Chapter 16
Serenity sheriff’s office is the other side of town, out towards the hospital and trading estate Lockhart told me about.
It’s a small, single-storey building, whitewashed like lots of the buildings here, a US flag flying outside and parking spaces for two cars.
Jerry’s brown cruiser takes up both spaces, abandoned at an angle with the casual arrogance of a man who knows no one is going to ask him to move it.
The sight of the carelessly parked car irks me right away.
I squeeze the SUV in next to the cruiser and climb out of the car. I wince at the onslaught of heat. The headache that threatened earlier is now in full bloom. I shouldn’t have drunk so many beers last night. Present me is damn annoyed at past me. Past me doesn’t care because past me is drunk.
The door to the office is half open. Obviously, Jerry has the same attitude to security as he does to car-parking. I knock once, gently. ‘Hello?’
A few seconds later, a gruff voice responds wearily: ‘Yeah. Come in.’
I step inside, thinking that the open door must be fucking up his aircon. As soon as I’m in, I realize that’s not an issue. There is no aircon. Two huge fans waft warm air around. The small office is stifling.
Jerry, however, looks cool as a cucumber, reclining in a leather chair, feet up on a huge wooden desk in front of the window. Opposite him, half a dozen filing cabinets are squeezed into the cramped space and a door leads to a small kitchenette.
‘Mr Barker.’ Jerry smiles but doesn’t bother standing or putting his feet down. Again, the attitude of a guy who doesn’t need to give a shit. Each little slight cranks up my irritation another notch.
I try my best to smile pleasantly. ‘I called earlier?’
He stares at me, like he doesn’t recall. Like he has so much important stuff to do that a call from a mere mortal like me has already slipped from his mind.
‘I had something I wanted to talk to you about,’ I say patiently.
‘Oh yeah.’ He reaches for a mug of coffee on his desk. ‘So, how can I help you, Mr Barker?’
He still hasn’t invited me to sit down. I decide to take the initiative. I pull out the chair in front of his desk and plonk myself on it. It’s much smaller than Jerry’s leather recliner, so I’m forced to look up at him. The power grab isn’t subtle.
‘Like I said on the phone – I think we’re having some issues with an intruder.’
‘You think? You don’t sound too sure.’ A patronizing smile. ‘Are you or aren’t you, Mr Barker?’
I hold his gaze. ‘We are. Someone is breaking into our yard at night.’
‘O-kay.’
Jerry leans forward and leisurely flips open his notepad. I realize suddenly why the desk seems so abnormally huge. There’s no desktop or laptop taking up space. Just the notepad, phone, Jerry’s coffee and a picture in a frame. A pretty young woman with a blonde bob. Maybe his daughter.
‘And what is this intruder doing?’ Jerry asks.
I try to keep my attention focused. It’s hard in the hot, airless office.
My under-arms are damp and sweat prickles on my brow.
‘They’re dressed up in the Arnie the Armadillo costume – the one Frankie was wearing when he drowned.
And they have signs hung around their neck.
The first night it was “No Accident”. The second night – “Help”.
Jerry stares at me. ‘Arnie the Armadillo?’
‘Yeah – I know it sounds crazy.’
He gives me an odd look. ‘It does. And have you confronted them?’
‘By the time I got outside, they were gone.’
‘Must have moved fast.’
‘Well, I guess. But I’m hardly Usain Bolt.’
He looks at me quizzically.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What about the security camera?’ he asks now.
I clear my throat. ‘Both nights I got a notification on my phone and saw the figure on the screen. But the next day – the notification had gone. I think there’s a fault with the camera.’
‘Right.’ Jerry strokes his chin and makes a show of looking at his notepad, which he has been lazily scribbling in and dripping coffee on. I can’t quite see what he’s written past his – also stupidly large – coffee mug.
‘Okay.’ He lets out a long breath. ‘So, you have absolutely no record of this intruder on camera?’
‘That’s right. Like I said, it must be some kind of fault.’
‘So maybe you should talk to the home security service?’
‘They can’t come till tomorrow,’ I say.
‘Then what is it you want me to do, exactly?’
‘Well, I wondered whether anything like this had happened before, or maybe you know of some teenagers who might play this type of trick? Playing pranks on the newcomers.’
He stares at me thoughtfully. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of anything like this before.’
I shift on the smaller chair. It’s uncomfortable, especially for a tall man like me.
‘Could you ask around?’ I persist. ‘Maybe talk to some of the mascots, or parents of kids at the school?’
‘You want me to start asking parents if their kids have been dressing up as Arnie the Armadillo and standing in your back yard with weird signs around their neck to scare you?’
I feel my face redden. I’m no stranger to looking foolish.
As a teacher, it comes with the job. You spend a good portion of your life being sniggered at, ridiculed and called a variety of names.
Sometimes these names are even immortalized on desks or toilet doors.
It takes a lot to humiliate me. Even more to really annoy me or get my goat.
So, the fact that Jerry is managing to do all three is certainly an achievement. Credit where credit is due.
‘Someone might know something,’ I say through gritted teeth.
A deep sigh. ‘The mascots are good kids, Mr Barker. Most of the teenagers here are. I can’t see any of them doing something like this. More to the point, you don’t have any evidence that anyone did anything.’
‘I’m here telling you I saw it.’
‘But that’s not evidence, is it, Mr Barker? I can’t go around accusing people without evidence.’
‘You think I made it up?’
‘You’ve had a stressful couple of days. Shock, jet lag, moving to a new country. Isn’t it more likely that you imagined it, or dreamt it, even?’
‘I didn’t imagine it,’ I say tightly. ‘I know what I saw.’
He leans over the massive desk, a thin smile twisting his lips.
‘Let me tell you something you obviously don’t know.
When a mascot dies in costume, and it happens sometimes – few years back, Ron Turbett had an epileptic fit in Harry the Hyena, poor kid – well, when that happens, that costume is retired.
As a mark of respect to the person who wore it. It’s a long-standing Winsom tradition.’
‘But that doesn’t mean someone couldn’t have got hold of the costume—’
‘The costume is incinerated, Mr Barker. Arnie the Armadillo is dust. That’s how I know no one was standing in your back yard wearing it.’
I swallow. Sweat trickles down my back and nestles in the crevice of my butt cheeks. Incinerated. Dust.
‘Look’ – Jerry adopts a more friendly tone – ‘I know you’re not here wasting my time on purpose.
You genuinely believe you saw something.
By all means, talk to the home security team.
But give it a couple of days. Get some sleep.
If it happens again and you have some evidence, come back to me.
’ Another smug smile. ‘But I think you’ll find everything will be fine once you’re more settled. ’
Jerry sits back in his chair. His cell phone vibrates on the desk. He stares at it. I stare at it. It keeps vibrating. I nod at the phone. ‘Don’t mind me.’
He grunts, snaps his notebook closed, then picks the phone up and says curtly to me: ‘Excuse me a moment.’
He walks quickly out of the office. I see him outside the window, walking up and down, phone pressed to his ear, scowling.
I guess the ‘no phones in public spaces’ rule doesn’t apply to Jerry.
I stare at his vast desk, at the closed notebook.
I glance back out of the window, then, on an impulse, I reach forward and pick the notebook up.
I flick through the pages. Every single one is blank until I get about a third of the way through to the page he must have just been writing on. It’s got a fresh coffee splodge on it.
I stare at the page. Just one sentence has been written down:
Mascot. Messages. Alert LH.
I blink. What the fuck? I whip out my phone and take a picture of the page. Evidence, I think with grim satisfaction. Then I shut the notebook and slide it back across the desk, just as Jerry walks back into the room.
He looks annoyed and preoccupied. ‘I’ve got some business I need to take care of, so if we’re done here, Mr Barker?’
No, we’re not done. Not at all. But right now, I really want to get out of his cramped, stuffy office and get my thoughts together.
I push the chair back and stand. ‘Thanks for all your … help.’
‘Any time,’ Jerry says, either oblivious or indifferent to my sarcasm.
‘Right. Well, goodbye.’
I walk out of the office and back outside.
The humidity swamps me, but it’s still preferable to sitting with Jerry any longer.
I pause by the SUV and look around. There’s a café a few shops down.
I’m thirsty, and I’m still chewing over what Jerry wrote in his notebook.
I climb into the SUV and park it down a side street.
Then I walk back to the café, find an empty table under an umbrella and wait for someone to take my order.
From here, I can see across the street to the sheriff’s office.
Jerry doesn’t come out and leap into his car, so I’m guessing the son of a bitch lied about having somewhere to be.
However, a few minutes later, as I’m halfway down my coffee, I see another car pull up.
It doesn’t bother trying to park next to Jerry but deliberately blocks him in.
I raise an eyebrow. The car is a classic baby-blue Cadillac.
Mint condition. Chrome trim gleams in the sunshine.
Nice. I wonder who it belongs to. My question is answered almost immediately.
Giles Lockhart climbs out and walks inside.
Lockhart. What the hell is he doing here? My brain fumbles for a moment with the significance. And then it clicks. I pull out my phone and check the picture I took. Just to be certain.
Mascot. Messages. Alert LH.
Alert LH.
Lockhart.
Shit.