The Death Collectors
A terrifying new serial-killer thriller featuring Carson Ryder, hero of the bestselling The Hundredth Man.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. Hexcamp's portfolio was completed with the aid of a devoted band of acolytes – and half a dozen victims, each of whom was slowly tortured to death so that their final agonies could be distilled into art.When tiny scraps of Hexcamp's ‘art’ begin 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.Meanwhile an auction has been announced and the death collectors are gathering. These wealthy connoisseurs of serial-killer memorabilia will pay millions to acquire Hexcamp's art – unless Carson and Harry can beat them in their quest for the anti-grail.
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The Death Collectors
J.A. Kerley
For Elaine, Who always believed
Table of Contents
I exercised broad license in bending settings, geography and various institutions and lawenforcement agencies to the will and whims of the story. Everything should be regarded as fiction save for the natural beauty of Mobile and its environs. Mention is made of a rare stamp, the âScarlet Angelusâ. It is fictional as well. Any similarities between characters in this work and real persons, living or elsewise, is purely coincidental.
Mobile County Courthouse,Mobile, Alabama, May 15, 1972
Detective Jacob Willow dodged a sign proclaiming, DIE YOU DAM MURDRER, ducked another saying, REPENT SINNER! He shouldered past a pinched-faced preacher waving a bible, and squirmed between two agitated fat ladies in sweaty dresses. Breaking free of the mob surging in front of the courthouse, Willow bounded up the steps two at a time, tried three, tripped, went back to two. He flicked his cigarette into an urn at the door and stepped inside. The trial was upstairs and he ran those steps as well, dizzied when he reached the top. He peered around the corner into the hall leading to the courtroom, hoping he wouldnât see the Crying Woman.
Sure as sunrise, there she sat, twenty steps away on an oaken bench the size of a church pew, black dress, veil, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. Willow felt guilt curdle through his stomach. He turned his eyes from the Crying Woman.
Courthouse guard Windell Latham sat behind a folding table at the top of the stairs, a checkpoint for major trials. Latham was tipped back in a chair and trimming his nails with a deer knife, white crescents dappling his outsized belly.
âSee youâre on your late-as-usual schedule, âtective Willow,â Latham said, barely looking up. âYou gonna miss the sentencing you donât get inside that courtroom âbout now.â
Willow nodded toward the Crying Woman. âDoesnât she ever leave?â
Another crescent tumbled. âShould be gone after today, Willow. Wonât be nothing to see no more.â
Willow walked toward the courtroom on the balls of his feet, hoping she kept her head in her hands. He hated the feelings the Crying Woman sparked in him, though he had no idea who she was. Some said she was mother to one of Marsden Hexcampâs victims, others said sister, or aunt; those asking questions or offering comfort were waved off like wasps.
The strange, heavily veiled woman quickly became invisible to the courthouse crowd, as familiar as the brass cuspidors or overflowing ashtrays. Never entering the courtroom during the three-week trial, sheâd claimed the marblecolumned halls as her parlor of grief, weeping from opening statements through last weekâs verdict of guilty. Believing her wounded by sorrow, the guards showed kindness, allowing the Crying Woman the run of the courthouse and occasional naps in an absent judgeâs chambers.
Willow took a deep breath and started to the courtroom doors, walking light as hardsoled brogans allowed. Her head lifted as he passed, the veil askew. It was the first time Willow had seen the Crying Womanâs face, and he was startled by her eyes: tearless and resolute. Equally surprising was her youth; she looked barely out of her teens. He felt her eyes follow him to the door, as if riding his guilt into the courtroom.
He tried to rationalize his guilt - most often in the hours preceding dawn - telling himself heâd been an Alabama State Police detective for only two years, lacking the experience to understand virulent madness powered by intellect. He reminded himself of scrapes with departmental major-domos, trying to convince them the seemingly random horrors occurring in South Alabama were connected, that a fullscale investigation involving State, County and Mobile City police was necessary. Like his entreaties to higher-ups, the rationalizations failed, and Willowâs pre-dawn sweats continued through the trialâs daily revelations of the sexually bizarre and murderously horrific.
Willow nodded to the guard at the door, then slipped into the packed room. He excused and pardoned his way to his assigned seat in the gallery, against the railing directly behind the defense table. He didnât have time to sit. âAll rise,â the bailiff cried, and two hundred people in the courtroom rose like a single wave.
