The Dead Man

Chapter Forty

"Had enough for one day?" Lucy asked.

"Two dead people are two more than my daily limit."

"I had to park a couple of blocks away. I'll get the car and meet you in the circle drive."

"I can walk, you know."

"I know. Makes me feel better if you let me get the car."

I'd learned that it helps some people to help me even if I didn't need the help, a gentle reminder that nothing happens to just one person.

"Fair enough. I'll meet you downstairs in ten minutes."

I watched the rest of Delaney's video. Corliss took him through the dream sequence several more times, but Delaney didn't change a detail. Each time, he pulled out his gun with his right hand, held it to his right temple, and stuck it back in his pants when Corliss told him to do so, Corliss never asking or checking whether the gun was loaded. The more they went through the motions, the more it began to look like they were rehearsing a one-act play though I doubted Delaney realized it would close on opening night.

I e-mailed Delaney's video to Carter, downloaded it to my flash drive, and packed the incident reports into the canvas satchel that passed as my briefcase. The rest of the institute's employees must have taken to heart Sherry's suggestion that everyone go home early because the halls were quiet and empty and one of the elevators opened the instant I pushed the call button. For the second day in a row, it stopped on the third floor and Maggie Brennan stepped on. She had replaced her gray scarf and gray coat with an identical version in black.

"It seems we're fated to make this trip together," she said.

"I could do worse."

She tilted her head at me. "I'm not so certain but thank you for the vote of confidence."

"You're welcome. New coat?"

She raised her arm. "I finally tired of the other one."

"Some day, huh? It's good that everyone gets tomorrow off."

She nodded. "A day of rest suits me. The police talked to me and I heard what happened with that young man. Do you think he killed that girl?"

"He had a reason to run. That could have been it."

"You don't sound convinced."

"Let's just say I'm agnostic on the subject," parroting her uncertainty about the dream project.

She smiled. "Are you teasing me?"

"A little. Truth is I like to take my time before accepting a quick and easy answer to something as hard to figure out as murder."

"Then you would have made a good scientist. I heard talk that the young man, what was his name?"

"Leonard Nagel."

"Yes. Leonard. I heard that he had been in trouble before."

"He had. He may have been guilty or he may just have been running from his past."

"The past is difficult to outrun. It chases us like the sound of the driven leaf."

"You've lost me."

"It's from Leviticus," she said, reciting the verse. "'As for those of you who survive, I will cast a faintness into their hearts in the land of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight. Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues.'"

The elevator stopped on the ground floor and we stepped out.

"What does that have to do with Leonard?"

"He'd sinned and survived. That made him weaker, not stronger, afraid of the simplest and smallest things, like the sound of a driven leaf. Perhaps that's what drove him into that intersection."

"But he was pursued. I was chasing him."

"I've known many people like your Leonard. He wasn't running from you. He was running from himself and none of us wins that race."