The Killing Game

by J. A. Kerley

  “Does he know this?” Harry asked. “The symbolism?”

  “All he may know is that the selection feels right and—”

  “Everyone keeps saying how smart this bastard is,” Baggs interrupted. “Now you’re saying he isn’t bright enough to know why he’s picking his killing tools?”

  “He knows many things,” Kavanaugh said. “But the last thing he knows is himself. He exists behind a veil of delusions.”

  Baggs snorted his disbelief. Not big on veils, I guess.

  Harry said, “You think the killer’s specifically at war with Carson, Doc?”

  Kavanaugh shook her head. “Evidence suggesting a direct antipathy toward Carson is sketchy.”

  “What’s anti-pathy?” Baggs said.

  “An intense dislike. Hatred.”

  Baggs shook his head. “Then why not just say hatred? Why do you people hide everything behind psycho-babble?”

  “I’m sorry, Chief Baggs, but antipathy is a widely used word that—”

  “The killer leaves pennies like in Ryder’s video and sends messages to Ryder. Maybe I’m not acquainted with how shrinks think, but how is it the perp doesn’t hate Ryder? Isn’t at war with Ryder? For Christ’s sake, Doctor, he’s killed four people to prove he hates Ryder.”

  I caught Kavanaugh’s glance. This was the first time she’d been exposed to Baggs, but she’d already figured complexity wasn’t his specialty. She wheeled her chair to face him, legs crossed, her fingers tented beneath her chin.

  “Exactly, Chief Baggs,” the doc said evenly. “Four people dead. And yet Carson sits among us, alive and breathing. If the killer has a personal vendetta against Carson, why didn’t he simply kill Carson?”

  All heads turned to Baggs for his answer.

  Baggs glared at Kavanaugh. Having no answer, he changed the subject.

  “Do you believe the killings are random?” he challenged. “Or is that unprovable, too?”

  Kavanaugh spun back to me and Harry. “You’ve found no ties between any two victims?”

  “Nothing cultural, geographic, job-related,” Harry said. “We’ve made lists of friends and acquaintances of the victims, talked to those folks and their friends and acquaintances. Not a single case of overlap. Kevin Bacon never showed.”

  Kavanaugh turned to Baggs. “Then yes, Chief. It’s quite possible the killer drives around town, sees someone, decides right then to murder them. That’s your take, right, Carson?”

  I studied my interlocked fingers, tapped my thumbs together.

  “I can’t say that yet. Maybe if we—”

  “Stop thinking like that!” Baggs barked, his hand slapping the table. “Fuck lists and acquaintances and navel-gazing over motive. It’s random. The bastard drives around town, counts down five-four-three-two-one and whoever he sees at zero is dead. You’ve got to get a fucking description of this perp and get it distributed.”

  “I wish I’d thought of that,” I said to myself.

  Baggs’s face went red and his thick forefinger jabbed my way. “I wish you’d thought before you started up the Carson Ryder random killer contest. And if I hear another goddamn insubordinate remark like the last one I’ll—”

  A knock. Baggs yelled, “Come in!”

  The door opened to Sergeant Nate Gibbons, an envelope in his hand. “This just got dropped at the desk. You said if anyone left anything for Ryder I should run it up as fast as—”

  “Gimme that,” Baggs said, grabbing the envelope from Gibbons and starting to tear it open.

  “Gloves!” I yelled.

  Baggs realized what he’d nearly done and angrily threw the envelope to the table. I put on latex gloves and studied the address, the same as the first example.

  “How’d it get here?” I asked Gibbons.

  “Guy said he was paid twenty bucks to tote it over from the corner of Conti and Royal. He’s downstairs.”

  I was out of my chair and moving, Gibbons calling, “You ain’t gonna get anything, Carson. The guy’s—”

  But I was already thundering down the stairs. I pushed into the lobby and saw a patrolman standing beside a heavy-set black man in a worn blue seersucker suit over an orange-heavy aloha shirt. He wore obsidian sunglasses and a top hat with a plastic daisy poking up. I stopped and resisted the urge to scream.

  Beaten again.

  I walked across the floor, said, “Howdy, Blind Jim.”

  “Howdy back, Carson,” said the panhandler. “You get what I brought?”

  “Yep. How’d you come across it?”

  “I was heading down to the square when a fella steps close, says he needs a letter delivered to the po-lice. I said, ‘They right up the street, mister.’ He says he can’t go there without trouble an’ I figure, you know…”

  “The guy’s got a warrant on him.”

  “Sure. But maybe he still needs to give you something. He gimme twenty bucks, so I didn’t really care what his problem was.”

  Gibbons said, “How you know it was a twenty and not a one?”

  “Be blind all your life, you learn to read voices.” Blind Jim scrabbled in his pocket, pulled out a bill. “His voice told me I could trust him. It’s a twenty, right?”

  “Actually, it’s a one,” I said, plucking it from his hands. “And we need it for evidence.”

  “Lyin’ muthafucker,” Jim said. He thought a moment. “But a damn good liar, Carson. I’ll give him that.”

  “Anything you can tell us about him, Jim?”

  “Rough voice, like he had a cold, but that was fake. I put him younger side, thirty or under.”

  Harry, Tom and I pulled our wallets and brought Blind Jim up to the promised twenty, then directed a couple guys to prowl the area where the panhandler had been contacted, but didn’t expect much.

  We headed back upstairs, where the Doc was tapping at her iPad, Baggs staring out the window, doing their best to ignore one another. We relayed the scenario with Blind Jim. I snapped on gloves and lifted the tab of the envelope, shaking the contents to the table. Another penny. And another strip of paper carrying a message:

  4–0, Detective Ryder. How Stupid is the Blue Tribe?

  36

  Baggs shook his head at the new message. “‘Detective Ryder’? If we had any doubt it was personal, now we know for sure.”

  “Not necessarily.” Kavanaugh frowned, studying the note.

  “It says his freaking name, Doctor,” Baggs said. “Right there and written in English: Detective Ryder.”

  “It also says ‘Blue Tribe’. That’s obviously the MPD. It’s a major glimpse into his thinking. The killer’s fighting a tribe.”

  “The envelope’s addressed to Ryder,” Baggs said. “The note inside is to Ryder. Any war is between this lunatic and Ryder.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” Kavanaugh said. “Although Carson is somehow representative of the MPD in the perpetrator’s mind.”

  Baggs rolled his eyes. “A position Ryder got by boasting over the Internet that he could stop random killings.”

  “I can play the video for you, Chief,” I said, feeling my fists clench. “You’ll see that the last thing I said was—” I stopped. Both videos had been deleted. Nullified.

  “I’ve got work to do,” Baggs said, standing. “Maybe you do, too.”

  He left, pulling the door shut hard at his back. Doc Kavanaugh shook her head. “I was going to try and explain surrogatized anger and synecdoche, but…”

  “Pearls before swine,” I said, words that had helped put me into this mess.

  We broke off the meeting, work to do. Harry and I re-consulted my list of those wishing me harm. It was not quite five and we headed out to see who else we could drop from our list of potentials. As we entered the police garage we passed several dicks from Theft who were smoking and shooting bull with some mid-level administration types. They went silent as I passed, a couple of them shooting the wet eye.

  “What?” I said, stopping and turning.

  “Nothing.”<
br />
  “You went mute when we walked past. What the hell is it?”

  One of the dicks, Eddie Ondrean, took a hit of his cigarette. “I work the beat by the university,” he said, smoke drifting from his mouth. “We’re getting a lot of heat about the dead girl – Ballard. The campus is half-deserted at night, classes cancelled.”

  “So?”

  Joe Arbogast, a dick from Auto Theft, took his turn. “Everyone uptown’s wondering how a little crippled kid gets snuffed in broad daylight and there’s no progress. Nada. They say, ‘What’s goin’ on, Joe?’ I say, ‘We got our best guy on it.’ They say, ‘Got anyone else?’”

  I stared. One of the admin types, a guy in bookkeeping named Blaine, cleared his throat. “Word has it you challenged this psycho to kill people at random, Ryder.”

  My mouth dropped wide. “Challenged? Where the hell did you hear that?”

  “The usual stuff, one person to another.”

  “The guy sent me a letter,” I said. “That’s it. He could just as well have sent it to you.”

  “I didn’t call him out. That’s what you did, right? On the Internet?”

  I felt my fists clench. “Look for yourself and you’ll see I only—” I kept forgetting the video was history. There when I didn’t want it, gone when I did.

  “Only what?” Arbogast said.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, tugging Harry’s arm. “Let’s go do some police work.” We headed to our cruiser, opened the door. I was about to get in when Ondrean called, “Hey, Ryder.”

  I looked at him over the top of the cruiser. “What?”

  He took a final hit from his cigarette, flicked it to the pavement, rubbed it dead with his foot.

  “Don’t piss this guy off any more, will you?”

  They stepped apart and went to their cars. No one was laughing.

  Gregory was sitting in his living room with the lights lowered and drapes pulled, notes of Ema’s financial records on the glass top of the coffee table. Ema was not as much of a spendthrift as he’d thought, hanging onto well over two and a half million dollars of dear ol’ Daddy’s inheritance. Her house had to be worth another three hundred grand.

  He’d also found the wills the family lawyer had drawn up when Gregory was deemed responsible for his due. He and Ema were one another’s beneficiaries. So … Ema represented over two-point-five million dollars, were she to die. Gregory had almost two million dollars in investments, three-hundred-fifty in the house.

  For a combined total of six million dollars. Was that called a Sextillionaire? Sextuplets was six howling babies, so it had to be. Gregory Nieves, sextillionaire. It felt good, especially that word sex, hot.

  Though thinking about being a sextillionaire was exciting, Gregory reluctantly pushed it from his head. He had a major project in the works: vengeance on the Blue Tribe. And another attack was due.

  But first, the random selection. It was time for the next penny to speak.

  The scant furniture had been pushed to the walls and the floor was bare. Gregory walked to the mantel and picked up the red vase. It clattered as he lifted it. He slowly upended the vase over a cupped palm. Dozens of pennies poured into his hand, filling it from wrist to fingertips.

  Careful, careful … don’t drop any.

  He weighed the bright coins in his hand. It was the greatest feeling in the universe: holding someone’s future in his hands. Closing his eyes, he flung the coins into the air, hearing the bright discs clatter to the floor, rolling hither and yon. He heard rolling coins whir to a halt, topple over.

  The room was silent.

  Gregory walked slowly toward the center of the room, footsteps creaking over slatted wood. He stopped and spun in a blind circle. Walked three steps, turned right, walked three more. Stopped and put his right foot a step ahead.

  Opened his eyes.

  Not six inches from his toe-tip was the nearest penny, head-up. He bent, picked it up, turned it reverse-side up. But he didn’t see the Lincoln Memorial. He saw a dot of paper glued to the coin, on the paper a tiny, printed name. He studied the name and nodded. Then turned and looked at a floor bright with fallen coins.

  Random. Exactly the way Ryder wanted.

  Muriel Pendel pulled into the lot of a red-brick building, one of a dozen in the medical complex, the sign saying Coastways Behavioral Medicine, LLC. She patted blonde hair into place and checked her watch, early. An EEOSA group would still be in session and she decided to wait inside.

  “Ms Pendel,” the receptionist said. “It’s been a while. Great to see you.”

  “Thank you, Nikki. The group still in session?”

  “They should be breaking up. Go on back. You remember the room, right?”

  Muriel Pendel smiled. “I’ve only been there a couple hundred times.”

  She opened the door to a broad and indirectly lit space. A dozen men and women from mid-teens to early thirties sat in chairs circled on a gray carpet. Dr Sonia Szekely sat across the room, notepad in hand, a petite woman in a sizzling orange dress. Her face was broad and Slavic, sixty-four years of history lined into coarse skin, but the facial topography suggested a life rich in smiles and laughter. The woman looked up and her bright eyes sparkled further at seeing Muriel.

  “Sit with us, Muriel, we’re about finished. Everyone remembers Muriel Pendel, right? Wilbert’s mother?”

  A gaunt and hollow-cheeked man with legs crossed tightly at the knees turned and frowned under disheveled black hair. Muriel noticed several other faces that didn’t look pleased at the mention of her son’s name.

  “Where’s Willy?” the gaunt man asked. “Is he coming back?”

  “Willy’s been busy,” Muriel said. “He’ll be back soon, I hope.”

  The man pulled a strand of hair down his forehead and looked at Muriel. His face was expressionless.

  “Will he be nicer?”

  “Willy’s working on things,” Muriel said with a forced smile. “Like we all are.”

  “You aren’t working on anything,” the man said. “You’re too fucking perfect.”

  “That’s enough, Nicu,” the Slavic woman said. “You know Muriel is in the parents group. We all work on our issues and an apology is in order.”

  The man looked away. “I’m sorry, Mrs Pendel.”

  “It’s OK, Nicu. Willy can say mean things sometimes.”

  “All right, then,” Szekely said, dropping her notepad into a multicolored carpetbag. “We’re done for today. Good work, everyone. See you all next week.”

  A thirtyish red-haired woman near the far corner of the circle held up her hand, waving it like a pennant in a wind. Her eyes were wide with excitement.

  “I’ve been saving my news all session. Guess what, everyone? I finally got my degree in accounting.”

  A pause as minds grasped the fact, followed by cheers and applause. Someone lifted the woman’s hand like a victorious boxer. Everyone gathered to hear the details.

  Muriel felt a tear escape from her eye. The first time she’d seen Kristen Wallencott – née Kristen Dodrescu – the then-seventeen-year-old girl was prone on the floor outside the circle with her face in her hands, never speaking or meeting anyone’s eyes. Two years later Kristen ran away from home in February and was not found until May, a dazed and dirty amnesiac selling herself on a corner in San Diego. Returned to her parents in Mobile, Kristen resumed her position on the floor of the group. But after four years of Dr Szekely’s group therapy, Kristen had made an incredible leap into life.

  Szekely touched Muriel’s arm. “Let’s go to my office and let Kristen enjoy her moment.”

  The pair entered the doctor’s private office, the walls a warm green, the carpet a deep and relaxing umber. Muriel sat across from the desk as Szekely sat behind it, opening a drawer and withdrawing cigarettes and a lighter.

  “You don’t mind, Muriel?”

  “God no. I’d love one myself.”

  Both women lit up, Szekely sliding a glass ashtray the size of a dinner plate t
o the front of her desk. She leaned back and exhaled a plume of blue smoke. “Willy’s still avoiding returning to the group?”

  “Not for lack of trying by Bert and me.”

  Szekely nodded. “When did Wilbert enlist at the police academy, Muriel? I thought he was taking auto-repair classes at a technical college.”

  “Willy’s been at the police academy for three weeks. It was a whim, so … maybe a month ago.”

  “Why did he quit school?”

  “He said someone fiddled with the engine he was working on. But it was just an excuse to leave.”

  “The usual trouble?” Szekely asked.

  Muriel fidgeted with her cigarette. “Focusing, yes. Plus there’s math involved. And computers. Willy’s good with his hands, but being an auto mechanic is so computerized today. I can understand his frustration, but can’t understand why he decided he wanted to join the police.”

  A sad smile from Szekely. “I think you can.”

  Muriel stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, twisting it into the glass long after it was out. “Willy thinks it’ll be glamorous and let him be in charge. He’ll get a badge and a uniform and a gun and put people in holds and knock them to the ground.”

  Szekely nodded. “Willy still feels powerless. It generates insecurities he won’t acknowledge.” She paused. “Willy’s living on his own, isn’t he?”

  A humorless laugh. “Kind of. He’ll come in and grab half the food in the fridge, his father’s beer. But always when we’re out.”

  “You took him off the parental dole a few months back, I recall, as incentive to finish school and find a real job. How did that go?”

  Muriel studied her hands. “We, uh, reinstated it when Willy suggested he might move home again. It was … uh, we thought it might be…”

  “You’re feeling guilty because you don’t want Willy back home, right?”

  “Yes, I mean no … I mean…”

  Szekely leaned forward and stubbed her cigarette out, her head wreathed in smoke. “Stop beating yourself up, Muriel. It’s natural. Willy’s twenty-four, he should be out making his own way. Willy’s not retarded, nor does he suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome like Oana and Nicu. He has relatively few of the extreme emotional problems associated with so many of the orphans. Sociopathy, for example.” Szekely shook her head. “You remember Bogdan and Cezar. So sad, such a waste.”