The Killing Game. J. Kerley A.

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter 5

      “… risking his life disguised as a convenience store clerk, his surveillance and backup team across the street, Detective Ryder heroically …”

      Chief Baggs’s memo had pulled a third of the force to my award ceremony. I figured he’d had a PR person write his speech, since he never said anything similar to me.

      “… talent of the MPD marksman who took out the woman perpetrator as Detective Nautilus simultaneously incapacitated her male counterpart …”

      I’d asked Harry to share in the award, but he refused, claiming he’d been beside me for a half-dozen other citations and this time I was on my own. Cal Mallory, our senior marksman, declined as well, not wanting to remind his neighbors his livelihood included shooting people in the head.

      “… ladies and gentlemen of the force and guests, I present Detective Carson Ryder …”

      I strode to the dais as Janet Wing tracked me with a camcorder. Wing was a student intern in the PR office. Our main PR person was Carl Bergen, a retired cop supplementing his pension. Ask Carl what he thought of the New Media, and he’d say he really enjoyed cable TV. Wing, on the other hand, had the department on Facebook from day one and trumpeted the MPD across venues most cops would never see. I figured the net effect was near zero, but Wing was a determined type.

      “… known to everyone in the department. Ladies and gentlemen, Detective Carson Ryder.”

      Chief Baggs recited a few more words and handed me a framed certificate that would look nice in the closet with the others.

      That’s when things got weird.

      Everyone stood, hands pounding as if I were Hank Aaron at his retirement game. Not knowing how to respond, I held the cheesy plaque high, strutting like a card girl at a prize fight. The applause turned to cheers as I sashayed across the stage, some cops singing a tuneless version of “I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)”.

      A perplexed Baggs dismissed the gathering. I went to the foyer, where cheers turned to good-natured insults. Most folks headed to Flanagan’s, a loud and rowdy cop bar. Harry and I booked to a quieter joint a few blocks away. I was still pondering the surreal action at the ceremony.

      “Jesus, Harry,” I said, “it was like everyone made me king for two minutes.”

      My partner tried to hide the smile, couldn’t. “I take it you didn’t read the memo sent out by the new PR intern?” He reached into his jacket pocket for a copied document, slid it across the table.

       The award ceremony for Detective Carson Ryder will be held tonight at seven p.m. in the City Building’s auditorium. Past ceremonies have been sedate and we’d prefer to present a more positive face to the public. Thus when Det. Ryder receives his award I encourage everyone to be upbeat and demonstrative…

      “Upbeat and demonstrative,” I sighed. The whole thing had been a big joke and Wing – now introduced to cop humor – would be more measured with her words in the future.

      A week passed, and I survived the next two academy classes, Wendy Holliday remaining the standout, the sullen Wilbert Pendel her counterbalance. I came to work later on post-class mornings, figuring each two-hour class cost me seven hours in actual time and prep time. I was crossing the room at half-past ten when Tom called across the floor.

      “Carson, see you a moment?”

      I turned to see him hanging up his phone. Tom was leaning back in his chair with his cowboy boots on his desk, hand-tooled, silver-tipped, lacking only spurs to complete the effect. He picked up his Stetson and spun it on one finger, a puzzled expression on his face.

      “Please don’t tell me Baggs has set up another award ceremony,” I said.

      Tom grinned, looking like an amused basset hound. “I heard the guys were planning to have a little fun.”

      “Uh-huh,” I said. “Little.”

      He went serious. “Listen, Carson, what was that thing you told me about psychopaths and animals? The markers?”

      “A huge per cent of serial killers have three markers in their history: pyromania, chronic bedwetting, and cruelty to animals.”

      Tom sighed. “The dispatcher got a call from Al Hernandez in Animal Control and it got bumped to me. Can you spare a few minutes to talk to the guy?”

      I called Hernandez. What I heard had me in my car five minutes later, roaring to northwest Mobile, up where the auto graveyards and carpet outlets turned into farms and woods.

      Hernandez was on a small county road, against a white van with DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL CONTROL, MOBILE, ALABAMA on its side. A rope-skinny guy in a brown uniform, sleeves rolled up, sinewy forearms, he had a high forehead, inquisitive eyes and a neat mustache. He led the way to a slow-flowing muddy creek below the bridge, a shallow pool on the upstream side, sandy hummocks downstream. Trash thrown from above was everywhere.

      Swatting insects from my face, I followed Hernandez to the downstream side and smelled decomposition. Scattered across the ground were four small carcasses, cats. All were burned and split open, like they’d been gutted. Three lacked tails. Hernandez had the right instinct: the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

      “Couple kids from a farm down the road found ’em,” he said. “I figure the carcasses got flung from a car, expected to float away. Some probably did, but these landed on high ground.”

      I studied the stinking ruination at my feet, sighed and ran to my cruiser, back thirty seconds later with latex gloves and a twenty-gallon trash bag.

      “What you gonna do?” Hernandez asked.

      “Get myself on the pathology department’s shit list for about a month,” I said.