The Devil in Gray Read Online Free PDF Page A

walked off back toward the traffic department.
    Decker stood alone for a moment, slowly massaging the muscles at the back of his neck. Rudisill came up to him and grinned. “Hi, Lieutenant. Everything okay?”
    â€œSure, why shouldn’t it be?”
    â€œShifflett didn’t look too happy.”
    â€œWomen are always happy, George. Especially when they’re miserable.”
    Jerry Maitland was propped up in bed with the left side of his face and both of his arms thickly bandaged, so that he looked like a snowman. His pupils were dilated and he still smelled of the operating theater. The redheaded nurse said, “Ten minutes and no more, please, Lieutenant.”
    â€œYou like Mexican food?” Decker asked her.
    â€œI’m married.”
    â€œBeing married affects your taste buds?”
    â€œNine minutes,” the nurse said and closed the door behind her.
    Decker approached the bed. Jerry stiffly turned his head to stare at him. Decker said nothing at first, but went over to the window and parted the slatted blinds with two fingers. Down below he could see the brightly lit sidewalks of Marshall Street, and the intersection with Fourteenth Street. After a while, he turned back and said, “How’s tricks, Gerald?”
    Jerry shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
    Decker drew up a chair and straddled it backward, shifting Jerry’s plasma drip so that he could sit a little closer. “Is it Gerald or can I call you Jerry?”
    â€œJerry’s okay,” Jerry mumbled.
    â€œJerry it is, then. My name’s Decker. Don’t know what my parents were doing, giving me a goddamn outré name like that. It was something to do with my great-great-grandfather. Fought in the army of northern Virginia, in the Civil War.”
    Jerry tried to cough, but it obviously strained the stitches in his face, and he had to stifle it.
    Decker said, “Hurts, huh?”
    Jerry nodded. Decker nodded too, as if in sympathy. “You can have your lawyer present, you know that, don’t you?”
    â€œI don’t need a lawyer. I haven’t done anything.”
    â€œYou’re sure about that? It might be in your own best interest.”
    Jerry shook his head.
    â€œOkay,” Decker said. Then, quite casually, “What did you do with the knife?”
    â€œI was putting up wallpaper and I cut myself. I don’t know how. I dropped the knife on the floor.”
    â€œNo, no. That’s not the knife I mean, Jerry. That was a teensy weensy little craft knife. I’m talking about the other knife.”
    â€œThe other knife?”
    â€œThat’s right. I’m talking about the great big two-foot-long mother that you used to cut off Alison’s head.”
    â€œYou don’t seriously believe that I killed her? How can you think—I love her. She’s my wife. Why would I want to kill her?”
    â€œWell, that’s what I’m trying to find out, Jerry, and it would make it a whole lot less complicated if you told me what you did with the knife.”
    â€œThere was no knife. Don’t you understand? There was no knife.”
    â€œSo what did you cut her head off with? A pair of nail scissors? Come on, Jerry, there was nobody else in the house but you and Alison, and Alison wasn’t just decapitated—she suffered more than seventeen deeply penetrative stab wounds and serious lacerations. I’ve been listening to her 911 call. The operator asks her what’s wrong and she keeps saying, ‘My husband.’”
    Jerry’s eyes filled up with tears. “She was calling because of me. I got cut first.”
    â€œOh yes, by whom exactly?”
    â€œBy whatever it was that killed Alison. I didn’t touch her. I love her. We were going to have a baby girl.”
    Decker was silent for a while. Then he reassuringly patted Jerry’s arm. “All right, Jerry. You didn’t touch her. But if you can tell