Free The Hundredth Man by Jack Kerley Page B

fresh, I know.” I had to strain to hear her.
    â€œPeter didn’t tell you about any kind of meeting today? Anyone he was going to be talking to?”
    â€œNo. But he’s wearing meeting clothes, long pants, dress shirt. He’d work in cutoffs and a T-shirt, unless . . . someone must have scheduled at the last minute.”
    I heard voices and footsteps at the front door. Sally closed the door for privacy.
    â€œDid clients come here often?”
    â€œNo. He goes to them. Peter’s big on service.”
    â€œWalk-ins?”
    â€œSometimes people’d see the sign and ask if he did business cards and stuff like that.”
    â€œIf he was going to meet someone and wrote it down, where would he keep the information?”
    She closed her eyes. “I gave him a PDA last Christmas. It’s probably in the front desk. Top drawer.”
    Sal slipped away, returning a minute later with a device hardly larger than a credit card. She’d put on latex gloves. I joined Sal in the hall. She tapped the keypad and studied the display a long moment before turning it to me.
    Today’s date. Under that was entered: 8:00 PM mtg.w/Mr.Cutter.
    â€œWell, isn’t that just bold as hell,” Sally said.
    I stepped out to tell Harry about Mr. Cutter and ran into a straight-arm block with a wall of meat behind it. “Whoa, there, Ryder,” Burlew said. “Where you going, sport?” His breath smelled like manure and onions; maybe he should have chewed Listerine ads.
    â€œI have to talk to Harry.”
    â€œPhone him, hot dog. From outside.”
    I yelled. “Harry, you back there?”
    He pointed to the front. “Door’s the other way, bucko.”
    â€œWhere’s the captain, Burlew?”
    â€œSergeant Burlew to you. Now haul ass before it gets hauled.”
    Squill stuck his face through the doorway of Deschamps’s studio a dozen feet down the hall. It was like the world had shifted on its axis and everyone got thrown into different positions. “I’ve got the scene now, Ryder,” he said. “Go take statements from the neighbors.”
    â€œWhere’s Harry, Captain? It’s important.”
    â€œDidn’t you get enough air at birth, Ryder?” Squill said. “I gave you a direct order. Get outside and start interviewing.”
    I’d read the revised manual about a hundred times, mostly in drop-jaw disbelief at the autonomy supposedly granted the PSIT. In cases judged to be under the unit’s purview, Harry and I were to be the ones coordinating the efforts.
    â€œExcuse me, Captain,” I said, “but this scene, combined with the Nelson murder, displays evidence of a disordered mind, pyschopathologically or sociopathologically, that means—”
    Squill jabbed a manicured digit toward the door. “Door,” he elucidated.
    â€œDammit, sir, hear me out. The evidence indicates—”
    â€œSwearing at a superior officer? That’s it. I’m done talking, Detective.”
    â€œThen how about listening, Captain? We have two men beheaded, and we have—”
    â€œYou, Officer,” Squill barked to a young patrolman by the back door. “Yes, you. Wake up. Get over here and escort Mr. Ryder from the house, now.”
    â€œâ€”clear evidence of a disordered mind. . . .”
    Burlew’s hand tightened around my bicep like a vise and I yanked it free. “Off me, Burl. Shouldn’t you be washing the captain’s socks or something?”
    Burlew wheeled to me and spat a gray plug of newsprint on the floor. “Anytime,” he dared, a foul-breathed Gibraltar with clenched fists, cannonball biceps bulging beneath his jacket. “Got the balls to try it?”
    I shifted my balance low in my hips and felt the buzz of energy just below my navel. I could smell heat coming off Burlew. His penny-sized eyes blazed with anger, but behind it I sensed