Last to Die: A gripping psychological thriller not for the faint hearted (5 page)

D
arla Levine stalked
down the corridor and stopped outside a frosted glass door. The letters on the door read: Lee Petro.

Darla forced herself to square her shoulders and take a number of deep breaths. ‘You are a professional’, she told herself. ‘Don’t take any shit and don’t let him run all over you.’

She tugged at her skirt and smoothed her hair. Ever since she’d received the message that Popeye wanted to see her she’d been filled with anxiety. She loathed her boss with the fire of a thousand suns, although she made sure to hide her feelings well. Not that it made any difference. Her charms, though prodigious, made not the slightest dint in Popeye. She knew he thought of her as nothing more than fluff in a skirt.

She knocked.

‘Get in here!’

Lee ‘Popeye’ Petro was an old-school newsman, the type who had clawed his way from cub reporter to the position of Editor-in-Chief and made sure everyone knew about it. He was demanding, egotistical, difficult and brutish. Since he had taken over 
The Gazette
, advertising revenue was up 24 per cent and production costs down 31 per cent, mostly due to a reshuffle, a pay freeze and a rigid firing policy. The newspaper owners worshipped the ground Popeye walked on; everyone below him on the totem pole hated his miserable guts.

‘Good morning Lee, you wanted to see me?’

‘Did you get a message saying I wanted to see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why the hell are you asking me?’

‘I, um—’

‘Let’s hear it. Conway situation, go.’

Popeye looked up from his desk; an unlit, well-chewed cigar jutted from his mouth.

Darla felt herself wilt slightly under the intensity of his gaze. Everything about Popeye was horribly intimidating. He was a gym maniac who worked out six days a week. He was proud of his physique and referred to his swollen biceps as ‘shock’ and ‘awe’. He was tanned deepest walnut from weekends spent out on his boat. He wore his grey hair in a tight crew cut and it was rumoured he had once tossed a smart-mouthed journalist through the window of his office for not turning in a story on time.

‘I’m afraid I have bad news, Lee. Jessie Conway has turned us down again.’

‘What do you mean she 
turned
 us down?’

‘She’s not ready to talk about what happened.’

‘You mean she doesn’t want to talk to you.’

‘She doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’

‘Who reached her? Was it those fucking CNN sharks? Fox? Which of those lousy sons of—’

‘No one has reached her. That’s just it. She has refused to speak to anyone.’

‘Whaddya mean, 
refused?
’

‘I don’t know what else to tell you, Lee. I’ve requested an audience with her three times now. I even got Pastor Williams to try, but so far, nada. Zip.’

‘You 
requested
 an audience?’ Popeye leaned his massive forearms on his desk. ‘Is she the fucking Queen of England?’

‘No, I mean I—’

‘What the fuck is this, D? Amateur hour? Don’t ask, don’t 
request
, go talk to her. Get me my story.’

‘It’s not that simple, Lee. I can’t just barge in there and demand she start talking. It’s impossible.’

‘Don’t give me any bull about impossible.’ Popeye removed the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it in her direction. Bits of tobacco sprinkled across the blotter on his desk, leaving behind dirty yellow stains. ‘Impossible is bullshit for people too stupid to build a bridge over possible. You go out there and you
make
 it possible. That’s what you do. Make it possible. That’s what you’re paid for Darla, am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘So stop fucking around. I want an interview I can put out tomorrow morning.’

Darla bristled. ‘I have gotten plenty of interviews over the last few days and I think I can use them to piece together exactly what took place in the cafeteria. I have an exclusive with Cheryl Hogan, one of the girls Conway told to leave the cafeteria. She’s a—’

‘She’s a kid, that’s what she is, a scared kid. I know she has something to say, great, but we need to hear things from the horse’s mouth. So do me a favour, don’t come back here without Jessie Conway’s story. Jesus Christ, Darla, I have people calling me twenty-four-seven for quotes. Are you trying to make me look like a fucking joke?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Goddamned paper is being flooded with calls about that woman and we’ve got nothing. We’ve got to hook her before anyone else does.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘What’s the word on her injuries?’

‘She was moved out of intensive care this morning. They’ve operated on her and removed the pellets from her skull. She is expected to make a full recovery.’

‘When’s she out?’

‘I do not have that information.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘The doctors don’t know yet, Lee. How would I?’

‘Don’t get sassy with me Darla, you’re the one with something to prove here. You broke this story, now you’re letting this story break you. Fix the damn thing.’ Lee moved the cigar from the left side of his mouth to the right without touching it. ‘Get a goddamned camera into that room Darla. That woman 
is
the news now.’

Darla kept her face neutral. ‘I am aware of that.’

‘People want to hear her perspective. They want to know her views. Goddammit, we need to talk to her before one of the others secures a deal.’ He stopped talking for a moment and looked stricken. ‘Or worse, an exclusive.’

‘She’s not talking to 
anyone
.’

‘Yet,’ Popeye said sourly. ‘You wait until those big fish start flashing their chequebooks. Listen to me Darla, I know this game; any putz that doesn’t know this game is worm shit. You want to be worm shit, Darla? You think your old man would let this golden opportunity turn into worm shit?’

‘No, Lee.’

‘Story’s already cooling down, Darla. Next week some other doped-up popper-headed shit-for-brains with mommy issues will take out half a cheerleading squad for not blowing him, and the media will move on. The window of opportunity,’ Popeye held up his hand and brought his thumb and forefinger together slowly, ‘is closing, Darla. Closing.’

Darla smiled stiffly. ‘I’ll get the story, Lee.’

‘You do that, because if you don’t you better start to get real acquainted with the local housewives ’round these parts, ’cause I’ll have you covering bake sales and sob stories about goddamn missing poodles until one of us rots.’

C
aleb rose
at dawn and worked out for half an hour. He showered and then stood in the living room, eating a bowl of cereal, watching the news. Again, the Rockville shooting dominated the headlines. More photos of Jessie Conway appeared, including one of her on her wedding day. She was more than just pretty, Caleb thought. He didn’t normally think much of redheads, but this one was pleasing to the eye. He listened to an eyewitness account of the struggle she had embarked upon to save ‘her beloved pupils’. Caleb thought the story hyperbolic and overtly mawkish. He wondered why Jessie herself had not yet been interviewed.

He washed his bowl and dressed. As he left the apartment building, he stole a newspaper from the doormat of one of his neighbours. Jessie Conway’s face smiled at him from the front page.

He collected Maryanne’s twelve-year-old gold Taurus from the garage and drove to his part-time job at the Happy Home Depot. Caleb worked in the stockroom and on the floor. He liked the job: it was easy and informal, and he was allowed to buy hardware at cost. He had fixed up most of the cabin using materials he had bought cheap or helped himself to over the months he had been there. It was a very satisfactory arrangement.

The morning went by quickly. Lunchtime found a number of the female workers discussing the shooting in the break room. Gloria, an obese loudmouth and the queen bee of the service tills, was holding court. Gloria always held court; she was the type of person who equated being loud with being interesting.

‘Two’ve been released so far, but mark me y’all, there will be more to die.’

‘How do you know, Gloria?’ asked Mandy, Gloria’s sidekick. Caleb despised her in equal measure. She was ugly and vapid and blew kisses at the kid who watered the plants in the gardening section. She thought she was being cute. She was too stupid to see she was a fool and the kid was embarrassed and made uncomfortable by her antics.

‘I have a cousin married to a guy whose sister works at the hospital. Least another one for sure is going to go. He says only a machine is keeping that poor girl alive now.’

‘It’s so hard to believe these things keep happening. I mean what is 
going on?
’

‘Why, ain’t it obvious?’ Gloria lowered her turkey, cheese and mayo sub. ‘The evidence is right there for y’all to see. This society is what’s wrong: it’s sick at heart and getting sicker every day. I can’t scarcely watch the television no more it is so filled with evil. It just about breaks my heart.’

A number of heads nodded in agreement.

‘You know who’s to blame – it’s the government.’ Gloria said in that imperious way she had of talking that made Caleb want to grab her throat and squeeze until he crushed her windpipe into dust.

‘Why’s that, Gloria?’

‘Well think about it for a minute,’ Gloria said, adding Sweet’N Low to her coffee. ‘This country is suffering from drought, a spiritual drought. 
They
 demand God is removed from our schools, so why should we be surprised when tragedies like this happen? They are forcing the Lord to turn away from His people.’

‘That’s right,’ another woman said, tapping her hand to her chest three times in quick succession.

‘How can we expect to be in 
His
 grace when we reject Him at every turn?’

Caleb filled a cup with black coffee. He turned and leaned against the counter, unsurprised to see a general bobbing of heads now. Oh that Gloria!

‘When you reject Him you leave the door open for the other. Everyone knows that, but we have let our schools be overrun by the godless and 
people
,’ – she sneered – ‘people with unhealthy 
agendas
.’

‘Did you see the teacher who stopped them, Gloria? She’s only a slip of a thing.’

‘I did and I tell you what, I believe the Lord was guiding that woman’s hand.’

‘I saw the video of her being led out from the school. Did you see her? My Lord, she had blood all over her.’ Mandy shuddered violently, but Caleb guessed from the look in her eye that her horror was just for effect. ‘I think you’re right Gloria, that woman had a guardian angel with her that day and that’s for sure.’

‘The Lord 
will
 watch over his flock.’

First a hero, now serving the community as a personal lackey from God, complete with guardian angel no less. Caleb stirred his coffee slowly and made a big production out of putting sugar in it, but as usual the women did not appear to take any notice of his presence. This amused him. These women with their talk of capricious personal gods, devils and spirits, yet here he was, the greatest devil any of them could imagine, flying easily under their radar.

It wasn’t that they liked him: it was insultingly easy for a man of his talents to be accepted by any demographic readily. He understood people; he knew what made them tick. On his first day he had identified and assessed the herd. He made it his business to be pleasant to every fat-assed cat-lover in the place. Not overtly nice, nor obsequious, but certainly pleasant. He was still male after all and did not want to give them ideas. But he remained 
pleasant
 enough so that they dropped their guard around him. They bought his story, swallowed his history. He was their quiet, helpful colleague. He was Arthur S Weils: helpful, pleasant, safe. They thought him … toothless.

While the women talked, he sipped his coffee and fantasised about running Gloria through with his knife. It would be a gut wound, he decided, glancing at her vast stomach. It would be really something, to see her try to push that mess back inside.

‘
Y
o
, I don’t know about this,’ Chippy said, from somewhere deep in the back of the cupboard.

‘Shut up, for God’s sake. Are you trying to get us caught?’ Darla whispered fiercely. She opened the door a crack and peeked out into the corridor. A number of nurses and patients milled about, which was cool, but Dr Saul Fraas, the snotty asshole treating Jessie Conway, who had been so rude to Darla the night before was also floating about, which was not cool, not cool at all.

‘Man, I don’t like being in confined places. I got a phobia.’

‘Will you 
shut up
?’

‘I’m gonna pass out or some shit, man; seriously, I have issues.’

Darla closed the door, reached into the dark, grabbed Chippy Gomez by his hair and viciously yanked him towards her.

‘Issues? I paid five hundred dollars to get us onto this floor. If you don’t shut up I am going to make you and your issues permanent residents here.’

‘Okay, okay, 
Dios
.’

Darla released him and returned to the door. The whole hospital was on some kind of media alert. Fortunately, Darla had a friend who worked in the laundry department, and by friend she meant junkie stooge who always needed ready cash. Five hundred smackers and a promise never to disclose a confidence later. She and Chippy disentangled their legs and climbed from a laundry cart mere feet away from Jessie Conway’s room.

‘Is that camera ready?’

‘Yeah it’s—’

It flashed, blinding Darla momentarily.

‘Motherfu—’

‘Yo, don’t get mad. I’m sorry. I 
told
 you, I can’t see shit in here.’

Darla gritted her teeth and waited for the rainbows in her eyes to fade. When she got this story, she decided, she would devote at least half an hour of every day to finding new and creative ways to make Chippy Gomez’s life a living hell.

‘Okay, here’s the plan again. We walk in, I’ll pull the curtains and you snap off a few rounds, then as soon as you have the pictures you walk, okay? Don’t you wait around for some idiot to take that camera from you, got it? Photo and walk.’

‘’Kay.’

‘Say it.’

‘Photo and walk. I got it.’

‘No waiting around.’

‘I got it, I got it.’

‘Doesn’t matter who tries to stop you, you keep moving.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

Darla tried to relax her shoulders. She opened the door again and put her eye to the crack. Fraas was nowhere to be seen and – happily – neither was the big blonde nurse he had been talking to. It was now or never.

‘Ready?’

Chippy belched in reply. Darla smelled onions and hot sauce. God, this had better be worth it.

‘We’re on.’

She opened the door and slipped out into the hallway as smoothly as possible. Both she and Chippy wore white coats to help them blend in with their surroundings. It wouldn’t convince anyone for long, but they didn’t really need a lot of time.

‘Shit,’ Darla said, waving her hand behind her to catch Chippy’s attention as the blonde nurse, the one who had been with Fraas when he had ejected her the day before, appeared at the end of the hall and began to walk towards them. Darla snatched up a clipboard as she passed a trolley and held it before her, flipping through the pages as though she had an idea what the words before her meant. She sneaked a look over her shoulder. Chippy was coming right behind her, trotting to heel like some kind of ill-bred mutt.

‘Stop making that face.’

‘Huh?’

Darla slowed right down. Chippy collided with her.

‘Sorry.’

‘Idiot.’

They were almost at Jessie Conway’s room. Darla dropped her head and pretended to study the chart in detail. Up ahead, an old man in pyjamas leading a drip on wheels stopped the blonde to speak with her.

‘Move!’ Darla grabbed Chippy by his lab coat, then she hauled him with her through the door, closing it behind them.

The room was semi-private. Darla looked around. Four beds: two containing ancient, still-breathing corpses, and another a sleeping woman who had a tube in her nose. Jessie Conway was by the window. She lay, looking wan and small, on the white sheets with her eyes closed. Her head was covered in bandages.

Darla crossed the floor quickly and drew the curtain around the bed. Chippy lifted his camera from beneath his coat and began to snap pictures from as many angles as the tiny space would allow. The commotion woke Jessie. As she opened her eyes, Darla elbowed Chippy behind her. Jessie squinted at the two people hovering over her.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Hi, Jessie, how are you? You’re looking fantastic. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m okay … I’m sorry, who are you?’

Darla held up the chart she had been carrying. ‘I’ve a few questions to run by you if that’s okay.’

‘I—’

‘Surgery went well?’

Jessie lifted her hand to her head. ‘Yes.’

‘Doctor Fraas is very pleased. Did he give any indication when you might be released?’

‘I don’t know … maybe later this week. Look, I’m sorry I don’t remember you. Either of you.’

‘Memory’s strange after a head injury.’ Darla smiled reassuringly. ‘What’s the last memory you have before the shooting?’

‘What?’

‘It’s a very simple exercise. What’s the last thing you remember about the day of the shooting?’

Jessie’s hands balled into fists on top of the sheets. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

‘I understand, I do. But it’s very important that you try.’

‘The alarms…’ Jessie’s pupils dilated and her right hand began to tremble. ‘I remember Alan falling.’

‘Alan Edwards?’

‘Yes, and his fingers … they were … he was trying to get up. I knew he was dying. I could see he was dying.’

Darla leaned in a little closer. ‘He was shot right in front of you, yes? By Kyle Sanders?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you remember if he said anything before he shot Edwards?’

‘I don’t know … maybe. There was another boy … the alarms were so loud. I remember I couldn’t move.’ Jessie closed her eyes and fell silent. Then she whispered, ‘I heard laughing.’

‘Laughing?’

‘Kyle … he was laughing. Alan was dying and he was laughing.’

‘Kyle Saunders was laughing.’ Darla could barely contain her excitement. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

When Jessie opened her eyes they were clouded with misery. ‘I should have said her dress was pretty.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I should have told her.’

‘What about Hector Diaz? Did you remember him?’

‘No … I …’ tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks, ‘I didn’t know him.’

‘Okay, can you run through the sequence for me? The alarms were ringing, Edwards was shot, and—’

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

The blonde nurse dragged the curtains back with such ferocity two of the rungs pinged loose.

‘Excuse me, lady,’ Chippy said. He made his way to the door, not exactly running but moving fast. In the hallway he turned right and disappeared from view.

‘Security!’ The blonde hurried out into the hallway after him, bellowing. ‘
Call security!
’

Jessie wiped her tears with her hand and looked at Darla in confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Darla. Then she walked out of the room and turned left.

‘I don’t understand,’ Jessie repeated, as the blonde nurse returned, her face like thunder.