Free The Killer Is Dying by James Sallis Page B

Sayles’s handwriting of hospices in and about the valley. That page, with others, had been rolled back and tucked under.
     
          J. Rankin
     
Louis = nothing     Hector alerted     G ? out of town
A cipher     shooter’s a cipher
non-lethal!
     
accountant   0 military   married
                     midwest—how long out here?
     
Check with organized crime units   FBI   ??
     
Barrow says it’s like those lawyer jokes, someone’s going after accountants, one at a time.
     
Hector: Nothing to hold onto, he says, but.
     
Dolls
    That was the page showing. And not good.
    Christian stood looking back at a photo on the refrigerator, the wife he supposed, the missing woman, with a copse of bamboo behind her, holding a snub-nosed monkey.
    Bending over the legal pad, he wrote:
     
Please contact me. This is for you alone.
I sell dolls.
    He added one of his e-mail addresses.

 
     
    CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    “YOU DOING OKAY, though. Right?”
    “Fine. Police were here?”
    “I saw them in the front yard and came on over, to be sure you were all right. Someone reported a prowler in the neighborhood.”
    Mrs. Flores had waved from her porch and started toward Jimmie when he turned onto the street.
    “They weren’t trying to get in the house?”
    “Checking yards is what they said. Just going down the line.”
    Pausing at the door, he said, “If you’ll wait, I can get that pan for you,” but she followed him in and stood by the front door. He went to the kitchen and came back with the pan. “Sorry it’s taken so long to return it. The enchiladas were great. Delicious.”
    “Your mother doesn’t cook much?”
    “Sure she does. But not Mexican food.”
    “I could show you how to make them, just the same as me, if you’re interested.”
    “Thank you.”
    Her eyes had been glancing around the room. Now they met his.
    “How long have they been gone?” she said.
    “What?”
    “Your parents. How long?”
    “They—”
    “Lots of people don’t notice what doesn’t have to do with them. Some do. I’ve suspected for a while now. You’re a smart boy, you’ve done good.” She shook her head. “People up here baby their children so much. But don’t worry, no one will hear it from me. Where I come from …” She didn’t say anything for a moment. “The way you’re brought up, the way you think, a lot about that doesn’t change. But listen.”
    “Yes, ma’am?”
    “You need anything, you have a problem, whatever it is, you come to me, okay? Can you do that?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I can.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Flores.”
    He watched her go down the walk, thinking how she got around like a much younger, much thinner woman than she was. Back on the porch, in her rocker, she waved and bent over to retrieve her glass of iced tea. Jimmie went inside, picking up the scatter of mail by the door. A thick 4 × 8 envelope remained lodged in the mail slot, and he looked at the return address, typed, cavities of the o ’s and e ’s dark with old ink. Slowdown Time, a collector’s site and occasional supplier, and one of the few to still put out a print catalog.
    Hungry, he went into the kitchen and poured a glass of milk. He was standing looking in the refrigerator when he heard floorboards creak.
    Someone was on the back porch trying to look in. They couldn’t see much, of course, not with the tight-gauge screen door and curtains. But they shouldn’t be there. She shouldn’t be there.
    A woman.
    Who now had stepped off the porch and, hands cupped around her face, was trying to see in through the windows above the sink. Her hair was gathered on top somehow.
    She tapped on the window.
    “Hello? I can see you in there. James—is that you?”
    Someone who knew him, then. Or knew about him. Someone who had come looking for him. A tumble of thoughts went through his mind, none of them good.
    First the police, now this.
    When he opened