Pam took the news as well as one could expect of a person in her position. She and Samantha had been equals then but, from the minute Pam got the call, telling her the guy who had bullied and scorned her right up until the day she left home was dead, she began to grow. Samantha didn’t understand the whole sibling loyalty thing; an asshole was an asshole, DNA or no DNA. She was glad to have left all that family bullshit at home.
Given her connection to the victim, Pam was forbidden from going anywhere near the case, but that didn’t stop her from offering unsolicited assistance from the sidelines. As the number of victims increased, so did the squad’s impatience. Pam came to them daily with new scenarios, suggested lines of inquiry, and correlations between victims where there were no similarities to be had, until finally the captain encouraged her to take the sergeant’s exam, hoping it would provide some distraction.
Years later, when it was clear that the brick-sized bee in her bonnet was not going to buzz off anytime soon, Pam was encouraged to take the captain’s exam and from then on, Samantha’s world got smaller. Taking the hint at last that the brass was tired of her crap, Pam turned inward, confiding only in the one person who had been there for her from the start. She was in Samantha’s ear in the squad room, in the car, on the subway, and at home. Guilt held no currency; it was just fucking annoying - particularly when Samantha was “working.”
Unplugging the phone would be worse than useless; if Pam couldn’t reach Samantha at home, there was always the cell phone, and if that went to voice mail, Samantha wouldn’t put it past Pam to just pop over - even at two in the morning. There was nothing else for it but to be proactive.
‘Hi, Pam? Sorry to be calling so late but I won’t be in tomorrow.’
Samantha switched the phone to her left hand and picked up the vacuum cleaner pipe.
‘My Dad called from England while I was on the loo and I fell running to pick up the phone. I’m pretty sure it’s only a twisted ankle but you can’t be too careful about these things so I’m getting it checked out. No it’s okay, my neighbour’s driving me. Yes, worry wart, I’ll call you when I get back.’
Samantha prodded Kevin’s feet into the bubbling tub water with the pipe and smiled.
‘Okay, bye.’
Samantha peered over at Kevin’s face.
‘Well, this was a supremely shitty idea. The average human being takes anywhere from seven to fourteen days to dissolve and, although I know compliments are useless to you now, you’re way above average in a couple of areas.’
She slipped her mask over her nose and mouth and sat on the edge of the tub.
‘I’ve felt myself slipping of late. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis, or maybe I’ve just been doing this for too long. Maybe it’s time I retired. God knows I’m not enjoying it anymore.’
A knock at the door made Samantha jump and she almost slipped into the bath herself.
‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered, ripping off the mask and gloves and throwing them into the sink, ‘I’ll get back to you in a moment.’
She turned on the exhaust fan, tip toed out to the front door and looked through the key hole.
‘Hello? Anybody home?’
Samantha slowed down her breathing and waited for Pam to go away. She was still waiting three minutes later.
‘I was driving by and I noticed your neighbour’s car was still there. You okay?’
Samantha closed her eyes. She really was slipping. She crept back down the hall into the laundry and grabbed a hammer, then went into the bedroom and got changed.
‘Hun? You okay?’
Samantha put her leg up on the bed, covered her foot with a sweater and raised the hammer.
‘Hun?’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’
Samantha bit down on her lip and swung away.
Samantha knew she had to act fast when Pam went quiet.
‘Just a second.’
She limped back out of the bedroom and answered the door, messing up her hair on the way.
‘Hey Pam. What’s up?’
‘You are, but not for long, apparently.’
‘Yeah, it turns out the kid next door’s grounded while his folks are away, so he can’t drive me anywhere. It’s probably just as well; I honestly think I just rolled it.’
Pam looked down at Samantha’s ankle.
‘Like hell! You’re swollen up like a tyre! Get in the car.’
‘Pam, it’s fine…’
‘Get in the goddamned car before I arrest you for flagrant stupidity.’
Samantha smiled; controlling people were often the easiest to control - you just had to be stealthy about it. Samantha was so glad to get Pam away from the apartment that she made a hasty retreat to the car, and put all of her weight on her injured ankle.
‘Ah, shit!’
Pam helped her into the car, and made Samantha lean on her when they got to the emergency room. When the charge nurse finally came to take her into one of the cubicles, Samantha had to be rather firm to stop Pam from coming along.
‘It’s okay, Pam…that’s what the nurse is here for.’
‘Just let me help you…’
‘Really, I’ve got it.’
‘Oh, stop being stubborn…’
‘For Christ’s sake, let me GO!’
One of the reasons Samantha and Pam had hit it off so well was that, pound for pound, Pam was as natural a conversationalist as Samantha was. There was no subject either one could broach without the other having something worthwhile to say about it. Once they were back in the car, however, Pam barely spoke at all and, when she did, her words were stilted. It was as though she were carefully weighing up the pros and cons of each syllable before she uttered them.
‘So…you were running…to get to the phone?’
‘Alcohol plus haste equals accident.’
‘Mmm…you’d think your Dad would remember. About the time difference.’
‘He’s in his early eighties, and Mum’s basically his hands and feet these days. It’s a miracle he can fart by himself.’
‘Yeah, I guess. You were wincing when you opened the door…like the pain was fresh…is it getting worse?’
No, but the pain in my arse is roughly the size of a house.
‘A little. It sort of radiates.’
‘Hmm.’
Pam opened the car door and handed Samantha her crutches when they got back to the apartment, but didn’t insist upon helping her up the front walk. Samantha had a sudden, inexplicable urge to give Pam a hug.
‘I wish I could’ve saved him for you, Pam.’
She said it without thinking and at the time, and for several hours afterward, she wasn’t exactly sure in which spirit she’d intended it.
Pam returned the hug, a little robotically.
‘You go inside and…take care.’
Samantha swayed her hand, zeroing in on the keyhole like a cross-eyed game hunter stalking a small bird. She got the key in the hole on the fourth try, stumbled into her apartment, and headed straight for the bathroom.
‘I’m coming, Kev, I’m coming.’
After another gargantuan effort, she shoved open the bathroom door and almost fell into the tub in the process. She held out her arms to steady herself.
‘Shit! That was a close one, wasn’t it? You’d be laughing your arse off right now, if said arse wasn’t dissolving in my tub now how am I going to keep you under wraps until the rest of you turns to aspic, hmm? I suppose I could take advantage of my hol…holid…vacation time. But then, if I did that, fucking Pam would insist on coming over here and checking on the place every day. I’d end up having to explain myself no matter which way you looked at it. Even if I told her someone was house sitting for me, she’d cruise past every night, looking for lights in the window or the lack thereof. I’m fucked if I do and I’m fucked if I don’t. Pity she wasn’t that observant about her brother.’
‘I’m making up for it now.’
Samantha looked down the barrel of Pam’s Glock and almost fell in the tub again.
‘Pammy…didn’t see you there.’
‘You were so stoned you forgot to shut your front door.’
‘And you noticed that, from way over at the curb…even without my house lights on.’
‘Contrary to popular belief, I notice a lot of things. Now get down on the goddamned ground.’
‘Come on Pam, we’re friends, we can work this out, can’t we?’
Pam grabbed Samantha by the hair and slammed her down onto the concrete tile floor. Samantha had to speak lying face down in her own blood, and the effort made her gurgle.
‘How did…how did you know?’
‘You lost your game face,’ Pam knelt on Samantha’s back and started slapping cuffs on her wrists, ‘not completely - just a little. I noticed it at briefings. A twitch at the corners of your mouth like you were forcing back a smile, tapping your pen against your teeth to distract yourself from how much fun you were having. It only ever happened when we were discussing The Watcher. Us police captains are trained to observe shit like that. Why do you think I worked so hard at being your friend you phony, pretentious, British bitch?’
Samantha laughed.
‘There’s one thing you still haven’t noticed, Pammy dear.’
‘Oh yeah, what’s that?’
Samantha raised her leg and kicked Pam squarely in the crotch.
‘I’m not fucking high you ignorant, presumptuous, American twat!’
Pam’s gun flew out of her hands and skidded along the bathroom floor. Samantha grabbed it and pointed it at Pam’s forehead.
‘The nurse did come in with the syringe, but I fed her some bullshit about me having been abused with needles as a child and asked her for oral pain relief. I hid the fucking pills under my tongue and bit down while the doctor cracked my ankle back in place. I left the door open intentionally, just to get you in here, that’s how seriously I take this. I’m kind of pretentious that way.’
‘Let’s see how confident you are when my back up gets here.’
Samantha shook her head.
‘You didn’t call for backup. See, I know you, Pam. Much as the brass like to think they’ve reeled in your cowgirl ways, you still like to play the hero cop. You came running in here, determined to kill me or take me in all by yourself. I’ll bet you even left your radio in the car.’
Pam smiled. ‘I told people I was coming here, Samantha, and when neither of us turns up for work tomorrow, whose place do you think they’re going to come to after they’ve been to mine?’
‘Doesn’t really matter, because neither of us are going to be here by then.’
‘Where are you going to go, back to Daddy in England? You really think a little thing like geography is going to stop them from catching up to you?’
‘I’d have to be an idiot to think that. No, where I’m going, no one will find me. Not unless I happen to take someone with me, of course.’
‘Give me a fucking break, you’re not going to kill yourself.’
‘Oh but I am. I’ve always known there would inevitably come a time when I’d start slipping up, losing it, and I’ve always said that when that happened, I’d pack it in.’
‘So why not let me shoot you? Go down in a blaze of glory?’
Samantha rolled her eyes.
‘Because that phrase is almost always associated with a stupid Jon Bon Jovi song now and if I did choose to go down in a gunfight, it would not be to an idiot like you. I have my reputation to think of.’
‘What about the open door? Don’t you think your neighbours are going to find that awfully suspicious?’
‘Ha! My neighbours are too busy working, fucking, or partying in the Caribbean and ignoring their errant children to notice that somebody’s door’s ajar! They’d ignore a gunshot if it went off right next to their stupid, apathetic heads.’
There was a deafening blam, and pieces of Pam’s skull splashed against the wall tiles. Samantha jumped, despite being thoroughly used to the sound. When she followed the trajectory of the bullet, she found herself staring into the eyes of the boy next door. His hand was shaking.
‘She…she was reaching for something. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew you were a cop, so I had to help you.’
Samantha slowly got to her feet.
‘That’s okay, honey, you did well.’
‘I was heading out to buy more beer and I noticed your front door open. I thought that was weird so I called out. When you didn’t answer me, I just knew something was wrong, so I came in…’
‘I know, honey, I know you did and you did the right thing. This lady would have killed me if you hadn’t stopped her. I’d like you to give me the gun now, though, because you’re shaking and I’m worried you might hurt yourself. Can you do that for me, give me the gun?’
The boy held out his hand. ‘Sure.’
Samantha reached for the gun.
‘Thank you,’ she smiled, ‘it’s nice to see there are still gentlemen in this world.’
Carey Kerr’s forehead blocked her vision and all she saw was stars.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
