Текст книги "Touching evil"
Автор книги: Kay Hooper
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She finished her coffee and set the cup down, meeting his gaze with a sense of inevitability. “You just said it.” And before he could question her apparently sudden capitulation, she added, “You’re right, I’d investigate on my own anyway. Might as well make it a team effort.”
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “Thank you. You won’t regret it, I promise you.”
The physical contact caught her off guard, and for just that unprotected instant before she could shut it out, she felt his determination as well as his conviction that she could help him. And she felt something else, something warm and very male and disturbingly familiar.
She sat back, gently drawing her hand away under the pretext of pushing her coffee cup to one side. “What’s the game plan? I assume you have one.”
John frowned briefly, as if something he couldn’t quite define puzzled him. “The beginnings of one, anyway. Andy said you hadn’t yet walked over the area where Hollis Templeton was found.”
“No, not yet.”
“That’s as good a place as any to start. I’ve asked Quentin to meet us there.”
As much as she hated to admit it even to herself, Maggie had put off that chore because she dreaded what she knew awaited her there. What she wasn’t sure of was whether having companions on the visit would make it better-or worse.
Still… maybe it was time to show John Garrett a glimpse of her “magic.” Time for him to at least begin to understand.
“We don’t have much daylight left,” she said, keeping her tone brisk. “I’m ready if you are.”
“Well,” Jennifer said, “we definitely have something. But I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”
“It’s gotta be coincidence,” Scott said. “It’s gotta be coincidence, right, Andy?”
Andy didn’t blame either of them for being bewildered. What they’d found, by mid-afternoon on Saturday, were three more files concerning murder investigations in 1934. All three victims were young women, all three had been brutally attacked, raped, and left for dead, and all three murders had gone unsolved.
In two of the three folders they had found something more than scanty case notes. They had found sketches of the victims, sketches the police had used in identifying the women, again because their faces had been so badly battered-obvious in the grainy crime-scene photos. One of the sketches was rather inexpertly done and had not, in fact, helped the police to identify the dead woman; she had gone nameless to a pauper’s grave.
But the second sketch was a good one and had been backed up later once she was identified by a photograph. The victim had been the daughter of a local businessman, and not only had her reputation been spotless but she had apparently been attacked not twenty yards from her own back door-in the best part of town. Her name was Marianne Trask.
And according to the sketch, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Hollis Templeton. The same medium-brown hair and strong, attractive features, same oval face, same slender neck.
“Not identical,” Jennifer noted. “But damned close. And if you read the descriptions of the other victims, even without sketches to go by, they sound a lot like Christina Walsh and Ellen Randall. Coincidence? I guess it could be.”
“It’s arguable,” Andy said. “Four women attacked, and each case matches up with one of ours-at least as far as the description of the victim is concerned. But there are differences.”
“Yeah. All the 1934 victims died within hours.” Jennifer sighed and reached into her pocket for a cinnamon-flavored toothpick; she’d recently quit smoking and claimed chewing the toothpicks soothed her oral fixation. It was a mark of the respect in which she was held by the men that not one of them had ventured a lewd response. At least not out loud.
“That’s not all,” Andy said. “There’s no mention in the case files of any of them being blinded.”
Scott offered, “That could be our guy’s own personal twist. I mean, maybe he’s trying to find look-alike victims but making damned sure they can’t look at him.”
“In 1934,” Jennifer pointed out, “leaving them for dead did the trick, so that killer didn’t have to worry about his victims even trying to identify him.”
“Why doesn’t our guy kill his victims?” Scott asked, directing the question to Jennifer. “He goes to such pains to blind them; wouldn’t killing them outright be a hell of a lot easier?”
“Why ask me?” She shifted the toothpick to the other side of her mouth and added, “If I had to guess, I’d say he just hasn’t been quite ready-so far-to cross the line into outright murder. But I’m no expert, and if you want my opinion that’s what we need on this case. Our shrink’s good, but she’s no profiler.”
Andy grunted. “Drummond won’t call in the FBI, and you know how the chief feels about the officer in charge of an investigation making that decision.”
“If we can’t solve this, he’ll have to,” Jennifer objected.
“You don’t know our Luke,” Andy said sourly.
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, I do. I just keep hoping I’m wrong, that’s all.”
Scott made a rude noise not quite under his breath.
“I wouldn’t mind being wrong about that,” she told him mildly.
“Let’s stick to business,” Andy said. “Four victims. That’s it for the year?”
“Well, we aren’t sure about that.” Jennifer traded looks with Scott and shrugged. “Files are missing, Andy.”
“What the hell do you mean, missing?”
“I mean that from June-just after the fourth victim was killed-through the end of that year, there are no files. And the box is so packed it’s hard to say if files have been removed or were never there.”
“They had to be there, Jenn, at least in 1934. Crime doesn’t just stop in June to take a vacation.”
She shrugged again. “Well, they aren’t there now. Jeez, how many times since then do you figure the file boxes have been moved around? This isn’t the original site of the investigating station, and even this building has been rebuilt or remodeled at least three times. As the city grew, the districts multiplied; police records for Seattle are probably scattered over a dozen different buildings or more.”
Scott sank down in Andy’s visitor’s chair and groaned. “I never thought… But you’re right. Every station probably has file boxes in its basement or storage rooms.”
“And none of it on computer,” Jennifer reminded them. “It’s taking all the manpower we can muster to get the modern records on computer for comparison; if the old stuff is ever part of the computerized record it won’t be anytime soon.”
Andy sat back in his chair and stared at the two sketches propped up against his lamp. “Two pretty conclusive matches,” he said slowly, “and descriptions of two more that sound close enough to be strong maybes. Four victims closely matching our four victims. You know, guys… I’d really like to see the files for the rest of that year, maybe the year after.”
Jennifer got it first. “In case there are more rape-murders. You think if there were more victims then-we’ll have more now. And maybe a shot at identifying would-be victims?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Andy scowled. “Even with sketches and photos we don’t have much hope of finding look-alikes in a city this big. But more files may give us more information, and God knows we could use it, so I say we look for them.”
“I just had a creepy thought,” Jennifer said. “What if this bastard is just yanking our chains, copying old crimes or picking look-alike victims only as long as we don’t catch on?”
“How could he know we’d caught on?” Scott objected.
“If we manage to identify a potential victim, say.”
“One nightmare at a time,” Andy told them. “You guys want to get on the phone and try to track down those missing files?”
The building where Hollis Templeton’s bleeding body had been dumped wasn’t precisely in the bad part of town, it was just somewhat isolated from the buildings nearest it and in very bad shape. Intended for demolition so that a modern new apartment complex could rise in its stead, it had stood empty for at least six or eight months.
Maggie got out of her car and stood on the curb, absently hugging her sketch pad to her breast as she waited for John to park his car and join her. It was chilly, a restless wind whining around like something lost and alone, and the overcast sky was allowing darkness to approach even earlier than usual.
Maggie hated this. She hated this lonely place, hated being here with darkness creeping ever closer. She hated the cold fear writhing in the pit of her stomach and the dread that made her skin feel prickly as though the nerves lay rawly exposed on the surface.
“Maggie?”
She started despite herself and tore her gaze from the broken rubble walkway leading to the building to find John standing beside her.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes, of course. Just… woolgathering. Where’s your friend?”
“Well, since there’s a rental car parked across the street, I’d say he’s already here.” He studied her face, not quite frowning but clearly bothered by what he saw. “Are you sure you want to go in there?”
“Want to? No. But I’m going in.”
He smiled faintly. “Determination, or just plain stubbornness?”
“Is there a difference?” Maggie didn’t wait for him to answer but walked steadily up the walkway to the building.
John walked beside her. “I’ve always thought so. Do you have a set pattern for going over crime scenes, or is every one different?”
“I suppose each is different. And this isn’t really a crime scene, anyway. She was left here but not attacked here.”
He paused with her just a few feet from the doorway and looked down at her. “But her attacker was here, if only long enough to leave her inside. Is that what you hope to pick up on… intuitively?”
As tense as she was, Maggie had to smile. “You really are uncomfortable discussing intuition, aren’t you?”
“The way you and Quentin appear to use it-yes.”
“I’m not psychic.”
“Sure about that?”
Before Maggie could answer, a tall blond man appeared suddenly in the doorway and offered a cheerful greeting.
“I hope somebody brought a flashlight. Because unless we’re damned quick in here, we’re going to end up in the dark.”
“I thought they taught you to always be prepared,” John said.
“That’s the Boy Scouts. I wasn’t a Boy Scout. Wasn’t a marine either.”
John didn’t question the latter statement, just sighed and said he had several flashlights in his car.
“I knew you would. That’s why I didn’t bring any.”
“Don’t start with me. Maggie, this is Quentin Hayes, who claims to know things before they happen.” There was no scorn in his voice, merely a sort of amused mockery, and he left her to make what she would of the introduction while he returned to his car for the flashlights.
“So you’re a seer?” she asked.
“Not in the true sense of the word, meaning one who sees. I don’t, actually. No visions.” He shrugged. “I just know things. Sort of the way most people tune in to memory or bits of information they’ve learned. The difference is that when I tune in, it’s often to the knowledge of something that hasn’t happened yet.”
“That must be unsettling.”
“It took some getting used to.” He eyed her thoughtfully. “I hear they call what you do nothing short of magical.”
“That’s not what I call it.”
“Oh? What do you call it?”
“An ability I’ve practiced nearly half my life to perfect. I happen to be able to draw. I also happen to be able to listen to people describe what they’ve seen and then draw it. Nothing magical about that.” It was virtually automatic by now, this reasonable explanation of her abilities.
“When you put it like that,” Quentin said affably, “it does sound perfectly normal, doesn’t it?”
“Only because it is.”
John returned to them then, handing out flashlights. “Quentin, how long have you been here?”
“Half an hour, maybe a little longer. I went upstairs for a bit, following the path she took when she dragged herself out of here.”
Maggie said, “It’s still visible, isn’t it? The blood.” She gripped the flashlight tightly with one hand and held her sketch pad close with the other.
Quentin looked at her, and for just an instant she felt as if he’d reached over and touched her physically with a warm hand-even though he hadn’t moved. But the moment passed, and he nodded, sober now.
“I’m afraid so, at least in places. Dried and brown now, but still there. Those of us with vivid imaginations-or something more-can even smell it. I’m sorry, Maggie.”
She wasn’t certain if he was expressing sympathy or apologizing for something, and she decided not to ask. Instead, she said, “I want to see where he left her.”
“This way.” Quentin turned, and they followed him into the building.
Maggie was so accustomed to guarding herself that it usually required a conscious effort to open the barriers inside and let all her senses probe her surroundings. She didn’t like any of the sensations but by now at least knew what to expect when she reluctantly dropped her guard.
With all the broken windows in the place, there was light enough to see, if not very well. Stairs rose upward along the right side of the foyer. A hallway stretched past the stairs toward the rear of the building, with doorways lining it, most of them gaping open because of missing or severely damaged doors. Peeling paint covered the woodwork, and stained wallpaper dangled in ragged strips from the walls.
Fixtures such as doorknobs and lights had been removed and all else of any possible value long ago carted out of the building either legitimately or by vandals. Beneath their feet, creaking floorboards were barely covered by ancient linoleum, and the place smelled of dirt and mold and many years of cooking and living.
And blood.
Heavy, coppery, the stench rose up, threatening to choke her. All she saw on the floor was the faint brown trail Quentin had described, but what she smelled was something still warm and wet and sticky.
Maggie tried to unobtrusively breathe through her mouth. Could Quentin really smell that, or had he only known that she could?
“According to the reports,” John said, switching on his flashlight and shining it around them, “the police found nothing here. At least nothing they considered evidence.”
“Just like his other dumping places, right?” Quentin’s voice was as matter-of-fact as John’s had been. He turned on his own flashlight and led the way to the stairs, walking beside the intermittent brown trail of dried blood.
“So they told me. Drummond claims to have a very efficient forensics team, and they have a solid reputation. According to their reports, they went over this entire building and searched a block in every direction. Nothing.”
Nothing, Maggie thought, but Hollis Templeton’s blood. She concentrated on turning on her flashlight, on walking up the stairs behind Quentin and ahead of John, all of them avoiding the dried blood trail. She could feel the familiar inner quivering, the cold weight in the pit of her stomach, and her legs felt stiff, awkward as they moved. At first distantly, she became conscious of twinges of pain and dull aches that slowly intensified until they throbbed inside her.
The darkness came in flashes that lasted only a second or two, and Maggie climbed steadily without outwardly betraying the fleeting moments of blindness.
The smell grew stronger.
She had hoped that more than three weeks would have made it all feel more distant and unreal, that she could get through this without exposing her pain to these two men, but that seemed increasingly unlikely.
At the top of the stairs, Quentin pointed his flashlight toward the rear of the building, down a hallway. “She was left in a room at the back of the house. Odd, really. Why carry her upstairs at all? Why not just dump her downstairs?”
Softly, hardly aware of speaking, Maggie said, “He wanted her to have to drag herself all that way.”
Almost as softly, Quentin asked, “Why did he want that?”
Maggie walked past him, only dimly aware of the question. She followed the blood trail down the hallway, her light pointed at the floor, until she found herself in a room. Like the rest of the place, it was peeling paint and ancient wallpaper and not much else. A broken window allowed light into the room, though it wasn’t much light. She walked to the center of the room and pointed her flashlight to one of the rear corners, where the blood trail ended and a roughly rectangular shape of less dusty floor hinted that something had lain there for a while.
“There was a mattress,” John said, his voice low but nevertheless startling in the silence. “It’s where he left her. The police don’t believe he brought it here, just found it here. They have it now, of course.”
Maggie stood there stiffly for a long moment, wanting to fight everything she felt but trying not to. It came at her in waves, the stench of the blood, the warm stickiness of it that clotted and chilled with the icy wind touching it. And the pain, all the degrees of it, sharp jolts and dull aches and the swelling agony that was as much emotional as physical. And the intermittent flashes of darkness that lasted seconds now, horrible darkness filled with terror and panic and loss, such loss…
She had forgotten her companions and started when John grasped her arm. She was coughing. When had she started coughing?
“Maggie?”
“I have to… get out of…” She jerked her arm free of his grasp and lurched toward the door, almost stumbling.
John started after her, but Quentin caught his arm to stop him.
“Jesus,” the other man murmured softly.
Staring at him in the dim light, John was surprised to see something that looked like awe on his friend’s mobile face. “What?” he demanded. “What is it? What was wrong with Maggie?”
“Wrong? I don’t know if I’d call it wrong.” Quentin drew a deep breath. “But I don’t envy your Maggie, I’ll tell you that.”
John didn’t question the possessive. “Why?”
“It explains a lot,” Quentin mused. “How she’s able to establish such a strong bond with victims, how she’s able to so accurately draw what they see. Christ, no wonder it looks like magic to those around her.”
“She’s psychic?”
“It’s not quite that simple, John. There’s psychic… and then there’s gifted. Or cursed. Did you see her face just now? She was in agony. Actual physical pain.”
“Why? What was hurting her?”
“He had hurt her. The rapist. He attacked her, raped and beat her, took her eyes-and left her here to suffer.” Quentin shook his head. “John, that’s what Maggie was feeling. She was feeling everything Hollis Templeton felt in this room more than three weeks ago.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Jennifer Seaton was a good cop. But even more, she was an intuitive cop who had learned to trust her hunches. So while Scott worked the phones attempting to track down those missing files, she got on her computer, connected to the Washington state library system database, and conducted a different kind of search.
She hit possible pay dirt before Scott did, but since it was very late on a Saturday afternoon it took her another half hour just to track down a library still open for business.
“I understand the request, detective,” the head librarian said, the confusion in her voice belying the words, “but we’re locking the doors in ten minutes, -
“Police emergency,” Jennifer said, ruthlessly misusing her authority. “If you’ll hold them for me until I get there, I’d appreciate it. I’m leaving now.”
As she hung up the phone and rose to her feet, Scott said sourly, “Oh, yeah, leave me with this, why don’t you?”
“Any luck?” she asked, pausing by his desk and digging into her pocket for another cinnamon-flavored toothpick.
“All I’ve got so far is a growing list of stations with old files stored in their basements. Nobody really knows what they’ve got, and nobody’s volunteering to go down and check, especially on a cold Saturday afternoon. And I can’t say that I blame them.” He raked fingers through his hair and peered up at her. “Calling it a day?”
“No, I’ll be back in about an hour. I may have found a shortcut for us-or at least another source we can use.”
“Well, bring me back a snack, will you? I missed lunch, and there’s nothing here but stale sandwiches and some really stale donuts.”
Jennifer nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Where’s Andy?”
“Beats me. He was at his desk a minute ago.”
“If he gets back before I do, ask him not to leave for the night until he talks to me, okay?”
“Sure.”
Jennifer left the station and made her way to the side lot where her car was parked. The streetlights had come on even though twilight made it easy to see, and she paused beside her car to look around, uneasy for no reason she could explain to herself. Being intuitive didn’t make her overly imaginative, so she was surprised to realize that she definitely had the creeps.
It was a sudden sensation, a chill that crawled slowly over her body and raised the hair on the nape of her neck. What her mom had sometimes referred to as “somebody walking over my grave.” It wasn’t a commonplace feeling, and Jennifer had learned to pay attention and be wary, because she had come to realize that it invariably meant her subconscious had noted something important and/or dangerous that her conscious mind was as yet unaware of.
A cop’s instincts, Scott called it.
So what was it? The scene she studied was perfectly normal, a few cops moving in or out of the building, a couple of civilians walking briskly past on the sidewalk, not much else. A slight wind stirred the nearby trees, their bare limbs scratching against one another while the last dead leaves clinging to them rattled dryly.
Jennifer shivered and zipped her jacket all the way. “You’re getting jumpy, Seaton,” she muttered to herself. As if she could possibly be in danger here in the parking lot of the police station. It was absurd. But she couldn’t help looking back over her shoulder as she unlocked her car, and she was careful to check the backseat thoroughly before she got in.
There was nobody there, of course. But as she put the key into the ignition, Jennifer saw a folded piece of paper lying on the dashboard. Something that definitely hadn’t been there when she had returned alone from lunch and locked the car up. She was wearing gloves, as usual this time of year, so didn’t hesitate to carefully unfold it.
Block-printed on the paper in a faint and rather unsteady hand were two numbers. Dates?
1894
1934
Jennifer sat staring at the paper for a long time, her mind working. The 1934 date-always assuming it was a date, of course-corresponded with the date of the murders in their incomplete files, and that couldn’t be a coincidence.
Could it?
Was the earlier date another year during which other similar crimes had taken place? Was their brutal rapist copying crimes from long ago, choosing his victims to closely match doomed women some other monster had attacked and left for dead, adding only his own personal touch of blinding them?
If he was, why? What twisted motivation compelled him to at least partially re-create old, unsolved crimes? Because they were unsolved? Because he believed he, too, could commit his crimes and walk away undiscovered?
Could it be so simple?
That possibility was unsettling enough; what really disturbed Jennifer was the certainty that someone had placed this note inside her locked car while it had been parked mere yards from the police station. Someone who seemingly knew a lot more about this series of brutal rapes than the police had yet discovered.
Who? And was this note an effort to help the police?
Or was it a direct and mocking challenge from an animal more hunter… than hunted?
“She’s gone,” John said as he rejoined Quentin in the chill, empty room at the top of the stairs.
“Told you she would be.” Quentin moved slowly around the room, his flashlight pointed at the floor. Most of his attention seemed focused on what he was doing, but his voice was matter-of-fact. “Fight or flight. She couldn’t fight, so she ran. I imagine she has a place she feels safe and reasonably secure. Home, probably. She’ll be there. She’ll need to be there, at least for a while.”
John frowned as he watched his friend. The room still wasn’t quite dark, and he could see Quentin fairly well. “Is that why you stopped me when I would have gone after her? Because she needed to get somewhere she felt safe?”
“And because I knew you’d push her.”
“What are you talking about? Push her how?”
“Push her to tell you whatever information she might have gained in this room, information that could help us find answers. You’re convinced she can help us find those answers, and your tendency will be to press forward without any loss of time, just the way you would in business. And I’m telling you that’s the wrong tactic with Maggie. Like it or not, you’re going to have to be very careful with her. She’ll help us in her own time and her own fashion-and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
“Why? Because she’s gifted?”
“Pretty much, yeah. John, living with this sort of thing, most of us develop defense mechanisms to cope. If we have… understanding or at least sympathetic family and friends, the defenses tend to be simple ones. But if we feel too alone, too isolated and different from those around us, especially for most of a lifetime, then the defenses can be major and complex. I’d guess your Maggie belongs in the latter group.”
“Isolated? She’s surrounded by people who admire what she does,” John objected. “Not one of the cops I talked to showed anything but respect and gratitude toward her. Hell, it was almost awe.”
“I’m sure they are grateful. And I’m sure they respect her for her ability to help them catch bad guys. But that awe you were picking up on can be read another way. Fear. You can bet most of those cops don’t understand how she does the things she does, and when there’s no understanding there’s often fear. Especially of something that looks like magic. You can also bet that Maggie knows exactly how they feel.”
“It doesn’t seem to bother her,” John said. “At the station, she was very sure of herself, not at all hesitant.”
“She would be-there. My guess is that while she’s probably strongly empathic with people and able to bond with them fairly easily when she wants to, where she really connects is at a scene of violence. Like this one.” Quentin hunkered down for a moment to more closely examine the area of floor where a mattress had lain.
“How is that possible?”
“Well, one theory is that thoughts and emotions contain an actual electrical signature, a form of energy that may linger in objects, in an area, especially if what was experienced in that area is particularly intense or violent. If you think about it, it’d explain a lot of the so-called ghostly sightings of things like battles and soldiers. Hell, there are places in Europe where some people swear ancient Roman soldiers still march.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?”
“If you mean do I believe the dead have an existence beyond the flesh, yes, I do. But I’m also convinced that what most people believe are ghosts are actually those electrical signatures I’m talking about. Violent things happened in some places, and some of those places-for reasons we don’t yet understand-retained that energy. It wouldn’t be visible to most people, because people tend to use their senses in only the simplest and most limited way. But some people would be sensitive to it, able to feel and possibly interpret the energy. As a rough comparison, think about static buildup on a cold, dry day; it isn’t apparent until you touch something and are able to discharge the energy.”
“Are you saying Maggie’s a conduit?”
“More or less. If electrical energy can permeate objects, then it’s reasonable to assume the energy would remain for at least a while, until it could dissipate naturally or could be discharged through some kind of contact.”
“You make it sound like a logical equation.”
Quentin straightened and absently flexed cramped muscles. “In a way it is. Stop thinking of it as something magical or unnatural; take what you know is scientific and push it a little further, extend it to the next logical step. On the most basic level, our thoughts are nothing more than electrical energy interpreted by the brain. True?”
“True.”
“Okay. Then it’s perfectly reasonable to suppose that just as there are incredibly gifted musicians and scientists, people who seem born with amazing knowledge and abilities, some people could also be born with an unusual sensitivity to the kind of energy we’re talking about. Just another talent or ability, perfectly human even if rare. Where you look at this room and see dirt and stains and peeling wallpaper, people especially sensitive to the electrical energy of thoughts and emotions might see a lot more.”
John shook his head. “Even assuming I can accept that, it still doesn’t explain Maggie and what she seemed to be going through. You seriously expect me to believe that she has the ability to feel-physically experience-what happened to another person here in this room weeks ago?”
“You saw the same thing I did,” Quentin reminded him.
“Yeah, but…”
“But you didn’t believe it.”
“I believe she’s sensitive enough to have… imagined… what Hollis Templeton must have gone through here in this room, but to say she actually, physically felt it-no. I don’t believe that. I can’t believe it, Quentin.”
“Which is another reason I told you not to go after her.” Quentin completed his examination of the room and returned to John. “One of the hardest things to deal with when you know you can do something beyond the abilities of most other people is the disbelief and often fear of those around you. Nobody quite calls you a liar-but the doubt is easy to see. And feel. Especially when you can’t really prove what you can do. She can’t prove to you that she’s an empath any more than I can prove to you I know some future events before they happen. Even though I keep trying.” Quentin studied his friend with a faint smile. “We’ve laughed and joked about it for nearly twenty years. And in all that time, you’ve ascribed my ability to tell you what’s going to happen before it happens to luck, to intuition, to inspired guesswork or a logical sequence of events-to everything except what it is. Precognition. Clairvoyance. Knowledge before the fact.”
