“Yes,” I said. “I can do that.”
He ran into the living room and came back with a manila envelope. He thumbed through it and pulled out one of those amazing sheets of paper of his. Then he crouched in front of the killer.
“Look at this, asshole,” he said.
I could not see what they were looking at, but I did see all the color drain from the killer’s face.
“How did you—”
I could not see the page in front of them, but I could hear it. Moaning and whimpering, and a man laughing, and then the front door opened. “Len, you here?”
Tyler’s voice.
And the voice of the other man saying, “Finishing up. You said make it messy.”
“Yeah. Messy.” A pause, then, “Look. I have a list of things to do after this, and I need her to still be warm when I make the 911 call. So wrap it up.”
One wet noise. And the sound of footsteps.
The killer’s eyes were bugging out as he tried to say something around the duct tape.
Per touched the surface of the paper and the sound stopped. He said, “I’ll take the tape off your mouth, but if you make any loud noises, she’s going to kill you. You understand that?”
The killer nodded.
Per ripped the tape off the man’s mouth, and he cringed and bit back a whimper.
“I never did that, man. It isn’t me.”
Per touched the paper again. “That’s what you came here to do.”
“No. Just rob the place. Seriously. That isn’t me, man.”
“See how I can make the picture bigger?”
The man nodded.
Per dragged a finger along the front of the page I could not see. “See how I can turn the image to get your full face? I can zoomin close enough to reveal your individual fingerprints. Want me to show you?”
Len shook his head. “Whatisthat?”
“New police surveillance technology.”
“But I didn’t do . . . that.”
“You haven’t yet. And what happened next hasn’t happened yet, either.”
From the page in Per’s hand, I heard Tyler’s voice. “Holy shit, what a mess.”
“You said . . .”
“Yeah.” I heard Tyler gagging. Then vomiting. “The smell . . . How can you stand it?”
“You guaranteed I walk on the Burgess murders is how. No death penalty, no life in prison. I get a dismissal. And this – we all have our needs, man.”
“You’ll get your dismissal,” Tyler snarled. “Get out of here. Let me do whatIhave to do now.”
I heard boots hitting the floor, and more walking.
