Chapter 4 Ryker
FOUR
RYKER
“Thanks so much for the insight,” Ms. Valdes says once my presentation is over.
She’s my point of contact with this company, the one who hired me to do a full audit of their office and make suggestions to increase efficiency and cut dead weight.
I shake her hand, then start packing up my laptop. “Of course. But I can only do so much. Make sure you actually implement my suggested changes.”
“Mr. Rodrigo seemed on board, so I’m sure we’ll get started on it by the end of next week.” She waits while I grab my things so she can escort me out.
Good security practices, at least. I would have been disappointed if she’d let me see myself out.
“Are you staying in New Bristol?” she asks as we walk to the elevator.
I nod. “For a few days. I’ve got another potential client lined up. But it’s been a while since I did anything fun in NB. I might check out the Van Geersdorf Gallery. Either that or relax and catch up on my podcasts.”
Ms. Valdes smiles. “Oh? What do you listen to? I’m a sucker for the true crime ones.”
It seems like everybody’s listening to those these days. It’s sort of ironic that everybody hates killers, but they’re happy to vicariously get off on all the actual murders.
“Me too,” I answer. “I’m almost done with Route 45. No spoilers. Although I guess I could look it up online.”
“Is that one good?” Ms. Valdes pushes the button for the elevator. “I mostly keep up with Cereals & Serials. They do one or two episodes per case. Sometimes there’s no resolution, if they’re doing the latest stuff, and they’ll revisit in a few months.”
I repeat the name, and she must notice my confusion.
“Cereals like the food, and then Serials like serial killer,” she explains. “It’s designed to sound like you’re having a chat over breakfast. Great for listening on a morning commute. Most of their sponsors are breakfast foods too.”
I don’t think I’ve heard of that one. I take my phone out and swipe over to my podcast app. “Thanks for the tip.” The elevator arrives, and I wave to her before pressing the L button.
I find the podcast she mentioned. Midsized popularity, and I usually only go for the ones with a completed arc, but what the hell. I download the first episode as I ride down to the lobby and pop in my earbuds to play it.
“We’ve got a doozy for you today, Cerealites!” the host says. “Exclusive information about a very recent, already dead murder.”
I smile at the tasteless joke.
“If you’re in New Bristol, you might have heard about the accountant murdered in his own home. It was a blip in the news for a week, and now it’s gone. Forgotten, because nobody thinks Tim Pollard is important enough.”
That was the strangulation, wasn’t it? The one that had distracted me from my own recent killing. I’d put it out of my mind, focused on the new job and setting up my recommendations to convince the client they were definitely getting value out of hiring me.
Murder doesn’t pay the bills, after all.
“Well, it turns out, there’s more to this murder than meets the eye. The police are sweeping it under the rug, but we received exclusive documentation about the real details of the case.”
The real details? What other details can there be?
Maybe a picture of the victim, with the rope still around his neck. Deep red ligature marks across pale skin, eyes wide in fear…
I hope whoever did it had fun.
The host takes a moment to crunch on her cereal. Or maybe that sound effect was added in post.
“Thanks to an anonymous tip-off—no, besties, we won’t share our sources—we’ve learned that the killer didn’t just strangle Tim Pollard.”
Well, no, he’d been drugged too. If that’s all the new info they have, then this podcast is useless.
I step out of the building and out into the streets of New Bristol. I’d left my car parked at the hotel, opting to take the subway because I hate driving in the city. Finding parking is a hell worse than getting strung from a tree and murdered.
“We—that is, me and my research staff—no longer think Tim Pollard was murdered by somebody he knew. The drugs, the strangulation, and get this: the toilet paper around his neck, all point to a random killing.”
I stop dead in my tracks. Some asshole bodychecks me and yells, but I ignore him.
Toilet paper?
That’s… weird.
I’m not sure I agree with the podcaster’s assessment. Toilet paper could mean the killer thinks the victim is trash. It could be a message about the victim’s worth.
Or it could be a completely different kind of message.
Shit.
I check the time. Early afternoon still, which gives me time to check out a few galleries to stare at art I don’t understand, or to find a good restaurant.
Or to make my way to a different side of town, where the very rich tend to live.
It probably wasn’t him.
There’s no way it was him. The toilet paper thing is a coincidence.
Fuck it.
I get on the train going the opposite direction of my hotel. It’s seven stops, and I’m restless the entire time while the podcaster continues explaining all the details of the case.
I pull up the Cereals & Serials website and find the photo they’d talked about. I save it to my phone, because who knows how long that’ll stay up.
I zoom in on the victim’s neck. Above some of the toilet paper, I can see the red marks from the rope. It looks like it was medium width, a bit rough, probably. I wonder if I’ve used the same kind of rope in the past.
I’m always torn between buying a lot of rope at once—fewer transactions—or buying once and burning it when I’m done.
So far, none of my tools have been found.
So far.
If that brat did this, if that fucking brat decided to put toilet paper around the victim’s neck like a fucking calling card…
I get angrier thinking about it. Hadn’t I told him that calling cards were stupid? That leaving behind evidence like that makes it easier to get caught? What happened to becoming a serial killer? This is one single murder, not a serial anything.
Unless there’s been more than one.
I pause the podcast and start searching for unsolved murders in New Bristol. There are so many dead people in New Bristol though, so much crime, that I don’t know which of the publicly known ones are related.
Was this strangulation related? What about this one?
I’m still annoyed by the time I reach my stop.
I head to a bodega by the subway station first and pick up a small pack of zip ties, a touristy baseball cap, and a canned coffee. I keep my head down during checkout. The teenaged cashier barely even looks at me.
After that, I go to a nearby pizza place and order a whole pizza.
I always marvel at how fast pizzas are baked in New Bristol, where they have the fancy pizza ovens that will heat everything up in five minutes flat.
This pizza is done in the span it took me to drink my canned coffee.
Back at home—if I can consider it home—it’s always a half hour wait at minimum, and the pizza is nowhere near as good.
Once I’ve got the pizza, I pull the cap on and head to the lobby of the fanciest condo I’ve ever stepped foot in.
Of course he’s a rich brat. The clothes had tipped me off, and the way he spoke, but the clerk eyes me when I waltz into the door on the heels of an actual resident.
“Delivery?” the guy asks, nodding at the pizza.
“Yeah.” I hold the pizza box higher. “For… Liam Cohen.” I check my phone, like I need to check the delivery order. I frown at the phone. “It says to take it all the way up?”
The clerk rolls his eyes. “That sounds like him, yes. But rules are rules. I’ll call him and tell him to come down and pick it up.”
I shrug. “Sure.”
The clerk makes a call, and while he does, I let my eyes rake over the mail slots along the side wall.
No names listed, just numbers.
Fucking high security condos. If this doesn’t pan out, I’ll just go back to the hotel, have my pizza, and remind myself that doing anything that draws attention is fucking stupid if I want to keep enjoying my extra-curricular activities.
“Sir, your pizza delivery is here,” the clerk says.
I shout, “I’d bring it up, but they won’t let me! Can you hurry? I’ve got more deliveries!”
The clerk grimaces at whatever reply Liam makes on the other end of the phone. “No, sir. This is against—” A pause. “Yes, sir.” The guy rubs his brow and gets up. “All right. I’ll get the elevator for you. Apartment 1203.”
I nod and get into the elevator while the clerk uses his keycard to unlock the elevator buttons. He hits the 12 for me, and I thank him as the door closes shut.
He’ll be expecting me down again soon, unless he suspects I’m here for more than pizza.
The elevator is surprisingly fast, and I guess that’s another advantage of these modern buildings that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
A corporate modern art piece greets me when I step out of the elevator. I wonder if there’s a different painting on each floor, or if they’re all the same canvas prints.
I make my way to 1203 and knock on the door.
Barely any time passes before someone flings it open.
Liam looks mostly the same, and his blue eyes are intent upon me as he looks me up and down. Grinning widely, he starts to speak, but I shove my way into his apartment before he can get out more than, “Ohh. Is—”
I drop the pizza box, kick the door shut, and grab him by his hair to shove him to the floor.
He cries out and sprawls across the fancy hardwood.
“You fucking stupid brat,” I hiss at him. I place my foot on his chest. “Do you think you’re funny?”
I quickly assess the surroundings. Large open living/dining area, huge windows currently covered by shaded blinds, and a kitchen on the other end that has a knife block on the counter.
“I think I’m hilarious, actually,” he wheezes, staring up at me. “So you’ll have to be more specific.”
He knows exactly why I’m here.
“What was the one fucking rule I told you?” I press down harder onto his chest. “And you break it on your first fucking time?”