The Death Collectors

by J. A. Kerley

  “Is this a PSIT case, Detective Ryder? Is that why you and Detective Nautilus are here?”

  The last question caught me. I turned to the foam bulb of a microphone two feet distant. Behind it, big gray eyes highlighted a longish but compelling face framed in ash-blonde hair, Channel 14 reporter DeeDee Danbury. My feet stopped moving until I felt the nudge in my kidneys.

  “Tell her no, for chrissakes,” Harry whispered.

  “No,” I parroted.

  She raised an eyebrow. “But aren’t you two out of your regular district?”

  Harry pushed me into the cabin. Hembree was watching the Medical Examiner’s folks extricate the candles from the woman’s eyes. He held up an evidence bag, several ruddy particles inside it. “Found these in the victim’s hair. Similar to the substance in her neck and arm creases. Also found some under her fingernails, in her navel.”

  Hembree’s tone was odd. I looked from side to side; no one but me and Harry were in earshot. “Come on, Bree, no one’s listening. What are you thinking about?”

  “Zombies,” he whispered, an enigmatic smile on his face.

  Chapter 3

  Harry and I took the photos to nearby streets, checking so-called Ladies of the Evening. The “evening” part is a misnomer; most women selling their lives in ten-minute chunks depend on some form of chemical to get by, and addiction is hungry 24/7. We had plenty of girls - and one she-male - to talk to. Most glanced at the photo and shook their heads. A few pondered for a couple of seconds, always coming back with a “Huh-uh, not who I was thinkin’ of,” or the more popular, “Never seen her before. How ‘bout you boys get gone so’s I can keep workin’?”

  Harry and I wore a few hours off our shoes and accomplished exactly nothing. When we returned to the department, Tom Mason headed us off at the door to the detectives’ room.

  “Chief’s looking for you boys. He’s waiting over in my office.”

  Tom didn’t elaborate. Harry shot me a glance and we shuffled to Tom’s office. Chief Plackett was bouncing on the balls of his feet and looking out the window over Government Street, his slender pinstriped back to us. A pink hand smoothed back perfectly tended black hair. A gold watch glittered from his wrist. He spun with a frown on his face, had it grinning by the time it got to us.

  “There they are,” the chief said, his hand reaching for mine as I stepped across the threshold. He gave it the politician’s one-two pump, moved to Harry’s hand. “Here are my specialists.”

  Harry made a soft groaning sound that only I heard.

  “Specialists?” I said.

  “The specialists of the Psychological and, uh, Sociological Team. I got word you fellas caught a weird one - hooker, candles, ritual stuff. You’re putting the PSIT in gear, aren’t you? Nip this craziness in the bud?”

  I stifled a grimace. Originally created as a public-relations gimmick, the PSIT, consisting entirely of Harry and me, had one outing last year. Though almost everyone seemed against us, we were successful. But activating the unit - putting the PSIT “in gear” - turned out more complicated than it sounded, and created political and logistical problems neither Harry nor I wanted to face unless absolutely necessary.

  “I don’t think it’s called for at this point, Chief,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that, Detective?”

  “There’s evidence of a disordered mind at work. But one might argue that every premeditated murder is the product of a disordered mind, since no orderly mind would risk the loss of freedom or life that detection would entail. That said, I’ll note the scene had elements beyond the normal expectation of a…”

  Like often happens when I start babbling, Harry jumped to the rescue. “What Carson’s saying is, there’s a certain ambiguity to the case as it stands, Chief. It’s sort of borderline. For right now, we think the district guys should push it through.”

  Plackett looked out the window. “I’m getting calls from reporters, gentlemen.”

  We waited, our unspoken And? floating in the air.

  “I think you fellas should handle this. If it’s a psycho out there, it’s best to say we had you in from the beginning. I don’t want to get caught with our pants at half-mast.”

  After the morgue case, the brass took some flak, a few folks suggesting - not without reason - that PSIT should have been activated sooner.

  “The problem, Chief,” I explained, “is stirring up media attention we probably don’t want. They’ll dog our every step.”

  Plackett looked dubious. Tom, who’d been placating administrators for twenty years, clapped his hands. “Tell you what, Chief, if it looks like we need the more involving aspects of PSIT - giving Carson and Harry added autonomy, changing the command structure - I’ll have everything ready. But for now, how about I reassign their current cases and make them leads on this one?”

  Tom glanced at Harry and me. His raised eyebrow said, This is the best I can do. Plackett flicked a semi-satisfied nod and retreated out the door, leaving only a heavy musk of cologne in the air.

  Harry and I headed back to our desks. “Damn,” he muttered. “One day people barely admit the PSIT exists, the next we can’t keep them from putting us in charge. What the hell happened?”

  The photo from the Mayor’s awards ceremony was on my desk. I picked it up and tapped it with a finger.

  “We got validated, bro.”

  Though the air was hot and thick, I drove home with the windows down, trying to blast the day from my brain. I crossed Mississippi Sound at twilight, the dark water shining beneath the bridge, a few slow-moving pleasure boats returning to the marinas.

  I live on Dauphin Island, a long and slender spit of sand thirty miles south of Mobile. Perched on high pilings and overlooking the Gulf, my home is a box in the air above an island, and my idea of the perfect sanctuary. It’s a neighborhood far beyond my means, but when my mother passed away a few years back, I inherited enough to cover the tab. I’d initially planned to buy a single-wide on a cheap tract and let remaining funds spin a low-budget but work-free existence. But one day while fishing the Dauphin surf I saw my future home, its metal roof like polished armor, a wide deck facing the sea, the FOR SALE sign in the drive. The scant sleep I got that night was spangled with dreams. The house appeared as a boat, and I sailed it through what seemed safe waters. Two weeks later I dragged a couple hundred bucks’ worth of used furniture into a four-hundred-thousand-dollar beachfront home.

  I pulled onto a sand-and-shell lane leading sixty feet to my home, the center of three houses on a street truncated by a scrubby woods. John and Marge Amberly were my neighbors to the east. I saw an unfamiliar Hummer in the drive, Nevada plates. It was more cartoon than car: fire-engine red, outsized tires, lights mounted on the roof. Two figures were in the three dozen feet of sand between the houses. It was my property, but there were no signs and who cared anyway? The woman snatched something from the air. I flicked a wave and continued into my drive, John Lee Hooker raging from the speakers.

  Many of my neighbors are reverse snowbirds who trade the stifling heat of summer for cooler northern climes, reducing the cost of their places by renting to vacationers. From May through September I have a steady stream of new neighbors, some for a week, some a month or more. The Amberlys, for instance, were somewhere up north for the summer, renting their elegant two-story home out in one-month minimums. About three times the size of my place, it went for two grand a week. My transient neighbors were good people, mainly, the rental rates prohibitively high for summer-break students and halfwits who fire up a grill in the living room because that’s where the air conditioning is coolest.

  Getting out of the car, I heard a voice behind me say, “Hey asshole, why don’t you watch where you’re driving?”

  I looked up and saw a woman, mid thirties maybe. She was attractive in a high-maintenance way: streaked, modelish hair that fell in tended ringlets, cream-smooth skin, an olive tan as even as a good airbrush job. The yellow sundress hadn’t come fr
om a rack, but appeared tailored to highlight outsized breasts, Dow Cornings, judging by the symmetry, the Showgirl series. Her only visual negatives were bowed legs and a mouth pinched tight with anger. She was swaying a bit, like maybe she’d had a few pops.

  “Pardon me?” I said.

  “You drove over our Frisbee,” the woman said. “I yelled ‘Watch out!’ You kept driving. I watched you aim right at it, asswipe.”

  I studied a bent and flattened blue form in the road behind me. “No, ma’am. I assure you I did not purposefully drive over it. I’ve been meaning to get a bumper sticker saying, ‘I Brake for Frisbees,’ but haven’t had the time.”

  “Don’t you go wise-ass with my wife, buddy,” a male voice said. “I don’t like it.”

  A new player suddenly on the scene, hubby, judging by the matched wedding bands. He was six two or three, two hundred forty or so pounds, sucking in a paunch, difficult while being a tough guy. He had one of those silvery, short-bangs haircuts Hollywood sticks on Roman emperors. Like the woman, his tan was perfect, oak stain applied with a spray gun, even into the crinkly corners of his small eyes. He wore a brief black Speedo, not a good choice for a couple of reasons.

  The woman picked up the wounded Frisbee and tossed it at me. It banged off my knees.

  “You owe me six bucks,” she commanded, opening her palm and gesturing with red-nailed fingers.

  I’d met these folks before; their local equivalent anyway. They lived at the intersection of Big Money and Bad Breeding, a neighborhood that seemed to be spreading. They’d kiss up to anyone with more, belittle anyone with less, and proved “white trash” doesn’t need the word poor in front of it. Their hobby was owning things, which was subconsciously sparking our current little drama. Though the pair probably had a net worth in the millions, I was supposed to shell out six dollars for their plastic toy, giving them sway over me, a psychological form of ownership. It had nothing to do with money, everything to do with my acquiescence.

  Hubby said, “Better pull those bills from your wallet, buddy.”

  “And if that’s not in my plans?”

  He grinned and let his hands drift to his side, clenching and unclenching fists.

  I had no need or inclination to interact with these folks, life was too short and my day had been too long. I thought a moment, then bent and picked up the mangled disc. I studied it, then held the Frisbee to my ear and cocked my head.

  “What the hell you doing?” hubby said.

  I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh. I’m listening.”

  “Huh?” hubby grunted, his tiny eyes crinkled in confusion.

  “It’s still alive,” I told them, sad-faced, shaking my head. “It’s in pain. Can’t you hear it?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” the woman cawed.

  I set the Frisbee gently on the ground. Then, in one motion, reached beneath my jacket for the Glock, thumbed off the safety, racked the slide.

  “Jesus,” the woman said, her tan face turning white. Hubby started backpedaling, eyes wide. I knelt beside the Frisbee and patted it gently.

  “I’m going to put it out of its misery,” I said, taking careful aim at the plastic mangle. “Hold your ears.”

  When I looked up again, they were twenty feet gone and moving fast.

  The light on my answering machine blinked two waiting messages. I peeled off my jacket and weapon, hung them over a chair, then slipped into running shorts and a tee-shirt. I was about to check my messages when a knock came to the door. Jimmy Gentry of the Dauphin Island Police was on the stoop. Jimmy was a couple years older than me, thirty-two or so, slender, red-haired. He was a good Baptist country boy who’d been with the Dauphin Island force for five years, still mystified people with money didn’t spend more time thanking God for putting them on the champagne side of life. I waved him inside.

  “Have a seat, Jimmy. Want a soda?”

  “Just make me have to pull over to take a leak. I got a call, heard you pulled a gun on the Blovines.”

  “The what?”

  “The renters next door. Woman’s got a nasty mouth on her, don’t she?”

  I explained the scenario. Jimmy dissolved into laughter, wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “I’ll go suggest it’s best they leave you be. When’s John and Marge coming back?”

  “Not fast enough. Mid October, I think.”

  “The Martins gone too?” The Martins were my neighbors to the west.

  “Visiting the grandkids. North Dakota? South Dakota?”

  Jimmy smiled. “West Dakota, maybe. Anyone renting their place?”

  I shrugged and went to the window. The Martins’ house was a modest single story with shining metal roof, a copy of mine, save for being coral with gray trim, mine white with green trim. The place was dark, blinds drawn. No car in the drive.

  “No one there,” I reported.

  “Then you only got one set of neighbors to worry over,” Jimmy said as he walked to the door. “Take care, Carson. And try not to shoot the Blovines. The paperwork’d be the death of me.”

  Jimmy stopped to talk to the neighbors. They didn’t look happy when I wasn’t dragged off in chains. Jimmy double-whooped his siren as he pulled into the street, telling me he was laughing. I chuckled and went to my answering machine, pressed Play.

  “Good evening, Detective Ryder, DeeDee Danbury, Channel 14 news. Listen, the victim in the motel today? You and Nautilus were out of your regular district there, right? If this is a PSIT thing, I’d like to be in the loop, maybe get a statement from you. By the way, I saw your picture in the paper; interesting expression…”

  I jabbed the Erase button and DeeDee Danbury disappeared. I waited for the second message.

  A click of the mechanism, and the room filled with the voice of my dead mother.

  “Cah-son? It’s Mommy, son, calling from Heaven. My cellphone, that li’l thing I picked up a while back? It’s getting mighty low on ‘lectricity. Ah just found out Heaven don’t have no phone rechargers. Now, Cah-son, what’s a woman to do if she can’t talk to her favorite son now and then? Ah have ‘nother son, of course, but he’s A PRISSY LITTLE DIRTBAG AND I WISH HE’D ROT IN HELL…”

  I slumped to the chair beside the phone. It was my brother Jeremy. One of the many Jeremys. My mother’s voice continued.

  “…ah recall some days I’d be tryin’ my best to sew pretty dresses and THAT LITTLE SHIT JEREMY WOULD KEEP SCREAMING, ‘HELP ME, MAMA - DADDY’S TRYING TO KILL ME - HELP ME, MAMA.’ I declare Cah-son, how’s a woman ‘spect to get anything done WITH A SELF-CENTERED LITTLE MONSTER LIKE THAT AROUND? Ah me, such trib’lations as I been through. It’s wunnderful in Heaven, Cahson, they got sew-machines on ever’ li’l cloud. And you can make your mama’s time in Heaven even happier by calling on this very cell-estial telephone as soon’s you get this message, tellin’ her how she can get her very own phone recharger. She surely needs it fast. Thank you, and God bless us each and every one ‘cept, of course, you can CONSIGN THAT LITTLE FUCKWAD JEREMY TO THE STEAMING BOWELS OF PERDITION. Please call me tonight, dearest Cah-son. Give mah regards to that girlfrien’ of yours, Miz Ava. Buh-byee, now.”

  The connection broke off.

  My brother’s call was an aberration; he wasn’t supposed to have a phone. No one confined in that strange place was. But his hands were as swift with deceit as his words, and he’d slipped the phone from an orderly’s pocket. I’d never informed the authorities about Jeremy’s acquisition, and never quite knew why.

  I erased my brother’s message from the phone. No longer hungry, I went outside to lie on the deck and lose my thoughts in the blank hiss of the Gulf.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning I awoke to keening gulls and amber sunlight behind the curtains. Like most days I awakened a few minutes ahead of my 5.45 a.m. alarm, probably because it made an ugly sound, like a pig trying to chirp. I started coffee, slipped grudgingly into swim trunks, and walked to the water. I swam straight out for nearly a half mile, then turne
d and dragged myself back toward the cluster of beachfront houses. My standard four-mile beach run stretched to six as I tried to exorcise Jeremy’s call. I slipped on a pair of faded jeans and white shirt, pulled on a beige thrift-store jacket to cover the shoulder holster, and hit the road north to Mobile.

  When I got in, a half-dozen cops sat in their cubes, a couple discussing cases, most on phones. Harry was off at a meeting with the DA’s office on a case in progress. No sooner had I sat than my phone rang. Calls to the detectives went through Bertie Wagnall.

  “Guess what, Ryder?” Bertie said. “The local TV stations did a morning piece on that dead hooker. That Danbury bitch on Channel 14 talked about candles allegedly found at the scene. She’s called for you twice, wants a statement.”

  “Candles, Bertie?” Harry and I’d requested all scene details be kept tight.

  Wagnall belched; a liquid sound. “Alleged’s what she said. People been calling ever since, wanting to talk to you or Nautilus. They saw your picture in the paper and want to give you the benefit of their insights.”

  I sighed. “The usual nutcases?”

  He chuckled. “I’m surprised at your cynical self, Ryder. These are upstanding citizens with important concerns. Here’s a sample…”

  “Bertie, I’ve got too much to do. Just take their numbers and -”

  The clicking of a call transfer. Then a woman’s voice, elderly, yelling over a television real close or real loud.

  “Hello? Someone there? This the man what handles the lunatics? Weren’t no crazyopaths killed that dead whore…that temptress got harvested by the sword of Almighty God, is what happened. Says right here in my Bible that…”

  I set the phone down and massaged my temples. Last month Harry’d gotten called by a man who’d assigned numerical values to the letters in Fluoridated Water. The letters totaled 666. The caller was amazed we wouldn’t arrest everyone in the Water Department.