The 22 Murders of Madison May

by Max Barry

  She wanted to act, the receptionist had said. She talked about acting classes once.

  If Felicity were stabbed to death, this was the kind of thing people would say. She wanted to get out of journalism. She once talked about becoming a social media manager.

  She set up her laptop and took a big, crunchy bite of her pide. She opened a browser and typed reverse image search. She didn’t know a whole lot about what that was. But she knew it existed and had identified things for other reporters. She dug the crime scene photo out of her messages, what Levi had called your murder-wall logo. As it was uploading, Todd the intern walked by her table, offering an awkward wave. She felt mildly guilty—she wasn’t supposed to be working on this—but he couldn’t see her screen. Her search results arrived and were garbage; nothing close to the same design. She picked her way around the page.

  “Todd,” she said. “Do you have a minute?” She swiveled her laptop. “What am I doing wrong here?”

  “What are you trying to do?”

  She pointed to the murder logo. “Figure out what that is.”

  He peered. “Uh, you can’t really do that. A reverse image search is for finding copies of an image. Not the things in the image.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “And what you’re really looking for isn’t even that. This is a design someone carved into a wall, right? So what you really want to find is the original. Whatever this person was trying to copy.” His fingers hovered above her keyboard. “Can I?”

  “Sure.”

  He began to type. She was looking at a Web page called Logo Monkey, where a cute cartoon monkey told her: Avoid monkey business! Make sure your logo is original!

  “So,” Todd said. He was excited, she noticed. He was even more geeky than she had imagined. “Here we can upload a sketch to compare to basically every registered logo. But don’t use the photo. Make a clean drawing yourself.”

  She found a napkin and carefully drew the logo, the circle and five slashes, trying imagine what it was supposed to look like when it wasn’t being carved into drywall by a maniac with a knife.

  “Good,” Todd said. “That’s great.”

  They used her phone to capture the drawing and shared it to the laptop. A blue progress bar crawled. The monkey hopped from side to side.

  “This place is great,” Todd said, meaning the deli. “I only just discovered it.”

  The screen spilled designs. A flaming baseball belonging to baltimore rebels. A smiling sun from providential health. A parade of conceptual circles, none of which were her drawing. Then she saw it.

  THE SOFT HORIZON JUICE COMPANY

  “Does that seem right?” Todd said.

  It looked right. It was the exact design. But it couldn’t be connected, surely.

  Stop, Soft Horizon Juice Company. Or I will kill again.

  “I have to get back,” Todd said. “Let me know if you need help with anything else.”

  She nodded, distracted. “Thanks, Todd.”

  After he left, she plugged Soft Horizon Juice into a couple of public-records databases, the News’s media archive, and the two major corporate registries. The Soft Horizon Juice Company had been founded in 2007, she learned, with the goal of bringing to the world the unparalleled freshness of Californian oranges. It had a website, which listed a number of offices worldwide, including one in Hell’s Kitchen. She scrolled through a gallery of products, none of which she could ever remember seeing in a store.

  She checked the time. She needed to get back to real work.

  Just in case, she typed: Soft Horizon Juice Madison May.

  Nothing.

  She highlighted Madison May and tapped delete. Instead: Clayton Hors.

  Again, no connection. But the fourth result was the Facebook page of Clayton Hors. She found herself looking at a young man in his early twenties, tall, thin, Caucasian, shaggy brown hair. He was on a beach, wearing a green top, grinning at her from beneath a pair of sunglasses.

  She didn’t want to look at him. Abruptly, she closed the laptop. But when she next opened the laptop, she realized, he would be there, grinning at her. She opened the lid and moused up to the browser tab and Xed him.

  * * *

  —

  She left the office early to catch a look at the registered office of the Soft Horizon Juice Company on West 50th Street, even though it was probably nothing. It was a grand, Gothic tower with a wooden revolving door and a quietly residential feel. The website hadn’t listed an apartment or floor number, so that was the end of this particular line of inquiry, unless she wanted to hang around and harass people who came in and out. She loitered, considering. Across the street was a narrow laundromat.

  What the hell, she thought. She went inside and played with her phone, occasionally glancing up when she saw the tower’s door revolve. No one who looked very corporate, she noted. Not unless Soft Horizon Juice was staffed by middle-aged, well-heeled Manhattanites. She stayed for another hour or two, working her phone, until she glanced up and saw the woodsman.

  He was coming out of the tower in jeans, a red checked shirt, and a cap. He looked bigger than she remembered, like a walking tree, sauntering eastward. She hurried out of the laundromat and began to follow him from the opposite side of the street.

  Levi picked up on the third ring. “Let me go first,” he said. “I’m genuinely sorry for how I came off before.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Felicity.

  “So I did some digging for you. And guess what? I found your guy.”

  “What?” The light changed. The woodsman began to cross the street toward her. Caught, she turned and studied the storefront of a pizza place.

  “The guy with the cap. His name is Hugo Garrelly.”

  Hugo, she thought, watching him in the reflection. He came and stood behind her, waiting to cross Ninth Avenue.

  “I assume your silence is shock that I managed to ID a guy from his hat,” Levi said. “Turns out the CSU had a bunch more pictures, including one where your guy is in focus. You were right: It does look like the same logo. And the cap has some writing, too. It says, Soft Horizon Juice.”

  The light changed. She stepped onto the road, following Hugo. “Okay.”

  “Which sounds like nothing. Because whatever the murder-wall logo is supposed to be, it’s probably not an ad for a juice company. You know?”

  “Right.”

  “But then a funny thing happened. I got on the phone to one of my guys in Queens South and guess what? He recognized him. Because Hugo Garrelly is BOLO.”

  Ahead of her, Hugo turned abruptly into the subway entrance at West 50th and Eighth. She followed him down into thick, humid air. “He’s what?”

  “ ‘Be on lookout.’ Like an APB. There will be some sore asses in the 113th Precinct, Felicity, because half the city’s on alert for this guy, and he’s in their crime scene photos.”

  Hugo swiped through the turnstiles. Felicity followed.

  “I mean, to be fair, the BOLO was only issued this time yesterday, so maybe by then they hadn’t distributed it to everyone in the field. But it’s a hell of a thing.”

  A train rattled. People streamed from an A train, forcing her to the side. “What is he—”

  “Why is he BOLO? That’s the delicious part. They wouldn’t even tell me at first. I had to make another call. Hugo Garrelly is—” A train honked.

  She plugged her ear. “Say again?” So far, her phone reception had held up, but that wasn’t guaranteed: It could drop out at any moment, leaving her with a dead line.

  Levi’s voice returned. “Hugo Garrelly is serving a life sentence in Sing Sing for murdering his wife. Only he’s not. Because he’s BOLO.”

  She was walking six feet behind him. She chose her words carefully, because she wasn’t sure how much he could hear. “I know where he is.”
/>   “Who? Garrelly?”

  “Yes, we’re together now.”

  Levi’s voice filled with concern. “You’re with Garrelly? Felicity, he’s Do Not Approach. You need to get away from him.”

  He hadn’t turned the whole time she’d been following him; she felt sure she hadn’t been noticed. And the day before, when they’d stood side by side behind a strip of police tape, he’d barely glanced in her direction. So he might not recognize her even if he stared right at her. “I’m in the subway at West 50th and Eighth,” she said blandly, as if she were organizing logistics. “I’ll be on the southbound platform soon.”

  She heard Levi clicking his fingers. To someone she couldn’t see: “Call nine-one-one and tell them their escaped felon Hugo Garrelly is on the southbound platform at West 50th and Eighth.” He returned to her. “Felicity, you don’t want to be anywhere near this guy. He’s dangerous.”

  “I’m fine.” She was keeping her distance. There were people everywhere. She had been very lucky to find him and didn’t want to let him go. On the platform, people were spilling from a train. Hugo waited patiently to let them pass. Then he stepped on board. Felicity followed.

  She kept close, so that when he took up a position near the far doors, she could set herself behind him. The doors chimed: bing-bong.

  “What are you doing?” Levi said in her ear. “Because it sounds like you’re getting on a fucking train.”

  “Yes, honey,” she said. “I should be home in about twenty minutes.”

  “Is he with you? On the train?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Levi said.

  The train moved off. She stared at the back of Hugo’s head. Thick hair poked from beneath his cap. The lights flickered. A guy in a Mets cap sprawled across one of the seats slapped his thigh, watching his phone, and said, “Oh, damn.”

  In her ear, the line fell silent. She hummed nervously to herself, like an idiot, like someone pretending to be on the phone.

  Hugo’s wristwatch beeped: a tinny, electronic sound. He was holding the pole and so she could see it: a chunky silver thing with a blue face, the kind of device she’d thought they stopped manufacturing in the 1990s.

  Levi materialized in her ear, speaking to someone unknown: “She’s going southbound.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Felicity, they want to know if he’s armed. Is he carrying anything you can see?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Tell them yes,” Levi said to somebody. “He’s got a gun.”

  “Ah,” she said, “that’s actually incorrect.”

  “You’re on a train with a guy who cut his wife into pieces. I’m getting the police to you as fast as I can.”

  “Mmm,” she said.

  “Next stop, if he gets off, you stay on. If he doesn’t, you get off. Is that clear?”

  She would hate to lose Hugo now. But it was a good point. She had been eyeing Hugo throughout this conversation and he had remained very still. In a train full of people shifting about and scrolling on phones, he was a statue. Maybe that was what happened to you in prison. Maybe you got Zen, from all that time sitting alone in your cell, gazing at the wall, after murdering your wife.

  The train lurched. The wheels began to squeal. They were coming into 42nd Street.

  Hugo wasn’t gazing at nothing, though. He was actually watching the door to the adjoining train car. Or looking through it to the passengers beyond? From behind, it was hard to tell. Felicity shifted, thinking to use a reflection, and when she did, in the black glass of the doors, she saw his eyes on her.

  “Felicity,” Levi squawked. “You still there?”

  The train stopped. There was a surge of movement in the adjoining train car. Abruptly, Hugo shouldered his way between the doors. There were shouts. People heaved out of his way. Hugo forged through them toward the stairs, and there was something else, Felicity realized: a second disturbance, a man in a long gray shirt also running for the exit, who had come from the next train car.

  “He’s running!” she yelped into her phone.

  She went after him. But she lost the line of sight and at the top of the stairs there were several ways he could have gone: to the other platform, to the street, or into the tunnel to the 1, 2, and 3 trains. She chose the latter at random, but within twenty seconds could see that it was too calm, not at all the kind of scene that would be left in the wake of men barging down a cramped space, so she headed back to the gates. She arrived in time to see a flash of red checked shirt crossing back toward the northbound platform.

  She pressed the phone to her ear, but Levi was no longer there. When she reached the platform, she found Hugo standing motionless, staring across the tracks. He glanced back at her.

  “I’m on the phone with the police,” she lied. “Stay where you are.”

  He ignored her. She followed his gaze across the tracks and saw the man in the long gray shirt looking back at them. He was young, early twenties, longish brown hair. She recognized him: Earlier today, she’d been looking at his Facebook profile picture. It was Clayton Hors.

  The police were on their way; she could point them to Clay, have him and Hugo arrested—

  Hugo took a step toward the edge of the platform, as if he were about to leap down to the tracks. Clay didn’t move. Hugo hesitated. He glanced at his watch, then at Felicity. The air began to stir with the advance of a train. “I need your help.” His voice was low but firm, like he was speaking to a child, or a skittish animal. Not as rough as she’d expected from the woodsman exterior. “I need you to hold something for me.”

  She backed up a step. She wasn’t going to do that.

  “There’s a cavity beneath the platform. You’ll be safe. Just don’t drop it.”

  He held something out to her: a dull egg the color of old metal. And she wasn’t going to take it, of course, but her hands instinctively came up to repel him, and she was momentarily distracted, thinking, What is that, some kind of weapon? and he seized her wrist.

  “Hold it,” Hugo said. He pressed the egg into her palm. Then he shoved her off the platform.

  4

  She sprawled on the tracks, banging her chin and elbow and knee. Her bag hit the ground and vomited forth her belongings. She raised her head quickly, because there was a train approaching, she recalled, a train, its lights blooming, and as she did, the air split with a bone-rattling blast from its horn. Its wheels began to scream. Felicity had covered her share of subway-misadventure stories, and often snared a quote like It came out of nowhere, which was great because it spoke to the mentality of people who found themselves on subway tracks—people who were, for the most part, there for ridiculous reasons, such as trying to recover a dropped phone, or take a shortcut to the opposite platform, or, in one memorable case, record a hilarious TikTok. So, as a newspaper reader, you heard this person saying, It came out of nowhere, and shook your head, and knew that such a thing would never happen to you. But fuck her if this train wasn’t coming out of nowhere.

  She saw the cavity, a thin space with a curved wall only a few feet away, and scrambled toward it on her hands and knees. Wind whipped at her. She jammed herself into the space. Her bag and contents lay scattered on the tracks. Her phone seemed miraculously undamaged. Among the stones was the strange metal egg Hugo had given her, glowing in the lights of the train.

  I thought I had time. Another popular line among people who did not, as it turned out, have enough time. But the egg was right there and she lunged out and snatched it up.

  She threw herself backward. The train’s undercarriage thundered by, its wheels gigantic, shrieking pizza cutters, throwing sparks and grit and steel dust. She felt a terrific sensation, a squeezing, like the air was crushing her. The pizza cutters revolved and slowed and stopped.

  Her mouth was full of dirt. All she coul
d see was half a wheel and its housing, thick with oil and filth. Ten seconds passed. Then, somewhere above: bing-bong.

  To her astonishment, she could hear people moving about, getting on and off the train. Felicity was familiar with normal procedure in this kind of situation: It was for the driver to leave the doors closed while radioing control to bring cops and medics, who would yell for nobody down there to move until they were able to cut the power to the third rail, and, as a by-product, fuck up the New York transit system for three hours. She tried to yell, but the sound was swallowed by concrete and train. She tried again, because this was really incredible: first, to be pushed, and second, to be ignored. The first was shocking; the second infuriating. “Don’t start the train!” she shouted.

  It began to move. The pizza-cutter wheels protested like spoiled children. They picked up speed and swung dust-filled air around her and she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. When the final train car passed by, the wind turned around and tried to suction her right out of the cavity. She stayed curled tight until she was sure she was safe.

  She emerged slowly, not prepared to discount the possibility that another train was lurking somewhere nearby, waiting until she lowered her guard. Her arms and legs trembled. On the platform, people gaped at her. Didn’t they see me be pushed? she wondered. Surely those people hadn’t simply jumped on the train and left.

  A man with gigantic arms popping from a black tank top moved toward her. “Are you okay?”