Free The Killing Type by Wayne Jones

enrobing chunky utensils and I sigh again when I realize
that there is no way for me out of this engagement: I must just
make the best of it.
    In fact, things go rather well,
considering. I make some polite perfunctory inquiries about his
theory, but I do believe that he puts two and two together (or
rather less than that) and concludes somewhere in the depths of
himself that he may have been overly open to suggestion or wild
imaginings, or perhaps that an investigative scholar demands more
than a little hint or coincidence here and there. The turkey on the
brown bread is fresh and moist and adorned with a flavoured
mayonnaise which imparts just the right taste overall. I swill my
beer like a Viking and by the end of the meal he and I are joking
about things that have nothing at all to do with
killing.
    After all the food has been
consumed, the waiter arrives to clear away our dishes and to
inquire if we want anything else. The raver (he does have a name:
Wilson) and I exchange sad, tentative glances, neither wanting to
be the first to commit the other to an unwanted extension. I smile,
first at Wilson and then at the waiter, and indicate that I will
permit myself one more beer (what is getting into me?). Wilson visibly beams at this
and babbles his own order for a rum and Coke.
    “Listen, Andrew,” he says when the
waiter has gone, “let me just say that about the, about the theory
and all of that. I’m not saying that it’s the God’s truth or
anything like that: it’s just something I put together. I mean, I
do believe that there is something to it, but, well, I know that it
might be a bit out there.”
    I smile and try not to make it
paternalistic or condescending. He catches me before I have the
chance to say a word.
    “It’s OK, no problem. You’ve been nice
and polite.” He laughs a little more loudly than I would have
preferred.
    There’s a lot of silence for the rest
of our outing after that, though I don’t think that it is the
result of resentment on his part. At one point I notice that each
of us is unintentionally mimicking the movements of the other: a
sip taken, a glass set down, a barely perceptible slouching down to
just the perfect position of comfort into chairs which are
evidently not made for regular human behinds.
    “Well,” he says with a kind of
flourish after his glass has been set down for the last time, and
both actions do have the feel of terminal punctuation. “I think I
should be heading off. Listen, Andrew, it was very good of you to
come out and meet me about this. Thanks a lot.”
    “Not at all,” I say, the apex of
self-sacrificing civility. “It was my pleasure.”
    He smiles, stands up quickly
to leave, and suddenly I am just left there alone. I have the odd
feeling that I have averted something, confronted the enemy and
emerged victorious, and I have no idea of the genesis of such crazy
ideas. I shake my head at my own craziness, and not seeing anything of any
particular interest as I survey the room, I prepare myself to leave
as well. I hold back for a few minutes, though, in order to be sure
that Wilson has cleared the area.
     

Chapter 9
     
    Responding, perhaps, to a
challenge that I have never issued and can therefore legitimately
abjure any responsibility for, the killer kills again. The victim’s
name is Juan Rutherford, 45 years old, a relatively recent arrival
in the Knosting area, about a year and a half ago. A short (5 foot
5, I record unmetrically) and slender (125 pounds) man, short
greying hair, handsome by most standards, at least according to the
picture of him published in the Gazette .
    I cite the man’s height and weight
only because they may have been contributing factors in the way he
died. “Blunt-force trauma,” most of the media called it—aping the
police jargon, as usual—but the fact is that Mr. Rutherford was
beaten and kicked to death, and at some point the underlying bone
structure of most of his face was destroyed. I have not seen