“Ms Ralway?” I was on the porch of a blue bungalow, trim and fresh and part of a fifties-era suburb not showing its age. “My name is Carson Ryder and I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she said, pushing open the screen door. “Please come in.”
Patricia Ralway’s eyes were rimmed with red, her fingers clutching a tissue. She was a plain-faced woman at best, dressed in Levi’s beneath a rumpled T-shirt that said THE BEST DAUGHTER IN THE WORLD. The shirt a gift from her mother, no doubt.
I said, “We’d like to ask you—”
“Some questions. I know, I watch a lot of police shows. Please, sit, make yourselves comfortable. Can I get you a glass of sweet tea?”
Holliday started to decline the offer, but I said, “Thank you. That would be nice, since it’s such a hot day.”
“Yes,” Ralway said, as if suddenly realizing there was a day going on. “It’s a scorcher, isn’t it?” She went to the kitchen and I heard the refrigerator opening, ice clinking in glasses.
“I’m sorry,” Holliday whispered. “I didn’t mean to—”
“In a situation like this I usually accept any offering. Tea, coffee. Cookies. Sometimes a simple human interaction helps break down the wall.”
“Noted.”
The libations arrived. I apologized again for the interruption and pulled my notepad from my pocket. “I guess my primary interest is any enemies your mother might have had, Ms Ralway. People angry with her, though she might not have realized it.”
Patricia Ralway shook her head. “I’ve thought and thought about it. No, none. Oh, there were women she quarreled with now and then, but they were at the home. You don’t suspect anyone there, do you?”
“Not really.”
“Then she had no one that would wish her harm.”
“Is your father—”
“Gone for decades. Dead.”
“How long was your mother in the home?”
“Five months. It wasn’t her physical state but her mind. She had Alzheimer’s, as you know. She’d seem fine earlier in the day, but afternoons and evenings she would often have trouble recognizing me, or confuse me with my late aunt. It was g-getting difficult … I’m s-sorry.” Tears fell from her cheeks to her lap. “It hurts,” she apologized. “It hurts worse than anything.”
“I’ve been there, ma’am,” Holliday said quietly. “Take all the time you need.”
Ralway nodded her thanks to Holliday and took some deep breaths. A couple of elderly women at the home had pulled Harry aside to whisper in his ear. He’d passed on the info, what I figured was the gossipy meanderings of those with too much time on their hands.
“I hate to bring this up, ma’am,” I said, “but a couple of the folks at the home said you and your mother fought on occasion.”
“A bunch of eavesdropping biddies. Mama and me quarreled once a month or so. She was on me to settle down, have children – like that would ever happen. Sometimes she’d gnaw the topic like a dog on a bone and I’d tell her to drop it.”
“Sounds like typical mother stuff,” Holliday said.
“She’d get irritated when I said I’d been at a bar. She’d say, ‘Now, Patty, you know full well a barroom’s no place to meet a decent man.’ I’d tell her, ‘Mama, I ain’t lookin’ for a decent man … I want a good one.’”
I couldn’t help myself and smiled. So did Holliday. “That was how we argued,” Ralway continued, “two hens clucking at one another. Five minutes later I’d be laying beside her as she told stories from her youth. She was spending more and more time in her past. It was sad, but it made her happy and that was a kind of reward.”
Tears came to her eyes again.
“Forgive me if I’m overstepping any boundaries, ma’am,” Holliday said. “But I lost my mama two years ago next month. We were very close.” She reached out for Patricia Ralway’s hand. “The good thing is that my mama’s death was the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Patricia Ralway canted her head at Holliday.
“I don’t understand, miss.”
“I’ve seen people who barely sniffled when they lost a parent because they didn’t have a good relationship. When I hurt – and that’s every day – it underscores the depth of the love my mother and I had for one another, and how so few people get to experience anything so wonderful. My pain also tells me our love.”
Ralway’s face twitched. Tears came hard and Holliday stepped to Ralway and held her tight. After a minute they separated, Patricia Ralway’s hand squeezing Holliday’s shoulder.
“Thank you so much. I know that will be of help.”
“I’m obliged for your time, ma’am,” I said. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
Mrs Ralway walked beside Holliday as we went to the door. I had become extraneous. We stopped at the threshold. Ms Ralway thanked Holliday again, stepping back to scan her from tip to toes.
“My, my … I’ll bet a pretty girl like you has your pick of men when you’re out on the town,” she said.
I waited for Holliday to ignore the comment or offer an embarrassed thank you, but she surprised me yet again by going for sisterhood.
“We both know how it is,” Holliday said, winking. “The best-looking men are either gay or have more mommy or daddy issues than a decade of Parents Magazine. Or, of course, they’re not really single.” Holliday mimed pulling a wedding ring off and dropping it in a pocket.
Like a moment of sun breaking through storm clouds, Ms Ralway chuckled. “Isn’t that the God’s truth about men. I met a guy a couple weeks back I swear had both mommy and daddy issues and maybe granny and grampa thrown in as well.”
We climbed into the cruiser and drove a few miles in silence. I turned to Holliday. “All good-looking single guys have issues? Really?”
“You weren’t listening, Carson. Not all do.”
I nodded. “That’s good.”
“The others are gay.”
My head spun her way, she was grinning. “On a more serious note,” she said, “there’s something I’d like to talk about, though now’s probably not the time.”
“Go ahead. I’d—”
My cell phone rang. I fumbled it from my jacket.
Clair. She got to the point. “If you’re not too busy, you might want to know I found the penny during the visual exam, tucked in the labial folds. I’m starting the post now. Can I expect to see you and little Miss Christmas at the procedure?”
“I’ll have to send a sub, I’m too busy.”
“No Miss Christmas? Damn. I wanted to look at someone the same age as my daughter.”
“You have no children, Clair.”
“I’m ageing and childless? Shit.”
She hung up. I kept my face expressionless and I told Holliday about the penny’s location. “Didn’t you want to talk about something?” I remembered, distracted by the last minute with Clair.
“It can wait.”
I dropped her at the jail and proceeded to the office, meeting up with Harry. He’d managed to get six weeks’ continuance on his upcoming trial to allow him full-tilt boogie on the Penny Man case. Neither of us mentioned that, if the killer continued at his current rate, another ten people would be dead by then.
My next step was to call in Doc K, who had assembled conclusions from our last meeting. The initial cast was the Doc, Harry, Tom, and me. We had just closed the door of the conference room when it pushed open: Baggs. “This is a meeting on the current situation?” he asked. Assured it was, he said, “I’d like to sit in.”
“Good to have you, sir,” Tom drawled, playing the game that had kept him in charge of the homicide division for over a decade. “We’d enjoy your input.”
“Somebody’s got to do it,” Baggs said, starting the meeting off on the perfect note.
We handed the talking ball to Doc Kavanaugh, who gave an overview on the weapons used by the perp. “It seems probable the killer imagines he’s doing battle,” Kavanaugh said. “Given his choice of crossbow, knife, ax or club, spear … I think the weapons have been selected for overall symbolism, not adaptation to any particular manner of killing.”
“Does he know this?” Harry asked. “The symbolism?”
“All he may know is that the selection feels right and—”
“Everyone keeps saying how smart this bastard is,” Baggs interrupted. “Now you’re saying he isn’t bright enough to know why he’s picking his killing tools?”
“He knows many things,” Kavanaugh said. “But the last thing he knows is himself. He exists behind a veil of delusions.”
Baggs snorted his disbelief. Not big on veils, I guess.
Harry said, “You think the killer’s specifically at war with Carson, Doc?”
Kavanaugh shook her head. “Evidence suggesting a direct antipathy toward Carson is sketchy.”
“What’s anti-pathy?” Baggs said.
“An intense dislike. Hatred.”
Baggs shook his head. “Then why not just say hatred? Why do you people hide everything behind psycho-babble?”
“I’m sorry, Chief Baggs, but antipathy is a widely used word that—”
“The killer leaves pennies like in Ryder’s video and sends messages to Ryder. Maybe I’m not acquainted with how shrinks think, but how is it the perp doesn’t hate Ryder? Isn’t at war with Ryder? For Christ’s sake, Doctor, he’s killed four people to prove he hates Ryder.”
I caught Kavanaugh’s glance. This was the first time she’d been exposed to Baggs, but she’d already figured complexity wasn’t his specialty. She wheeled her chair to face him, legs crossed, her fingers tented beneath her chin.
“Exactly, Chief Baggs,” the doc said evenly. “Four people dead. And yet Carson sits among us, alive and breathing. If the killer has a personal vendetta against Carson, why didn’t he simply kill Carson?”
All heads turned to Baggs for his answer.
Baggs glared at Kavanaugh. Having no answer, he changed the subject.
“Do you believe the killings are random?” he challenged. “Or is that unprovable, too?”
Kavanaugh spun back to me and Harry. “You’ve found no ties between any two victims?”
“Nothing cultural, geographic, job-related,” Harry said. “We’ve made lists of friends and acquaintances of the victims, talked to those folks and their friends and acquaintances. Not a single case of overlap. Kevin Bacon never showed.”
Kavanaugh turned to Baggs. “Then yes, Chief. It’s quite possible the killer drives around town, sees someone, decides right then to murder them. That’s your take, right, Carson?”
I studied my interlocked fingers, tapped my thumbs together.
“I can’t say that yet. Maybe if we—”
“Stop thinking like that!” Baggs barked, his hand slapping the table. “Fuck lists and acquaintances and navel-gazing over motive. It’s random. The bastard drives around town, counts down five-four-three-two-one and whoever he sees at zero is dead. You’ve got to get a fucking description of this perp and get it distributed.”
“I wish I’d thought of that,” I said to myself.
Baggs’s face went red and his thick forefinger jabbed my way. “I wish you’d thought before you started up the Carson Ryder random killer contest. And if I hear another goddamn insubordinate remark like the last one I’ll—”
A knock. Baggs yelled, “Come in!”
The door opened to Sergeant Nate Gibbons, an envelope in his hand. “This just got dropped at the desk. You said if anyone left anything for Ryder I should run it up as fast as—”
“Gimme that,” Baggs said, grabbing the envelope from Gibbons and starting to tear it open.
“Gloves!” I yelled.
Baggs realized what he’d nearly done and angrily threw the envelope to the table. I put on latex gloves and studied the address, the same as the first example.
“How’d it get here?” I asked Gibbons.
“Guy said he was paid twenty bucks to tote it over from the corner of Conti and Royal. He’s downstairs.”
I was out of my chair and moving, Gibbons calling, “You ain’t gonna get anything, Carson. The guy’s—”
But I was already thundering down the stairs. I pushed into the lobby and saw a patrolman standing beside a heavy-set black man in a worn blue seersucker suit over an orange-heavy aloha shirt. He wore obsidian sunglasses and a top hat with a plastic daisy poking up. I stopped and resisted the urge to scream.
Beaten again.
I walked across the floor, said, “Howdy, Blind Jim.”
“Howdy back, Carson,” said the panhandler. “You get what I brought?”
“Yep. How’d you come across it?”
“I was heading down to the square when a fella steps close, says he needs a letter delivered to the po-lice. I said, ‘They right up the street, mister.’ He says he can’t go there without trouble an’ I figure, you know …”
“The guy’s got a warrant on him.”
“Sure. But maybe he still needs to give you something. He gimme twenty bucks, so I didn’t really care what his problem was.”
Gibbons said, “How you know it was a twenty and not a one?”
“Be blind all your life, you learn to read voices.” Blind Jim scrabbled in his pocket, pulled out a bill. “His voice told me I could trust him. It’s a twenty, right?”
“Actually, it’s a one,” I said, plucking it from his hands. “And we need it for evidence.”
“Lyin’ muthafucker,” Jim said. He thought a moment. “But a damn good liar, Carson. I’ll give him that.”
“Anything you can tell us about him, Jim?”
“Rough voice, like he had a cold, but that was fake. I put him younger side, thirty or under.”
Harry, Tom and I pulled our wallets and brought Blind Jim up to the promised twenty, then directed a couple guys to prowl the area where the panhandler had been contacted, but didn’t expect much.
We headed back upstairs, where the Doc was tapping at her iPad, Baggs staring out the window, doing their best to ignore one another. We relayed the scenario with Blind Jim. I snapped on gloves and lifted the tab of the envelope, shaking the contents to the table. Another penny. And another strip of paper carrying a message:
4–0, Detective Ryder. How Stupid is the Blue Tribe?