Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 1–3: The Hundredth Man, The Death Collectors, The Broken Souls. J. Kerley A.
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nothing, that’s how it feels, Aunt Billie—don’t feel up, don’t feel down, just feels like nothing. You know what else he said?”
“What, Miss Messer?” Harry asked, truly curious.
“He thought it was funny folks thought he was so good at doing it, you know, ’cause he could go on at it for so long. He said when you don’t feel nothing, there’s nothing to make you stop. I asked wasn’t there anything made him, you know, jump over the hill? He said he had to bear down hard on thinking about flying. Then he’d do it, he’d have his—you know.” Bessie Messer frowned, shook her shock of frizzed hair sadly, and swatted an unseen insect. “Ain’t that the damndest thing?”
We headed across town to interview Terri Losidor, the woman who’d filed charges against Nelson. Harry drove, I reclined in the rear talking to the back of his head. Some people claim their best thoughts arrive in the shower or astride the can; for me it was the backseat of a car. When I was a child and the bad things started at my house, I’d tip-toe into the night and hide in the rear of our sedan, spending the night in wispy sleep before returning to bed at dawn. To this day I took comfort lying in the backseat, hands behind my head, watching the buildings and treetops flash by. My backseat meditations didn’t bother Harry, he enjoyed driving, though he was a terrifying practitioner of it.
“You’ve seen maybe twenty times more jealousy-slash-revenge killings than me, Harry. How many have been as neat?”
“Doesn’t mean anything. They’re all different.”
“Come on, Harry. How many have been so damned immaculate?”
Harry grunted; he liked to drive in silence, I liked to think aloud. He grudgingly elevated his right hand, thumb and index finger forming a zero.
“Slicing and dicing, Carson. Fifty stab wounds. Eighty. Or more hammering than John Henry. I saw a shooting where the shooter emptied a clip, reloaded, and started shooting again.”
“Right. The anger floods out. This one was neater than a show home.”
“The body was neat, Cars. What’s the head doing now? My guess is target practice. Or taking a good hammering.”
A semitractor rig pulled beside us at a light. The driver glanced down from his high perch, startled at seeing a guy in a sport jacket and tie reclining across the backseat of a Taurus. I winked and he turned away. I said, “The head taking the punishment…the face symbolizing the whole. It works, I guess. Where we at?”
“Airport Road by University. So how come you don’t sound convinced?”
“If that’s what the killer wanted, the head, why not break for the end zone soon as it was in his hands? Do a victory mambo. Spike it, whatever. Just like you were thinking. But he hung around and wrote on the body. I’m guessing that’s why he pulled it into the light.”
Harry said, “Maybe the writing got him juiced. He had to write.”
“If he’s got the head to hammer his statement into, why make a speech on the body?”
“Good point. Doing a Farley, maybe?”
Farley Traynor was a bitterly angry accountant who cut words into victims he’d never known, telling them how much he hated what they’d done to him. In a curious bit of deranged perception, Traynor figured since the dead were in their bodies looking out, he’d write backward so they could read it easier.
“Just doesn’t click if the head’s where he thinks the personality resides. Did you just hit a pedestrian?”
“Traffic barrel. Maybe it’s a note to us, cops. Whores and rats? Not everybody loves us like we do.”
I couldn’t buy in yet. “But the tiny writing wouldn’t be around long, or at least not visible. Not in this heat. I bet even slight decomposition would obscure it. And if the words are important, scream them: black marker, big letters.”
“You’re overanalyzing, Cars. I hate to agree with Squill, but I think it’s revenge.”
“Revenge is anger. If the killer was angry, he or she’s got anger as tidy as doilies.”
I was balancing my thoughts between fastidious anger and my unimpressive debut with Dr. Davanelle when the car turned hard and bumped upward, pulling into a drive. Harry said, “We’re here, bro. Not what I expected either.”
Terri Losidor’s apartment complex boasted several Beamers beneath the carports, plus other young-executive-type wheels. The grounds were dappled with crepe myrtles, palmettos, azaleas, here and there a tall loblolly pine. A pool featured several tanned and lounging bodies. Not a child in sight.
“Trailer park to yupster singlesville,” Harry said. “Darwin at work.”
Terri opened her door without chain intervention or asking for ID, either trusting us or expecting us. She had a broad plain face and green, darting eyes. Moderately overweight, she carried it well and moved lithely, gesturing us to sit on a plump orange couch as she lit a cigarette and sat across from us. She remote-muted one of what Harry calls “chromosomal defect shows,” Springer or whatnot. Despite her calm exterior I detected a nervous undercurrent, not unexpected when cops come a-calling. Her apartment was clean, with inexpensive but matched furniture, and beneath the cigarette smoke smelled of lemon air freshener and a recent shower. There was a cat-box somewhere.
She said, “This is about Jerrold, isn’t it?”
Harry nodded and Terri Losidor picked up a throw pillow and clutched it to her breast. Harry started with easy questions to let her get used to answering. She was thirty-three and worked as an accountant at a local trucking firm. She’d lived at Bayou Verde Apartments for three years. Children weren’t allowed but pets were cool. They used too much chlorine in the pool. This all came out in a nasal twang I knew the drivers made fun of.
Harry shifted to Nelson. While he slow-walked her through memories, I sat quietly and used a year’s worth of detective experience to identify cat hairs on the couch. Long and white.
“How well did you know Mr. Nelson?” Harry said. “I’m talking about his past, his friends, his family, his hobbies, and so forth.”
“Those things weren’t important to Jerrold and me, Detective Nautilus. It was just us and the things we’d do. I didn’t need to know anything else.”
“Didn’t need to know or Jerrold didn’t tell you?” Harry loosened his tie, spun a crick from his neck, relaxed. He works in reverse of many cops by leaning forward to toss mushballs and lying back to throw heat and curves.
Losidor looked away. “I asked a couple of times. He said they weren’t things he liked to talk about; it was painful.”
“So if you didn’t know his friends you probably didn’t know any enemies.”
“Jerrold didn’t have enemies. He was so—so friendly. Always laughing and telling jokes.” A sad smile. “One of my friends told me, she said, ‘Terri, that Jerrold makes my mouth hurt with all his smiling.’ No one could be angry at Jerrold, Detective Nautilus.”
Harry locked his fingers behind his head and reclined further. “In March you were angry enough to threaten him with jail. Something about eleven thousand dollars moving from your pocket to his.”
Losidor closed her eyes, sighed, opened them again. “See, he told me he had a one-time chance to get in on a business—it would take just fourteen thousand dollars to make at least seventy in a year. All I had was eleven but Jerry said it would still work.”
“What sort of business?”
There was a clang from the back of the apartment, like something falling on the floor. Terri jumped.
Harry