The Killing Game

by J. A. Kerley

  Muriel nodded slowly. “I know we have it easy compared to some of the parents, Doctor. Still, it’s been frustrating. Maybe Bert and I went into the adoption cycle with too many stars in our eyes. But there were so many orphans, so many wounded little souls…”

  37

  Harry and I visited three other scumbuckets who’d threatened me. The last one we visited, Robbie Jay Turnbull, lived in a decaying trailer in a marsh, the table covered with plates of dried food, cans and bottles on the floor, rats scuttling through the walls.

  The last time I’d seen Turnbull he was cooking meth and selling to gangs for resale. Harry and I had crossed paths with Turnbull on another matter and decided to take him down as a gift to society. Using personal time, we engineered a purchase with me as the buyer, then dropped the whole package into the MPD’s narcotics division. Turnbull should have done a dozen years but dropped the dime on fellow sellers and bought the sentence down to two years.

  He’d pledged to kill me several times.

  But it appeared that in his year back on the street RJ had progressed from cooking meth to consuming it in historic quantities. All the teeth remaining in his mouth were rotten and his tongue lolled from gap to gap, poking through like a curious adder. His sagging flesh called to mind wet newsprint without the writing. His eyes resembled flies, or maybe they were, flies everywhere in the trailer, a fog of buzzing dots.

  Turnbull pretty much stayed motionless on his couch the whole time, dressed solely in stained BVDs and one brown sock, staring at a muted Jersey Shore with his mouth open and going “Ar-arrr-arrrr” in answer to our questions.

  Actually, we only asked three questions: How you doing, RJ? Are those rats we hear? and That ain’t Downtown Abbey you’re watching, right? By then we’d determined Robbie Jay Turnbull incapable of walking a dozen feet, much less stealthily scoping out and killing other human beings.

  “Have a nice life, Robbie,” Harry said as we left the reeking trailer, knowing if Turnbull managed to live out the year he’d be doing pretty good.

  We ended up at the garage at half-past seven. A couple cops from the floor below were leaving. They shot me glances and didn’t say anything.

  “Screw ’em,” Harry said.

  Neither of us wanting to revisit overloaded desks, we parted ways. The sun was still high, June near the summer solstice. Though I spent most of three seasons wishing for days that were three-quarters sunlit and cursing whoever mishandled the hanging of the Earth – why the tilt? – tonight I wished an early dark, perhaps providing a place to hide.

  I waved as Harry drove past, heading toward home and his girlfriend, Sally Hargreaves. They’d mix a drink, fix some chow, listen to jazz. And hopefully, as Bob Dylan put it, forget about today until tomorrow.

  I thought a long moment, pulled my cell and dialed, holding my breath through the rings.

  “Hello, Carson,” Holliday said.

  “You wanted to talk about something?” I said.

  A pause. “It’s maybe the kind of thing best left alone.”

  “When talking about things that shouldn’t be talked about, I find it easier to not discuss them on Causeway. How about I pick you up in ten minutes?”

  I was two minutes early, yet Wendy stood on the stoop outside of her apartment, an inexpensive complex favored by students. I looked to the side and saw a swimming pool ringed by lithe and tanned bodies. Bottles of beer filled hands and tabletops. Kanye West rapped from a sound system.

  “Looks like you’re missing the party,” I said.

  “All they do is drink and play the same twenty songs. It’s like they never left high school.”

  I studied the overeager smiles, heard the forced laughter and the loud, look-at me! voices. A tall kid in a dripping T-shirt yelled “Watch this!” before bouncing a dozen times on the diving board and cannonballing into the turquoise water, the splash pulling squeals from poolside. Someone turned the music up louder.

  Most of those folks believed they were happy at that moment, perhaps as happy as it was possible to get. They had youth and drink and music and seemingly endless nights of thrilling, meaningless release in a procession of arms and beds. Music and television and movies had assured them such behavior constituted happiness, thus a fair amount of those folks would lock themselves into an unreality show called Today at Poolside and never venture beyond.

  Yes, they would marry, have two-point-one children, buy houses in the suburbs and plant dogwoods and azaleas. But to make that sort of operation work correctly you needed to understand the broader world, allowing it to change you in places, while setting other boundaries where it could not reach. Knowing how to arrange yourself for the journey took an amalgam of curiosity, skepticism and introspection most people didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pool skimmer.

  The music changed to Cee Lo Green singing the uncensored version of his hit, the poolside crowd bumping hips, hoisting bottles, and howling So fuck you!

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  There are two ways to cross Mobile Bay in a vehicle: on the elevated Interstate 10, what’s called the Bayway, and the Causeway, a slender strip of earth and pavement barely above sea level. The Bayway is a concrete flume filled with fast metal and hot fumes and with all the charm of an open sewer.

  The Causeway has far less traffic. There are restaurants along its eight-mile passage, some fancy, others ramshackle fish houses. Marsh grasses grow at water’s edge. Gulls, ducks, ibises, pelicans, cranes, all claim the Causeway as home. Now and then a surly gator waddles from the water and sunbathes in the road, the local constabulary having to encourage the critter back into his brackish haunts. Generations of relatives fish together from the banks of the Causeway, the occasion less about fish than family.

  We passed the Drifter’s Bar and pulled from the road. I reached into the cooler and produced two bottles of Bass Ale, handing one to Wendy. Without a word we leaned against my truck and let our eyes float south over Mobile Bay, the falling sun turning the water into a sea of trembling gold. After several minutes Wendy set her bottle on the hood, crossed her arms and stared across the bay.

  “This has been the most amazing month of my life,” she said, her voice tinged with wonder.

  I nodded. “I enjoyed the hell out of my time at the academy, too. I walked in the door scared to death, but within a week knew I was where I needed to be.”

  “That’s only part of what I’m talking about,” she said. “The rest was the thing which maybe should remain unmentioned.”

  “On the Causeway there are no topics beyond mention,” I said. “Speak your truth.”

  “All right, then. I recently fell for someone.”

  “What?” I said, my turn for surprise. “Who?”

  When she turned her eyes to me I knew.

  Gregory was in his office catching up on writing code, thinking it ridiculous for someone of his caliber to grind out such crap. Work was for morons and robots. If he were wealthier – twice as much or so – work would be unnecessary. Even undulating markets offered ways to make money. A seven per cent return on investments would generate over three hundred thousand dollars annually. With that kind of money, he could pursue his hobby full time. There were over forty pennies in the vase.

  His computer bonged. Time to check the trap and head to bed.

  Gregory changed from businesswear into cargo pants and a polo shirt. Picked up the flashlight. There hadn’t been any cats for the past two nights, the supply getting low.

  Gregory tiptoed to the backyard and pulled the cover from the trap.

  A cat! And not just any cat, a prize feline: big and shiny and black as coal, with four distinctive white paws.

  “Mow,” the cat said.

  “Mow,” Gregory repeated. He lifted the trap to his shoulder and jogged to the house, pumping his arm in victory. He didn’t have much time to deal with the cats these days, but it always calmed him.

  38

  My phone seemed far away as it pulled
me from dreams both warm and safe. I slapped the bedside table for the device. “I think you left it in the kitchen,” Wendy said. I felt the bed rebound as she left the mattress.

  “Ummph,” I said.

  “Do you want me to answer?” she asked.

  “Sure.” I yawned cobwebs from my brain and heard jogging feet, Mix-up’s claws scratching on tile as he followed Wendy to the kitchen. She was back seconds later, holding the phone.

  “Doctor Peltier needs to talk to you.”

  I moaned internally and reluctantly took the phone. “Good morning, Clair. How are you tod—”

  “You may want to open the paper,” she said. “Or you may not.”

  Click.

  “Carson?” Wendy asked as I rolled to sitting, throwing the phone to the bed. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m supposed to check the paper. It should be in the drive.”

  She slipped into the outsize tee I’d offered for sleeping – not needed – and padded away, her long legs whisking toward the front door. I followed, sending Mix-up out to do his business as I watched Wendy Holliday cross my sandy yard in scant ounces of cotton, the shirt’s hem high enough that she had to crouch to retrieve the Register. I took the paper as she entered, snapping it open to page one.

  Killer Claims Another Victim, read the top headline. There was a sidebar story in smaller type: Did MPD Detective Goad Murderer?

  My heart sank as I read. The article didn’t name me, referring to An unnamed detective with over ten years on the force, nor did it directly accuse me of throwing down a gauntlet. But it did suggest said detective might have been improvident.

  The article was marred by several errors, stating the detective had put the video on the web and that he’d bragged no killer could escape his skills. I’d replayed the YouTube vid enough to remember what had actually happened. Following my penny analogy, Twyla Harper had said I figure if anyone could catch a random killer, it would be you, Detective Ryder.

  I had replied, I expect you’re onto something. Hardly a challenge.

  I handed Wendy the paper and went to my coffee maker, needing to wake up fast. I was sucking down caffeine when Wendy entered the kitchen dressed in yesterday’s clothes.

  She scowled at the Register. “It’s bullshit, Carson. We all know what you really said. Can you put the video back up? It shows the truth.”

  “It’s gone for good,” I said.

  “I could put it back up. We still have our individual recordings and—”

  Wendy’s phone rang from her pocket. “It’s Amanda Sanchez,” she said, putting the phone to her ear. I wandered to the deck, my head starting to clear. What I wanted to do was sit and look over the gently rolling morning Gulf and relive the beauty of last night. The quiet talk on the deck. The midnight swim lit by a sliver of crystal moon. The whispering jog to the house.

  Instead, I pondered my options. We were no nearer the killer than we’d been the night Kayla Ballard was found. Plus I was being pushed into the scapegoat role.

  Wendy came to the deck two minutes later. “I say screw that guy Willpot.”

  Willpot was Frank Willpot, director of Internal Affairs and a toadie of Baggs.

  “What does Willpot have to do with things?” I asked.

  “There was a class this morning. I didn’t mention it yesterday because of perfect attendance and better things to do. Amanda says Willpot stormed into class and ordered everyone to say nothing about the case or our involvement. He claimed it would be a black eye for the department and the academy and anyone talking would be immediately discharged.”

  “Son of a bitch,” I said. Frank Willpot was helping push me under the bus. It also occurred that no one at the top of the department – meaning Baggs – had flat-out denied the story.

  “The damned article makes it sound like you invited a killing spree,” Wendy said, tapping the paper with a strident digit. “It’s just wrong. What will you do?”

  “Nail the bastard,” I said. “It’s the only way out.”

  I dropped an anxious Holliday at her apartment, U-turned in the street and booked to the department. There was a hubbub outside, news vans and reporters, the vans with uplink antennae aimed at the sky like science-fiction weaponry. I pulled into the garage and ran upstairs to Lieutenant Mason’s office. He had the paper in his hands.

  “First off, you’re not named,” he said. “That’s a break. You saw the article?”

  I nodded.

  “Second, the department is drafting a statement countering the article and absolving itself of responsibility.”

  “Itself? How about me?”

  Tom shrugged. “That’s all happening upstairs. How do you think this got out, Carson? The news about you and the class and all?”

  “You know how it goes, Tom. Someone I’ve pissed off in the department makes a whispery call to the media: ‘You won’t believe the stupid thing one of our detectives did…’ Baggs himself, maybe, through a surrogate like Willpot.”

  “Baggs is under a lotta media pressure, Carson. You may be the release valve.”

  It took a second to grasp. “Baggs fuels the media with speculation, lets it build, finally names me as the guy who incited a madman to kill?”

  “Yup,” Tom nodded. “Then makes a media spectacle out of yanking you off the case and shutting down the PSIT. With a very public reprimand.”

  “You mean public hanging, right?”

  Tom tipped back his Stetson and offered a flat smile.

  “I see you’ve been at the end of this rope before.”

  Gregory’s dream-wall has fallen again. He smells mamaliga and carnati, piftie and chiftele. Hears the coarse and drunken laughter of Petrov and Cojocaru. The high cackling voice of the nurse, Sorina Vaduva.

  “Where is little Dragna Negrescu?” Dr Popescu says, ten meters tall and standing in the center of the floor in the supply room beside the kitchen, his head wreathed in cigar smoke. His mask is still the mask turned inside out. “Where is my tasty little tart, Sorina?” Popescu says. When he talks, a black slit opens and closes on the mask.

  “Dragna had chores to finish in the records department,” Sorina Vaduva says. “Then she’s running to the store for the tuica.”

  “Call and tell her to hurry. Tell her I have great thirst and greater hunger.”

  The dream spins upside down. When it rights itself the Doctor and Petrov are roaming the halls and pulling children from holes in the wall and setting them in shopping buggies. From deep in the shadows a choir is singing for mamaliga. Dragna Negrescu pushes a cart of clinking vodka and tuica bottles into the dream. Her dark hair frames the doll-face mask.

  Gregory is watching from a hole in the wall, hiding in its furthest recesses. The Doctor has a flashlight he’s using to peer into the holes.

  “What have we here? Why it’s little Grigor! Come share food with us, Grigor. Isn’t he a pretty one, Petrov?”

  “My favorite. Even with so many, he’s my favorite little girl.”

  “Little girl?” the Doctor laughs. “Did you hear, Grigor? You’re a little girl tonight.”

  A sound like thunder and they are in the supply room behind the dormitories, beside the kitchen. The floor is made of mattresses and stretches to the horizon. “Turn them into robots, Doctor,” Dragna Negrescu laughs from beneath her baby mask, wearing only underpants and dark stockings. “Show us the magic learned from Blaskov-Milovitch. Talk in your special voice and swing your fancy watch. Make our robots perform and forget!”

  “I shall teach you my secrets, sweet Dragna,” the Doctor howls, flying across the room like a hawk.

  “What’s that sound?” someone says.

  The cat is back at the window.

  Go away! Grigor screams. Save yourself! But the cat leaps into Dragna Negrescu’s hands. She turns it into a dishrag, wipes her hands on its fur, throws it out the window. The baby-faced Negrescu spins to Grigor. She’s singing.

  “Little Grigor, pretty one, Big Petrov must have his fun
…”

  Gregory begins to run, but his legs turn to stone and he falls to the mattresses. The smell of mamaliga is everywhere. Gregory vomits up his insides, watching them writhe like snakes on the filthy fabric beneath his face.

  NO NO NO. Save me, Ema!

  But Ema has escaped the flashlight. There is no sign of her.

  Muriel Pendel picked up the phone and took a deep breath. Willy answered on the fourth ring.

  “Yeah, Ma? What’s up?” He sounded winded.

  “How was your day?”

  “Ah, it was kinda a pain in the … Hey!” he chirped, suddenly engaged. “You see about that old woman that got killed?”

  “I saw a headline, but didn’t read the story.”

  “It was cool. We were taking a trip to the jail but got put on a bus and sent to find her. It was what we cops call an SAR, a search-and-rescue. The Civil Air Patrol people actually found her. We would have, but the chumps got in our way. I didn’t even get to see the body.”

  “Willy, I went to see Dr Szekely today. The doctor thinks it would be good if you went back to group. So do your father and I.”

  “Group’s nothing but a bunch of losers, Ma. I ain’t a loser. I’m gonna be a cop.”

  “Willy, listen to me.”

  “NO! All the group does is piss and moan about how people think they’re weird and shit like that. I don’t hardly remember the goddamn orphanage. I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER THE PLACE!”

  “Calm down, son, all I’m saying is—”

  “I gotta go.”

  The phone clicked dead and Muriel popped a tissue from the box at her elbow and blew her nose, wandering to the window to look out across the front yard, a green expanse of west Mobile lawn.

  A white car passed by, a Toyota Avalon. A realtor, Muriel knew vehicles well, her favorite back-of-mind exercise the pairing of auto makes with home models her company represented. An Avalon client was not a Mercedes client, but not a used-Dodge Caravan client, either. An Avalon prospective would likely enjoy the Executive II series, $319,000 for the base model.