playing soccer in junior and senior high school. And the walls were practically covered solid with framed and pushpinned photographs of Wendy and her countless gal pals, from birthday parties to summer trips at the Jersey shore, all from various points of her teen years.
A lot of memories for Linda to recall as she lay there. And, ever more the recluse, she spent more and more time in Wendy’s old bed. (They’d told Wendy that a new life required a new bed, and among the apartment- warming gifts they’d given her had been a queen-size bed-the one she’d been attacked on.)
I don’t know who’s going to take care of Linda when I’m gone, but I do know she won’t want for anything.
Especially with the house being paid off and the fat payout from my life insurance policy coming.
Which is damn convenient, because she’s barely holding on to her teller job.
And I’m feeling worse every day.
As the coffee brewed, Will Curtis went down into the basement.
Shortly after moving into the house, he’d begun converting the basement into a recreation room. It had a pair of soft, deep sofas that faced a monster flat-screen plasma TV. In the corner was a freestanding bar he’d built himself. And just about every nook and cranny was filled with Philadelphia Eagles memorabilia-he’d started the collection in his youth and later had help from Wendy, who’d grown into a genuine fan, too.
And, in the corner of the rec room, his desk held a desktop computer.
Every morning, by the time he’d finished checking his e-mail, the pot of coffee would have finished brewing. He’d then go up and pour a big cup to bring back down and drink while catching up on e-mails and then reading phillybulletin. com, the online edition of the Philadelphia Bulletin. Up until a couple years ago, he would go out to the front stoop and pick up the paper version that he’d subscribed to forever. But, as it had never arrived until at least six in the morning-and, on rainy days, arrived wet-he’d let the subscription lapse after getting in the habit of reading the news online.
And not just news.
Lately, he’d started following a new website, the name of which he really liked: CrimeFreePhilly. com. It had news articles, but also a lot of information about crime and criminals. And so, in the last month, it had become an indispensable tool for Curtis.
Now, a cup of freshly brewed coffee in his left hand, he used his right hand to click onto CrimeFreePhilly.
The morning’s lead headline was: THREE DEAD IN OLD CITY POLICE HUNT GUNMAN IN “POP-AND-DROP” MURDERS
Three dead? had been Curtis’s first thought as he sipped from his coffee cup.
Then: Pop-and-drop? That’s an interesting way to put it.
He noticed that Michael J. O’Hara had written the news article. Curtis had seen the byline in the Bulletin for a long time, and he liked the articles the O’Hara guy wrote. But he hadn’t seen O’Hara’s name in some time, and he’d wondered if something had happened to the reporter. But now, here was his name appearing on this new website.
Curtis read O’Hara’s news story. It was short, only six brief paragraphs stating the basic information that three men had been left dead in Old City at Lex Talionis. It didn’t list the victims’ names or how they’d been killed.
And it mentioned absolutely nothing about the pop-and-drops at the police stations.
Curtis saw that the article referenced both the reward offered by Lex Talionis and the speech made by Francis Fuller. Both references were underlined, meaning they were links to other pages with more information. When Curtis clicked on Francis Fuller, the page with the pop-and-drop article was replaced with a much longer piece on Fuller’s speech on the “evildoers,” written by someone named Dick Collier. He skimmed it, then went back and read it in its entirety.
Then he went back and clicked on the underlined Lex Talionis, and the link took him to the page at LexTalionis. com announcing the ten-thousand-dollar-reward program for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an evildoer. He knew about the program, but he read the page anyway to see if there was anything new.
There wasn’t, and Curtis again clicked back to O’Hara’s article on “Three Dead in Old City.”
Where the hell did the third body come from?
A coincidence? Oh, sure. Someone just happened to have one lying around, and dropped it off on Halloween!
Is some asshole copying me?
Except they’re not dumping bad guys at the police stations. Not that I know of, anyway. There haven’t been any stories about those, mine or anyone else’s.
In deep thought, he drained his coffee cup. Then he slammed the cup on the desk.
Some asshole has to be copying me!
What does that mean?
Well, for starters, it means more dead perverts.
Not that I have a problem with that.
But there’s gonna be cops on every corner looking for me and whoever else is dumping bodies.
And that means, if I’m going to enforce the law of talion in whatever time I have left, I’m going to need to do something different.
[TWO]
Will Curtis had his balled fist inside the iron burglar bars and was again banging on the filthy metal door.
“FedEx delivery!”
Now he could hear footsteps inside. They were moving toward the door.
Then came the sound of a chain rattling against the back side of the door, then a deadbolt unlocking, then the doorknob turning.
The door cracked open, just barely.
Judging by the sliver of a gaunt face that Curtis saw through the crack, it was a woman old enough to be Kendrik Mays’s mother. She stared at him with only her left eye, and she looked absolutely awful.
Well, what the hell did you expect to find here? Miss America?
Curtis held up the envelope so she could see the bill of lading.
“Got an express delivery for a Kendrik Mays.”
The lone visible eyeball darted between Curtis and the envelope.
“Ain’t today Sunday?” she asked.
“Look, I don’t like working weekends any more than the next guy.”
She nodded as she considered his answer.
After a moment, the woman said with a shaky voice, “He down at his cousin’s. Don’t know when he come back. You leave it with me.”
She pulled the door open wider to where the chain became taut and stuck out a badly bruised hand, fingers clawing for the envelope.
Now Curtis could see more of the woman. The entire right side of her face, including all around the right eye, was deeply bruised. She stood, her feet bare, at maybe five-two. She was clearly malnourished, and couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds. Torn and dirty black jeans and a ratty T-shirt hung on her.
Curtis, trying to get over his initial shock, pulled back the envelope.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s gotta be signed for by the person it’s addressed to.”
She squinted her sunken eyes and looked harder at the envelope. “Who it from?”
Will Curtis turned over the envelope, pretending to read from the bill of lading. “Says the U.S. Treasury in Washington.”
“Treasury? You sure you got the right address?”
He read it off the envelope, then said, “Kendrik Mays, right?”
She said, “Think that may be a check?”
