Mr. Mercedes: A Novel (3 page)

A nice compliment!

If it is true, and I think it is, you will have figured out by now that I am one of those few you did not catch. I am, in fact, the man the press chose to call

a.) The Joker

b.) The Clown

or

c.) The Mercedes Killer.

I prefer the last!

I am sure you gave it “your best shot,” but sadly (for you, not me), you failed. I imagine if there was ever a “perk” you wanted to catch, Detective Hodges, it was the man who deliberately drove into the Job Fair crowd at City Center last year, killing eight and wounding so many more. (I must say I exceeded my own wildest expectations.) Was I on your mind when they gave you that plaque at the Official Retirement Ceremony? Was I on your mind when your fellow Knights of the Badge and Gun were telling stories about (just guessing here) criminals who were caught with their pants actually down or funny practical jokes that were played in the good old Squad Room?

I bet I was!

I have to tell you how much fun it was. (I’m being honest here.) When I “put the pedal to the metal” and drove poor Mrs. Olivia Trelawney’s Mercedes at that crowd of people, I had the biggest “hard-on” of my life! And was my heart beating 200 a minute? “Hope to tell ya!”

Here was another Mr. Smiley in sunglasses.

I’ll tell you something that’s true “inside dope,” and if you want to laugh, go ahead, because it is sort of funny (although I think it also shows just how careful I was). I was wearing a condom! A “rubber”! Because I was afraid of Spontaneous Ejaculation, and the DNA that might result! Well, that did not happen, but I have masturbated many times since while thinking of how they tried to run and couldn’t (they were packed in like
sardines
), and how scared they all looked (that was so funny), and the way I jerked forward when the car “plowed” into them. So hard the seatbelt locked. Gosh it was exciting.

To tell the truth, I didn’t know
what
might happen. I thought the chances were 50-50 that I would get caught. But I am “a cockeyed optimist,” and I prepared for Success rather than Failure. The condom is “inside dope,” but I bet your Forensics Department (I also watch
CSI
) was pretty darn disappointed when they didn’t get any DNA from inside the clown mask. They must have said, “Damn! That crafty perk must have been wearing a hair net underneath!”

And so I was! I also washed it out with BLEACH!

I still relive the thuds that resulted from hitting them, and the crunching noises, and the way the car bounced on its springs when it went over the bodies. For power and control, give me a Mercedes 12-cylinder every time! When I saw in the paper that a
baby
was one of my victims, I was delighted!! To snuff out a life that young! Think of all she missed, eh? Patricia Cray, RIP! Got the mom, too! Strawberry jam in a sleeping bag! What a thrill, eh? I also enjoy thinking of the man who lost his arm and even more of the two who are paralyzed. The man only from the waist down, but Martine Stover is now your basic “head on a stick!” They didn’t die but probably WISH they did!
How about that, Detective Hodges?

Now you are probably thinking, “What kind of sick and twisted Pervo do we have here?” Can’t really blame you, but we could argue about that! I think a great many people would enjoy doing what I did, and that is why they enjoy books and movies (and even TV shows these days) that feature Torture and Dismemberment, etc., etc., etc. The only difference is
I really did it.
Not because I’m mad, though (in either sense of the word). Just because I didn’t know exactly what the experience would be like, only that it would be totally thrilling, with “memories to last a lifetime,” as they say. Most people are fitted with Lead Boots when they are just little kids and have to wear them all their lives. These Lead Boots are called A CONSCIENCE. I have none, so I can soar high above the heads of the Normal Crowd. And if they had caught me? Well if it had been right there, if Mrs. Trelawney’s Mercedes had stalled or something (small chance of that as it seemed very well maintained), I suppose the crowd might have torn me apart, I understood that possibility going in, and it added to the excitement. But I didn’t think they really would, because most people are sheep and sheep don’t eat meat. (I suppose I might have been beaten up a little, but I can take a beating.) Probably I would have been arrested and gone to trial, where I would have pleaded insanity. Maybe I even
am
insane (the idea has certainly crossed my mind), but it is a
peculiar
kind of insanity. Anyway, the coin came down heads and I got away.

The fog helped!

Now here is something else I saw, this time in a movie. (I don’t remember the name.) There was a Serial Killer who was very clever and at first the cops (one was Bruce Willis, back when he still had some hair) couldn’t catch him. So Bruce Willis said, “He’ll do it again because he can’t help himself and sooner or later he’ll make a mistake and we will catch him.”

Which they did!

That is not true in my case, Detective Hodges, because I have
absolutely no urge
to do it again. In my case,
once was enough
. I have my memories, and they are as clear as a bell. And of course, there was how frightened people were afterward, because they were sure I
would
do it again. Remember the public gatherings that were cancelled? That wasn’t as much fun, but it
was
“tres amusant.”

So you see, we are
both
“Ret.”

Speaking of which, my one regret is that I couldn’t attend your Retirement Party at the Raintree Inn and raise a toast to you, my good Sir Detective. You absolutely did give it your best shot. Detective Huntley too, of course, but if the papers and Internet reports of your respective careers are right, you were Major League and he was and always will be Triple A. I’m sure the case is still in the Active File, and that he takes those old reports out every now and then to study them, but he won’t get anywhere. I think we both know that.

May I close on a Note of Concern?

In some of those TV shows (and also in one of the Wambaugh books, I think, but it might have been a James Patterson), the big party with the balloons and drinking and music is followed by a sad final scene. The Detective goes home and finds out that without his Gun and Badge, his life is pointless. Which I can understand. When you think of it, what is sadder than an Old Retired Knight? Anyway, the Detective finally shoots himself (with his Service Revolver). I looked it up on the Internet and discovered this type of thing isn’t just fiction. It really happens!

Retired police have an
extremely high suicide rate
!!

In most cases, the cops who do this sad thing have no close family members who might see the Warning Signs. Many, like you, are divorced. Many have grown children living far away from home. I think of you all alone in your house on Harper Road, Detective Hodges, and
I grow concerned
. What kind of life do you have, now that the “thrill of the hunt” is behind you? Are you watching a lot of TV? Probably. Are you drinking more? Possibly. Do the hours go by more slowly because your life is now so empty? Are you suffering from insomnia? Gee, I hope not.

But I fear that might be the case!

You probably need a Hobby, so you’ll have something to think about instead of “the one that got away” and how you will never catch me. It would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People “slipped through your fingers.”

I wouldn’t want you to start thinking about your gun.

But you
are
thinking of it, aren’t you?

I would like to close with one final thought from “the one that got away.” That thought is:

FUCK YOU, LOSER.

Just kidding!

Very truly yours,

THE MERCEDES KILLER

Below this was yet another smile-face. And below that:

PS! Sorry about Mrs. Trelawney, but when you turn this letter over to Det. Huntley, tell him not to bother looking at any photos I’m sure the police took at her funeral. I attended, but only in my imagination. (My imagination is very powerful.)

PPS: Want to get in touch with me? Give me your “feedback”? Try Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. I even got you a username: “kermitfrog19.” I might not reply, but “hey, you never know.”

PPPS: Hope this letter has cheered you up!

4

Hodges sits where he is for two minutes, four minutes, six, eight. Completely still. He holds the letter in his hand, looking at the Andrew Wyeth print on the wall. At last he puts the pages on the table beside his chair and picks up the envelope. The postmark is right here in the city, which doesn’t surprise him. His correspondent wants him to know he’s close by. It’s part of the taunt. As his correspondent would say, it’s . . .

Part of the fun!

New chemicals and computer-assisted scanning processes can pick up excellent fingerprints from paper, but Hodges knows that if he turns this letter in to Forensics, they will find no prints on it but his. This guy is crazy, but his self-assessment—
one crafty perp
—is absolutely correct. Only he wrote
perk
, not
perp
, and he wrote it twice. Also . . .

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

What do you mean,
when you turn it in
?

Hodges gets up, goes to the window carrying the letter, and looks out on Harper Road. The Harrison girl putts by on her moped. She’s really too young to have one of those things, no matter what the law allows, but at least she’s wearing her helmet. The Mr. Tastey truck jangles by; in warm weather it works the city’s East Side between school’s out and dusk. A little black smart car trundles by. The graying hair of the woman behind the wheel is up in rollers. Or is it a woman? It could be a man wearing a wig and a dress. The rollers would be the perfect final touch, wouldn’t they?

That’s what he wants you to think.

But no. Not exactly.

Not
what
. It’s
how
the self-styled Mercedes Killer (except he was right, it was really the papers and the TV news that styled him that) wants him to think.

It’s the ice cream man!

No, it’s the man dressed as a woman in the smart car!

Uh-uh, it’s the guy driving the liquid propane truck, or the meter-reader!

How did you spark paranoia like that? It helps to casually let drop that you know more than the ex-detective’s address. You know he’s divorced and at least imply that he has a kid or kids somewhere.

Looking out at the grass now, noticing that it needs cutting. If Jerome doesn’t come around pretty soon, Hodges thinks, I’ll have to call him.

Kid or kids? Don’t kid
yourself
. He knows my ex is Corinne and we have one adult child, a daughter named Alison. He knows Allie’s thirty and lives in San Francisco. He probably knows she’s five-six and plays tennis. All that stuff is readily available on the Net. These days,
everything
is.

His next move should be to turn this letter over to Pete and Pete’s new partner, Isabelle Jaynes. They inherited the Mercedes thing, along with a few other danglers, when Hodges pulled the pin. Some cases are like idle computers; they go to sleep. This letter will wake up the Mercedes case in a hurry.

He traces the progress of the letter in his mind.

From the mail slot to the hall floor. From the hall floor to the La-Z-Boy. From the La-Z-Boy to here by the window, where he can now observe the mail truck going back the way it came—Andy Fenster done for the day. From here to the kitchen, where the letter would go into a totally unnecessary Glad bag, the kind with the zip top, because old habits are strong habits. Next to Pete and Isabelle. From Pete to Forensics for a complete dilation and curettage, where the unnecessariness of the Glad bag would be conclusively proved by: no prints, no hairs, no DNA of any kind, paper available by the caseload at every Staples and Office Depot in the city, and—last but not least—standard laser printing. They may be able to tell what kind of computer was used to compose the letter (about this he can’t be sure; he knows little about computers, and when he has trouble with his he turns to Jerome, who lives handily nearby), and if so, it would turn out to be a Mac or a PC. Big whoop.

From Forensics the letter would bounce back to Pete and Isabelle, who’d no doubt convene the sort of idiotic kop kolloquium you see on BBC crime shows like
Luther
and
Prime Suspect
(which his psychopathic correspondent probably loves). This kolloquium would be complete with whiteboard and photo enlargements of the letter, maybe even a laser pointer. Hodges watches some of those British crime shows, too, and believes Scotland Yard somehow missed the old saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth.

The kop kolloquium would accomplish only one thing, and Hodges believes it’s what the psycho wants: with ten or a dozen detectives in attendance, the existence of the letter will inevitably leak to the press. The psycho is probably not telling the truth when he says he has no urge to repeat his crime, but of one thing Hodges is completely sure: he misses being in the news.

Dandelions are sprouting on the lawn. It is definitely time to call Jerome. Lawn aside, Hodges misses his face around the place. Cool kid.

Something else. Even if the psycho
is
telling the truth about feeling no urge to perpetrate another mass slaughter (unlikely, but not out of the question), he’s still extremely interested in death. The letter’s subtext could not be clearer.
Off yourself. You’re thinking about it already, so take the next step. Which also happens to be the final step.