Jericho's Razor Read Online Free Page B

He also wore a ski mask. Low-budget, but effective.”
    â€œMust have been aggravating. Someone breaking into your place. Taking something so personally valuable. Irreplaceable, really.”
    I took a deep breath, not allowing the detective to get me riled up. Not an easy task considering I had been awake for roughly nineteen hours and was suffering a crash from severe caffeine and alcohol withdrawal. I was going to need either a pot of strong coffee or twelve hours of sleep when they let me out of here. If they let me out of here.
    â€œYou really think I would kill somebody over a guitar?”
    Torrez shrugged.
    â€œI’ve seen people kill for all kinds of shit. I once arrested a guy who killed his neighbor because he could hear his alarm go off at four thirty in the morning every day through the wall. He finally got sick of it, knocked on the guy’s door and stabbed him sixteen times with a kitchen knife.”
    â€œNice story. But chopping a guy’s head off because he broke into my friends bar still seems kind of excessive, doesn’t it?”
    â€œTo most people. But it seems like excessive is kind of your thing.”
    â€œIt’s called fiction, detective. I don’t’ actually kill people.”
    â€œExcept your father, right?”
    I winced, ashamed at myself for letting Torrez bait me into a trap that should have been obvious.
    â€œYou say you did not know that the detectives talked to this guy, Booker?”
    â€œHow would I? The Peoria Police Department doesn’t exactly come and check with me every time they do something. If they suspected this guy of being responsible, it’s news to me.”
    â€œSo you would have no reason to kill him?”
    I was beginning to second-guess my decision to speak to the detective without a lawyer present. But I knew that Torrez was just fishing, trying to get me to admit to something I normally wouldn’t. If I had been guilty, I would have been toast.
    â€œNo, detective. I have no reason to kill a person I’ve never met nor heard of.”
    I waited, knowing anything I said would be used against me. Of course, staying quiet would be used against me as well. Torrez leaned forward.
    â€œLook, let’s stop fucking around, okay? There is a dead body forty feet from where you park your car. You have a shaky alibi, plenty of means and, a history of violence. So if there is anything you want to tell me, I assure you, now is the time.”
    â€œLike if I have to pee?”
    A scowl passed over Torrez, darker than any I have ever tried attributing to Christian Black.
    â€œAre you sure that sarcasm is how you want to play this, Jericho?”
    â€œWhy would I kill this guy in my own building? Why would I copy my own book?”
    â€œTo use that very logic. You make it look so much like you did it that you couldn’t have done it. How about the number that was written on the wall?”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œThe number five. Like a countdown. Also from your book. Do you have any ideas about that?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    â€œAny ideas on who some of the other victims might be?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow about when other murders may occur? Somebody at the scene has read the book. He mentioned that your character, Christian Black, was on some sort of a schedule.”
    â€œIt wasn’t really a schedule.” I said. Except it was. In the book, Christian Black killed his victims three days apart. It was a random number I had used at the time. Three strikes and you’re out. Bad news comes in three’s. It made sense. I explained it to Torrez, who continued to write without looking up at me.
    â€œThree days from last night would be Halloween,” he said.
    â€œThat’s right. If it happens again.”
    â€œWhy would somebody go to all of this trouble and then stop?”
    â€œI don’t know, Torrez. You’re the detective. I’m just a guy that