Page 39 of Evil Bones
“What’s the name of this next joint?” Slidell asked as he turned from North Tryon Street onto a patch of concrete fronting a one-story strip mall.
“All Creatures on Earth.”
“Pure poetry.” With a snort that would have made Katy envious.
The mall’s exterior had been painted yellow sometime in the Eocene and never touched up. It housed three stores in all, each with bars on the windows and doors.
All Creatures took up a big chunk of the square footage on the building’s south end. To its right was a beauty shop called Belezza Salon Sylvia. Beyond the salon, a currency exchange boastedReady Cashin blue-and-red neon.
Popping his seat belt and swinging his body left, Slidell heaved himself from the Trailblazer feetfirst. I followed him to the pet shop’s front door. Which failed to budge when Skinny pulled on the handle.
“You have to ring.” I pointed to a button to the right of the barricaded glass.
“What the hell’s wrong with this country when a citizen can’t enter a freakin’ store without a shakedown?”
“It’s hardly a shakedown.”
“Eeeyuh.”
“I’m guessing they’ve been robbed more than once.”
Slidell’s anger wasn’t directed at the shop’s owner. He knew the crime stats for that part of town. He was hot and sweaty and frustrated by the morning’s lack of results. And anxious to move on to lunch with Lyric.
A beat, then a buzzer sounded, and the lock clicked. Slidell yanked the door wide. A bell jangled us into the store.
Shelving filled the center of the room, holding items organized according to animal. Cat. Dog. Reptile. Feeder. I was unsure the makeup of the latter category. Worms? Crickets? Rodents? Whatever. I felt sympathy for the members of that group.
Fish tanks lined the left-hand wall, casting an eerie glow over that half of the room. Birds twittered in cages somewhere out of sight. A counter projected from the right-hand wall at the rear, its front painted red, its top shiny black.
Hanging beside the counter was a cork bulletin board. Tacked to it were dozens of homemade flyers. Pictures of lost pets. Ads for adoptable kittens. A poster offering a parrot named Buster for re-homing.
Standing behind the counter was a skinny man with bulging eyes that tracked our progress with interest. A lack of wrinkles and firmjawline suggested an age under thirty. Challenging that youthful estimate was one of the worst comb-overs I’d ever seen.
“May I help you?” Comb-over beamed a welcome. “We have some adorable wee kitties needing forever homes.”
Slidell badged him.
“Oh, my.” The smile underwent a significant decrease in wattage. “Has there been another break-in?”
“How ’bout we start with your name.”
“Jeremy Dahmer.” Two slender hands came up, palms pointed at us. “I know what you’re thinking. The dreadful monster who cannibalized people in Wisconsin. I getsooomuch ribbing about having the same name.”
Dahmer referred to a serial killer and sex offender who’d murdered and dismembered seventeen men between 1978 and 1991.
I flashed back to my conversation with Adina about the nature of evil. Dahmer truly qualified. But I wasn’t thinking of him at all.
“But I’mJeremy,” Dahmer continued his unsolicited explanation. “Not Jeffrey. So—”
“I don’t care if you’re Vlad the Impaler,” Slidell said. “I need information.”
Dahmer swallowed. An Adam’s apple the size of a plum rose and fell in his skinny throat.
“Show him,” Slidell demanded, half turning to me.
I drew a Ziploc from the side pocket of my shoulder purse and laid it on the shiny black wood.
Dahmer glanced down but made no move to touch the baggie.
