I Hunt Killers (8 page)

(At that point in the story, Billy had paused and looked at the ceiling, tapping his chin with one finger, as he often did when thinking hard.)

Now, where did I…Oh, that’s right—I fed ’em to some wild cats in an alleyway a few blocks away. Almost forgot that part.

Harriet had been taking night classes to get her law degree; her student ID had made its way into Billy’s trophy collection in the rumpus room.

“I just want to understand,” Fulton said, now weeping openly. “Her mother—my ex—she’s just blocked it all out. Remarried now, two new kids, like you can just replace one with another, like it’s that easy.” He wiped his eyes with the back of one hand, keeping a death grip on the Jeep with the other. “But I have to know: Why? Why my little girl? Why did he—”

“He can’t tell you,” Connie said, now with some heat. “Jazz, just go. Drive.”

Jazz shook his whole body as though waking from a nightmare. He’d been lost in Harriet Klein, remembering the photos, the story Billy had told, the student ID, which he’d touched so many times over the years.

He gunned the engine, a threat. “We have to go,” he told Fulton, and then reeled off the line he’d so often practiced over the past four years: “I’m sorry for your loss and for everything my father did.” He put the Jeep into gear.

Fulton’s face fell; he knew he would get no further, and he only became more desperate and more pained. “I’m staying in town. Just for a couple days,” he said, then fumbled in his pocket before bringing out a business card, which he pushed into Jazz’s hand. “If you change your mind, my cell’s on there. Please. Anytime. I don’t care. Anytime at all.”

Jazz refused to look at him again; he looked straight ahead and hit the gas. Fulton let go of the Jeep.

“That sucked,” Connie said.

Jazz checked the rearview mirror as they pulled out of the school parking lot; Jeff Fulton stood in the same spot, watching them go. Then, as they turned onto the main road, he shuffled away with infinite slowness until he disappeared from Jazz’s mirror.

Jazz dropped Connie off at her house. “Do you want to come in?” she asked. He saw that her father was already home, his big SUV stationed in the driveway like a blockade.

“No, that’s all right.” Connie’s dad hated Jazz. The race stuff that didn’t matter to Jazz and Connie mattered a lot to Connie’s dad. Jazz could reel off the arguments, though he could never understand them.
There’s a history of white men doing what they want with black women in this country
, Connie’s dad had said to him once, barely controlling a rage that wanted to come to the surface.
Go read about Thomas Jefferson. Read about what white men used to do to black women in America.

Jazz knew all about that.
I’m not one of those guys
, he wanted to say.
I’m not a bad person. That was a long time ago.

But who was he to talk about the past like that? Or to claim to be a good person?

Why didn’t you stop him?
the boy had cried.

Should have taken that knife from the sink and cut
him
, should have cut Billy. That’s what the world wanted.

—good boy, good boy—

In the Jeep now, Connie mistook Jazz’s silence for worry about her father. She simply shrugged when she saw him looking at the SUV. “He won’t do anything stupid. You can come in.”

“I just need to think,” he told her. “I’m a little shaken up.”

She kissed him gently on the lips, then leaned in closer for a more urgent kiss. For a moment, he couldn’t help thinking of what else had happened in this Jeep. With Billy pleading guilty to so many crimes, most of the seized evidence had been returned, and Jazz couldn’t afford a new car. But how many crimes had Billy planned from this seat? How many victims had he stalked behind this wheel?

But then he let himself go and surrendered to the kiss, to the soft insistence of Connie’s plush lips, to the warmth of her tongue, to the familiar tang of her hair. When they separated, she arched an eyebrow and asked in a passable Jamaican accent, “Are you sure you don’t want to be comin’ in, Reverend Hale?”

Jazz laughed. “Thanks, Tituba, but I have to go catch, define, and calculate the invisible world.”

They kissed again—a quick peck this time—and Connie got out of the Jeep, but not before saying, “Don’t do anything stupid again, okay?”

Last night’s trip to the morgue flashed through him in an instant.

“Why would I do anything stupid?” he asked.

Which made her happy. But it wasn’t an agreement, and it also wasn’t a lie.

On bad days, Jazz wondered if he had figuratively taken his father’s place, just as he’d literally taken Billy’s place behind the wheel of the Jeep. Was that his destiny? Billy Dent made no secrets of his plans for Jazz:
You’ll be the greatest ever, Jasper. They’ll never catch you. You’ll be the new boogeyman parents use to scare their kids into behaving. You’ll make everyone forget Speck and Dahmer and even Jack the Goddamn Ripper. My boy. My boy.

But today wasn’t a bad day. Play practice had gone well; Connie had forgiven him for getting caught breaking into the morgue. A part of him wished he could forget about tracking down whoever had killed Jane Doe. Just be a normal guy. Look to the future, not the past. Maybe focus on the play. On school. On being a better friend to Howie and a better boyfriend to Connie. Prove once and for all to her dad that he was a good fit for his daughter, and prove to the world that he wasn’t going to grow up to be the new Billy.

That would be nice.

Yeah, right. And Howie might be starting center for the Pistons next season.

As his grandmother’s house came into view on the left, a familiar sight greeted him: a late-model sedan parked in the driveway. He groaned out loud, then plastered a pleasant grin on his face. It was easy, reflexive—Jazz had been conning the sedan’s owner for a while now.

He parked next to the sedan and climbed out. It was the only person who annoyed him more than Doug Weathers: Melissa Hoover, social worker, sat on the front porch step. She worked for the county, and ever since Billy had gone to prison, she’d had one goal in life: getting Jazz out of his grandmother’s house and then either to a foster home or to his aunt Samantha. Samantha. Who’d never even met Jazz. Who hadn’t spoken to Billy in fifteen years. Who swore she would flip the switch herself if the government ever “came to its senses” and decided to execute him.

Yeah, sure. That would be great.

Jazz would have none of it, meaning he spent his days striving to prop Gramma up just enough that she could maintain custody of him.

For a week after Billy’s arrest more than four years ago, Jazz had been with social services, and he spent four of those days in a foster home. After the initial shock of Billy being arrested and of being yanked out of his home, Jazz fell back on the skills Billy had taught him—acting, conning, pretending to be normal. He’d easily fooled the social workers and the foster family into thinking he was fine. (A sneak peek at his file revealed the phrase “impressively well adjusted.”) He gave them just enough that they thought he was working on his “issues,” and they released him into the custody of his grandmother, his closest living relative.

But the truth was he didn’t know what his “issues” were. He knew he was afraid of his own powers and prowess, but that was his demon to wrestle with. No one on earth could understand what he’d gone through, what his upbringing had been like. So how could anyone help him? He was on his own.

He might as well do that work here, in the house Billy had grown up in. Gramma’s house was the only home remaining for him, quite literally: The wealthy father of one of Dear Old Dad’s victims had bought the Dent house at auction and had it bulldozed, then burned the wreckage and debris to ash. Jazz watched on TV as his childhood home went up in smoke, to the cheers of the gathered crowd.

(That same wealthy father later contacted Jazz and offered to pay for him to attend the college of his choice, claiming—in a letter that went on for ten pages—that there was “no reason for Billy Dent to claim one more victim.” Jazz politely declined the offer.)

Jazz sauntered over to Melissa, who stood and brushed off her skirt as he approached.

“Did Gramma pitch a fit when she saw you coming?” he asked.

“She went for the shotgun.”

Gramma Dent was never all that sane to begin with, her head packed full with a rotting collection of twisted religious dogma, crackpot conspiracy theories, and just plain
wrong
, handed down from generation to generation. Now she’d gone from unpleasant to outright dangerous. She avoided doctors, so no one could be sure, but even without a diagnosis Jazz was certain she was on the road to Alzheimer’s Town, an opinion he was careful not to let slip. As bad as she appeared to the outside world, Jazz knew she was actually much, much worse.

Hateful, spiteful, and crazier than a wind sock in a tornado, but family.

“Both barrels are plugged and the firing pins are popped,” Jazz assured Melissa. “She’s not trying to shoot you; she’s just trying to scare you off. She’s from that generation that doesn’t trust government people, you know?”

“I know, Jasper. When she’s in this kind of mood, I just steer clear.”

“Probably the best move.” Jazz cranked up the wattage on his smile. “You look lovely today. I like the skirt.”

Melissa snorted and glared at him. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

But it had already gotten him exactly where he wanted to be. He was less than arm’s length from Melissa. She was a plain woman—not unattractive, not attractive. Just plain. In her late thirties, she was unmarried and likely to remain so, a workaholic aging out of her childbearing years. Jazz knew the type. He’d studied everything he could about Melissa Hoover as soon as she’d been assigned to his case. He’d even followed her for a day or so, employing all the useful skills Billy Dent had passed down. He knew she was tough, that she took care of kids whether they wanted it or not. But he couldn’t let her learn just how bad Gramma had gotten. Because then she would be able to take him away.

“I don’t know why you keep coming out here,” Jazz said, “but I have to admit I like seeing you.”

Melissa wasn’t falling for it, but she didn’t say anything about how close he was to her. If he wanted to kill her, he was close enough now. Close enough that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop him. As tough as she was, as capable as she was, her life was now in Jazz’s hands, and she didn’t even know it.

But people matter.…Even people mucking around in my life.

“She’s a sick old woman and she’s not getting any better,” Melissa said. “I think she’s starting to drift into senility, too.”
Ha. If only you knew.
“You’re a great kid—a great young man—with your whole life ahead of you.”

“So I should just cut her loose?”

“I’m not saying that. But you should think of yourself.”

“Thinking of myself is one of the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder,” Jazz told her. “You should be glad I’m thinking of someone else. It means maybe I’m not a sociopath like Billy.”

“You’re staying with her because you think that maybe by caring for the woman who started all this, you can somehow redeem her and your father
and
maintain your own— Are you listening to me, Jasper?”

“Of course I am,” he said smoothly. “Look, I’m seventeen. In a year, I’ll be out on my own.”

“Even a year in this toxic environment could—”

“Toxic?” The mask slipped, and he let his anger show. “You think
this
is toxic? Where were you on my ninth birthday, when Billy showed me how to use quicklime to dissolve body parts?”

Melissa took a step back, her eyes wide, a hand on her purse. Damn. He’d gone too far. Mace? Probably Mace. With women, it was almost always Mace. But Jazz wouldn’t put it past Melissa to be packing heat. And not some little girlie derringer, either. He wouldn’t be surprised to see her whip a big ol’ Glock or Magnum out of that purse.

Jazz reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, widening his smile, making his eyes dance with mischief. “Aw, c’mon, Melissa. I’m just joking. If I can’t joke about this stuff, what
can
I joke about? Black humor. Good for the soul.”

Jazz employed his very finest lost-puppy-dog look—guaranteed to work every time.

“I’m trying to help you,” she said. “I know you don’t want my help, but you need it, and I’m not giving up on you. I’ll go for now. But only because your grandmother’s having a bad day. I’m coming back, Jasper. I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.”

Jazz watched her back out of the driveway, forcing himself to wave jauntily as she pulled away, while inside he seethed. This was the worst, darkest part of the curse Billy Dent had passed down to him—women. Jazz knew that women were no better or worse than men, but he knew this at a remove, like a scientist knows that a photon moves without actually watching one in motion. His upbringing, his gut, his every screaming thought told him that women were simultaneously special and useless. That they compelled him, drove him on, but were ultimately expendable. Fungible. Good for a couple of things, but not for long.

Of Billy Dent’s one hundred and twenty-three (or one hundred and twenty-four, depending on how you counted) victims, close to one hundred had been women. Of the men, half were victims of opportunity. Women—and especially certain types of women—were prospects and nothing more.

The Gospel According to Billy Dent.

Jazz hated that part of himself. He hated the part of himself that looked at a strong woman like Melissa Hoover and could think only of how to make her weak and desperate before finally…

Well, before finally making that weakness and desperation moot.

He thought of Connie. Connie was different. Connie was the one girl—woman, really—he could be himself with. “Being himself” meant a whole host of things—good, bad, grotesque. Connie accepted all of them, and most important of all, he allowed her to accept them, something he’d never done with anyone in his entire life. Did that mean there was hope for him? Hope for something beyond what Billy Dent had planned for him?

He sank to the front porch step, his legs trembling and no longer trustworthy to hold his weight. Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world.

When he’d managed to gather his wits, Jazz pulled himself to his feet and dared to go inside.

The vestibule was dark. Gramma had turned off the lights and closed all the blinds.

“Gramma?” he called. “Hey, Gramma. It’s Jasper. I’m alone.”

Nothing.

He flicked on a light and made his way into what Gramma insisted on calling the parlor, even though it was nothing more than a cramped little dayroom with a dusty old love seat and some side tables. His grandmother was curled into a corner on the love seat, her legs tucked up against her chest, her spindly form wrapped in a threadbare housecoat. Her thinning hair spun around her head like a whirlwind of gray cotton candy gone wrong.

She was aiming a shotgun at him, her eyes wide and wild.

“Hi, Gramma.”

“I’ll shoot her!” Gramma shouted. “I’ll shoot her right through you if I have to!”

“She’s not with me, Gramma. I’m alone. I promise.” He took another step toward her.

“Don’t think I won’t shoot you. I will. I shoulda shot your daddy. Shoulda shot him when he came right out of me. Or maybe when he was still in me. That would have been good, too.”

“Can’t argue with you there, Gramma.” Another step. The gun was harmless, but if she pulled the trigger, she’d learn how harmless it was. And she’d be twice as pissed.

“He wasn’t always bad, you know. He grew up okay. It was when he met
her
that everything went all to hell.”

Billy Dent had been torturing and killing small animals since the age of eight, but Jazz let Gramma have her delusions. She liked to believe that Jazz’s mother had made Billy into a sociopathic murder machine, and since Mom was long dead, there was no harm in letting her have that special, specific delusion.

“Just like
you
!” she yelled, raising the shotgun to track his head as he closed in on her. “Like
you
! I know what you been up to! Just like your pappy! Taking up with
whores
! Putting your
thing
inside them! That’s where the
corruption
comes from, boy!”

Jazz bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Had he just been bemoaning his fears and constant struggles over women? Well, here was their genesis! Handed down from crazy old Gramma Dent to sociopathic Billy Dent, and from there to Jazz himself. Rarely did real life provide such immediate context for a problem. Who needed therapy when Gramma could just explain everything?

“I’m thinking of making macaroni and cheese for dinner,” Jazz told her, now mere inches from the shotgun. “I’ll use the garlic bread crumbs on the top, the way you like it. And if we have some Romano cheese, I’ll add that to the cheddar. How’s that sound?”

“I should blow your damn fool head off,” Gramma snarled. “I don’t want them damn elbow noodles, either.”

“Right. Who would? I’ll use bow ties. How’s that?”

“Bow ties are good. They remind me of how I met your granddad. He was so handsome in his dress uniform.” She sighed. “You think cooking me dinner means I’m not gonna shoot you?”

“Well, you can shoot me
after
dinner. If you shoot me before dinner, who’s gonna cook for you?”

She squinted as if she were attempting long division somewhere behind those ice-blue eyes. They were Billy’s eyes, almost exactly. Jazz’s were hazel. His mother’s eyes. He thought of them as “sane eyes.”