Game (Jasper Dent #2)(57)

“It’s true,” the medical examiner agreed grimly, as though personally offended by the fragility of the human body. “You just cut the lateral tendon—same thing as in a lateral canthotomy—and you can pop—”

“Enough!” Hughes said, pressing his thumb and forefinger lightly against his eyelids, as if assuring himself that his eyes weren’t about to spontaneously pop out. “I get it. I get it. We done here?” he said to Jazz.

“Give me a few minutes.” He prowled the crime scene, playing a borrowed flashlight over the walls and ceiling, along dripping pipes. He even hopped down from the platform, avoiding touching the rails because he didn’t know which one was the electrified one, and walked a hundred feet or so in either direction. Other than smashed-up plastic bottles and discarded chip bags, he didn’t find anything.

Well, he did see the single largest rat he’d ever seen in his life. It glared at him with defiant, completely unscared eyes before scampering off into a crevice somewhere.

“Find anything?” Hughes asked, giving him a hand back onto the platform.

“Just the biggest rat in God’s creation.” Jazz measured off the rat’s length with his hands.

Hughes chuckled and said, “That’s not big, Jasper. That’s average.”

“I was looking for…” Should he tell Hughes about Ugly J? Yeah, he decided. It might not turn out to be connected—there was still a chance that Ugly J had multiple meanings, after all—but it wouldn’t hurt. He filled in Hughes about Connie’s discovery and the acrostic on the Impressionist’s letter. “I guess it could be a coincidence. It might just be an Impressionist thing and also be some kind of New York thing and they might have nothing to do with each other. But maybe there’s a connection.”

“Between Hat-Dog and the Impressionist?” Jazz gave Hughes a moment to catch up; the detective did not disappoint. “Oh, Lord. Then there would be a connection to your dad, wouldn’t there?”

“Maybe. It all depends what Ugly J means. If it’s some random urban legend or something, it could just be something Hat-Dog and the Impressionist both happened upon. Billy might not be involved at all. Does it mean anything to you?”

Hughes pondered. “No. How about you guys?” he asked the uniforms. They walked beats—they would know.

Fancy-ass detectives with their shiny gold shields and their shiny suit pants from sittin’ on those fancy asses all day long, Billy said, ain’t the real problem. The real problem’s the bastard cop in the bag, the guy on the street who notices your car don’t belong on that block. The guy who realizes you drove past the same building twice and slowed down both times. He’s your real enemy.

The uniforms gathered around. Head shakes from everyone. “Nah. Nothing. Maybe check with IU?”

“What’s IU?” Jazz asked.

“Intelligence Unit. They handle gang stuff,” one of the uniforms answered. “But it doesn’t look like a gang tag to me.”

“Like you’re an expert,” Hughes said. “Can’t hurt to check.”

“What’s the deal here?” the second cop asked. “There’s graffiti all over this city, a lot of it the same.”

Jazz told them what Connie had seen.

“Jesus,” the first cop said, “now the girlfriend is a profiler, too? Maybe we should just turn this over to the kids at P.S. One-thirty-eight.”

“Settle down,” Hughes told him. To Jazz, he said, “E-mail Connie’s photo to me and I’ll have IU look at it.”

“I didn’t see Ugly J anywhere, but that doesn’t mean anything. It seems like he comes back and adds it later.”

“We’ll get a hidden camera set up in here. Keep some undercovers circulating after we leave. Maybe we’ll get lucky. I’ll also have some unis recheck a bunch of the crime scenes. Just in case.”

Jazz looked up and down the track. “Tell me about this again? This S line? Does the S stand for something?”

“Short,” one of the cops joked feebly.

“It’s just a letter,” Hughes said. “I guess it might stand for shuttle. This is a short shuttle line from Grand Central to Times Square. Just a couple of blocks.”

“Anything unique about it?”

“Depends on your definition of unique. It’s unique in that it isn’t unique, really.” Before Jazz could even splutter, “Huh?” Hughes continued: “Unlike the other trains, there are actually three S lines. This is just one of them. There’s another S shuttle in Queens that goes out to Rockaway Park, and a third one in Brooklyn, runs… where does the Brooklyn S run?” he called over his shoulder.

Three cops started to answer. One spoke loudest: “Starts on Franklin, runs through Park Place to Prospect Park.”

Prospect Park, Billy said. Sounds like my kinda place. Heh.

But Jazz actually couldn’t believe the other name mentioned, and laughed out loud despite himself and despite Billy’s intrusion. “Park Place? There’s actually a Park Place? Is it near Boardwalk?”

“Ha, ha. You’re a riot, kid. No, Park Place is where we found victim number… seven.”

Number seven. Marie Leydecker. White female, twenty-seven years old. Raped. Strangled. Gutted. It was almost like checking things off on a list. Jazz remembered now. Remembered walking the crime scene. Hat-Dog had waited more than two weeks after killing Leydecker before moving on to Harry Glidden, the poor, boring tax man, white male, thirty-one. Throat slit. Etc. Same tune, different key. Except for the paralysis, which began with Glidden. Had Leydecker done something to make Hat-Dog think he should start paralyzing victims?