Mr. Mercedes: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Signs. Many, like you, are divorced. Many have grown children living far away from home. I think of you all alone in your house on Harper Road, Detective Hodges, and I grow concerned . What kind of life do you have, now that the “thrill of the hunt” is behind you? Are you watching a lot of TV? Probably. Are you drinking more? Possibly. Do the hours go by more slowly because your life is now so empty? Are you suffering from insomnia? Gee, I hope not.
    But I fear that might be the case!
    You probably need a Hobby, so you’ll have something to think about instead of “the one that got away” and how you will never catch me. It would be too bad if you started thinking your whole career had been a waste of time because the fellow who killed all those Innocent People “slipped through your fingers.”
    I wouldn’t want you to start thinking about your gun.
    But you are thinking of it, aren’t you?
    I would like to close with one final thought from “the one that got away.” That thought is:
    FUCK YOU, LOSER.
    Just kidding!
    Very truly yours,
    THE MERCEDES KILLER
    Below this was yet another smile-face. And below that:
    PS! Sorry about Mrs. Trelawney, but when you turn this letter over to Det. Huntley, tell him not to bother looking at any photos I’m sure the police took at her funeral. I attended, but only in my imagination. (My imagination is very powerful.)
    PPS: Want to get in touch with me? Give me your “feedback”? Try Under Debbie’s Blue Umbrella. I even got you a username: “kermitfrog19.” I might not reply, but “hey, you never know.”
    PPPS: Hope this letter has cheered you up!
    4
    Hodges sits where he is for two minutes, four minutes, six, eight. Completely still. He holds the letter in his hand, looking at the Andrew Wyeth print on the wall. At last he puts the pages on the table beside his chair and picks up the envelope. The postmark is right here in the city, which doesn’t surprise him. His correspondent wants him to know he’s close by. It’s part of the taunt. As his correspondent would say, it’s . . .
    Part of the fun!
    New chemicals and computer-assisted scanning processes can pick up excellent fingerprints from paper, but Hodges knows that if he turns this letter in to Forensics, they will find no prints on it but his. This guy is crazy, but his self-assessment— one crafty perp —is absolutely correct. Only he wrote perk , not perp , and he wrote it twice. Also . . .
    Wait a minute, wait a minute.
    What do you mean, when you turn it in ?
    Hodges gets up, goes to the window carrying the letter, and looks out on Harper Road. The Harrison girl putts by on her moped. She’s really too young to have one of those things, no matter what the law allows, but at least she’s wearing her helmet. The Mr. Tastey truck jangles by; in warm weather it works the city’s East Side between school’s out and dusk. A little black smart car trundles by. The graying hair of the woman behind the wheel is up in rollers. Or is it a woman? It could be a man wearing a wig and a dress. The rollers would be the perfect final touch, wouldn’t they?
    That’s what he wants you to think.
    But no. Not exactly.
    Not what . It’s how the self-styled Mercedes Killer (except he was right, it was really the papers and the TV news that styled him that) wants him to think.
    It’s the ice cream man!
    No, it’s the man dressed as a woman in the smart car!
    Uh-uh, it’s the guy driving the liquid propane truck, or the meter-reader!
    How did you spark paranoia like that? It helps to casually let drop that you know more than the ex-detective’s address. You know he’s divorced and at least imply that he has a kid or kids somewhere.
    Looking out at the grass now, noticing that it needs cutting. If Jerome doesn’t come around pretty soon, Hodges thinks, I’ll have to call him.
    Kid or kids? Don’t kid yourself . He knows my ex is Corinne and we have one adult child, a daughter named Alison. He knows Allie’s