Game by Barry Lyga Page A

that makes sense to him, actually.”
    “Look, I could…” Hughes hesitated, as if he knew what he was about to say could be explosive. “I could arrange for you to meet some of the victims’ families. If you want to. If that would help.”
    Jazz stared at him far longer than people usually stare. “Why on earth would I want to meet the victims’ families?”
    “Sometimes it makes it more real,” Hughes said.
    “It’s plenty real. Don’t worry about that.”
    The two of them glared at each other until Connie cleared her throat and brought them back to the task at hand.
    “Not to interrupt this macho stare-down, but I’m wondering… why hats and dogs?” Connie asked. “And why alternate?”
    “He doesn’t alternate,” Hughes said quickly. “He did for a while, but if you look at the chart we put together, you can see—”
    “He alternates until victim seven,” Jazz said. “He gives her and the next victim hats, then switches back to a dog. Does the same thing later—two hats in a row before a dog.”
    “Why?” Connie asked.
    “Don’t know.” Jazz leaned back against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling.
Hats are for gentlemen
, Billy said quietly.
My daddy wore a hat every day of his life.
Pictures of Jazz’s grandfather floated in his mind’s eye. “Hats are for gentlemen,” he murmured.
    “But he put hats on women, too,” Hughes complained.
    “Top hats,” Connie specified. She had dragged a chair over and sat with them now, part of the group. “At least, that’s what they look like. They’re actually pretty good. I mean, when you consider they’re being cut into someone’s skin and all.”
    “Ever seen prison tats?” Hughes asked, and Jazz’s memory flickered for a moment, remembering the words LOVE and FEAR tattooed across Billy’s knuckles at Wammaket. “A lot of those are done with just a paper clip,” Hughes went on. “Or even a staple. It’s possible to get some real consistent art just with—”
    “Hats are for gentlemen,” Jazz said again, interrupting, “and dogs are for…”
    “For bitches,” Connie said with finality.
    They stared at each other, then over at Hughes.
    “No,” the detective said, shaking his head emphatically. “He hatted women and he dogged men. It doesn’t track—”
    “It’s not about their actual gender,” Jazz protested. “It’s about how he sees them. It’s about his perception of them. Maybe he decides which they are before he kills them—maybe that’s part of what sets him off. Or maybe he decides based on
how
they die. How they act. Like this one…” Heflipped through data on the tablet. “Look—victim six. A woman. Elana Gibbs. A dog. He raped her, but the ME found less vaginal tearing and fewer bruises than the hat, Marie Leydecker, he raped three weeks later.”
    “So if they fight back, they’re a gentleman, and if they don’t they’re a bitch?” Hughes said doubtfully. “You’d think that’s the opposite of how it should be.”
    “Yeah, to
you
,” Jazz said. “To you, it makes sense to go the other way—a woman who fights is a bitch. But what if after that second victim struggled, he learned he liked it? That the resistance arouses him even more? If they struggle, he has an excuse—justification in his mind, a rationale—to hurt them more, to be more violent with them. So they’re giving him what he wants, which makes them gentlemen. Hats.”
    Connie shivered next to him. Her face had gone ashy. “I think I’m gonna go get some more ice from the machine. And maybe a Coke. You guys need anything?”
    Jazz and Hughes both glanced at the six-pack of Coke Hughes had brought, half of which was still unopened. The three cans sat next to a nearly full bucket of ice.
    “That’s a good idea,” Jazz said after a moment. “Stretch your legs, too.”
    After the door closed on Connie, Hughes shook his head. “Can she handle this?”
    “She’ll be okay.”
I hope.
“What’s this thing in here on