Mr. Gray had discovered murder.
In spite of his horror—or perhaps because of it—Jonesy burst out laughing as his hands wiped the blood from the tiled wall with a Dysart’s towel. Mr. Gray had accessed Jonesy’s knowledge concerning body concealment and/ or disposal, and had found the mother-lode. As a lifelong connoisseur of horror movies, suspense novels, and mysteries, Jonesy was, in a manner of speaking, quite the expert. Even now, as Mr. Gray dropped the bloody towel on the chest of the Trooper’s sodden uniform (the Trooper’s jacket had been used to wrap the badly bludgeoned head), a part of Jonesy’s mind was running the disposal of Freddy Miles’s corpse in The Talented Mr. Ripley, both the film version and Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Other tapes were running, as well, so many overlays that looking too deeply made Jonesy dizzy, the way he felt when looking down a long drop. Nor was that the worst part. With Jonesy’s help, the talented Mr. Gray had discovered something he liked more than crispy bacon, even more than bingeing on Jonesy’s well of rage.
Mr. Gray had discovered murder.
