Leave Her Hanging

By Harry St. John

Ella Lewis is dead. Someone must pay.

“I loved Ella. Now she’s a corpse, cooling off in the morgue with a noose-shaped bruise around her neck. The cops say it’s suicide. It wasn’t suicide. I don’t know who killed her, and I don’t know why. But I’m going to find out, no matter what it takes. And when I’m face-to-face with the man who broke my world, I’m going to break him.”

In this tough-as-nails noir crime novel set in Auckland’s dark underbelly, 17-year-old Jack “Spade” Miller must traverse a web of violence, love, and illicit sex in his search for justice.

Only one thing is guaranteed: no one is walking away unscathed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harry St. John
• Release date: Sep 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301477968

Harry St. John

Harry St. John was always a good kid with a dark streak. Now that he's somewhat grown up, he's a crime writer living in Auckland, New Zealand. Although he has tattoos and facial hair and enjoys telling tales about thieves and gangsters and murderers, he's actually a pretty nice guy.When he's not writing about bad people doing bad things, Harry's studying toward his Postgraduate Diploma in Forensic Science. And when he's not doing that, you'll find him in a dark corner with his nose in a book. Disturb him if you dare.Harry also writes urban fantasy, superhero stories and other nonsense under the name Chris Strange.

Book preview

LEAVE HER HANGING

Harry St. John

Ella Lewis is dead. Someone must pay.

"I loved Ella. Now she’s a corpse, cooling off in the morgue with a noose-shaped bruise around her neck. The cops say it’s suicide. It wasn’t suicide. I don’t know who killed her, and I don’t know why. But I’m going to find out, no matter what it takes. And when I’m face-to-face with the man who broke my world, I’m going to break him."

In this tough-as-nails noir crime novel set in Auckland’s dark underbelly, 17-year-old Jack Spade Miller must traverse a web of violence, love, and illicit sex in his search for justice.

Only one thing is guaranteed: no one is walking away unscathed.

www.harrystjohn.com

Leave Her Hanging

Smashwords Edition

Originally published by Cheeky Minion 2013

Copyright © 2013 Harry St. John

Version 1.0

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Author’s Note

About the Author

Also from Cheeky Minion

1

Ella Lewis choked to death in the early hours of a lonely Monday morning. I didn’t find out until Wednesday.

It was humid, the kind of day where you sweat and sweat and it never makes a damn bit of difference. In the school quad I could hear the thud of a badly aimed football smacking into the side of the science block, and Mrs Trussel shouting for Jeremy MacKenzie to come over here right now, and students laughing and gathering to watch Mrs Trussel’s arm fat wobble as she waved her hands around. But none of that had anything to do with me. Not anymore.

I slipped inside the empty classroom and closed the door behind me. Mr Harvey was out getting his coffee. Ten minutes until the bell went. More than enough time.

My gut told me I should feel guilty for taking advantage of Mr Harvey’s trusting nature—he was the only teacher who still didn’t look at me like I was a stray Rottweiler—but my heart had more important things to worry about. I’d seen the way his face deflated when he read the yellow memo the admin lady had brought into class, the way his gaze lingered on me when he raised his eyes and told us fourth period was ending twenty minutes early so we could attend a special assembly. I knew it was about Ella. And I couldn’t wait another two hours to find out what’d happened to her.

It was only a few weeks into the new school year, but Mr Harvey’s desk already resembled a mountain range of paper and textbooks. I shoved aside a class roll and found a corner of yellow paper peeking out from underneath a calculus textbook. My heart hammered as I pulled it free, but my hands were steady. They’d never been this steady. I unfolded the paper.

My heart crumbled as I read. Each word scrawled on the yellow paper was another kick in the gut. My mind couldn’t take it. So it sought escape the only way it could.

Memory flooded me.

Dave jimmies open the boarding over the back door and we slip in one by one, ignoring the trespassing warnings and breathing in the musk. It’s Ella’s idea to break into the old abandoned Carlile house on Richmond Road, because we’re bored and a little bit drunk and what the hell else are you going to do in Auckland on a Sunday night when you’re sixteen, right? This isn’t really my scene and the others aren’t really my friends, but like hell I’m going to turn down a chance to hang out with Ella Lewis. Megan, Ella’s best friend, looks as nervous as I feel. She keeps saying we should leave. But Ella just grins that grin of hers, slips her arm through Megan’s, and drags her up the groaning stairs.

Once my heart rate comes down, I see what a beautiful old place it is. Something about it seems lonely, mournful. The furniture’s mostly gone, but there are still scratch marks in the floor where it used to sit. We split up and go room to room, exploring, hiding, jumping out at each other and making ghost noises to try to scare the others. Jeremy’s got a bottle of tequila, so after a while we settle down in a bedroom and pass that around, swigging away, the others loud and talking, and me just sitting there quiet and trying to sneak glances at the way Ella’s almost-black hair catches the moonlight through the gaps in the boarding on the window.

And then comes the shouting from downstairs, the voices telling us they’ve called the police and we’re going to be in all kinds of hell for trespassing.

Everyone bolts. Jeremy and Megan and the others go for the stairs. The house creaks and groans. But me, I don’t know what to do. My feet are nailed to the floor, my heart’s pounding loud enough to start an avalanche three hundred kilometres away. I stand at the bedroom door, wondering if it’d be best to just hide somewhere and wait for everyone to go.

But a hand wraps itself around mine and tugs. I’m face-to-face with Ella, and there’s something burning in her eyes that’s never been more than an ember before. She grins at me and tugs again. My legs come to life. We race to the bedroom window and push at the boarding until the nails come loose and the night air spills in. Ella hoists herself up and slips through, her jeans catching on a loose nail for a moment, and then she’s free again, standing on the roof of the bottom floor, beckoning to me. Hurry, she whispers, cheeks flushed.

She holds the board out for me while I wriggle through. I avoid the nail that got her but catch two more in the process. And then I’m outside with her, looking over the lights of Auckland.

Ella grabs me by the hand again—this time I notice how soft her skin is—and she pulls me to the edge of the roof. She lowers herself over the edge and drops to the grass, rolling as she hits the ground. Gut churning, I follow her, the shock going through my shins. The shouting’s muffled now, further away. Ella takes my hand for the third time and leads me back to the road, and we run and run until we’re both panting and even the night air isn’t enough to keep the sweat off our foreheads.

We collapse next to each other on the grass in Grey Lynn Park and catch our breath. Even through all the city lights, there are stars out, but I’ve only got eyes for her. Her small breasts rise and fall with each breath she draws. Her mouth is split wide in a delirious smile, her hair acting as a pillow on the grass. I become aware of her hip bone pressed against my side, her hand lying half a centimetre away from mine. Her skin’s a couple of shades darker than mine—a gift from a Maori relative a few generations back.

I think about taking her hand again. Ball up my courage. And then I do it. She doesn’t resist. Her head rolls to the side and she looks into my eyes, smiles, squeezes my hand. I want to say something funny or cool to impress her, but the tequila and the adrenaline and Ella’s smell are going to work on me. So I stay silent and do the only thing that seems right.

I kiss her.

And even after everything to come in the following months—the pain, the anger, the screaming—I’ll always remember the way Ella’s lips taste in the moonlight.

And then I was back in Mr Harvey’s classroom, slumped on the floor with my back against the wall, reading the yellow sheet of paper for the third time. They didn’t use words like beautiful and exciting and soft to describe Ella. They used ones like tragedy and suicide. And I sat there, trying to process what the words meant, because there was no way in hell they could apply. Even after the last few months when everything went to shit, she wasn’t that kind of girl. She wouldn’t know how to be a corpse. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t shown up to class since the principal had finally let me back into school. She was probably just sick, or she’d decided to drop out and do her acting like she’d talked about. There was no way she was cooling off in a morgue or a hospital or wherever they took dead bodies. There was no fucking way.

It was nearly eleven by the time I got my legs working again. The bell would be going any second now. I had to get gone. I had to get to a bathroom and spew my guts out. And I had to work out what had happened to Ella Lewis.

I pocketed the yellow paper and closed the classroom door behind me on my way out.

2

I don’t remember sitting through Mrs Levi’s English class, but I suppose I must have, because next thing I knew the bell was ringing again and I was getting up, returning my untouched exercise book and pen to my bag, and marching out the door through the throng of movement and chatter. If Mrs Levi had noticed me not working—and she should have since her eyesight wasn’t that bad yet—she didn’t say anything. No one had said much to me since I’d got back to school. Mount Eden College ran entirely on the gossip combustion engine—snippets of half-heard stories went in, powering the community, and out the exhaust pipe came bullshit. By now, everyone knew what had happened, what I’d done. But they didn’t know about Ella, not yet. I’d spent four years with these people. I’d never felt more isolated from them.

An empty space moved with me through the crowd of students in their white and blue and grey uniforms. It suited me fine. Some kids split off to go to other classes, but I followed the main group to Physics. I didn’t even bother getting my book out this time. I just stared at Mrs Dean’s handwriting on the whiteboard and tried to figure out what the hell had happened.

There were a lot of things I didn’t know about Ella. I’d found that out a couple of months ago. Hell, maybe I’d never really known her at all. We’d been going out six months before I found out about the drugs. She wasn’t using anymore, but she’d been in deep when she was thirteen or fourteen, bad enough to need a fresh start at a new school. Was that it? Had she started using again? Or was it something else? How many dark corners were in her soul?

While Mrs Dean blabbered, I looked around at the class. A couple of the old crew were in Physics with me: Jeremy and Dave. And I knew I knew her better than either of those arseholes. Jeremy was pretty bright, a football player, decent looking. The sort of guy who was good at a lot of things but not great at anything, which still made him better than me at pretty much everything. He glanced up from his book to see me staring at him. His eyes narrowed. I looked away.

Twenty minutes before the end of the period everyone started pouring out of the neighbouring classrooms. After Mrs Dean told the class which problems in the book were for homework, we filed out and joined the throng of bodies crossing the quad to go to the special assembly.

My gut was doing flip-flops again, even though I’d already spewed everything in my stomach. Before, Ella’s death was just words on a yellow piece of paper. But now they were going to say it, and that made it real. I wanted to break through the crowd and run, just go flying through the school gates and haul arse all the way back home. Or maybe not home, maybe I’d hitchhike to Hamilton or Wellington or something. That way I could pretend she was still alive, off living her life somewhere, getting into more trouble.

But somehow I kept trudging forward, keeping pace with the crowd, listening to them discuss how sweet it was to get out of class twenty minutes early.

The school hall had been designed by someone who didn’t understand the logistics of how to get twelve hundred students into and out of a confined space in a timely manner. I was taller than most of the girls but shorter than most of the guys, so I got a good nose-full of everyone’s BO as we waited. It took ten minutes before we were all in and seated. I’d managed to snag a seat near the back at the end of a row, so no one would be able to stare at me if my heart finally burst out of my chest.

The principal was a thin man, tall, dressed like an undertaker. We stood as he came onto the stage polishing his glasses.

Have a seat, he said, and we did. Everyone was quieter than usual.

He arranged his paper on the lectern, took his glasses off again to wipe them, held them up to the light, polished them once more, and returned them to his narrow face. A student coughed. I was gripping the seat beneath me so hard the muscles in my arms were twitching.

Good morning, the principal said, his voice even more solemn than usual. I’m afraid it has fallen to me to deliver some tragic news to you all. He cleared his throat. The hall had gone quiet. Even the usual smartarses didn’t make a sound. One of our Year Thirteen students, Ella Lewis, has passed away.

Someone once told me that the hit you see coming hurts more. This one felt like I’d been kicked in the ribs by a size twenty boot and then smacked around the head for mumbling. There it was. Passed away. It sounded so quaint. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was a desert.

It took me a while to realise the principal was still speaking. …terrible loss for her family, her friends, and everyone here at this school. We will be announcing the details of her funeral as soon as they become available for any students who wish to attend. The school counsellor will be available all afternoon to see students who—

The first gasping sob came from somewhere on the other side of the hall. Then another further down. Ella wasn’t exactly popular, but most people knew her, and if they knew her, they liked her. It took me a moment, but I spotted her best friend, Megan, pressing a tissue to her eyes a few rows down from where I was sitting. Her mousy ponytail bobbed with every shuddering sob that tore through her. The girl sitting next to her—Sarah, I think—put her arm around Megan and pulled her close.

Me, I didn’t cry. Not because I’m a tough guy. Hell, I wanted to cry. I just couldn’t feel anything anymore.

3

I waited outside the hall until I spotted Megan coming out. She still had the tissue to her face, and above it her eyes were red and puffy. She was a pretty enough girl in her own way, shorter and curvier than Ella, always wearing her school jersey in a vain attempt to hide the fact that her breasts had gone up two cup sizes in the last year. With all the students pouring out she didn’t see me at first, not until I sidled up right next to her and touched her on the arm.

Megan, I said. I need to talk to you.

She jumped at my touch, her back going rigid. When she saw it was me she softened, but only a little. Her face was slack, like she’d forgotten how to work the muscles. Megan and Ella had been Siamese twins since Ella first came to Mount Eden. Megan was always the good angel on Ella’s shoulder, keeping her adventures from getting out of hand, or trying to, at least. She looked lost without Ella here.

Oh, she said, trying and failing to smile. Yeah. Okay, Spade.

My real name’s Jack Miller, but somewhere along the line everyone started calling me Spade. I don’t know, maybe I looked like one. Megan let me lead her away from the crowd of students. There was a spot beside the library that had a few trees to provide cover; it’d give us a bit of privacy without going to any of the more unsavoury parts of the school grounds. She wiped her eyes one more time and settled down on the concrete with her back against the side of the library, pulling her blue school skirt over her knees to keep it from riding up. I dumped my bag and dropped down next to her.

You look terrible, she said.

I almost laughed, but it hurt too much. Yeah, well. I ran a hand through my hair. It’d gotten long in the last few months. I looked at Megan, huddling there with her arms wrapped around her legs. Are you all right?

Yeah, she said. Then she shook her head. No. I can’t…. She opened and closed her mouth a few times. I don’t understand. She’s our age. How can she be gone?

The principal hadn’t said how Ella had died, but it would come out soon enough. I reached into my pocket, unfolded the yellow paper, and passed it to Megan. Suicide. They say she hung herself.

Oh my God. The paper trembled in her hands. Are they sure? She wouldn’t. Would she?

I shrugged. The sun was driving stakes into my eyes. Ella was dead, the day shouldn’t be sunny. It didn’t make sense. I don’t know. I hadn’t talked to her since we broke up. I looked away so I didn’t have to see Megan’s expression. I was hoping you might know something. Help me understand. Was it… Was it my fault? Did I drive her to this? Did I kill her? Was she doing drugs again or anything? I said instead.

I don’t think so. Megan thrust the paper back at me like it had the plague. I mean, I haven’t really seen her lately.

She kept using the present tense, like if grammar said Ella was still alive then she must be.

You didn’t hang out with her over summer? I asked. Or since school started again?

She shook her head, another tear spilling free. I thought Megan looked pretty when she cried, and then I felt like a jerk for thinking that, I mean, Jesus, what kind of arsehole was I? She’s been kinda off the radar lately, ever since you guys broke up, Megan said. She looked at me. I’ve heard the rumours about you and Ella’s dad, but how bad was it? Do you think this had something to do with it?

I shrugged and scuffed my shoe on the concrete.

Spade, she said, and for a moment she almost sounded like Ella. Almost. Tell me.

You know what happened.

No. Not really.

Ella didn’t tell you? I said.

She frowned, something unreadable on her face. Like I said, she’s been out of contact. Her eyes clouded, and then she looked at me again, her cheeks reddening slightly.

I could tell she just wanted to not think about Ella being a corpse. Or maybe it was like that bullshit where you talk to your friends about what answers you put after an exam, knowing damn well there’s nothing you can do to change them, but torturing yourself anyway,