I Hunt Killers (5 page)

“Yes.”

“Really? You got up close to it, saw everything you needed to see? Got your eyeballs nice and bloody with it?”

Sure, why not? “Yes, G. William. I saw it. I was wondering what—”

G. William laughed and slapped his thigh. “I have got to tell you, Jazz. I’ve been a cop for most of my life, so I’ve been lied to a lot. And I’ve been lied to by some real pros. But you, kiddo, you are the best liar I’ve ever had the pleasure to bust in a lie.”

“I’m not—”

G. William waved a hand. “No, no, save your breath. Save it. You’re busted, Jazz. You’re totally convincing, and you would have had me, but for one thing. That accident victim last month? He was an orthodox Jew. In accordance with his family’s wishes, we had a rabbi sitting in here with the body all night, until we could get a Jewish funeral home to take it away.”

Jazz groaned.

“And Rabbi Goldstein might not be all that spry these days, but he would have noticed you skulking around the body, I think.”

“Howie shouldn’t get in trouble,” Jazz said immediately. “I made him come along. He does whatever I tell him to do. Do what you want to me, but it’s not cool to ding Howie.”

At that, G. William softened. “You keep surprising me.”

“Meaning what? That maybe I won’t turn out like my dad?”

“I never said that,” G. William barked, pointing a stubby finger at Jazz. “Don’t go putting words in my mouth. You’re the one who walks around town acting like you’re…you’re
fated
to be just like Billy when you grow up. I never accused you of that. But I have to admit,” he went on, now looking around the morgue, “busting in to this place at night doesn’t exactly rank high on the ‘normal guy’ scale.”

It was time to come clean, whether Jazz liked it or not. Until G. William was satisfied, he was going to hold the threat of Howie being booked over Jazz’s head, and Jazz didn’t want to have to deal with Howie’s mother freaking out about her baby being arrested. And, of course, he actually didn’t want Howie to be arrested in the first place.

“I wanted to see if you guys missed anything with the Jane Doe,” he admitted. “I needed to see for myself.”

“And helped yourself to a copy of the preliminary report while you were at it.”

Jazz shrugged. “It’s not like it had anything important in it.”

“Nope. You should have waited to break in tomorrow night, after the full autopsy was done. Got impatient, eh?”

“It’s a serial killer, G. William. You have to believe me—”

“All I have to do is wake up in the morning and go to bed at night, Jazz. Everything else is optional. Come on.” He gestured for Jazz to follow and led him out of the morgue, then up to the police station. Howie sat shackled to a chair next to Deputy Erickson’s desk, looking miserable. Erickson was trying to figure out something on the computer; Lana stood behind him, pointing at the screen.

When Jazz walked in she looked shocked, even though Howie’s presence must have clued her in. Jazz tried flashing her “The Charmer” and, sure enough, Lana responded with a smile, even though Jazz was cuffed, too.

“Hi, Lana.”

“Uh, hi, Jasper.”

“Enough chitchat,” G. William said. “We’re gonna cut these two loose—”

“Score!” said Howie.

“What?” said Erickson.

“Like I was saying,” G. William repeated with ill-concealed annoyance at the interruption, “we’re gonna cut these two loose. With a warning. And we’re confiscating their key.”

“But, Sheriff…” Erickson was out of his chair, practically knocking over Lana. “They were breaking and entering. They could have taken evidence or—”

“You caught ’em, Erickson. You stopped ’em. That’s enough for me. Part of being a good cop is knowing when something is too much effort for its own good. We put this one’s name in a police blotter”—he pointed at Jazz—“and believe me, we’ll spend the next week doing nothing but answering questions about Billy Dent’s kid. We don’t have time for that nonsense. Not for something that boils down to the equivalent of a kids’ prank. Let ’em go.”

“Thanks, G. William,” Jazz said quietly.

“I didn’t do it for you, kid. Did it for my own sanity. I’m heading home.” He paused at the door and turned back. “Oh, and Jazz? Howie? I catch you two pulling any more shenanigans and I will not be inclined to go easy on you. Hear?”

“Yes, sir,” Jazz said.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Howie barked, saluting with his free hand.

Lana returned to her desk (not before stealing another look at Jazz, of course) and Erickson grumbled as he released Howie from the cuffs.

“Careful!” Howie said. “Watch it!” His wrist was mottled with bruises from the cuff and from Erickson’s fingers.

“Sorry,” the deputy said in a curt tone that seemed to be anything but an apology.

Erickson stalked over to Jazz, who held out his wrists to be released. Erickson stared at Jazz, and something in the deputy’s eyes made Jazz want to shiver, an urge he resisted. He had the disturbing sense that Erickson was going to defy Tanner and refuse to unlock the cuffs.

How could I have been so wrong about that guy?
Jazz thought.
I saw isolation and weakness, but it was really…what? First-day jitters? Something else?

Their eyes locked for long seconds. Jazz had never feared another human being—other than his father—and he wasn’t about to start now.

Erickson grunted at last and unlocked the cuffs. “I’m not going to forget this,” he said.

Jazz flashed him a grin, just because he knew it was annoying.
I won’t, either.

“That,” Howie said as they climbed into the Jeep, “was a close call. What was that guy doing down there, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Jazz said. “And right now, I don’t care. Let’s get out to the field, though. I want to see it at night, the way the killer—”

“Are you nuts?” Howie goggled at him. “Go by yourself. I’m not going anywhere but home. Didn’t you hear Tanner? He was pretty serious.”

“It’s his job to be serious. I need you to come with me to—”

“Uh-uh. No way. Take me home. It’s already past midnight, and I need my beauty rest.”

Jazz really wanted to go back to the field and see it the way the killer had seen it—in the predawn dark. But he would need Howie’s help again, so it was best to let his friend cool off first.

Jazz dropped Howie off at his house and headed home. His grandmother was sound asleep, having passed out on the couch in the living room as she often did these days. The TV was still on, blaring at full volume. Jazz had learned from prior experience that if he turned it off or down, Gramma would bolt awake and raise holy hell for his troubles, so he left everything as it was and crept past her sleeping, snoring form.

How could G. William not see what Jazz saw? How could he miss it? Were the million petty details of being a cop making G. William ignore what was right in front of him? Or was it something deeper?

Linkage blindness
is the technical term for when cops refuse to acknowledge that two or more cases might be connected, despite the evidence. The idea that they might be dealing with a serial killer is so huge, so overwhelming and horrifying and depressing, that they just refuse to see it. In this case, there was only the one victim, but Jazz was certain of something: This was not the killer’s first victim, nor would it be his last. If G. William didn’t see that, then Jazz would have to take matters into his own hands.

And how do you know that, Jazz?
he asked himself. He avoided looking at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and washed up for bed. There were times when he was afraid that he would see Billy staring back from the mirror, and this was one of those times.

No.
Afraid
was the wrong word to use. Jazz wasn’t afraid—he was
convinced
.

Convinced because he heard Billy’s voice in his head too much these days: It grew with time, as though the longer Billy stayed in prison, the stronger his voice in Jazz’s head became. Convinced because he couldn’t help seeing another serial killer in the Nod, even with very little evidence.

What was the opposite of linkage blindness? What described being certain of something without any kind of evidence?

As he flopped into bed, Jazz realized: The term was
faith
.

What a thing to have faith in
, he thought, and drifted off to sleep.

In his sleep, there was a knife.

A knife in a sink.

There was always a knife in a sink.

And a voice.

And a hand.

A hand on the knife.

Sometimes he thought—

(no)

—he thought—

(no don’t don’t don’t you go and)

Easy
, a voice says.
So easy. It’s just like cutting chicken.

And another voice says:

(no)

It’s okay. It’s okay. I want—

And sometimes he thinks

(no)

A knife.

Jazz jerked awake as though shocked with electricity, out of breath and trembling. He looked over at his clock; no more than an hour had passed since he’d collapsed into bed. Yet he was fully awake, his mind spinning. This was ridiculous. He needed to get some sleep. He had school in the morning.

The dream. The dream. The knife. And then the voices. And then the other things…At least this time he’d woken up before…

Jazz tossed and turned in bed, willing himself back to sleep, unable to get there. Images of Jane Doe drifted through his mind’s eye, and Billy’s voice whispered in his ear. Suggesting. Insisting. Reminding.
People matter. People are real.
I will never kill
, Jazz told himself over and over, his promise to himself. He had said it to his father once—just once—and Billy had laughed and said,
You go on thinking that way, Jasper. If that’s what it takes to get you through the night, you go on thinking that way.
Billy had been so sure that Jazz would someday go into the family business.

Something about Jane Doe nagged at him. Was it something in the report? No—the report had been useless. G. William was right—he should have waited another day or so for more information to come in. From the complete autopsy. From fingerprints.

He rolled over and punched his pillow, cursing under his breath. What an idiot he’d been, breaking into the morgue tonight. Another day—two at most—and the complete autopsy report would have been available to him. Just a little more time and he could have had all the information the police had.

But no. He had to be impatient. He had to rush in. Stupid. A stupid kid’s mistake. And there was no way he’d ever get back in now; G. William would have the locks changed by morning, and the new keys would be watched carefully. Jazz would never see that final autopsy report, and he had only himself to blame. If he was going to do this—really
do
this—then he couldn’t make any more stupid mistakes.

Jane Doe, he thought, looking at the ceiling, wasn’t her real name, of course. Would her real name give him some additional clue? It wasn’t the name itself that mattered—her name just identified her to people. But a name is about a person and their relations. Jane Doe wasn’t important because of who she was. Classic victimology: It wasn’t about what she seemed like. It wasn’t even about what she really was. It was, instead, all about what she symbolized or represented for him, for the killer.

“Him,” because of course the killer would be a man. Most serial killers were. Most killers were, period. And when the victim is a young, attractive woman, found naked…Plus, you had to factor in the location—there were no tire tracks anywhere in the field near the body, which meant the killer carried her. Few women have the upper-body strength to do that, even with someone as small as Jane Doe, and there’d been no drag marks.

So, a male. Probably thirties or older, because—Jazz was convinced—the guy wasn’t new at this. White—serial killers tended to hunt (to
prospect
, in Billy’s parlance) within their own ethnic groups. He was probably smart.

Jazz sighed. Age, race, and intelligence were all relatively easy to predict. Motive was tougher.

He would go to the field tomorrow. No question about it. He would see what the cops had missed. Because he knew they had to have missed something. He could feel it.

More faith. Jazz figured he had enough faith for an entire seminary. What he needed was some evidence.

He ran through the report in his mind, ran through what he’d seen at the crime scene. He was replaying his memory of looking at Jane Doe’s mutilated hand in the morgue when sleep finally slipped up behind him, wrapped an arm around him, and carried him off, this time without dreams.