Read Mr. Mercedes for Free Online Page A

common, especially among political pundits, and these days there are octogenarians on Facebook and Twitter. Hodges himself may be tapping only twelve percent of his Mac’s potential (that’s what Jerome claims), but that doesn’t make him part of the majority. You had to start somewhere, though, and besides, the letter has a young feel.
    He has always been talented at this sort of work, and a lot more than twelve percent of it is intuition.
    He’s listed nearly a dozen examples under UNUSUAL WORDS, and now circles two: compatriots and Spontaneous Ejaculation . Beside them he adds a name: Wambaugh . Mr. Mercedes is a shitbag, but a bright, book-reading shitbag. He has a large vocabulary and doesn’t make spelling errors. Hodges can imagine Jerome Robinson saying, “Spellchecker, my man. I mean, duh ?”
    Sure, sure, these days anyone with a word processing program can spell like a champ, but Mr. Mercedes has written Wambaugh , not Wombough , or even Wombow , which is how it sounds. Just the fact that he’s remembered to put in that silent gh suggests a fairly high level of intelligence. Mr. Mercedes’s missive may not be high-class literature, but his writing is a lot better than the dialogue in shows like NCIS or Bones .
    Homeschooled, public-schooled, or self-taught? Does it matter? Maybe not, but maybe it does.
    Hodges doesn’t think self-taught, no. The writing is too . . . what?
    â€œExpansive,” he says to the empty room, but it’s more than that. “ Outward . This guy writes outward. He learned with others. And wrote for others.”
    A shaky deduction, but it’s supported by certain flourishes—those FANCY PHRASES. Must begin by congratulating you , he writes. Literally hundreds of cases, he writes. And—twice— Was I on your mind . Hodges logged As in his high school English classes, Bs in college, and he remembers what that sort of thing is called: incremental repetition. Does Mr. Mercedes imagine his letter being published in the newspaper, circulated on the Internet, quoted (with a certain reluctant respect) on Channel Four News at Six ?
    â€œSure you do,” Hodges says. “Once upon a time you read your themes in class. You liked it, too. Liked being in the spotlight. Didn’t you? When I find you— if I find you—I’ll find that you did as well in your English classes as I did.” Probably better. Hodges can’t remember ever using incremental repetition, unless it was by accident.
    Only there are four public high schools in the city and God knows how many private ones. Not to mention prep schools, junior colleges, City College, and St. Jude’s Catholic University. Plenty of haystacks for a poisoned needle to hide in. If he even went to school here at all, and not in Miami or Phoenix.
    Plus, he’s a sly dog. The letter is full of false fingerprints—the capitalized phrases like Lead Boots and Note of Concern , the phrases in quotation marks, the extravagant use of exclamation points, the punchy one-sentence paragraphs. If asked to provide a writing sample, Mr. Mercedes would include none of those stylistic devices. Hodges knows that as well as he knows his own unfortunate first name: Kermit, as in kermitfrog19 .
    But.
    This asshole isn’t quite as smart as he thinks. The letter almost certainly contains two real fingerprints, one smudged and one crystal clear.
    The smudged print is his persistent use of numbers instead of the words for numbers: 27, not twenty-seven; 40 instead of forty. Det. 1st Grade instead of Det. First Grade. There are a few exceptions (he has written one regret instead of 1 regret ), but Hodges thinks they are the ones that prove the general rule. The numbers might only be more camouflage, he knows that, but the chances are good Mr. Mercedes is genuinely unaware of it.
    If I could get him in IR4 and tell him to write Forty thieves stole eighty wedding rings