Kay Hooper - Touching Evil

"My favorite pastime," Jennifer muttered sardonically as they moved toward the men's dormitory. "Arguing with a drunk or two."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and find David Robson quickly," Kendra offered.

But nobody was more surprised than she was when they did, in fact, find him ten minutes later, after another man told them Robson had gone upstairs to find himself a more private area of the house.

"Thinks he's too good for the rest of us," their informant sniffed, sounding quite insulted.

The man sitting on the next cot disagreed. "Naw, he don't think he's better'n us, he's just skittish as hell. Somebody dropped a shoe on the floor a while ago, and he damn near ran back out the door."

"Why's he nervous?" Kendra asked.

The man gave a thick chuckle. "Says a ghost is after him. So you'd better not say boo to him, ladies." He cackled happily at his own wit.

Jennifer and Kendra exchanged glances, then thanked the men and made their way back out of the dormitory and to the front stairs.

"After all this," Jennifer said, "if the guy turns out to be completely delusional, I'm going to be really pissed."

"I know what you mean."

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, encountering the director in the hallway. When they reported what the men downstairs had told them, she said, "If he's looking for more privacy, he may have taken one of the small back bedrooms; several of them haven't started to fill up yet."

They looked into two such bedrooms, finding one occupied by a snoring man who didn't come close to matching the description they had and the other still empty. In the third room they checked-the most isolated bedroom in the house-they found David Robson.

Jennifer realized instantly why Terry's description had been so unhelpful. Robson looked like two-thirds of the men presently at the shelter, virtually interchangeable with them. He could have been any age between thirty and fifty. He was hunched and thin, wearing shabby clothing too lightweight for the weather, and both his rather wild hair and his thick beard were a nondescript brown with threads of gray. His eyes were heavy-lidded, a muddy brown color, and more than a little bloodshot.

Also like so many of the men in this place, he was uneasy in the presence of police, literally backing himself into a corner of the small room and clutching in front of him an ancient canvas duffel that apparently contained all his worldly possessions.

Working together instinctively, the two women separated a bit as they came in, with Kendra moving a couple of feet to one side to lean casually against a low chest and leaving Jennifer to step closer to Robson. It was a tactic designed to make him feel less threatened, but it only half worked; his eyes moved nervously back and forth between them almost continually.

"I didn't do nothing," he protested as soon as Jennifer told him who they were.

"We know that, David," she replied soothingly. "We'd just like to ask you a few questions, that's all. About that ghost you saw a few weeks back."

He stiffened and pressed himself even tighter into the corner. "I didn't see nothing. Whoever said I did is a liar."

Jennifer hadn't expected it to be easy but nevertheless stifled a sigh. "You aren't in trouble, David, I promise. Nobody wants to hurt you. We'd just like to know what you saw that night. You were on the catwalk, weren't you? Sleeping in that old warehouse? And you looked out the window?" Not being in a courtroom, she didn't have to worry about leading her witness; all she wanted was something-anything- that might help her find or at least identify the rapist.

He swallowed visibly and made a little sound in the back of his throat, a frightened sound. "He went to drown the puppies. I know he did. He went to drown them, and now he's looking for me."

"We won't let him find you," Jennifer reassured him. "You're safe here. Did he have the puppies in a sack, David?"

He nodded jerkily. "Yeah, a bag. Carried it over his shoulder."

"And you saw them moving?"

"Poor things. Poor little things. He'd already hurt 'em, cause they was bleeding. I saw the blood on the bag. He never liked dogs. Never liked 'em at all. Probably cause they didn't like him. Dogs know who's good. Dogs know."

Jennifer tried not to let the excitement she felt alter her relaxed and unthreatening tone. "It was night, David, and you weren't close; how did you know it was blood you saw?"

"I saw it! I smelled it!"

Wary of getting him too agitated, she tried another tack. "Did you see him when he got to the building, David? Did you see his car?"

Robson clutched his duffel closer to his chest with one arm, while his free hand plunged into the bag and brought out a ring of rusted keys. "D'you think he dropped these? I think he dropped these. I'll give them to him when he comes to get me, and maybe he'll leave me alone. D'you think he'll leave me alone? He likes keys."

Jennifer glanced at Kendra, finding the agent studying Robson with a faint frown, then returned her attention to the man as she wondered if she was asking the right questions. You never knew, not with a witness like this one.

"The car, David. Did you see it?"

He stared at the keys in his hand, then dropped them back in the bag and began rummaging again. "It was here. I know it was right here…"

"David, did you see the car?"

"What? Oh. He took the puppies out of the trunk."

"You saw that? What color was the car, David?"

"Black. Black as the inside of hell. Big sonofabitch too. Maybe a Lincoln, I don't know."

Jennifer drew a breath and probed carefully. "So he carried the bag of puppies into the building. Did he have the bag when he came back out, David?"

"Had the bag. But it was empty. He'd drowned the puppies and left them in there. I told you that!" he snapped suddenly.

"I'm sorry, David, I'd forgotten." She paused, then said, "You know who he was, don't you? You know who the ghost was?"

He made another of those frightened sounds in the depths of his throat. "Dead. They said he was dead, but the devil can't die. I know he's the devil. I know it! I saw him one time. Saw him looking at her, and there was nothing in his eyes. Nothing. Why was that?" he demanded of Jennifer suddenly, desperately. "Why was there nothing?"

"I don't know, David. Maybe if you told me who he is-

"No! If I tell you, he'll know! He always knew, always. Always watching, smiling. Always knew when I messed up the code." The muddy eyes shifted between Jennifer and Kendra, worried, fearful, increasingly anxious. "I'm a good programmer! I am! He knew that, even though he got me fired."

"David-"

"You're going to tell him I'm here, aren't you? You're going to help him get me!"

"No, David, we just want to-"

It happened with horrifying suddenness. The duffel bag fell to the floor, and Robson was holding a pistol, his hand shaking so badly that it was pure chance it was aimed toward anything at all when it went off.

Jennifer was moving, reacting instinctively as she lunged toward him, dimly aware that Kendra was moving as well. But both of them were just a little too far away and just a heartbeat too slow in reacting.

The bullet tore through the sleeve of Jennifer's coat and slammed Kendra back against the wall.

Some time around eight John heard the shower, and by the time Maggie came out he had the soup ready for them. She looked more fragile than he'd ever seen her, faint purple shadows under her eyes despite the sleep and far too much tension in the set of her shoulders.

He could still see a thin red line across her throat.

"You didn't have to stay," she said at one point.

"Finish your soup."

Maggie looked at him for a moment, catlike golden eyes grave, then silently did as he ordered.

"Now I understand why you never walked through Christina's apartment after she died," he said suddenly. "Because she died there. Because you would have felt it."