The Killing Game (12 page)

Ema ordered an asparagus and chèvre crêpe with a side of hash browns, except here they were called pommes frites. The waiter turned to Gregory, the pen doing the tapping again. The robot’s brass nameplate had greasy thumbprints on its surface.

“And you, sir?” the machine said.

“Bring me a simple spinach salad, no eggs, bacon, onions or mushrooms. Vinaigrette dressing. Wholewheat toast, dry.” Gregory ate nothing that grew underground, or pushed from the unspeakably filthy interior of a chicken.

“Basically a bowl of spinach, then. And to drink?”

“A pot of tea and a small pitcher of honey.”

The waiter nodded at honey packets in a basket centering the table. “There’s honey in the basket, sir.”

Gregory felt a surge of anger and pushed it down his throat. Had he not requested a goddamn
pitcher
of honey?

“There’s honey in the kitchen. It’s used to cook. Pour some into a small pitcher and bring it to me.”

A nod. “Very good. I’ll see what I can do.”

The ridiculous excuse for a man was back in two minutes, a small pitcher in hand. He set it on the table, said, “There you go, sir, honey.”

The man went to serve another group of diners. Gregory scowled at the man’s small and high derriere until Ema’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Was that man being short with you, do you think?” Ema asked.

“I don’t think so, Ema,” Gregory said, watching the man take the order of the other group. Looking as though he was actually
serving
them.

“He seemed rather dismissive,” Ema said, resettling her napkin in her capacious lap.

Gregory took the pitcher of honey, inspected the contents carefully, and poured it into the carafe of tea, stirring with a butter knife as Ema watched in fascination. “When did you develop such a taste for honey?”

“The majority of microorganisms can’t reproduce in honey,” Gregory said. “It involves the water index, an indication of the energy status in an aqueous system.” Gregory pulled a silver pen from his pocket and began writing on the white linen napkin. “I can show you the exact formula, taking
p
as the vapor pressure and…”

Ema reached across the table and stilled Gregory’s hand. “I’ll take your word for it, dear. You know I don’t have a head for numbers.”

Gregory held his flash of anger. Every time he tried to teach Ema something important, she demurred. How was she to ever become more than she was?

Ema’s meal arrived and she shoveled with delight, her mouth showing the glistening slop ready to be squeezed into a bolus. The pair traded small talk, Ema carrying ninety per cent of the conversation as always, Gregory nodding assent or assuming the faces Ema liked to see, all the time conscious of the insolent waiter, seeing his slender form flash by at the edge of vision, two tables away, one table away, three…

Never quite close enough.

Ema finished her breakfast and studied Gregory as a busboy robot cleared the dishes. “There’s something different about you today. More assured. More intense, like you’re suddenly…” She struggled to frame her words.

“Alive?” Gregory said quietly, a smile ghosting his lips.

Ema chuckled nervously. “That’s an odd choice of word.”

“It seemed the direction you were going.”

“I’m not sure where I was headed. You seem … bigger. Like you take up more space.” Ema paused to listen to her own words, then shook her frilly curls. “That’s silly, right?”

“You’re never silly, dear Ema.” Gregory reached across the table to take her hand, a simple gesture she seemed to relish. He was pleased that even Ema recognized his new energy. He showed
Minty Fresh
smile, but his eyes scanned the floor for the waiter …
There!
One-handing a silver tray of dishes above his head and moving in their direction.

Closer, you insolent fool
…

The waiter paused to answer a question from a diner, then continued. When he was about to pass the table, the waiter shot Gregory a glance and they locked eyes. Turning his head the opposite direction, Gregory threw his leg out. The waiter tripped over it, his body slamming the floor as the tray came clattering down, bacon, eggs, sausages, coffee, juice … all splattering across the carpet. Every head in the restaurant turned.

The waiter sat upright, his eyes flashing at Gregory. “You … did that on purpose,” he whispered. “You saw me and you stuck your leg out.”

Gregory’s eyes bored into the eyes of the robot. “I’d be damned careful what you say, moron,” he hissed. The waiter started to respond, but several staffers arrived to assist and he turned away to gather the strewn items.

“The man … accidentally tripped over your leg?” Ema asked, her face anxious.

“The man never touched my leg,” Gregory said. “He stumbled over his own feet. It’s easy enough to understand why. He’s obviously on drugs.”

“You can tell?” Ema said, eyes wide.

“His pupils were dilated,” Gregory explained, a note of condescension in his voice. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice, given all that crime TV you soak up.”

“You’re amazing,” Ema said. She looked toward the waiter, now disappearing into the kitchen. “Shouldn’t you mention it to the management? The drugs?”

Gregory sighed. “It’s a difficult job market and I can’t bring myself to be the cause of a man’s termination. What if he has a family dependent on him? Babies?”

Ema gazed at Gregory in wonder. “You are a saint, dear,” she said. “I never would have considered such a thing.”

They parted soon after, Gregory washing his hands for several minutes before leaving. Arriving at his car he saw someone had spat on his windshield, a thick retrieval from the deepest recesses of someone’s lungs. Gregory fought to keep his food contained in his belly. Averting his eyes, he entered his car and turned on the wipers, forgetting to hit the washer button. When he glanced up, the wipers had smeared phlegm across the entire driver’s-side window. Unable to hold himself any longer, Gregory leaned from his door, vomiting.

He pulled himself upright and groped for the washer button, spraying until he heard the grind of an empty reservoir. When he finally looked at the window, it was clear. Still, he visited a car wash on his way home, passing through twice.

It wasn’t until he pulled up in his own drive that he recalled the men smoking outside when he’d parked in the lot, idly watching Gregory enter the restaurant. He focused his mind on the memory. One of them was the robot Gregory had punished.

The waiter had known his car.

When I arrived in the morning, Harry was hunched over his keyboard, coffee mug to the side, staring into the screen. He was wearing an orange shirt, lime tie, strawberry jacket, plum slacks. I didn’t know whether to greet him or harvest him.

“Am I interrupting your morning porn session?” I said, Harry still immersed in the monitor.

He pushed away from his desk. “You think there’s any possibility the Ballard killer and Tommy Brink’s attacker are one and the same?”

I sat and perched my chin on tented fingers. “The attacks were brazen: Ballard on a well-used pathway, the Brink boy in his own backyard. Using crime-scene tape to shut down the alley shows a creative mindset, using police tools to help foil discovery. The Ballard killing probably required a disguise. The difference in weapons is what’s keeping me from a full yes. Freaks like consistency.”

“What if the guy doesn’t need a particular weapon, his only need being one that best fits his attack mode?”

“That’s a nasty thought,” I said. When tracking psychos you wanted set patterns that might be used against them. A killer with a fluid and ever-changing methodology was much harder to profile, much harder to find.

“Still, I started thinking how a knife is easy to conceal. When you mentioned the crossbow being a strange thing to carry, hard to hide, I got to wondering. I did a little research, found this…”

Harry turned the monitor my way and I saw what appeared to be a typical crossbow, save for a pistol-style grip. It was also, judging by the arm in the photo, about half the size of a standard crossbow.

“A pistol crossbow?” I said, reading the text. “One-handed use?”

“A spring-steel bow,” Harry said. “Check the dimensions. You could hide it in a backpack or beneath a jacket. Whip it out, wham off a shot, jam it under cover. I’ll bet it could be done in five seconds.”

“Jesus,” I said, reading deeper into the text. “The damn thing can drive a fiberglass bolt an inch deep into a pine board from ten feet.”

Harry brought up a page offering a dozen pistol crossbows ranging from twenty-buck models to the hundred-and-seventy-five-buck Handhunter Pro.
Stalk and Shoot with Deadly Accuracy,
the copy claimed in blood-red type.

I stared at the screen as Harry put on his gun, heading out to grab a couple of uniforms and hit Tommy Brink’s neighborhood again, trying to leverage sympathy for the kid into information.

I reviewed interviews with the friends and associates of Kayla Ballard, one question foremost: if the cases were linked, how was a farm girl from middle Mississippi connected to a wheelchair-bound kid from inner-city Mobile? The disparity of their worlds was apparent in their parents, the broken Silas Ballard and Arletta Brink, the party girl who treated her son like an afterthought. It seemed the killer had dealt one a blow beyond measure, provided the other with a favor.

I was moving from one stack of paper to another when the phone rang. I picked it up and listened, then closed my eyes. For a minute I sat there, numb. Then I pulled my cell and displayed Harry’s number, taking a deep breath before pressing Call.

“Nothing yet,” he answered, thinking I was hoping for a lead. “But we’ve just started down the street at the corner of the block and—”

“The kid’s dead, bro,” I said.

“What?” A whisper.

“Tommy Brink took some kind of infection last night and the antibiotics couldn’t handle it. He passed an hour ago, Harry.”

“You OK, Carson?” he said, hearing my voice.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

I hung up and sat at my desk. Detectives jogged the floor around my cubicle, spoke on phones, pecked at computers. I couldn’t hear a thing, my ears consumed by a roar so loud it closed my eyes and made my hands clench tight in my lap.

Brrrrrring … brrrrrring …

The sound of my landline phone in the kitchen. My eyes snapped open, saw the half-moon above, a pale ghost in a twilight sky. I was in a lounger on my deck, Tommy Brink’s case file on my chest and two empty beer bottles at my side.

Brrrrrring …

I shot a glance at my watch: 7.40 at night. My phone connected to an ancient cassette-tape answering machine with all the electronic sophistication of a doorbell. I kept it for the audio quality. Cell phones could tell you your position on earth, but not the gender of your caller.

“Hello, Detective Ryder. This is Wendy Holliday. From the academy? I don’t mean to bother you but I was in the area … I mean, on Dauphin Island. Actually, I was looking for a place to grab supper, wondered if you had any recommendations. I guess I’ll see you in class. Bye.”

I ran for the phone but arrived too late. Holliday hadn’t left a number and my Clinton-era machine didn’t record them.
It’s no big deal
, I told myself, tapping the phone with my forefinger. I’ll see her Tuesday with the rest of the class.

But she was so close – and so obviously hungry – that it seemed uncivil to not try and reach her.
Aha!
I thought. As an Academy instructor I had received all of my students’ addresses and numbers. I dug to the bottom of my briefcase – finding several loose pennies from my example in class – and located Holliday’s cell number.

“Detective Ryder? I hope I didn’t bother you.”

“No bother at all. And outside of class it’s Carson. What brings you to our friendly little island?”

“Biking. I got here an hour ago, put in twenty miles, stopped for some fuel and thought you could give me a tip on a decent meal.”

“Where are you?”

“By the ferry dock.”

I thought a moment. “Listen, Wendy, if all you want is fuel for the belly and not tinkly-piano ambience, I’ve got roast beef in the fridge. I can knock out sandwiches.”

A pause. “How do I get to the restaurant du Rydair?” she said, a smile in her voice.

Suddenly wide awake, I gave Holliday the directions, then showered. I traded shredded cut-offs and my
CRAZY AL’S MARINA AND BAR
tee for green cargo pants and a fresh blue shirt, stepped into brown moccasins and switched to anti-disarray mode. Files and pages hiding the dining-room table were whisked into a single pile. Dishes in the sink went into the dishwasher, shoes piled by the door got kicked into the closet.

The place looked reasonably clean. I checked the neatness of my bookshelf –
Whoops
finding a condom package rising from the pages of a recent read, a bookmark. I tapped it down and stepped to my small porch overlooking the street. The sun was a sedate orange orb in the low western sky, filling the wind-rippled sand of my yard with blue shadows. The nearest dwelling was to the west, a stilted Cape Cod-influenced house owned by a couple from Ohio who wintered there.

A small blue SUV was moving my way. The vehicle turned onto my brief street of crushed shells, stopped, backed into my driveway. Holliday drove a well-used Toyota RAV4 with a bright yellow bicycle on the roof, a super-skinny model with turned-down handlebars and a seat whose width I could have covered with my palm. Holliday exited, waving as I stepped down to meet her.

A limited amount of women can wear Spandex in a complimentary fashion, but Holliday pulled it off, her top white, tight, and short-sleeved, festooned with colorful logos. Purple shorts reached her knees and glistened as if wet. Her auburn hair was tied back with a hank of red fabric.

I nodded at her top as I walked up. “You look like a NASCAR driver.”

She grimaced. “I won it in a race last year. They come with crap written all over them. Still, the things retail for a hundred bucks, so I use it.”

We stood silent for a second, both trying to find something to say. She looked beneath my house where my kayak hung between pilings.