Mr. Mercedes (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #1)(8)
But I fear that might be the case!
You probably need a Hobby, so you’ll have something to think about instead of “the one that got away” and how you will never catch me. It would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People “slipped through your fingers.”
I wouldn’t want you to start thinking about your gun.
But you are thinking of it, aren’t you?
I would like to close with one final thought from “the one that got away.” That thought is:
FUCK YOU, LOSER.
Just kidding!
Very truly yours,
THE MERCEDES KILLER
Below this was yet another smile-face. And below that:
PS! Sorry about Mrs. Trelawney, but when you turn this letter over to Det. Huntley, tell him not to bother looking at any photos I’m sure the police took at her funeral. I attended, but only in my imagination. (My imagination is very powerful.)
PPS: Want to get in touch with me? Give me your “feedback”? Try Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. I even got you a username: “kermitfrog19.” I might not reply, but “hey, you never know.”
PPPS: Hope this letter has cheered you up!
4
Hodges sits where he is for two minutes, four minutes, six, eight. Completely still. He holds the letter in his hand, looking at the Andrew Wyeth print on the wall. At last he puts the pages on the table beside his chair and picks up the envelope. The postmark is right here in the city, which doesn’t surprise him. His correspondent wants him to know he’s close by. It’s part of the taunt. As his correspondent would say, it’s . . .
Part of the fun!
New chemicals and computer-assisted scanning processes can pick up excellent fingerprints from paper, but Hodges knows that if he turns this letter in to Forensics, they will find no prints on it but his. This guy is crazy, but his self-assessment—one crafty perp—is absolutely correct. Only he wrote perk, not perp, and he wrote it twice. Also . . .
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
What do you mean, when you turn it in?
Hodges gets up, goes to the window carrying the letter, and looks out on Harper Road. The Harrison girl putts by on her moped. She’s really too young to have one of those things, no matter what the law allows, but at least she’s wearing her helmet. The Mr. Tastey truck jangles by; in warm weather it works the city’s East Side between school’s out and dusk. A little black smart car trundles by. The graying hair of the woman behind the wheel is up in rollers. Or is it a woman? It could be a man wearing a wig and a dress. The rollers would be the perfect final touch, wouldn’t they?
That’s what he wants you to think.
But no. Not exactly.
Not what. It’s how the self-styled Mercedes Killer (except he was right, it was really the papers and the TV news that styled him that) wants him to think.
It’s the ice cream man!
No, it’s the man dressed as a woman in the smart car!
Uh-uh, it’s the guy driving the liquid propane truck, or the meter-reader!
How did you spark paranoia like that? It helps to casually let drop that you know more than the ex-detective’s address. You know he’s divorced and at least imply that he has a kid or kids somewhere.
Looking out at the grass now, noticing that it needs cutting. If Jerome doesn’t come around pretty soon, Hodges thinks, I’ll have to call him.
Kid or kids? Don’t kid yourself. He knows my ex is Corinne and we have one adult child, a daughter named Alison. He knows Allie’s thirty and lives in San Francisco. He probably knows she’s five-six and plays tennis. All that stuff is readily available on the Net. These days, everything is.
His next move should be to turn this letter over to Pete and Pete’s new partner, Isabelle Jaynes. They inherited the Mercedes thing, along with a few other danglers, when Hodges pulled the pin. Some cases are like idle computers; they go to sleep. This letter will wake up the Mercedes case in a hurry.
He traces the progress of the letter in his mind.
From the mail slot to the hall floor. From the hall floor to the La-Z-Boy. From the La-Z-Boy to here by the window, where he can now observe the mail truck going back the way it came—Andy Fenster done for the day. From here to the kitchen, where the letter would go into a totally unnecessary Glad bag, the kind with the zip top, because old habits are strong habits. Next to Pete and Isabelle. From Pete to Forensics for a complete dilation and curettage, where the unnecessariness of the Glad bag would be conclusively proved by: no prints, no hairs, no DNA of any kind, paper available by the caseload at every Staples and Office Depot in the city, and—last but not least—standard laser printing. They may be able to tell what kind of computer was used to compose the letter (about this he can’t be sure; he knows little about computers, and when he has trouble with his he turns to Jerome, who lives handily nearby), and if so, it would turn out to be a Mac or a PC. Big whoop.
From Forensics the letter would bounce back to Pete and Isabelle, who’d no doubt convene the sort of idiotic kop kolloquium you see on BBC crime shows like Luther and Prime Suspect (which his psychopathic correspondent probably loves). This kolloquium would be complete with whiteboard and photo enlargements of the letter, maybe even a laser pointer. Hodges watches some of those British crime shows, too, and believes Scotland Yard somehow missed the old saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth.