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Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 1–3: The Hundredth Man, The Death Collectors, The Broken Souls
J. A. Kerley
Three thrillers featuring Detective Carson Ryder.THE HUNDREDTH MAN: A body is found in the sweating heat of an Alabama night; headless, words inked on the skin. Detective Carson Ryder is good at this sort of thing – crazies and freaks. To his eyes this is the work of a serial killer – and when another mutilated victim turns up his suspicions are confirmed.Famous for solving a series of crimes the year before, Carson Ryder has experience with psychopaths. But he had help with that case – from a past he is trying to forget. Now he needs it again.When the truth begins to dawn, it shines on an evil so twisted, so dangerous, it could destroy everything that Carson cares about.THE DEATH COLLECTORS: Thirty years after his death, Marsden Hexcamp's ‘Art of the Final Moment’ remains as sought after as ever. But this is no ordinary collection. Half a dozen victims were slowly tortured to death so that their final agonies could be distilled into art.When tiny scraps of Hexcamp's ‘art’ start appearing at murder scenes alongside gruesomely displayed corpses, Detective Carson Ryder and his partner Harry Nautilus must go back three decades in search of answers.THE BROKEN SOULS: The gore-sodden horror that greets homicide detective Carson Ryder on a late-night call out is enough to make him want to quit the case. Too late.Now he and his partner Harry are up to their necks in a Southern swamp of the bizarre and disturbing. An investigation full of twists and strange clues looks like it's leading to the city's least likely suspects – a powerful family whose philanthropy has made them famous. But behind their money and smiles is a dynasty divided by hate.Their strange and horrific past is about to engulf everyone around them in a storm of violence and depravity. And Ryder's right in the middle of it…
Dectective Carson Ryder
Series Books 1 – 3
J.A. Kerley
Table of Contents
Title Page (#ub314fa1e-7e82-502f-ac39-6ad87e807cc1)
The Hundredth Man (#u4c54ab87-b7b6-524a-a559-115aef4caf70)
The Death Collectors (#u58a900ae-12e3-51d0-81aa-9ea6dedf48a5)
The Broken Souls (#ufadb9d89-e186-5b44-b34a-84848c8a5234)
About the Author (#uf5531958-1703-5060-b826-5be385ad86b0)
By J.A. Kerley (#ud8527fbb-decb-5f33-9582-ed3a7dd3c3d0)
Copyright (#ufa54b91a-d312-5c45-8b32-e0d1de3528dd)
About the Publisher (#u343dabae-61aa-5b7d-9557-7f8ebe605855)
The Hundredth Man
The Hundredth Man
J.A. Kerley
To my parents,Jack and Betty Kerley
Table of Contents
Title Page (#u4dec8ac2-ef0d-5699-a2c6-b8c850650c6b)
Author’s Note (#uf8fdd678-788b-51b5-a7aa-d244dcd47387)
Prologue (#u28217eaf-33b4-5fce-b0df-64572142ca92)
Chapter 1 (#ud48bed25-4880-517d-a164-d1cd987a03af)
Chapter 2 (#u85c0927f-5756-57b5-a754-3f819d1031c9)
Chapter 3 (#uf6206759-9ca7-54bb-bf20-4e404726fc32)
Chapter 4 (#ub6badb02-91ea-5283-bfd6-05c08c91e2d4)
Chapter 5 (#u9a8c6026-5bc8-505a-9a97-417750d6452f)
Chapter 6 (#u364c38c1-1997-5bc7-99c5-052ab52a956c)
Chapter 7 (#ucf1fb4e2-4a52-564c-8889-4e3862fbd9d8)
Chapter 8 (#u8bcf0a1a-3b82-5a7b-aa1d-40703d7331ea)
Chapter 9 (#u0b3f5700-5120-5d49-99bf-67b93a47de2c)
Chapter 10 (#u36897dac-e177-5e5f-8f34-7ea41d7af309)
Chapter 11 (#u31faab9f-45f0-5434-824c-94d089cb74cd)
Chapter 12 (#u7ed6cb31-3503-52d4-a22b-7aba03a4aa56)
Chapter 13 (#u7047cdc4-eb2b-5feb-ab17-409270bc8c75)
Chapter 14 (#u0ab1e338-93b7-5e8d-9471-2e8ea68efc86)
Chapter 15 (#u37d8ef54-b0aa-5827-a155-3272e65fd6f4)
Chapter 16 (#uf3b1b606-0235-5827-84b4-b66c5e7e06d3)
Chapter 17 (#ub05194ab-32a4-5beb-8028-52023e6b9303)
Chapter 18 (#u1c3f8b84-b910-5094-b9a1-651712db41c3)
Chapter 19 (#u6d8a8f67-857e-58cb-8be7-58c34d3be8f2)
Chapter 20 (#ue815d5ca-913c-5586-8b89-c416579b762b)
Chapter 21 (#u8c1836cf-5d81-5e9a-a1e7-8ca73fddff4e)
Chapter 22 (#u34f3a9a6-4b58-5ad9-b77e-d6393858e53d)
Chapter 23 (#u8cf08f8c-bd11-5c7a-8305-b67678c4c969)
Chapter 24 (#u7b124c7c-e565-520a-b84e-5bd9de977f12)
Chapter 25 (#u9dfeda04-9b15-5460-9d41-aaa22f3d6e45)
Chapter 26 (#u462ca0ff-c03c-5e2c-9b2e-7e599d0d551f)
Chapter 27 (#u6576cf32-5624-5def-b221-58bf9f6adba5)
Chapter 28 (#uf13ad4ab-705e-5d5b-9b8f-d41ac3279076)
Chapter 29 (#u572f2103-a23f-50f0-8625-2ac811f62d5c)
Chapter 30 (#u3aa41ba6-dc42-5dea-a75a-fe702513a80e)
Chapter 31 (#u54a7d8ca-00ca-568f-a2eb-633279577dfb)
Chapter 32 (#u14b4311b-b277-54c2-a683-9c6b0626ae72)
Chapter 33 (#ucbbf9c00-7e22-5c9a-b465-588d5e27ae63)
Chapter 34 (#u018ac8c1-eb0f-50ce-bbdf-80390985d54b)
Chapter 35 (#u94a9438d-2193-50d4-bbf0-d0ea27fb454e)
Chapter 36 (#u16ace408-237f-5f60-8eae-28e405657a04)
Epilogue (#u56d8e652-0cb1-5c3e-9a0d-23c5cbd67e35)
Acknowledgments (#uba4b4ca6-e714-5c1a-a8f0-a511cee4a3c9)
Copyright (#ua8154941-1244-5113-a5db-51d3ca31614e)
Author’s Note (#ulink_393975c6-c867-5569-93ac-d94c0209f205)
I exercised broad license in bending settings, geography, and various institutions and law-enforcement agencies to the will and whims of the story. Everything should be regarded as fictitious save for the natural beauty of Mobile and its environs. Any similarities between characters in this work and real persons, living or elsewise, is purely coincidental.
Prologue (#ulink_79ec18bb-0468-5541-a71e-785e98238a00)
Seconds before one of the most long-awaited events of Alexander Caulfield’s adult life, an event he’d spent years planning and pursuing, an event marking his ascension into professionalism, a decent salary, and the respect of his peers, his left eye started winking like a gigolo in a third-rate Italian film.
tic
Caulfield cursed beneath his breath. A physician, he recognized a manifestation of transient hemifacial spasms: eye tics or flutters in response to events sparking anxiety or posing a threat.
tic
Anxiety was ludicrous, he lectured himself, squeezing the offending eye shut; he’d performed or assisted with hundreds of autopsies during his internship. The only difference was this was his first professional autopsy. She was sitting twenty feet away.
Caulfield slowly opened his eye…
tic
He angled a glance at Dr. Clair Peltier. She was opening a letter in the autopsy suite’s utility office, apparently absorbed in correspondence. Caulfield felt blindsided, unprepared, fumble fingered: Today had been scheduled for procedural reviews and meeting new colleagues at the Mobile office of the Alabama Forensics Bureau.
Then she’d casually suggested he take her place during a procedure.
tic
Caulfield refocused the ceiling-mounted surgical lamp over the body of the middle-aged white male on the table. Water rinsed beneath the corpse, sounding like a small brook playing over metal. He glanced at Dr. Peltier again: still studying her mail. He mopped his sweating brow, adjusted his mask for the third time, and studied the body. Would his incision be perfectly midline? Would it be straight? Smooth? Would it meet her standards?
He drank in a deep breath, told his hands, Now. The blue-white belly opened like a curtain between pubis and sternum. Clean and straight, a textbook opening.
Caulfield slipped another glance at Dr. Peltier. She was watching him.
tic
Dr. Peltier smiled and returned to her correspondence. Caulfield pushed his fear to a far corner of his mind and focused on inspecting and weighing organs. He spoke his findings aloud, the tape recorder capturing them for later transcription to print.
“On gross examination the myocardial tissue appears normal in size and wall thickness. Areas of myocardium in the left ventricle are suggestive of past myocardial infarction…”
The familiar sights and words steered Caulfield onto a trusted path; he didn’t notice when the spasms melted away.
“…liver mottled, early indication of cirrhosis…kidneys unremarkable…”
The man had been found sprawled in his front yard after a 911 call. The EMTs followed aggressive resuscitation procedures for a heart attack, but the man entered University Hospital as a DOA. Caulfield’s initial findings supported a massive cardiac event, though the nondamaged tissue appeared healthy and free of epicarditis or atherosclerosis. Caulfield moved lower in the cavity.
“An obstruction is noted in the descending colon…”
Caulfield pinched the lump in the bowel. Hard and regular in shape, a man-made object. It wasn’t uncommon, emergency-room physicians were forever sending patients to the ER to extract vibrators, candles, vegetables, and suchnot; people were inventive in their quest for erotic sensation.
“Using a number-ten blade, a ten-centimeter vertical incision was made through the anterior wall of the descending colon…”
Caulfield retracted the bowel to reveal the source of the obstruction.
“An object can be visualized, silver and cylindrical, resembling a section of flashlight casing…”
Wet metal gleamed through the slit in the intestine, black fabric wrapping one end. No, not fabric, friction tape. Caulfield’s finger tentatively tapped the casing. Something about the object glimmered with threat, an intruder in the house.
tic
He heard Dr. Peltier’s chair push back and high heels start toward him. She’d been listening. His fingers slid into the passageway and grasped the object. He tugged gently. It slipped easily through the slit, then resisted. Caulfield tightened his fingers around the object and pulled harder.
tic
Simultaneous: white flash, black thud. Caulfield’s head whiplashed and the floor slammed his back. Red mist and smoke painted the air. A woman’s scream spun through the roaring in his ears. Someone above him waved a blunt stick, a club.
No, not a club…
The light flickered twice and failed.
When the autopsy was transcribed to printed form, transcriptionist Marie Manolo was uncertain whether to include Dr. Caulfield’s final six words. Trained by Dr. Peltier to be clinically detached and thorough, Marie closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued typing:
My fingers. Where are my fingers?
Chapter 1 (#ulink_e95ec601-ab9c-5a9c-b8c4-5a9dd56983d4)
“A guy’s walking his dog late one night…”
I watched Harry Nautilus lean against the autopsy table and tell the World’s Greatest Joke to a dozen listeners holding napkin-wrapped cups and plastic wineglasses. Most were bureaucrats from the city of Mobile and Mobile County. Two were lawyers; prosecution side, of course. Harry and I were the only cops. There were dignitaries around, mostly in the reception area where the main morgue rededication events were scheduled. The ribbon cutting had been an hour back, gold ribbon, not black, as several wags had suggested.
