Kay Hooper: Touching Evil

Even though she could hear the clock ticking away in her head. Time was running out, she knew it. She felt it. And every day that passed with the police no closer to catching the animal the newspapers had begun calling the Blindfold Rapist brought them closer and closer to another victim.

Another life ruined.

Another soul marked.

Worse, Maggie knew that he would only become more violent as time passed. It would take more cruelty to satisfy whatever unnatural hunger drove him to do what he did. Soon, very soon, he would begin killing his victims. And when that happened, when the police were denied even the shaky recollections of living victims, then they would have no chance at all of stopping him-unless and until he made a mistake.

So far, he hadn't made a single one.

Maggie glanced into the bullpen and saw John Garrett sitting at Andy's desk. She didn't want to talk to Garrett, not now. Not yet. She retreated to an unoccupied office near the interview rooms and sat down with her sketch pad open before her.

There was very little on the page. Just the vague shape of a face surrounded by hair so long that Maggie suspected he'd worn a wig. At their first meeting a few days before, Ellen Randall had given Maggie that much. Longish hair, she'd felt it brush her skin when he bent over her.

But no other useful details, nothing for her to build on. Maggie had no feeling for the shape of the face, whether his forehead was high or low, his jaw strong or weak, his chin jutting or receding. She didn't even know if his complexion was smooth or rough; both Ellen and one other victim thought they remembered the touch of cool, hard plastic covering his face, as though he'd worn a mask.

Just the possibility disturbed Maggie, on a level as much instinctive as it was analytical. What man would be so wary of discovery, of being identified, that he would wear a mask even after blinding his victims? Of course, criminals seldom wanted to be identified, but Maggie had talked to the cops working on the investigation, and all of them agreed that this particular criminal was going to unusual extremes to protect his identity.

Why?

Was there something about his face even a blinded victim could recognize when it touched her? Scars, perhaps, or some other kind of deformity?

"Maggie?"

She didn't look up and swore silently at him for disrupting a mental musing that had often, in the past, produced results for her. "Hey, Luke."

He came into the office and sat down in the visitor's chair across from hers. "Any luck?"

"No, unless you count bad luck." She closed the sketch pad with a sigh. "Ellen froze up again. We were… interrupted, and it broke the connection I was trying to establish. I'll have to wait a few days and then get her back in here."

"I just talked to Hollis Templeton's doctor," Drummond said. "She's doing even better than he'd hoped, physically at least. He's hopeful the surgery was a success. If it was, if she can see again, then maybe…"

"Maybe what?" Maggie looked at him steadily. "Maybe she'll be a little less traumatized and able to help us?"

"It's possible, Maggie."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know it is. It's also possible she noticed things the other victims wouldn't have. Since she was an artist, I mean."

"Would you go try to talk to her? She hasn't said shit to any of us, but she might talk to you."

"I'd rather wait until she leaves the hospital. The atmosphere there isn't exactly conducive to the kind of conversation I need."

"I know, but… there's a lot of pressure, more every day. The newspapers, citizens' groups, the mayor. There's a panic building out there, Maggie, and I can't stop it. Get me something I can use to stop it."

"I can't work miracles, Luke."

"You have before."

She shook her head. "That was different. This guy is determined his victims will never testify against him. He's not letting them see him, he doesn't speak to them, he makes damned sure they don't get their hands on him. The only sense left is smell, and so far all I've got is that he smells like Ivory soap. Deliberately, of course. He's using the scent of the soap to block anything else they might smell."

"Yeah, I know he hasn't missed a trick so far. But, like you said, his most recent victim was an artist, and I'm told artists are trained to use their senses differently from most of the rest of us. Hollis Templeton might be able to give you more to go on. Try, Maggie. Please."

She had stopped wondering if he had any idea what he asked of her, of the victims. He didn't. Luke Drummond was a fair cop, an able administrator, and a good politician, but he didn't have much in the way of imagination or empathy, not when it came to victims.

Did he even guess she was as much a victim as the women she talked to? No, probably not.

"I'll go over there tomorrow," she said. "But if she won't talk to me, I can't press her, Luke. You know that."

"Just try, that's all I ask." He got to his feet, visibly relieved. She could almost see him silently deciding what he was going to tell the chief of police and the mayor. He wouldn't mention her by name, of course, just say that they were "pursuing a good lead in the investigation."

It wasn't that Luke Drummond didn't want to share the credit, it was just that he mistrusted what he didn't understand, and he didn't understand how she did what she did. He wouldn't have understood even if she had explained it to him-and she had no intention of doing that.

"I'll try," Maggie said, because there was nothing else he would hear.

"Great. Hey-have you talked to Garrett yet?"

"No, not yet."

"He's waiting out in the bullpen, I think."

"Yeah, I know."

Drummond looked down at her with a little frown. "Don't tell him any more than you have to. He might have the mayor and the chief in his hip pocket, but I don't like civilians being handed all the details of an ongoing investigation."

"Such as they are," Maggie murmured.

"You know damned well we're holding back a few things publicly. Like the Ivory soap bit. I'm just saying I'd rather we kept that stuff within the unit-to rule out copycats, if nothing else. I'm serious, Maggie."

"I know you are. Don't worry. John Garrett doesn't want to talk to me about things like that."

Drummond had started to turn away but paused as his attention was caught by what she'd said. "I thought you hadn't talked to him yet."

"I haven't."

"Then how do you-" He broke off and frowned. "Oh, yeah. I guess it makes sense he'd have only one thing on his mind, at least when he's talking to you. You were the last one to talk to Christina Walsh, weren't you?"

"So they tell me."

"I read the report," he said unnecessarily. "Garrett read it. I don't know what the poor bastard thinks you can tell him."

"I don't know either," Maggie said, lying.

"Tread lightly, Maggie. He can cause us a lot of trouble if he wants to."

She nodded but didn't say anything else, and Drummond left her alone in the office. Pushing John Garrett from her mind, at least for the moment, she opened her sketch pad again and stared down at the vague outline of a man's face.

"Who are you?" she murmured. "Who are you this time?"

Andy said, "I doubt Maggie knows the answer to why Christina killed herself, John. She hasn't mentioned it, and I think she would have."

"Maybe not. If it had nothing to do with your investigation, she might have kept it to herself."

Carefully, wary of what he knew was still an open wound, Andy said, "John, after what happened to Christina, suicide was probably the only option she felt she had left."

"His other victims didn't kill themselves."

"He didn't do to them what he did to her, you know that. The bastard was apparently still experimenting with ways of blinding his victims, and that acid did more than take her sight. Jesus, John-I know a lot of strong men who would have taken the same way out under those circumstances."