Game (Jasper Dent #2)(76)

CHAPTER 35


Morales had retreated to an empty office to harangue federal and local courthouses to find a judge who could sign the court order that even now one of Montgomery’s cops was filling out on the computer. The faster that order was signed, the quicker they could get Belsamo’s DNA and get that process started. Jazz needed a break, so he and Hughes sneaked out to the car and drove back to the place called Red Hook. Hughes parked in a grocery store parking lot and pointed through the windshield.

“See? The Statue of Liberty. Told you.”

Sure enough, Jazz could see the statue off in the distance. Big deal. He’d seen it on TV and in movies.

“You really think Belsamo’s the guy?” he asked. “Even after that little display?”

Hughes shrugged. “Could be. Some guy just wandering into the precinct like that? It’s possible. Some of these guys—a lot of these guys—they want to get caught.”

Most of these guys, they want to get caught, Dear Old Dad had said so many times that Jazz had lost count. You understand what I’m saying? I’m saying most of the time, they get caught ’cause they want it, not ’cause anyone figures ’em out, not ’cause anyone outthinks ’em.

“Yeah. Some of them.”

Almost without realizing it, he rubbed briefly at his collarbone, where the reversed I HUNT KILLERS tattoo emblazoned his flesh.

Yeah, I hunt killers. Right. Seems more like they hunt me lately. Between the Impressionist literally knocking on my front door and Hat-Dog calling me out, I’m not doing much actual hunting.

“He just doesn’t seem right for this,” Jazz said, switching the topic to a more comfortable area. “Hat-Dog is highly organized. Belsamo… isn’t.”

“We don’t know that,” Hughes argued. “We don’t know how much of what we saw in there was an act.”

“Really? Pulling your pud in a police station is a far way to go for an act.”

“You’re the one who’s always saying that the stuff we think is crazy makes perfect sense to these guys. Maybe he’s spent the past year wanting nothing more than a chance to show his junk to Billy Dent’s kid.”

For some reason, this made Jazz think of a world in which the solution to serial murder was for him to see the exposed genitals of serial killers, leading to a brief mental image of a traditional cop lineup, sociopaths all in a row, pants on the floor, and Jazz walking down the line like the Pope blessing worshippers.

“That’s insane.”

“Exactly.”

“Insanity alone can’t account for everything. For someone as organized as Hat-Dog, there’s an underlying sense to it.”

“What about this Ugly J thing? You think that’s some connection between your dad and this guy and that Impressionist guy?”

Jazz shrugged. “Billy was in jail when Hat-Dog started up. But he was in jail when the Impressionist was prospecting, too. Someone kick-started the Impressionist. Maybe Hat-Dog. Or maybe the other way around.”

“Prospecting. You said that before. Is that… is that what he called it? Prospecting?”

And now Jazz felt like he was the one who’d exposed himself in public. He wanted to curl up in a corner of the car and melt away. He’d forgotten that not everyone had memorized every detail of Billy’s career. Was the word prospecting even something in the public record? He didn’t know.

“Never mind,” he said.

Hughes said nothing, and they sat in silence, gazing out at the Statue of Liberty until Hughes’s cell chirped for attention.

“It’s Morales.”

“Too soon for the court order,” Jazz said. “Even for the feds.”

“Text just says ‘bad news.’ ” He started the car. “Let’s find out what.”




Jazz and Hughes arrived at the precinct just in time to watch them let Belsamo go. He shuffled out the door reluctantly, like a vagrant turned away from a shelter.

“What the hell?” Hughes demanded. “He confessed! You can’t have even taken his DNA yet, and the bastard said he killed—”

“That’s enough!” Montgomery barked, and dragged them into his office. “Settle down, Louis. You can’t go off like that out there, whipping everyone into a frenzy.”

“What happened?” Hughes asked, and Jazz answered almost by reflex, realizing in a flash of insight what must have happened.

“They found a new body,” he said. “Didn’t they?”

Hughes gaped at him and before Montgomery could respond, Morales breezed into the office.

“New body,” she said tightly. “Three damn blocks from here. The bastard is laughing at us. Corner of Henry and Baltic. Right outside P.S. Twenty-nine. Assistant principal leaving school found the body fifteen minutes ago.”

“But Belsamo could have—”

“Let me guess,” Jazz said, interrupting Hughes. “The body wasn’t there this morning.”

Morales nodded emphatically. “The body had to have been dumped during the day. In broad daylight. The timing doesn’t work—Belsamo was here most of the morning, waiting to be interrogated, seen by a million cops and feds.”

“The whole damn task force is his alibi,” Montgomery said bitterly.