt down the blackmailer. And these will be good, competent men. Former cops, ex-FBI, the best money can buy. Except nobody’s going to look too hard at Clayton, and why should they? Why the hell would Clayton be trying to destroy his own company?’

I nodded to myself. ‘It’s a good plan, and what I love most is the way Clayton has manoeuvred himself into a position where Jasper is actually protecting him. That’s genius. Absolutely brilliant.’ I grinned at Clayton. ‘Your father seriously underestimated you, didn’t he?’

‘That’s crazy. I had nothing to do with Sam’s murder, and I’m not blackmailing my father.’

I studied Clayton carefully. Again, he met my eye for the briefest of seconds before looking away. ‘You’re a good liar. I’ll give you that much.’

‘I’m not lying.’

‘You hate your father, though, don’t you?’

Head down, Clayton bit his lip and said nothing.

‘And there’s your motive right there.’

‘But where’s the proof?’ said Fortier. ‘Where’s the evidence? So far all I’ve heard is speculation.’

‘You guys are the cops, you go and find the evidence. My job was to hunt down Sam Galloway’s killer, and that’s what I’ve done.’ I put my hands together like I was about say a prayer, pressed my fingertips against my lips then took them away again. ‘If I was in your shoes, I’d want to get Clayton into an interview room double-quick and see what he has to say for himself.’

‘Winter’s got a point, sir,’ Shepherd broke in. He was stroking his moustache, his face thoughtful. ‘We don’t have enough to charge Clayton, but he does have motive. We need to at least talk to him.’

Fortier stood paralysed for a second, then he shook his head and let out a long weary sigh. It was a sigh burdened by the weight of an unfair and unforgiving world. ‘I’m really sorry about this, Jasper, but we’re going to have to take Clayton in. Don’t worry, though, we’ll get this sorted out. We’ll have him back by suppertime, I promise you that.’

Shepherd waved Barker and Romero forward, and nodded in the general direction of Clayton Morgan. The two cops walked over to him.

‘I’m real sorry about this, Mr Morgan,’ Barker told him.

Clayton just stood there, shaking his head from side to side. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Look, I don’t want to handcuff you, not in front of these folks, but if needs be, I will.’

Clayton was staring at his shoes like they were the most interesting things in the room, even more interesting than that spectacular view. I’d seen plenty of broken people over the years. Clayton looked totally beaten down, like life had finally knocked him into submission.

And he looked as guilty as hell.

I waited until the three of them reached the door, then said, ‘Hold it a second. I’ve changed my mind. Clayton didn’t do it. He’s innocent.’

Six pairs of eyes stopped looking at Clayton and turned to look at me.

66

‘That’s the thing with lies. Inject them with just the right amount of truth and you can make anything sound plausible. You can make believers out of anyone.’

Everyone just stared. Jasper Morgan and Sheriff Fortier looked as furious as ever, but there was a touch of uncertainty that hadn’t been there before. I could see a faint reflection of my face in Shepherd’s glasses. The corners of my mouth were turned up into an expression that could easily become a grin if left unchecked. It mirrored how I felt, but it was inappropriate for the situation. I swapped it for my best game face. Serious, unflinching, challenging.

‘You guys remember Dan Choat, right? The guilt-ridden cop who committed suicide after murdering Sam Galloway? That was a good attempt at creating a plausible lie. Most people believed it, and the reason they believed was because the unsub made a good choice with Choat. All the ingredients were there. The messed-up childhood, the overbearing mother, classic stuff.’

I stopped talking and shook my head.

‘Unfortunately that little illusion was built on shifting sand. That’s the other thing with lies, you need to get the fine details right. Where our unsub screwed up was the suicide note. The reason you leave a suicide note is because this is the biggest thing you’ve done in your whole miserable life and you need people to understand why you’re doing it. If you don’t want people to understand, you don’t write a note. It’s that simple. Now, when you sit down to write that note, do you think you’re going to find the right words straight off? No way. You’re going to write and rewrite and rewrite. You’re going to end up with a wastepaper bin full of false starts. But not Choat. His note was written on the first sheet of the pad. He got it right first time.’

I stopped talking and smiled. The room was so quiet that if a pin had dropped it would have sounded as loud as a church bell.

‘That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was the content of the note. Nobody’s going to leave a one-word suicide note.
No one
. It’s as pointless as decaffeinated coffee. After all his deliberations, the best Choat could come up with was “sorry”. Sorry for what? Sorry to whom? Like I said, the whole point of a suicide note is to explain why you’re killing yourself. To justify the act. To try and inject some meaning into your existence.’

‘What the hell is this?’ Jasper bellowed. ‘And why am I listening to this bullshit? Someone get this idiot out of my sight now.’

Jasper had finally found his voice. It had taken a while but he’d got there in the end. He looked like he’d be happy to shoot me dead where I stood.

I put my hands up in mock surrender. ‘Hey, you should be the happiest man on the planet right now. Your son’s innocent. He’s not going to prison. You’ve got someone to make sure the family firm keeps running long after you’re dead and gone. Yes, he hates you, but at least he didn’t try to destroy you. Not that that was ever really on the cards. We both know he doesn’t have the balls for that. Any fight he had in him, you’d knocked out by the time he was in kindergarten.’

Jasper turned to Sheriff Fortier. His hands were clenched into fists again, the knuckles shining white. He looked like he wanted to hit someone or something. It didn’t really matter what, although I had the distinct impression that I would be his first choice for a punching bag.

‘I want him out of my house now. Do I make myself clear?’

Barker and Romero had moved away from Clayton and were coming towards me. Barker was reaching for his gun. Romero was reaching for his handcuffs. I put my hand up to stop them, but they kept coming.

‘Before you kick me out, I need to say one last thing. Most of you bought that story about Clayton blackmailing Jasper, but that was flawed from the ground up, just like Dan Choat’s suicide. Doesn’t anyone want to know why?’

‘Get him out of here,’ Fortier shouted. The sheriff looked almost as furious as Jasper.

‘It’s because the guy you’re looking for is a cop.’

I was watching Jasper carefully, studying him. Right now he was the only person in this room who mattered. Barker and Romero had stopped dead and were just staring around, waiting for instructions.

‘Okay that’s enough,’ Shepherd said. ‘You’re clutching at straws. There’s no way this guy’s a cop.’

I walked up to Shepherd and stopped in front of him. We were so close our noses were almost touching, close enough that I could smell his aftershave. I was invading his personal space, but he was standing his ground.

‘You had no problem believing that Choat was the unsub. Okay, it turned out that he wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean another cop can’t be behind this. You, for example.’

Shepherd laughed and shook his head. ‘Like I said, you’re clutching at straws.’

‘This explains why Taylor’s in hospital. That one really bugged me, you know. The actual why is straightforward enough. You wanted a distraction. However, because of Taylor’s size, the how was trickier to answer. If Barker or Romero or anyone else had tried to take him out, he would have knocked them into the middle of next week. It’d be them in the hospital, not him. And he would have been watching out for a move like that.’ I smiled at Shepherd. ‘You’re a different matter, though. You could have caught him off guard. You were one of the first names that went up on our list of suspects, and one of the first names that had a line put through it. So how did you do it?’

‘If this is another one of your stunts, it’s not funny.’

We were more or less the same height. One second I was looking into his eyes, the next I was staring at my reflection in his spectacles, my perspective shifting and changing. I gave him a second to respond but he just stood there staring, his mouth shut tight.

‘Okay, I’ll tell you exactly how you did it. You waited until everyone else was busy, then asked Taylor to go fetch something from the trunk of your car. Then you wandered over, pretending like there was something else you needed. You were smiling and chatting and doing your best to keep him off guard. As soon as you were close enough, you injected him with a tranquilliser, something powerful enough to take down an elephant, and tipped him into the trunk. Then you drove around to the storage shed and parked as close to the door as possible and dragged him inside. Then you beat him half to death and headed back to the crime scene before you were missed.’

‘You’ve got an overactive imagination, Winter.’

I laughed at that, and saw a flash of anger spark behind those spectacles. It was there and gone so fast I could have imagined it. But I hadn’t. That reaction was as good as a confession in my book.

‘And that’s the wrong response. Someone in your position gets accused of something like this, they come out fighting. They’re going to tell you they didn’t do it in no uncertain terms. They’re going to be shouting from the highest rooftop.’

‘What’s my motive?’

I took a step back and turned to Jasper. ‘That’s a good question. So what’s his motive, Jasper?’

‘How the hell should I know?’

‘Because your first reaction was to look at Shepherd. By my reckoning he should have been third on the list. Clayton comes first, then Sheriff Fortier because he’s the most senior police officer in the room. And then Shepherd because he’s the second most senior officer. But you didn’t do any of that. You looked straight at Shepherd. Why?’

I glanced at Shepherd, glanced back at Jasper. Another glance at Shepherd. Another glance at Jasper. Comparing and contrasting. I looked over at Clayton, then turned my attention back to Shepherd.

‘It’s the eyes. There’s obviously a dominant gene there. The glasses and the moustache are a nice touch, by the way. They take the focus away from your eyes.’

‘What’s he taking about?’ said Clayton.

‘Meet your other half-brother.’

Clayton just stared at me as though I’d proclaimed Shepherd to be the reincarnation of Elvis. He had a dumb expression on his face and his mouth kept opening and closing like there were words trapped in his throat but he didn’t know how to get them out.

‘Bullshit,’ said Shepherd. He nodded to Barker. ‘Get him the hell out of here.’

‘It’s okay, I’ll go. But first I want Jasper to tell me I’ve got this one wrong.’ It was Shepherd’s turn to glare at me like he wanted me dead. I looked at Jasper. ‘The floor’s all yours.’

Jasper walked slowly over to Shepherd and stopped in front of him. Standing together like that, more similarities became apparent. The shape of their noses, the cut of their cheekbones. They were the same height. Jasper’s hair was as white as mine. Shepherd’s was heading in that direction.