Joe Victim

Chapter Ten

The air-conditioning in the TV station is a season behind, or so he’s been told, and Schroder believes it too since it’s still blasting cold air. No doubt it’ll get around to pumping out warm air just when spring starts turning into summer. The station belongs to one of the major networks, coming into existence around the same time Joe Middleton started making the news. Until then there was only a local TV station in the city, the major ones were up in Auckland. But then suddenly Christchurch became the capital for crime, it became the place where journalists wanted to be. It also became the place where producers wanted to shoot crime shows. He once had a guy theorize that flights into Christchurch take longer every year the further the city slips into Hell-though the current temperature makes it an arguable point.

He catches the lift. There is elevator music, classical stuff he can’t imagine anybody ever liking. Especially him. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like being here. Another person gets on the lift next to him, and the two of them stare straight ahead, each of them making a big effort not to speak to the other. His stomach is rumbling, reminding him he skipped out on breakfast and he could end up skipping out on lunch too. On the fourth floor he steps into a corridor and makes his way past a makeup room, a cafeteria, offices, and down to Jonas Jones’s office. The studio itself where they broadcast from is on the floor below, and Schroder wonders if Jones has a certain satisfaction being above it all.

He doesn’t knock on the door. He figures there’s no need when you’re going to see a psychic. He opens the door and walks inside. Jones is sitting behind his desk with his shoes off, polishing them.

“Ah, I’m glad you’re back,” Jonas says.

Schroder isn’t glad. There are a few reasons he lost his job being a cop, and Jones is one of them. Schroder had never killed anybody before this year, and the nightmares he has about that probably wouldn’t get any worse if he were to put a few bullets into Jonas.

“I spoke to him,” Schroder says, sitting down opposite the desk. He’s tempted to put his feet up. The office has framed pictures of Jonas on the walls meeting other celebrities-a bunch of actors, some writers, some popular local figures. There are photos of him at book signings, even one of him signing a book for the prime minister that helps Schroder decide who he’s going to vote for.

“And?” Jonas asks. “Or are you just going to keep me hanging?”

“And he’s thinking about it.”

“Thinking about it? Come on, Carl, I’m sure you could have done better than that. You offer him the twenty grand?”

“Of course.”

“How much more did he want?”

“Fifty.”

“Fifty is good,” he says, and Schroder thinks about what Joe said earlier, about Sally being paid out that fifty-thousand-dollar reward. It was police work that got them there last year, and Sally was part of that. Was she a big enough part to have earned a reward? No. Not in his opinion. But the money wasn’t coming out of his pocket, and he was happy to see it go to her. It was as much a publicity stunt at that stage as anything else. There will be more rewards in the future, and if the public see that kind of money being paid out, then they’ll be more willing to offer up the names of people doing bad stuff. It’s all part of their new Crime doesn’t pay, but helping the police does campaign.

“Yeah, fifty is good,” Schroder says back to him.

Jones pauses to look at him for a few seconds, then goes back to work on his shoes. “We had budgeted for a hundred,” he says, scrubbing at them even though they already look clean. “Can you imagine it?” he asks. “Imagine how it will be, with us finding Detective Inspector Robert Calhoun?”

Schroder has been imagining it, and it makes him feel sick. “I just don’t get why you don’t use the psychic powers you keep reminding us that you have,” he says, and he’s said it before and he’ll say it again, just as Jonas has explained it before. It’s his way of reminding Jonas every day that he knows the psychic is full of shit.

Jonas turns the shoe in his hand examining it, or perhaps examining his reflection in the shiny leather. “It doesn’t work that way,” he says. “If it worked that way every psychic in the world would be winning the lotto. It comes and goes, and it doesn’t work with everybody. I’ve been trying with Robert, but just haven’t gotten anything. It’s another realm we’re tapping into-there are no hard and fast rules, you have to feel your way-”

“I get it,” Schroder says, and holds up his hand. He wonders if hating himself will reach a peak and subside, or whether it’s going to follow the current curve until he reaches the point he has to take up drinking and then smash every mirror in his house.

“No, you don’t get it,” Jones says, “and you never will. Not everybody in the spirit world wants to be spoken to, Carl. You don’t get it because you don’t want to get it.”

“Well, whether I get it or not, Joe has the offer. He’ll let us know tomorrow. Hardest part is giving him a reason to need the money.”

“Surely he can use it to buy protection inside,” Jonas says.

“He already has protection. He’s in a cellblock with a bunch of people who all need protection.”

“Well, then he can put the money toward a better defense.”

Schroder smiles at him. “Maybe. But after the last few lawyers wanting to defend him, I’m not sure there’ll be any takers.”

Jonas stops scrubbing the shoe and stares at Schroder. “So what else do you suggest we offer him?” he asks, sounding annoyed.

Schroder shrugs. He isn’t sure. “He’ll either accept it or he won’t. I guess with the timing and everything he doesn’t really need the body found right now.”

“Well, let’s hope he sees the merit in telling us.”

“It’s still not right,” Schroder says. “Doing it this way.”

“He’s getting prosecuted for so much as it is,” Jones says, “and we all know he didn’t actually kill Calhoun. He may have staged it and set Melissa up, but he’s not the one who killed her and tied him up. When are you heading back to see him?”

“Same time tomorrow.”

“Okay. Okay, good.” He puts the shoe down and leans back in his chair. “What are you going to do with your signing bonus?”

Schroder isn’t sure, and wishes Jonas hadn’t asked. The signing bonus is ten thousand dollars. That’s what he gets if Joe takes the deal. Joe gets fifty and Schroder gets ten and they’re both making money off a dead detective and Schroder’s curve of hating himself keeps reaching for the sky. “I don’t know,” he says, but he thinks he does know. As much as his family could do with it, it feels like blood money. He already has a few charities in mind-only when that check arrives he’s not so sure how willing he’ll be to part with it.

“You must have some ideas,” Jonas says. “Why don’t you treat your family to something? A holiday, perhaps? Or a new car?”

“Maybe,” Schroder says. “Or maybe I’ll treat my mortgage to an injection of cash.”

Jonas laughs. “It’s a good bonus,” he says. “If it all works out as planned, there may be other bonuses in the future.”

Schroder doesn’t answer him. He hates thinking of his future these days.

“Tell me, Carl, what do you make of this referendum?” Jonas asks, changing the direction of the conversation.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Schroder answers, happy to move away from the bonus that puts him deeper into Jonas’s pocket.

“You agree with the death penalty?”

“That’s not what I mean,” he says, even though he will be voting for it. “I mean it’s a good thing that the people are going to be listened to.”

“I agree. You know what I heard?”

“What?”

“I heard the prosecution will be asking for it if Joe is found guilty.”

“I heard the same thing,” Schroder says. It’s not exactly a secret. “It makes it difficult to suggest to a man that fifty grand is useful when he’s going to be put down anyway.”

“But we don’t know that. Even if the public votes for it, it may be years before it comes into play, and even more years before Joe is executed. Could be ten years away. Longer. Surely the money can be useful to him for that amount of time.”

Schroder nods. He hates agreeing with Jonas, but he’s right.

“Do you think there’s an angle here?” Jonas asks.

“What kind of angle?”

“I don’t know, not yet. But if Joe is executed, maybe that’s good for the show. Do you think that, if the referendum is voted in and the death penalty is reinstated, and let’s say the government makes an example out of Joe and executes him within the next year or two, do you think we can use that? Somehow, for the show? I’m thinking that if there are other victims of Joe’s, other bodies, we could get him to talk. Somehow. And then-”

“And then after he’s dead you’ll be in touch with him and he’ll tell you where these people are?”

“Something like that, yes. I don’t know. Not exactly. I can see the pieces there, I can feel the potential, I’m just trying to piece it all together. I don’t know what we could offer Joe that he would accept. But if we can figure something out, well, there could be a much bigger bonus in it for you. What do you think?”

He decides not to tell Jones what he really thinks. Instead he goes with, “I’m sure you’ll work it out.”

“I’m sure I will,” Jones says, his mouth stretching into a smile. He goes back to scrubbing at his shoe. “Tell me, have you heard anything about this morning’s homicide?”

“Probably less than you.”

“I’ve heard the victim was shot twice in the chest,” Jonas says. “Could be a professional killing.”

“So I do know less than you.”

“At the moment, yes, but you have the ability to find out more. Maybe there’s something in this for us. How about you look into it? Give some of those detective friends of yours a call.”

The problem is the detective friends haven’t been great friends since Schroder started working for the TV station. “I’ll do my best. I’m due on set in an hour.”

“You want some lunch first?” Jonas asks, putting his shoes back on. “I’m starving.”

“I’ve already eaten,” Schroder says, and gets up and heads back to the elevator.