'You've seen maybe twenty times more jealousy-slash-revenge killings than me, Harry. How many have been as neat?'
'Doesn't mean anything. They're all different.'
'Come on, Harry. How many have been so damned immaculate?'
Harry grunted; he liked to drive in silence, I liked to think aloud. He grudgingly elevated his right hand, thumb and index finger forming a zero.
'Slicing and dicing, Carson. Fifty stab wounds. Eighty. Or more hammering than John Henry. I saw a shooting where the shooter emptied a clip, reloaded, and start shooting again.'
'Right. The anger floods out. This one was neater than a show home.'
'The body was neat, Cars. What's the head doing now? My guess is target practice. Or taking a good hammering.'
A semi tractor rig pulled beside us at a light. The driver glanced down from his high perch, startled at seeing a guy in a sport jacket and tie reclining across the backseat of a Taurus. I winked and he turned away. I said, 'The head taking the punishment… the face symbolizing the whole. It works, I guess. Where we at?'
'Airport Road by University. So how come you don't sound convinced?'
'If that's what the killer wanted, the head, why not break for the end zone soon as it was in his hands? Do a victory mambo. Spike it, whatever. Just like you were thinking. But he hung around and wrote on the body. I'm guessing that's why he pulled it into the light.'
Harry said, 'Maybe the writing got him juiced. He had to write.'
'If he's got the head to hammer his statement into, why make a speech on the body?'
'Good point. Doing a Farley, maybe?'
Farley Traynor was a bitterly angry accountant who cut words into victims he'd never known, telling them how much he hated what they'd done to him. In a curious bit of deranged perception, Traynor figured since the dead were in their bodies looking out, he'd write backward so they could read it easier.
'Just doesn't click if the head's where he thinks the personality resides. Did you just hit a pedestrian?'
'Traffic barrel. Maybe it's a note to us, cops. Whores and rats? Not everybody loves us like we do.'
I couldn't buy in yet. 'But the tiny writing wouldn't be around long, or at least not visible. Not in this heat. I bet even slight decomposition would obscure it. And if the words are important, scream them: black marker, big letters.'
'You're overanalyzing, Cars. I hate to agree with Squill, but I think it's revenge.'
'Revenge is anger. If the killer was angry, he or she's got anger as tidy as doilies.'
I was balancing my thoughts between fastidious anger and my unimpressive debut with Dr. Davanelle when the car turned hard and bumped upward, pulling into a drive. Harry said, 'We're here, bro. Not what I expected either.'
CHAPTER 5
Terri Losidor's apartment complex boasted several Beamers beneath the carports, plus other young- executive-type wheels. The grounds were dappled with crepe myrtles, palmettos, azaleas, here and there a tall loblolly pine. A pool featured several tanned and lounging bodies. Not a child in sight.
'Trailer park to yupster singles ville Harry said. 'Darwin at work.'
Terri opened her door without chain intervention or asking for ID, either trusting us or expecting us. She had a broad plain face and green, darting eyes. Moderately overweight, she carried it well and moved lithely, gesturing us to sit on a plump orange couch as she lit a cigarette and sat across from us. She remote-muted one of what Harry calls 'chromosomal defect shows,' Springer or whatnot. Despite her calm exterior I detected a nervous undercurrent, not unexpected when cops come a-calling. Her apartment was clean, with inexpensive but matched furniture, and beneath the cigarette smoke smelled of lemon air freshener and a recent shower. There was a cat- box somewhere.
She said, 'This is about Jerrold, isn't it?'
Harry nodded and Terri Losidor picked up a throw pillow and clutched it to her breast. Harry started with easy questions to let her get used to answering. She was thirty-three and worked as an accountant at a local trucking firm. She'd lived at Bayou Verde Apartments for three years. Children weren't allowed but pets were cool. They used too much chlorine in the pool. This all came out in a nasal twang I knew the drivers made fun of.
Harry shifted to Nelson. While he slow-walked her through memories, I sat quietly and used a year's worth of detective experience to identify cat hairs on the couch. Long and white.
'How well did you know Mr. Nelson?' Harry said. 'I'm talking about his past, his friends, his family, his hobbies, and so forth.'
'Those things weren't important to Jerrold and me, Detective Nautilus.
It was just us and the things we'd do. I didn't need to know anything else.'
'Didn't need to know or Jerrold didn't tell you?' Harry loosened his tie, spun a crick from his neck, relaxed. He works in reverse of many cops by leaning forward to toss mush balls and lying back to throw heat and curves.
Losidor looked away. 'I asked a couple of times. He said they weren't things he liked to talk about; it was painful.'
'So if you didn't know his friends you probably didn't know any enemies.'
'Jerrold didn't have enemies. He was so so friendly. Always laughing and telling jokes.' A sad smile. 'One of my friends told me, she said, 'Terri, that Jerrold makes my mouth hurt with all his smiling.'
No one could be angry at Jerrold, Detective Nautilus.'
Harry locked his fingers behind his head and reclined further. 'In May you were angry enough to threaten him with jail. Something about eleven thousand dollars moving from your pocket to his.'
Losidor closed her eyes, sighed, opened them again. 'See, he told me he had a one-time chance to get in on a business it would take just fourteen thousand dollars to make at least seventy in a year. All I had was eleven but Jerry said it would still work.'
'What sort of business?'
There was a clang from the back of the apartment, like something falling on the floor. Terri jumped.
Harry sat up, wary. 'Are we alone here?'
'Oh, yes. Just us,' Losidor said, reaching for a cigarette. 'That's Mr. Puff, my kitty. He's clumsy, always knocking things off the sills and shelves. Crazy cat.'
Harry and I listened for a moment. Nothing. Harry settled back into the couch.
'What sort of business did Jerrold say your money was going for?'
'Something to do with computers and how they're hooked together. He explained one office might have one kind of computer and another office had another and the computers couldn't understand each other. He had a friend who'd invented a better way to make them talk. It made sense, since at my office the computers are always messing up like that.'
'You ever get to meet his friend? Or hear his name?'
'I just trusted Jerry, you know.'
Harry spent one year with Bunco, and this was a familiar conversation.
'Once you gave him the money Jerrold stopped coming by as much, didn't he?'
'I don't know he got busy with things…' Her eyes dropped to the carpet. 'Yes.'
'Then the business went sour.'
Terri sighed. 'He said some other company came out with the same thing first. Intel. I asked the guy who fixes the computers at our office about it. He'd never heard about Intel having anything like that; it wasn't what they did. That's when I filed.' Terri sniffled and plucked a pink wad of tissue from her pocket to dab her eyes.
'But a week later you dropped the charges.'
'He finally told me the truth,' Terri said, sniffling.
'Which was?'
'He used it to buy a share of some cocaine being flown into the county it's like a stock deal. You buy shares. Jerry didn't tell me because he knew I'd never approve. He stopped seeing me because he was ashamed.'
