Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 1–3: The Hundredth Man, The Death Collectors, The Broken Souls. J. Kerley A.
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about me, Mr. Bigshot Detective,” he yelled down the hall, his voice breaking. “My wife’s in the hospital on one of them machines and I ain’t gonna cheat on her while she’s alive.”
It was a long walk to the car.
I drove through the morgue lot. When I didn’t see Clair’s shiny gold Lexus in its space, I parked and jogged inside. I discovered she’d been called to a scene in Mount Verson, but hadn’t planned on being gone long. I saw Will Lindy in his office and stuck my head through his door, said good afternoon. Lindy’s office was large, furnished with filing and larger cabinets, a long credenza, television monitor, even its own pantry-sized record storage space. He turned from arranging videotapes on a large shelf. “You here to tell me the blamed thing’s been found?”
“What’s been found?”
“The table?” His eyes scanned my face. “You didn’t know? We had a thief last night.”
“In here?”
“Outside.” Lindy shook his head, amused and bewildered. “Somebody clipped an autopsy table from the loading dock.”
“Who the hell’d want an autopsy table?”
He shrugged. “It was in an unmarked box about the size of a refrigerator. Maybe that’s what the thieves thought they were getting. Love to see their faces when they open the box…if they even know what it is.”
I pictured a bunch of crackheads eating at a gleaming table, wondering why it had gutters. “When’d you guys start doing autopsies on the loading dock?”
He chuckled. “We didn’t have time to get it installed before the dedication; takes time to assemble and needs a plumber. It was going in this week. Anyway, that’s my problem. What can I help you with, Detective?”
“I’d like to see the scheduling sheets from back in May.”
He nodded. “Who was in and who was on-call?”
“Those are the ones.”
“One of the few files I don’t have. They’re what we call Prosector Activity Reports; Dr. Peltier keeps them.” He fetched a key from his desk and we ambled down the hall. I glanced out the window and didn’t see her car in the lot. He said, “You need the reports for a case?”
I sighed, a fellow worker burdened by tail-chase minutia. “Trying to determine a time line. No big deal.”
“Good. Because they’re not set in stone. More to make sure everything’s covered. Dr. Peltier’s intense about making sure we’re completely staffed, vacations and professional days don’t overlap, that kind of thing. She spends a fair amount of time out of the office and wants everyone present and accounted for.”
A large vase of fresh-cut flowers sat on Clair’s desk and perfumed her office. Lindy pulled the file from a locked cabinet and we crossed the hall to a copier room. Walter Huddleston hovered above the machine, copying various forms. I nodded and he tried to burn me down with his eyes before leaving.
Lindy made my copy, returned the file, and went back to filing tapes. I turned the corner and saw Clair coming through the front door. The ladies’ room was behind me and I jumped inside. Five seconds later the door opened. I slipped into a stall and hopped up on the toilet, wondering what I’d say if Clair opened the door.
“If I can cut the entry cleanly I’ll nail a nine-eight…”
She took the first stall and was in and out in an efficient minute, simultaneously handling nature’s call and a call to her landscaper. I slid outside, feeling less ashamed than I should have.
I got in my car, set the schedule on my lap, and ran my finger down the dates.
The back room of Mr. Cutter’s house was always safe and quiet, his second-favorite place in the world. The first was the boat, always the boat. Though the boat from his childhood looked different from the boat of today, they were the same. The universe pulled things away from you, spun them in circles, maybe changed their outsides, then set them in your path again.
Like his boat. Like Mama.
He felt like giggling. He rolled the chair forward and pressed controls, saw Mama talking lies to him, heard the slow and precise tone she loved. Then, with a few motions of his hand, he made her eat her words, suck them back into her head. He arranged the words however he wanted. Mama’s head moved toward him. He made it stop, then made it go backward. He would have loved to have spun her head on its lovely, hateful neck.
“Boston,” he said. Then again, stretching out the word: “Bosssston.” It sounded right. He tried Kokomo, the same way, short, then long. He wrote the words on an index card, ready for use. This was hard work, here in the dark with the pictures. Listening, analyzing. The time spent tracking Boy-Man-Warrior was nothing compared to this.
Light and shadow, words and pictures. Mama and the Bad Girl.
This part of the project, when the Bad Girl was pleading, was the most difficult. He worked in increments—moments, syllables. He was careful not to make the entire picture appear at once, she was too strong. She could rearrange his insides and make him think so different, it was like he disappeared in one place and appeared in another.
Oh, damn. Like she was doing now. Singing.
Mr. Cutter closed his eyes and caught his breath. He forced his heart to stop its wild pounding. His hand had been fumbling for his belt but he checked himself.
Control.
Control.
He opened his eyes and his hands repositioned themselves above his work area. He made Mama suck her words back into her head, and like an anthracite sun sinking beneath a snow-white sea, she left Mr. Cutter to work through the night.
“Burlew has to think we’re threatening Terri, that she might break loose with whatever she’s holding back.” I looked around to make sure no one was listening. The detectives’ room was quiet, Naylor and Scott at a desk grinding out paperwork, Pendery whispering in his phone, talking to a snitch or one of his interchangeable pneumatic blondes. Everyone else was working the street or working on giving that impression.
Harry did devil’s advocate. “What if we’re wrong, she’s got nothing? Clean?”
“She smells like a kennel, Harry. You’ve said that a dozen times.”
Unless Terri had a friend who sucked wood pulp, Burlew and Losidor were tied together. The lines still disappeared around a blind corner, but ragged ends were showing. It was time to grab the nearest one, yank hard, and listen for what tumbled.
Harry said, “When we admit to working Nelson, Squill’s gonna blow a valve. Claim DDO maybe.”
Disobedience of a Direct Order meant a month without pay and generally preceded a downtumble in the department. It would spell the end of PSIT.
“I can wear this hat myself, Harry. It was me tossed Nelson’s place and called Friedman.”
Harry shook his head. “Huh-uh, bro. We are the Wright brothers, and this plane’s a two-seater. Time to put the vise to Burlew. Trouble is, we don’t know where the juice’s gonna squirt from. He’ll pop it and slop it.”
“Keep that umbrella handy.”
Harry went silent, found my eyes. “You know, don’t you, we’ll maybe squeeze Doc P as well. You ready for that?”
The morgue schedule had confirmed my worst fears: Clair took four days of vacation in May, three overlapping the days Nelson spent in Biloxi.
I nodded. “I’m ready.”
“No, you’re not,” Harry said. “But you’re