Black Feathers (35 page)

A few steps away from the man on the bed, Harrison straightened, feet shoulder-width apart, balanced and firm in place, his training coming back without him even realizing it.

Bracing himself for a shot.

“Cliff Wolcott?” he asked, now that he had the man’s attention.

Wolcott looked from side to side, checking if there was anyone else in the cell. “Yes, Officer?”

“I’m Constable Harrison. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” He reached into his pocket for his notebook and pen, trying to make it appear as professional as possible.

The back of his jacket brushed against the gun.

“Really?” Wolcott asked. As he unfolded his legs, Harrison fought an instinct to take a step back. “Is that how it usually works?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere.

Wolcott ran his fingers through his short, thinning hair. “The last few times someone wanted to talk to me, they brought me upstairs into one of those little rooms. You know, the ones with the table and the three chairs and the mirror along one wall? It was like I was in an episode of
Law & Order.
”

Harrison nodded. “Usually. But we’re going to talk here.” He gestured over his right shoulder at the video camera in the upper left corner of the room. “If that’s all right with you.”

Wolcott shrugged. “Sure.”

Harrison nodded, clicked his pen. “I wanted to talk to you about those girls.”

“The ones I killed?”

Harrison couldn’t move his hand to write.

Wolcott smiled, a harmless, friendly smile. “You don’t need to dance around it. I figure you guys have been all through the
house, the freezer.” He paused, watching Harrison’s face. “So you found my packages. What’s the point in mincing words now, right?” He shrugged again. “You’ve got me. What do you want to know?”

Harrison was completely unprepared for a full confession, and the line of questioning he had devised, all the feints to draw him out, all the little tricks to trip him up, fell apart. “Well,” he said. “Start at the beginning, I guess.”

Wolcott smiled. “Constable Harrison. How far back do you want me to go?” He chuckled. “Do you want me to tell you about Janet Colburn, back in the seventh grade? She was a year older, fourteen, and one day, in the storage room off the music room at school, she lifted up her skirt and showed me her pussy. She told me I could touch it if I wanted to. And I did. Is that what you had in mind?”

Harrison shook his head, even as he scrawled across the lines in his notebook.

“No,” Wolcott said. “I don’t think that’s it, is it? That’s all ancient history. You want to know why I did it, right?”

Wolcott shuffled off the bed, stretching as he stood up.

“Of course you do,” he said.

Wolcott cracked his knuckles, swivelled his head in a deep, slow circle, like he was working out a kink.

It would be so easy to reach behind his back, right now, to draw the pistol. To fire.

“But you already know,” Wolcott said. “I can see it in your eyes.”

Harrison took a step back, cursed himself immediately. “No, I don’t,” he said, forcing his voice to remain calm and level. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Wolcott smiled. “There’s something in us,” he said. “Inside
all of us. We all feel it, every day. It’s not sadness or depression … Well, it’s part of those things, I guess, but … It’s something different. You know that. You’ve felt it. I can see it.”

Harrison took another step back.

Wolcott stepped toward him. “What is it for you, Constable Harrison? Do you cheat on your wife? Or your taxes? Drive too fast?” He backed off. “No, that’s not it.”

“Why did you kill them, Cliff?” he asked, trying to take control of the conversation again. “Those girls …”

Wolcott pivoted on his heel, stopped.

“Because I could,” he said, his voice flat, uninflected. “Because I wanted to.”

Harrison swallowed hard, pushed the bile back down, glanced behind himself again and up at the unblinking red light on the video camera.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer, Constable. It’s the only reason any of us do anything. Dress it up however you like.”

“This is a waste of time,” Harrison muttered, snapping his notebook shut.

Wolcott smiled. “I’m answering your questions, Constable. You just don’t like what you’re hearing.”

“No, you’re not,” Harrison said. “You’re handing me this lukewarm Psych 101 crap that reads like a textbook diminished-capacity defence. You can practise that with your lawyer. I’m not going to help you set it up.” Harrison turned toward the door.

Wolcott laughed. “Is that what you think? A diminished-capacity defence? Constable, I’m going to plead guilty in the morning.”

Harrison stopped, turned around.

“Why?” It was all Harrison could think to ask.

“Because I did it. I killed those girls.” It sounded like he was describing any other event in the course of a typical day:
I got up, I went to work, I killed those girls.

“But why?”

“Have you ever known a fat girl on a diet, Constable?” Wolcott asked. “My sister, she was a big girl. Solid, my mother called her. Anyway, when we were growing up, my sister was always on a diet. Always. And do you know what always happened?”

Harrison nodded, hating the fact that he had been drawn in.

“She became obsessed. All that food she couldn’t eat? She couldn’t think about anything else. The more she resisted, the worse it got.”

Wolcott shook his head, looked toward the ground.

“That’s how it works. That’s how we work, Constable. Isn’t it?”

He looked like he was genuinely waiting for a response.

“The darkness is going to have you, no matter what you do. If you fight it, it gets stronger. You’re on a diet, and all you can think about is cake. Until you give in. The hunger”—he took a deep breath—“it wins, either way.”

“So that’s it?” Harrison asked, his voice tight, bristling. “You killed those girls because you, what? Got obsessed? Because you couldn’t think about anything else?” He snorted derisively. “That’s the lamest defence I’ve ever heard.”

“It wasn’t intended as a defence, Constable,” Wolcott said, and Harrison had to fight against the way the anger rose in him every time Wolcott used the word “constable.” “It was an explanation, that’s all. I thought you would understand.”

And Cliff Wolcott smiled, a cold, flat smile that showed his teeth. “I thought you’d be able to relate.”

Harrison’s hand dropped to his waist, within easy reach of the gun.

He shook his head.

“Can I ask you a question, Constable? How old is your daughter?”

Harrison’s breath caught in his throat. “How—how did you—”

Wolcott smiled again. “I knew it. You look at me and you see the bodies of those girls, and you see your daughter … She’s what, ten? Eleven?”

He couldn’t reply.

Wolcott nodded. “You can’t stop thinking about it, can you? Those bodies. Your little girl. Me. They just keep”—he made a ratcheting motion near his right ear—“ticking and ticking and ticking, and you can’t sleep, and you can’t think about anything else but what you would do …” Wolcott raised an eyebrow. “‘If I ever get my hands on that son of a bitch,’” he mocked, slowing his voice, putting on a bit of a drawl.

He looked up, and Harrison followed his gaze to the camera in the corner of the room. “So what are you going to do, Constable?” he asked, his lips working back into a smile. “You’ve got me right here, all to yourself.”

Harrison’s fingers twitched, but he didn’t notice.

“It’s not going to bring those girls back. It’s not going to keep your daughter safe.” The pity in Wolcott’s voice was almost mocking. “But you want to do it. It’s not really about them at all, is it?”

Wolcott smiled.

“What will you do, Constable?”

Harrison stopped his right hand as it started to slide into
his jacket, and turned toward the camera. Looking directly at the lens, he made a circling motion with his index finger at the level of his right ear. “Wrap it up,” he mouthed.

He tucked his notebook and pen back into his pocket. He let his hands fall to his waist.

The lock on the door clicked almost immediately.

When he looked back at Wolcott, there was an expression somewhere between disappointment and confusion on the killer’s face.

Harrison turned the knob and opened the door. “I don’t do things just because I want to.”

He didn’t breathe again until the door closed behind him, until he was watching Wolcott through the wired glass.

He shivered in the chill air; he was soaked with sweat.

Cassie turned the CD case over in her hand, closely studying the song titles as the music pulsed and flowed out of the speakers.

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

Ali’s friend Murray looked at her expectantly over his wire-framed glasses. His eyes were green and bright.

“They’re from the UK. Manchester, I think.”

“Bristol,” she said. “They’re named after a town close by.”

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth.

“What?” she asked. “I read about them in
Rolling Stone
or somewhere.”

“So, are you a big Portishead fan?” He pointed at the CD case.

“No, this is the first time I’ve heard it. It was on my list, though.”

“Your list?”

“I used to keep a list of records to look for the next time I got to the city.”

“No record store where you’re from?”

She stopped herself from reflexively answering.

He smiled kindly as her face flushed.

“Okay, I’ll quit prying,” he said. “But I have to admit, we’re all pretty curious. We all love Ali, and she shows up here tonight with someone we’ve never even heard about, let alone met. And you’re”—he paused—“a bit younger. You know Hong, so you’ve been to the restaurant. Ali says you met there …” He nodded slowly, then smiled again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a bit of a writer …. I’m always looking for the story. Imagining things.” He shrugged. “Mostly we just want Ali to be happy.”

He took a sip of his wine. “You do have a story, though, don’t you?”

Cassie shook her head. “No, no story. Nothing important.”

He looked at her. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true,” she said, unable to keep her voice from catching.

The room fell silent around them, and he reached past her and pressed the button to restart the CD.

“It is a great album, though, isn’t it?” he said.

Harrison wiped the sweat from his sleeve as the door to the holding corridor clicked unlocked.

He turned the handle, opened the door, breathing only when it had closed behind him.

Boris was standing at the desk, watching him.

“I told you he was a piece of work, didn’t I?”

Harrison nodded. “You did,” he said, trying to control the shaking in his voice, in his hands.

“I’m impressed, though,” Boris said, the grudging tone making it seem like the words only came with difficulty. “The Crown’s gonna love the full confession.” His face wrinkled into a smile. “Nice job,” he said. “That’ll go a long way if you’re looking to make detective.”

Harrison shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

Boris cocked his head slightly to the left, looking at Harrison curiously.