Cross Cut (3 page)

To give more information would only mean repeating myself later on. Besides, it was only a hunch as I lazed in the hallway.

I made my way into the office at 2.58PM and sat back in my sofa, brown leather and oh so comfortable. When Ryder entertains herself fishing, I often lie back and have a nap while watching TV. Sometimes you have to enjoy the little things.

Johns and Mantle were whispering to each other so I ignored them. When Ryder came through the French doors, she stared at them for a while, and then glared at me. I simply shrugged and introduced them.

“Hi, Boss. The BI wants to know if they can speak to you. So, before I say yes, can they?”

She glared some more and stared back at Johns, who started to speak, but was cut short when Ryder left the room and jogged upstairs without a word.

“What’s her problem?” Johns said.

“It’s 2.59,” I said. “Can hardly expect her to speak business.”

“For God’s sake.”

Five minutes later, Ryder entered the office in her blazer. The smell of sunscreen no longer present. She sat behind her desk, settled herself in and then looked up. “Well?” she said curtly.

Johns stammered for a while, most likely taken aback by her harsh attitude. Mantle managed to speak for him.

“We need to talk to you about the Cross Cutter,” she said.

Score one for my hunch.

Ryder was sitting with her eyes closed and her hands coupled beneath her chin. Her eyes opened at the mention of the Cross Cutter.

“Please, Miss Mantle, do not ever use that vulgar title in this office.”

“Well, what would you have us call him?” Mantle said.

“I have no idea. Use your imagination, not the newspapers’.”

“Look, Miss Ryder, we don’t have time to squabble.” Johns swallowed. “Can we just talk honestly, without the nonsense?”

Ryder closed her eyes again. “We can try. I make no promises. We have been down this road before regarding the aforementioned serial killer.”

“I know. You don’t want anything to do with it unless someone pays up. Thing is, there has been another body.”

I kept watching Ryder for any sign of life. She sat perfectly still and betrayed no emotion.

“You have my apologies, Agent Johns. But another body doesn’t change anything.”

Johns managed a smile. “Oh, but it does. You see, you’ve steered clear of it all because it never involved you. Now, I’m afraid you are. Involved, that is.”

Ryder looked up and opened her eyes. It was only for a second, but she seemed unsure, which meant nothing, because I was completely dumbfounded by Johns’ announcement.

“I’m at a loss, Agent Johns. How exactly am I involved?”

Johns smiled again and pulled out his cell phone. On the screen, he showed an item quite familiar to me—a business card for our agency, inside an evidence bag.

He swallowed and said, “I won’t drag this out. An hour ago, in Anaheim, a body was found in a public restroom. Male, mid-forties. Killed in the exact circumstances as the other Cross Cu—sorry. Anyway, the body was hung on a hook in one of the stalls. The killer used the victim’s belt—wrapped it around his neck, buckled it and used it to hang the body. Like the other murders, the victim’s clothing remained. The shirt unbuttoned and the body cut down and across the chest. The old woman who found it will need therapy, that’s for sure.

“The only thing we found in the victim’s pocket was this—a card for your detective agency. Naturally, we can find out who the body belongs to—eventually, but it made sense to come down here and ask you first.”

Ryder let her hands fall to the desk and she sat upright. She closed her eyes and opened them again and pursed her lips.

“I see,” she said. “So you came to the impulsive conclusion that I might know the victim?”

“It stands to reason,” Mantle put in.

To my surprise, Ryder ignored her and simply turned to me. “What do you think, Ader?” she said with a wry smile, which I didn’t quite understand.

I shrugged and said, “Beats me. We see dozens of people a week. Have you got a picture or something?” I said, looking at Johns.

“Not yet. Forensics had barely finished when we headed down here. I told them to send one to my cell phone as soon as possible.”

“A description, then?” I said.

“Well—male, mid-forties. Grey receding hairline with stubble. Stocky.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Umm, a green, tweedy sort of thing, with a white shirt.”

I smiled and looked at Ryder, who closed her eyes again. The man they were describing was Guy Lynch. Here not some two hours ago, and now he was dead, hanging from a hook in a restroom stall in Anaheim.

On occasions like this, I remain mute. It was a delicate situation that I would only let Ryder tackle.

“Well?” Johns said. “Who is the victim, and why was he here?”

The room fell silent for a while and Ryder coupled her hands again. She breathed a heavy breath and opened her eyes.

“It is an odd stretch of reasoning, is it not, that you expect me to know the victim, just because he had my business card on his person.”

“Odd?” Mantle said. She often fancied she could challenge Ryder, and that being female gave her that right. “Sounds straightforward to me.”

Ryder’s lips curved upward a little. “Naturally, Miss Mantle. But that is because your mind runs down a narrow street with no crossroads. Forever straight and forever forward.”

I could have laughed, but I didn’t. Johns stopped Mantle from proposing a comeback and said, “Look here, I said no nonsense. How else could the victim have your card?”

“Surely, there are many reasons.” Ryder lifted a finger. “Business cards aren’t all that dissimilar to fliers. Someone picks one up, and hands it on. And out of all the people that take a card, very few actually come forward and make an appointment.” She tilted her head and nodded at me. “Ader, how many business cards do we hand out a year?”

I didn’t really understand why she was stringing this along. It was clear as day the dead guy was Lynch, but I saw no reason to stop her. “Dunno, a few hundred?”

“Pah! Thousands would be more accurate.” She looked at Johns again. “Thousands, sir, and I would be very surprised if one percent of those cards produce a client.”

Johns and Mantle looked at each other and most likely thought it was a run around. Even if it was a valid point.

“Still,” Johns said. “Seems odd how he had a single card in his pocket. No wallet or keys or anything. How do you explain that?”

“How would you explain it?” Ryder said.

“I would say it’s likely the victim saw you today, and that you’re stalling me. Fair enough, if we found the card in a wallet or something, it wouldn’t mean much. People keep stuff for a later date, I understand that. I understand that he may have been given the card. But to have the card as a singular item, in his pocket, suggests it was of immediate importance to him. How is that for reasoning?”

Ryder paused for a minute and then leaned forward. It seemed childish for this to go on any longer and I almost spoke out myself, but she beat me to it.

“One point, if I may, then I will indulge you. You say the card was found inside his pocket. Which pocket exactly?”

“Ummm,” Johns mumbled.

“His suit pocket,” Mantle put in.

Ryder gave a surprisingly wide smile, which meant something was up, and I hadn’t a clue what.

“Thank you,” Ryder said clearly. “Forgive me, but I will have to excuse myself. Ader will give you details about the appointment we had this morning. Good day.”

“Hold on a minute, where are you going?” Johns said.

“I must prepare tonight’s dinner. The marinade for the lamb.” Ryder excused herself and made haste into the kitchen through the door beside my sofa. She nodded at me and I blinked.

“By all means, attend to your dinner,” Johns said as Ryder left the office.

The two agents talked among themselves for a while and I prepared to give them the story of what happened this morning, which would hardly take long, as very little had actually happened. Before I could get down to business, though, I received a text message on my phone. It was from Ryder, and it simply said, ‘hush.’ This might seem odd, but it was code. It simply meant I was supposed to keep certain details to myself. Which was all very well, but at that present moment, I had absolutely no idea what she was referring to.

I shrugged it off and gave the agents their victim. Mainly his name. Mantle ran into the hall and called someone. I assumed she was getting someone behind a desk to chase the name down, something that I decided to have a go at on my laptop while Johns bored me to death with details of the Cross Cutter.

When Mantle returned, Johns continued, “So, all he said was that he was being followed?”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded agreeably.

“So, Ryder refused him flat out?”

“Of course. You know she hates that kind of work. Actually, scratch that. She just hates work.”

“I hear that, dammit,” Johns said.

“She’s a selfish bitch sometimes,” Mantle said, no animosity intended.

“Oh, come now.” I grinned. “You’re just sore ‘cause she wouldn’t help you catch this guy. All you had to do was convince the people upstairs to cut her a check.”

“Yeah, a check that beats my yearly salary. It’s absurd,” Mantle said.

“So you say. Yet you gave her all manner of grief. Saying she had no heart and people were dead. That she was a ghoul because she put a price on catching a killer. Yet the BI and everyone else obviously had their own price, seen as they refused to play ball.”

“Point taken,” Johns said, wiping his brow. His cell phone pinged and he looked at it and handed it over to me. “Picture just came in. Is this the guy?”

I looked at it for a while and nodded. I didn’t really want to look much longer. They’d obviously taken the picture to get as much of the face in frame, but I could envision his chest, and that it had been pried open from the ribs down.

“That’s him,” I said.

“If only she’d taken him seriously,” Mantle said.

“She probably did,” I said. “I doubt it would’ve made a difference. He practically died as soon as he set foot in Anaheim. What’s the time of death?”

“Umm,” Johns stuttered.

“About 2PM,” Mantle said. “Pretty fresh. Soon as the call came in, we were ordered to stop everything and bolt. Attorney General wants this son of a bitch caught.”

“That stinks,” I said with a cocky shake of the head. “You’re not telling us everything.”

“Rich coming from you,” Johns said. “The hell do you mean?”

“Put it this way, the guy left here just before 1PM. From here it’s about a half hour to Anaheim in moderate traffic, and that’s just south side. So within half an hour of arriving there, he dies. And then an hour later, you guys show up at our door? Nerks. Something doesn’t smell right. The hell did you do at that crime scene, totter about for ten minutes and teleport yourselves here?”

Johns swallowed and fidgeted a little. He cleared his throat again and gave an honest smile. “I may have fudged the truth a little. We weren’t at the scene. When the call came in, we were at Long Beach on another case. Hacket and Bloom were the agents first to the scene.”

“Ah, shit,” I said.

“I know. You and Ryder hate them, so I said nothing. Anyway, soon as they saw that card, they rerouted us and we came straight here.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “That’s why you weren’t sure on some of the scene details. Even though it had only been an hour.”

Johns laughed. “Yeah. My partner is more adaptive than I am.”

Mantle smiled and I returned one. “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got your ID. Anything else I can do for you?”

“No, not really. I suppose it’s pointless to plead with Ryder again.” Johns rose from the black leather chair and Mantle made her way to the hallway. “My regards to Miss Ryder.”

“Sure. Adios.” I smiled.

Johns nodded. I heard the door slam shut and barely had time to return to the sofa before Ryder entered the office.

“What was the text for?” I said.

She sat first. She hated to explain things in an upright position. Hands coupled together like always. Pursed lips. “I take it what has come to my attention, has yet to come to yours.”

“Naturally,” I said. “That’s why you’re the detective and I’m the legman. But I struggle to see what secret we’ve uncovered.”

She uncoupled her hands and opened her laptop. “I wouldn’t have expected you to fathom it the way I did, but—did they show a picture of the victim?”

“Yeah. It was him.”

“I take it you don’t have a copy?”

“No, Johns just showed me on his phone.”

“Was he in the same clothing?”

“Far as I could see.”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes. “It’s a stab in the dark for now, but I’m certain I have it right.”

“Right? Have what right?”

She sighed. “Do you remember Mr Lynch this morning? Primarily, the clothes he wore and his state.”