I Hunt Killers (20 page)

“The pattern
is
the signature!” Jazz was up and out of his chair. “God, G. William!”

“Jazz, everything’s inconclusive right now. I’ve made some calls to the feds, on the QT, but the first murder just didn’t have enough unique characteristics—”

“A severed finger isn’t a—”

“Hey, guys?” They broke off and looked down at Howie, who lay exhausted and weary between them. “You guys are totally harshing the killer buzz I’ve been working on, thanks to some amazing meds a very nice nurse gave me. It’s bumming me out.” He grinned lazily. “And I’m not gonna last much longer, anyway. Sleepy-time is totally strong-arming me.”

“Sorry.” G. William cleared his throat with a sound like a drowning child. “We’ll let you get some rest.” He jerked his head toward the door in a manner that tolerated no rebellion.

“Hang on. Wait a sec,” Howie said.

Jazz turned back to the bed. Howie gestured him over.

G. William went out into the hall and Jazz stood by Howie. “You need something?” Jazz asked him. “More meds? Some water? A hot nurse and a stripper pole?”

Howie chuckled, then winced. “Don’t make me laugh. And I’ll take that nurse and stripper pole in, like, a week. But here. I wanted to give you this.”

He fumbled with the nightstand drawer for a moment, then handed his cell phone over to Jazz. “I’m not gonna need it for a little while. So you might as well have it.”

“Uh, thanks.” Jazz stared at the thing. “But, um…”

Howie gripped Jazz’s wrist with all his strength, which wasn’t much. It was like a baby’s clench, if a baby had had Howie’s absurdly long fingers. Still, the fact that Howie made the effort and the urgency in his eyes corralled Jazz’s attention.

“Get this guy,” Howie whispered with all that was left in him. “You’ll need a cell when you’re tracking him down. Take it.”

“Howie, man, I’m done. You heard G. William—he’s got it under control. He’s on it.”

“G. William isn’t
you
, man. You’re the guy. You’re the one.”

“No.”

“Do it for me.”

“Howie, I’m out. Seriously. This was too much. You almost…” He yanked his hand away. “I’m done.”

“You think—” Howie swallowed hard. It seemed to take forever. “You think you need to stop because I have some stitches? Lost some blood?” He forced the phone back into Jazz’s hands, as though his life depended on it. “Man, that’s why you have to…” A long, slow blink. “That’s why you
have
to…” He giggled. “Wow, this is some really good—”

Bang. He was out.

Jazz took a deep breath. Patted his best friend’s hand.

Tucked the cell phone into his pocket and left.

Connie still had Howie’s car and had driven home with it, leaving Jazz stranded, the Jeep abandoned in Ginny’s parking lot. G. William drove Jazz there, even though Ginny’s apartment building was the very last thing in the world Jazz wanted to see.

From the street, you couldn’t even tell anything had happened. There were two cruisers parked in the lot, but they had their lights out and engines off—they could have been two cops on patrol stopping to gossip or swap doughnut recipes. Down in the alley, he caught an occasional glimpse of a flashlight played along the walls. Crime-scene investigating to see if the killer had left any evidence. Footprints, maybe. Maybe he’d dropped the knife he’d used to—

Well, in any event, they’d be looking for evidence. A part of Jazz yearned to join them, but he had told Howie he was done. And he meant it. He was out of the profiling business.

It had been abstract and compelling and—in a way, he had to admit—fun when it had been Jane Doe. But Ginny died under his own hands. He had probably pushed her last breath out of her lungs. And Howie could have died so easily that…

“You all right?” G. William asked.

Jazz hesitated. He was out of the profiling business, true, but a part of him still felt compelled to help. As though the cops could never do this on their own.

But who was he to think he could crack this case? Profiling was an art, not a science. Sure, he thought he had some insight into the killer, but way back in 2002, the cops thought they had insight into the Beltway Sniper, too. They knew the guy was white, young, childless. So imagine their surprise when they caught John Allen Muhammad: black, forties, with a kid close to Jazz’s age in tow.

“Jazz? I asked if—”

“Yep,” he said, making a split-second decision. “I’m fine. Thanks for the ride.”

He drove home a little faster than the law would favor. Now that he knew Howie was all right, he had to shift gears to the other person in his life who needed him: Gramma. He’d left her for—quick check of the in-dash clock—oh, Lord. More hours than he cared to imagine.

He was worried she’d done something stupid. Hurt herself. Hurt someone else. Done something that would make it easier for Melissa to yank him into foster care. Even if the Benadryl hadn’t worn off yet, she could have rolled off the sofa and broken something.

The house was quiet and dark when he unlocked the front door. He usually left a light on so that Gramma wouldn’t trip in the dark, but he’d forgotten when he and Connie and Howie had left the house a million years ago. He paused in the foyer for a moment, listening to the careful click of the lock as he shut the door. Something cold lingered in the air, something that set him on edge.

He had the feeling he was being watched.

That someone was in the house.

Well, of course someone’s in the house. Gramma’s in the—

He didn’t even finish the thought. Absurd. Trying to rationalize away the fear.

Fear’s okay
, Billy had said to him once. It had surprised Jazz, who had always heard his father speak of fear as comedic, as something prospects evinced in a desperate, useless attempt to stay alive. Fear was something to laugh at in all its many, splendid forms, each one unique to the victim.
Fear can keep you alive. The trick is not to let it overwhelm you. Not to let it rule you. If you’re afraid, that’s the universe trying to tell you something. Get away. Don’t run; don’t panic. Just pick up and walk out, calm as you please. Panic makes you stupid.

Should he call G. William? After all, he had Howie’s cell, an unfamiliar but comforting brick in his pocket.

No. No, that was ridiculous. There was no one in the house.

He crept into the sitting room. Gramma slept on the sofa, her breath a light, snoring buzz. He sneaked closer to her and realized that she was covered with a blanket.

She hadn’t been under a blanket when he’d left.

He turned slowly, his eyes adjusting to the dark, peering into the murk of the room. Empty.

She
might
have covered herself. The blanket was from the chair a couple of feet away. She might have just gotten up, cold, groggily snatched up the blanket, and wrapped herself in it before succumbing to sleep again.

No one is in the house. It’s just your nerves. After everything you’ve been through tonight, you’re entitled.

He grinned. Here he was, son of the world’s most notorious serial killer, afraid of the dark. What was next: the boogeyman? The monster in the closet? Gremlins under the bed?

Prowling the house like a burglar, he left the lights off, moving silently with touch and memory to guide him. If someone
was
in the house, he didn’t want to let on that he was aware. He wanted to catch the intruder. He checked each room on the ground floor, including the little pantry, just in case. In a moment of paranoia so ridiculous it would have been funny if not for the circumstances, he even checked under the sink, imagining the killer tucked up in there like a hermit crab, waiting to strike. All that lurked beneath the sink, though, were a pile of sponges, a roll of paper towels, bottles of various cleaners, and an empty cigar box Gramma insisted belonged there.

He roamed the top floor, executed quick single push-ups to look under the beds, rifled through the closets, then went down to the basement, poking behind the furnace and the water heater (cobwebs, dust, desiccated spider shells, and a single pile of petrified mouse droppings that made him add
Buy mousetraps
to his mental to-do list). He even crawled into what Gramma called the “rut cellar,” an old crawl space under the stairs that had once served as home to an archive of Billy’s childhood and early adult years—notebooks, yearbooks, boxes of newspaper clippings, a lone swimming trophy (
I figured why not?
Billy had said with a shrug), and more. All of it confiscated during the trial. Jazz could have had it back just by signing some papers, but he didn’t want it. And, unlike the Jeep, he didn’t need it.

Shimmying out of the crawl space, he allowed himself a small laugh at his own expense.
There. Can you go to bed now, you coward?

He traipsed back upstairs. Checked on Gramma one last time. She was really out. Made sense just to leave her on the sofa. She’d be a bit disoriented in the morning, but he’d rather deal with her disoriented in the morning than in the middle of the night. So upstairs he went. Flicked on the first light of the evening, washed up, brushed his teeth.

In his bedroom, he groaned when he saw the clock. It was a quarter to four in the morning. He had to be up for school in less than three hours. Beyond the lack of sleep, the idea of walking those halls when everyone learned about Ginny…as the rumors spread that Jazz had been there…He knew how high school gossip worked: By the end of the day, half the school would be convinced Jazz had actually killed her and then covered it up.
His dad…You know, his dad taught him how to get away with it.…

His dad
had
taught him how to get away with it. That was the hell of it.

Stripping off his clothes, Jazz put Howie’s cell on the nightstand and crawled into bed. Stared at the ceiling, at the rigid pattern of dark and gray etched there by the distant moon through the window grilles.

Had he made the right decision by bowing out? Yes. He was convinced of it. Time to let G. William handle this. The sheriff was more than capable. And if he wanted Jazz’s advice, well, Jazz would be happy to offer it. But only when asked.

Jazz sighed, sleepy, and rolled over to face the wall—then bolted out of bed, sleepy no more, fumbling for the light switch, his adrenaline pumping so hard and fast that he flicked the switch on, then off, then on again before he could stop himself.

The wall.

The wall of Billy’s victims.

Someone had inscribed the first four pictures with a red marker, writing, “1, 2, 3, 4” on them and then coloring the eyes into demonic glares.

The fifth picture—Isabella Hernandez—was circled in thick red loops that wavered and skittered over one another. Written over Isabella’s smiling face was this:

The cops were just wrapping up their processing of the crime scene (or, as Jazz thought of it, his house) by the time the sun came up.

Upon getting Jazz’s call hours earlier, G. William had wasted no time and taken no chances, personally bringing a team of techs to the house. They searched the house thoroughly, scanned for listening devices, tromped through the surrounding area, questioned the nearest neighbors (no doubt thrilled to be awakened at five in the morning to be asked about “that Dent house”), and dropped roughly a metric ton of fingerprint dust on every conceivable surface.

Nothing.

Jazz sat in the kitchen, nursing a cup of extra-strength coffee with a truly obscene amount of sugar for an added boost of energy. Gramma had awakened before the cops arrived, groggy but somewhat lucid, though once the police got there, she decided it was 1957 and she was at a high school dance. She paraded around the house in her nightgown, coyly batting her eyelashes at the cops, who took the whole thing with good humor. One of them even danced a quick Charleston with her.

Now she was puttering around in her bedroom upstairs, no doubt changing her outfit or, perhaps, her entire mind. The cops were packing up their gear when G. William joined Jazz in the kitchen.

“About those pictures on the wall…”

Jazz sighed. He knew G. William had to confiscate the first five, the ones the “Impressionist” had written on.

“How long you had them up?”

“About a year, I guess.”

“What about that screen saver on your computer? ‘Remember Bobby Joe Long.’ He was some kinda serial killer, wasn’t he? What’s that about?”

“He didn’t do that. It’s always been there. I put it there.” Jazz shrugged. “He was a killer, yeah, but he let one victim go. Girl named Lisa McVey. He knew she would lead the cops back to him, but he let her go anyway. He couldn’t help himself. It was a compulsion. I guess I just…” He shrugged again. “I like knowing that sometimes the impulses can go the other way. That maybe it’s possible to have an impulse for good.”

G. William clucked his tongue in a way that made Jazz want to fly across the table and rip that tongue out. He was on edge. He had been
invaded
. He was in no mood for anyone—even G. William—to condescend to him.

“You gotta let go, Jazz. Billy is Billy. He’s not you. Let it go.”

“Does that have anything to do with that guy breaking in here?” Jazz snarled.

“This isn’t about you. Don’t make it personal.”

“Of course it’s about me! Of course it’s personal! He came into my house. He went into my bedroom. He left a message on
my
wall. This is all about me.”

The sheriff looked like he was going to say something. Hesitated. Thought better of it. He consulted his smartphone.

“No prints. No fibers apparent, but we vacuumed the holy hell out of this place. It’ll be a while before we can sort through that, though. Looks like he picked the lock with the usual tools—we have tool marks, but nothing exotic or interesting. And that’s it.”

“No. We have a name for him now.”

“‘The Impressionist.’” G. William arched his back, thrusting out his belly like he was pregnant. “Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.”

“You have to find him, G. William. Find him or find his next victim. I.H.”

“I’ve already got people compiling a list of every hotel, motel, inn, and B-and-B within twenty miles of here. He’s not getting a fifth victim, Jazz. I promise you.”

Jazz wished he could believe that. The Impressionist had been one step ahead of them all along, even once they knew his pattern. There was something he was missing, he was sure. Something the Impressionist had done or would do that would make all their preparations moot.

“You oughtta stay home from school today. Get some rest.”

“You need some rest, too, big man,” Jazz said. G. William’s eyes were carrying as much luggage as Howie’s had in the hospital. God, Howie! That seemed so long ago now, but it had only been a couple of hours.

“I’ll catch some
Z
’s in the office. I’m gonna leave a patrol car out front, so—”

“Ugh.” Jazz groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “No. Please don’t. People already treat this house like it’s…like it was built over an Indian burial ground. You park a car out there and everyone’s going to think I did something. ‘That crazy Dent kid—’”

“The guy came here once.” G. William’s tone offered no room for disagreement. “He could come back. I’m not letting him come and go as he pleases. Maybe this is a game to him, but not to me. Got it?”

Before Jazz could answer, he heard the front door open and a pair of unmistakably high heels clicking on the hardwood foyer. Who could—?

He shot a look at G. William, who pretended innocence when Melissa’s voice sounded out: “Jasper? Jasper, where are you?”

“You called
her
?” he demanded.

“Your gran’s getting worse.”

“She’s always been a little—”

“Yeah, she’s always been a
little
. Now she’s a
lot
.”

“You think I belong in foster care? Really?”

“Not my call to make. That’s Melissa’s.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, until Melissa called out again.

“We’re in the kitchen,” G. William answered.

A moment later, Melissa entered the kitchen, nodding to the sheriff (who tipped his hat chivalrously) before putting her briefcase on the table. Even though it was five in the morning, Melissa had still put on a severely professional skirt suit and done her makeup. Her own personal brand of body armor.

“Are you willing to listen to reason?” she asked Jazz.

Too tired for the usual sparring and intimidation games, Jazz merely shrugged.

Melissa’s lips pressed into a shiny red line. She wanted him to react. She
needed
him to react. He refused to give her the satisfaction.

Until she said…

“Jasper, I’m finishing up my report and filing it first thing on Monday. I wanted to give you a heads-up. Especially considering what just happened here. This environment…I’m suggesting you be removed to foster care and your grandmother placed in an assisted-living facility. If you want to add your own letter to the report, to counter what I have to say, you’re welcome to, but I’ll need it by Sunday night. You have my e-mail address, right?”

She said it all in a rush, as though afraid he would interrupt her. But he had no fight left in him. Not now.

People matter. People are real. People matter.
He couldn’t convince himself.

“Do what you have to do,” he told her, not even looking at her, staring instead into the coffee cup on the table before him. “Whatever.”

“This is really for the best—”

“If you’re done, you can get out of my house,” he said.

The kitchen went so silent that he imagined he could hear Melissa’s blood pressure. Then she turned on her heel, snatched up her briefcase, and marched out of the kitchen. A moment later, the front door opened and closed.

“I know you’re upset—”

“Leave it alone, G. William.”

“I know you’re upset,” the sheriff tried again, “but that was uncalled for. You should call and apologize.”

“Apologize?” He lurched out of his chair, shoving it back across the linoleum with a squeak and a stutter. “Apologize? She’s gonna put me in some foster home, and my grandmother’ll end up strapped down to a bed twenty-three hours a day in some stack-’em-and-pack-’em old-age home! And I’m supposed to apologize to her?”

G. William shrugged. “Sorry, Jazz. I know it’s not ideal, and I know it’s not what you want, but she’s probably right, you know?”

Jazz had nothing to say to that.

After the house was empty again, Jazz called Connie to let her know what had happened and to tell her that he wouldn’t be at school that day. They agreed to meet in the afternoon to visit Howie in the hospital. Connie told him not to worry about the foster home.

“It might end up being a good thing,” she said. “Getting out of that house. Taking care of yourself for once, not your grandmother. And maybe it won’t be a foster home. Maybe it’ll be your aunt—”

“Yeah, and Billy’s sister lives, like, three hundred miles away. What about that, Con? What about us?”

She had no comeback; he felt vaguely guilty for shutting her down like that, but only vaguely. He was tired of everyone telling him what was good for him.

He meant to rest on his day off, but being with Gramma during the day was like babysitting a toddler who thinks the height of fun is badgering you every single minute. She spent a feverish twenty minutes panicking after the police left, worried that she’d somehow offended them (still thinking they were all at a sock-hop in the fifties), and bawling her eyes out like a young girl. Then she stood in the kitchen, screaming out the window at the forlorn, lonesome birdbath, berating it for not attracting any birds. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a birdbath!” she yelled. “I’ve seen birdbaths with dozens of birds, hundreds of birds,
thousands
of birds. You shouldn’t even call yourself a birdbath! You’re a bird-repellent. Why do you hate birds?”

She grabbed the shotgun and went outside and threatened the birdbath with it, yelling and waving the heavy gun around until she was exhausted. Then she came back inside and stumbled into the parlor.

“Good boy, Billy,” she said, patting Jazz’s cheek with one withered palm. “Good boy.” And she planted a dry, lingering kiss on his forehead. “Good boy to take care of your mama.”

Jazz shivered.

Upstairs, he tried to nap while Gramma watched a game show. He drifted off for a few minutes, minutes haunted by the knife, the voices, the flesh.
Just like cutting chicken
, Billy whispered from the past, or from his imagination.
Just like cutting…

And Jazz woke up

—wakey, wakey—

thinking of Rusty, both nightmares converging now, oh joy, oh lovely, oh how wonderful. He stared at the blank spots on the wall where Billy’s first victims had been. He printed out new pictures and tacked them into place, then stared at them for what seemed to be hours.

Who am I cutting? In the dream. Or who did I cut? Was it Mom? Did Billy make me—

No. He wouldn’t go there again.

Eventually—still sleepless—he meandered downstairs. Gramma had vacated her place in front of the TV. Panicking, he checked the window and saw the cop still sitting there. Okay, so she was still inside, then.

He found her in what had once been the formal dining room. No one had eaten in there for years, and the china closet had been nearly empty for just as long. Gramma sat on the old dining table, cross-legged, her nightgown tucked up around her spindly thighs, her hands clasped in her lap. She glared at him with eyes at once cold and burning.

“Mom,” he said with relief. “What are you doing in—”

“Why are you calling me ‘Mom’?” she demanded, her voice low and gravelly. “Running around this house like a damn
baby
, crying for your
mommy
. You pathetic child.”

Oh.

“
Mommy
,” she whined, a cruel grin on her lips. “Mommy, where
are
you? Mommy! Mommy!”

“Okay, Gram—”

“Mommy! Mommy! Ha! Remember you as a boy, little Jasper. Followin’ your mama around like a puppy. Glued to her skirts.”

Jazz swallowed.

“But your mommy ain’t around no more, boy. Your mommy’s gone. You hear? Gone.” She cackled and her cruel grin grew wider. “Gone, gone, gone! Praise God, gone!”

Jazz’s jaw tightened.

“Your mother was a
terrible
person. It’s her fault, what happened to your daddy. He was just as fine as can be until she came along and she, you know…” Here she leaned back a bit, and the nightgown rose even farther. Jazz’s stomach turned. “And she swallowed him with evil and made his soul black and ruined him.”

It wasn’t true. It wasn’t even remotely true, and Jazz couldn’t stand for it. “Watch what you say about my mother, Gramma,” he warned her.

She licked her lips. “Mama’s boy. Like I said. She was evil. She made your daddy evil. And you was born outta her evil. What d’you think that makes you?”

Jazz’s temper flared and he lurched toward her, his fists clenched.

“You go ahead, Jasper,” she whispered, a cunning light in her eyes. “You hit me. You go on and do it. Think it’s the first time I been beat up? Do you?”

He growled and spun around and smacked the flat of his hand against the china closet instead. One of the remaining dishes toppled and cracked.

Gramma laughed. “Mama’s boy!” she chortled. “Ain’t got the guts to smack me around, huh? Only one cure for a mama’s boy, Jasper.”

He spun around and stalked out of the dining room, but her voice followed him down the hall: “Only one cure! Gotta become just like your daddy! That’s the only hope for you. You’re gonna
become
your daddy.…”