Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

Cain made a noise in the back of his throat. Scorn given timbre. He cast his eyes around the room. A TV rested on a table next to the recliner, but there was nothing of the thief's sitting on top of it. He turned instead to the built-in wardrobes that made up the wall next to the entrance door.

He stared at the double doors. If the thief had?ed the apartment, then he would surely have taken his clothing with him. If the cupboard contained his coat and other belongings, then it was apparent that he'd be returning sometime soon.

Cain approached the wardrobe with a new idea in mind. It was the ideal hiding place. Concealed inside it, he could wait for the thief to return and then spring out when he was least expecting it. Smiling at his wisdom, he pulled open the doors.

"Ah," he said.

The thief's coat was still there. But something else assured Cain that the thief hadn't?ed as he'd?rst feared.

The barrel of the gun pointed directly at his face.

"You okay, hunter?"

No. I was numb.

The face on the screen was unquestionably my brother's. His hair was shorter than I remembered, and there were a couple of new lines at the corners of his eyes. But it was definitely John.

"This can't be right," I said.

Reading the accompanying story wasn't helping. I couldn't concentrate for glancing at the photograph to remind me that I wasn't reading an unconnected piece of hack journalism. My heart drummed in my chest like a volley of cannon?re. Even the adrenaline rush of battle didn't affect me in this way.

"I don't believe it," I said for what must have been the umpteenth time. "There must be some kind of mistake."

Rink wasn't so certain. He didn't know John the way I did. Okay, John was a self-centered, lying, cheating thief who'd run out on his wife and kids. But there was one thing I was certain of: my brother wasn't a depraved psychopathic killer collecting the bones of his victims as trophies. Rink was taking things at face value. He tapped the screen to prove his point. "You can't argue with the forensics, Hunter."

I shook my head like there was a wasp in my ear.

"No, I can't accept it. Something's wrong here."

"How do you explain it, then?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to try."

Reading the news release once again didn't calm my racing heart. The FBI had been searching for the perpetrator of a number of brutal murders that spanned the country from coast to coast. The deaths had reputedly occurred over a three-year period. The FBI was unwilling to divulge the quantity dead at this man's hands, but would con?rm that the killer's signature was the removal of skeletal parts. The killer had?nally been named as John Telfer, a British subject living in the Little Rock area.

"It's all a load of bull," I told the screen. Rink threw up his hands.

Fair enough, John had been in the country during the three-year period and had, by Louise Blake's admission, been employed as a delivery driver some of that time. This gave him the opportunity to have visited the places listed. But according to Louise, John had gone missing less than a month ago. Surely if he'd been involved in these random killings, he'd have left town much sooner than he had.

Experience indicates that a serial killer starts slowly, the time span between his kills narrowing with each attack as he craves more and more depraved satisfaction, until he reaches a point where he can no longer restrain the urge to kill. I suppose, with that in mind, John could have been doing the killings, and it was only now that he'd spiraled out of control and gone off on a final rampage.

Not that I was about to admit that for a second.

I read about a man and woman found murdered in a motel at the fringes of the Mojave Desert, how they'd both had fngers removed as trophies by the maniac the press had dubbed the Harvestman.

A witness related how the murdered couple had been seen picking up a stranded motorist the previous morning. The police examination of a vehicle found abandoned a short distance from where the motorist had been picked up showed it was registered to one Sigmund Petoskey of Little Rock, Arkansas. Mr. Petoskey had only this evening informed police that a former employee, John Telfer, had stolen the vehicle. Tests of?ngerprints inside the car con?rmed that the driver had indeed been John Telfer.

Police and FBI agents were now searching for the location of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle stolen by the killer after murdering the young couple found dead at the motel. There was no corroborating forensic evidence at the murder scene to tie Telfer to the motel, but due to the balance of probabilities, the FBI felt that naming him as the chief suspect was justi?able under the circumstances.

"Justi?able under the circumstances?"

"It's a logical assumption when you think about it," Rink argued. "John breaks down, he's picked up by these motorists, then they go to a motel together. John then kills the couple, steals their car, and goes on his way, headed God knows where."

I wasn't having any of it. "No way. They say here that the car contained John's?ngerprints. Why wouldn't he wipe down the car the way he's supposedly done at the motel?"

Rink shrugged. "Maybe he didn't think about wiping down the car before he was picked up," Harvey offered.

"According to the FBI, they've been searching for this Harvestman character for the past three years. Never once have they found any evidence of?ngerprints before. Isn't it a stretch to think he'd forget to wipe down a vehicle he was driving if he was on a killing spree?"

"Maybe," Rink offered. "You know how these crazies are. They get to a point where they don't give a damn anymore. They believe they're indestructible, that the police can't catch them. They start taking chances, dropping the feds the odd clue. Makes it all the more exciting for them."

"So why be so meticulous at the motel? If you want to drop the feds a clue, why not leave your prints at the scene of the crime?" I sat back, crossed my arms over my chest.

"That'd probably be too blatant," Harvey offered.

"And leaving a car full of evidence isn't?" I asked.

"Not if you never suspect that the car and the killings are going to be connected," Harvey said.

"Yeah," said Rink. "It was only by chance that John was seen getting picked up by the couple. Maybe he didn't think the abandoned car would be tied to what happened at the motel."

Okay, it was a fair assumption. Not one that I shared. John was no killer. I'd have staked my right hand on it, if the wager weren't inappropriate under the circumstances. I rubbed my hands over my face, groaning with a mixture of frustration and fatigue.

"What time is it?" I?nally asked.

"Late," Harvey replied.

"Does that mean it'll be morning in England?"

Both Rink and Harvey glanced at each other and made faces. Rink?nally turned to me and said, "It'll be early morning. Who are you thinking of calling? Jennifer?"

"I'll have to ring her at some point. But that's not who I was thinking about."

"Who then?" Rink asked.

"Raymond Molloy," I said.

"Detective Inspector Molloy?" Rink asked. "The cop you did that job for? What do you want to call him for?"

"I need to check up on any similar murders back home. See if there's a pattern. To show if John's involved or not."

"What if he won't speak to you? It's not as if you're still on the government payroll, Hunter."

"He'll speak to me. He owes me a favor."

DI Molloy did indeed owe me a favor. I'd sorted a little problem for him concerning a pimp who'd tried to extort money from him after Molloy dallied too often with some of the pimp's girls. It wasn't a problem his own resources could handle without his indiscretion becoming public knowledge. It took only one visit to the pimp for him to see sense-and to hand over the incriminating evidence of Molloy getting very creative and athletic on a waterbed.