Touching Evil

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I should call John and Maggie," Andy said.

"No, let them sleep." Quentin glanced up at the big clock on the wall, then shifted restlessly on the uncomfortable couch in the hospital's waiting room. "It's nearly three. Besides, there's nothing they could do."

Andy watched him. "She'll be all right. You heard the doctor. Stable enough for surgery, and he didn't anticipate any complications."

"So why's it taking so long?" Quentin looked at the clock once again, frowning. His face was drawn, the anxiety in his eyes obvious.

"He said it could be hours, Quentin, you know that."

"Yeah. Yeah."

Jennifer came into the waiting room and immediately asked, "Any news?"

"Not yet," Andy told her. "Still in surgery. What about Robson?"

She sat down beside him on the couch across from the one Quentin occupied. "Under restraints and sedation. He won't be any help anytime soon, at least not verbally. But when we ran his prints, we did find out that about four years ago he was employed by one of the electronics companies in the city, a big one. They run three shifts, but I had to get the personnel manager out of bed so he could give me a list of employees working for the company at the same time. We're comparing it to the list Kendra had put together of every person even remotely connected to the victims or the investigation."

"So maybe this ghost he was so afraid of will turn up."

"Maybe." She shrugged, her gaze moving to Quentin. "He did specifically say the ghost had gotten him fired and mentioned being a programmer. And I do believe he saw somebody go into that building, somebody who was carrying something in a sack that was moving. So maybe it'll turn out to be a worthwhile lead after all."

Quentin stirred slightly and said, "It was a worthwhile lead. Stop blaming yourself."

"I should have at least checked to make sure he wasn't armed," she responded, her voice tight. "We knew he was paranoid, jumpy as hell, and the way he was clutching that duffel I should have at least taken it away from him."

"You couldn't have known."

Jennifer looked as if she wanted to continue protesting but just shook her head silently.

Quentin repeated, "You couldn't have known. No one can be on guard all the time against the unexpected. And there were two of you there, don't forget that. From what you told us, it was pure chance Kendra was the one who got hit."

"He's right," Andy told Jennifer.

She grimaced. "That doesn't make it easier."

"Yeah, I know." Andy looked back at Quentin. "Shouldn't you report in, call your boss? We tried to keep it quiet, but you know as well as I do that by morning the media will know an FBI agent was shot while questioning a witness."

"I'll call it in when we know something. Where the hell's that doctor?"

"He said he'd talk to us as soon as the surgery was finished," Andy answered patiently.

"Yeah. Right."

A silence fell that none of them was willing to break, and the clock quietly ticked away the minutes. It was just after three-thirty when the doctor finally came into the waiting room, tired but satisfied.

"We're not out of the woods yet, but everything looks good," he told them. "We were able to extract the bullet and repair the damage. She'll have to take it easy for a while, but there should be no complications. And we have an excellent trauma therapist on staff to help her through the emotional aftereffects of having been shot."

"Can I see her?" Quentin asked.

"Not until she comes out of recovery, and that'll be hours yet." He looked at all of them, adding, "My advice would be for you to get some sleep and come back later in the morning. Believe me, there's nothing you can do here, and we'll call if there's any change."

"Thank you, Doctor." When they were alone again, Andy said reluctantly, "We should all be back at the office. The search for that Caddie is narrowing, and the lead Jenn and Kendra were following could pay off at any time."

"I know." Quentin shifted his shoulders as if to ease tension that refused to leave him despite the good news. "And with every hour that passes, we're less and less likely to find Tara Jameson before he kills her. You two go on back to the station. I want to have another word with the doctor before I call Quantico and report in."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead. I'll be along in a few minutes."

After they left him, it took Quentin less than five minutes to find the surgical recovery area and Kendra. Between the lateness of the hour and his inborn ability to slip into places unnoticed, he was able to reach her bedside without being challenged.

She was either still sedated or sleeping deeply, and he didn't try to wake her. He just stood looking down at her for a long time, without moving, his face bleak.

"Sir? You shouldn't be in here." The nurse's voice was low but authoritative.

Quentin looked at her, saw her take a half step backward, and made a conscious effort to tone down the savagery he was afraid she had seen and smile reassuringly. "Yes, I know. It's all right. I'm leaving now."

Hesitant, the nurse said, "She'll be fine, sir."

"Yes. Thank you, Nurse." He sent a final look at Kendra, then left the room without another word.

He went directly to his rental car in the parking lot near the emergency room and started the engine but didn't move the car. It was a long time before he reached for his cell phone and punched in Bishop's familiar number.

Jennifer poured herself another cup of coffee, afraid to stop and try to figure out how much she'd consumed in the past couple of days. It was barely six A.M. on this cold, dreary Thursday in November, and she had enough caffeine in her system to stay awake until Christmas.

Not that she expected to sleep between now and then anyway.

Scott came into the room, looking as tired as the others but considerably more dusty. "If I never see another file again," he announced, "it'll be too soon."

Jennifer felt a stab of guilt. "I should have been helping you, Scott. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it." He grinned. "I'll get even later."

"The question is," Andy said, "did you find anything helpful?"

Triumphant, he said, "I found out what happened in 1894. Well, sort of."

Sitting at the conference table at Kendra's laptop, Quentin looked at him in respect. "How in hell did you do that? The computer databases haven't coughed up a damned thing."

"Punch in Boston," Scott advised.

"Kendra's the expert with this beast," Quentin said as he scowled at the laptop. "But I'll try."

Andy said, "What'd you find out, Scott? And how?"

He grimaced. "How is simple enough. That box of miscellaneous files I've been going through. I found the police report of the seventh victim from 1934." He opened the folder he was carrying and produced a photograph of a young woman with dark, curly hair and striking dark eyes.

It didn't take more than an exchange of glances to confirm that she was completely unfamiliar to all of them.

Andy sighed. "Why did I hope at least one of us might recognize the face of the next possible victim so we could do something about it before he grabs her?"

"Wishful thinking," Jennifer said. "It was always a real long shot, Andy, you know that."

"Yeah." He watched Scott pin the photo on the bulletin board in its proper place in the line of 1934 victims, then said, "But she was killed here, right, in Seattle? So how did you find anything about Boston and 1894?"

"One of the investigating officers in 1934 put a note in the file, apparently out of frustration more than anything else. Said he'd tried everything he could think of to find the bastard killing Seattle's young women, even thoroughly checking out all the family members of the victims despite their lack of motive- because his father, who had also been a cop, had told him about some murders that took place in Boston forty years before, murders that sounded eerily similar to the ones here, at least as far as what was done to the victims."

Quentin frowned at him. "So why did the cop focus on family members?"

"Because in the Boston murders, it was apparently the brother of at least one of the victims who committed the crimes." Scott shrugged. "He was vague on the details, just said these killings were different in some ways but he was desperate, willing to try anything, so he checked out family members."

"And?"

"Well, nothing more in that file. I still have more to look through, and we don't know anything about the eighth victim. Maybe there'll be more info in that folder-assuming I can find it."

Quentin looked at the humming laptop. "It'll take this thing a while to check the historical databases again, even with a specific city and date."

"I'm going to keep looking for the file on the eighth victim," Scott said. "Maybe there'll be more info that might help us."

"Get a shower and breakfast first," Andy told him. "And maybe sleep a couple hours, at least."

"I will if you will," Scott said dryly, and left the conference room before Andy could respond.

With a sigh, Jennifer said, "We're all going on caffeine, adrenaline, and nerves. Much longer, and none of us will be worth a damn." She got up. "I'm going to go see if we have anything useful yet on that company Robson worked for."

Andy's phone rang as she left, and he answered it with a hopeful expression that very quickly turned to grimness as he listened. Finally, he said, "Okay, yeah, tell 'em we're on our way." He cradled the receiver and muttered a curse under his breath.

Quentin lifted a questioning brow. "They found Tara Jameson?"

"No." Andy hesitated, then said, "But they found somebody else, Quentin. At least, it sounds like…"

After a moment, flatly, Quentin said, "Joey."

"Yeah. I'm afraid so."

Quentin didn't say anything during the trip with Andy out to the waterfront location, and after a glance at his face Andy didn't try to open a conversation. He thought fleetingly that the seemingly easygoing, humorous man beside him would be a very, very dangerous enemy, and he was glad they were on the same side. It wasn't the first time he'd thought that.

So he said nothing until he parked the car near a cluster of other police cars not too far from where 1-90 crossed over Lake Washington from Mercer Island. It was a fairly congested area, so it wasn't surprising that the body had been discovered so early by an unlucky jogger.

Andy said, "Given the tides, there's no telling where he was dumped into the water. The southern end of Lake Washington, probably, but that covers a lot of territory."

Quentin nodded but said nothing as they approached the taped-off area near the water's edge.

Andy stopped to talk to the detective in charge, but Quentin went on until he could look down on the body sprawled on the rocks half in and half out of the water. Faceup.

Cause of death was obvious. There was a gunshot wound to the center of the chest and another between the eyes. Quentin didn't have to hear the medical examiner explain it to know that the first shot had been to the chest-and had failed to stop Joey. Quentin hadn't known many men capable of withstanding what should have been a mortal injury, but he had no doubt it hadn't stopped Joey. It had taken a second bullet to do that.

'Ah, Joey," he murmured.

Andy joined him. "He had your card, which is why they called me." He shrugged when Quentin looked at him. "Word's got around already that the Bureau is helping out on the rapist investigation, so they knew who to call."

"How long's he been dead?" Quentin asked matter-of-factly.

"Preliminary estimate is eight to ten hours, give or take a couple. Some time last night."

Quentin turned his gaze to the lake before them, frowning. "So it didn't take him long to find whatever he found. Maybe he was near the water when he was shot, and maybe not."

"Yeah. Doesn't narrow the possibilities much."

"Not unless we can place an old black Caddie fairly close to the waterfront."

"You think he found it?"

"Don't you?"

Andy grimaced. "I think it'd be stretching coincidence too far to think somebody uninvolved killed him right after he started looking for the Caddie."

"Agreed." Quentin's mouth was a thin, grim line. "So let's find that goddamned car."

Jennifer met them back in the conference room, still obviously wired with caffeine, and announced, "Maggie just called; she and John are on their way in. And the computer's sifted through the information on that electronics company, but so far nothing. No name matches up to any on our list of family, friends, or acquaintances of the victims. Now I'm going over the list myself. I don't trust these damned machines."

The damned machine on the conference table beeped just then, and Quentin went to study the laptop's screen. "Okay, we have a couple of very brief articles from a Boston newspaper, 1894. A man named Robert Graham is suspected of murdering his entire family." He looked up suddenly. "Seven sisters. And his own wife."

"Any more details?" Andy demanded.

Quentin nodded and looked back at the screen. "A few. It was a fairly big story at the time, especially since nobody had a clue why he did it and because he'd already vanished when they found the bodies. In those days, it wasn't at all uncommon for even a large family of siblings to continue living together in the family home, especially if they remained unmarried. Apparently, none of Graham's sisters-all under the age of twenty-five-had married or had jobs, and he was supporting them. Their parents had died… just the year before, as a matter of fact, in what was probably a flu epidemic.

"They believed the killings were spread out over a period of at least three days. That he probably tied up or in some way restrained and gagged all of them, then took his time killing them, beginning with… his twin sister. They believe the wife was last; from the looks of it, he had tied her to their bed early on and left her there while he killed the others. She may or may not have been conscious and aware of what was going on."

"Christ," Andy muttered.

"Yeah. No descriptions of the victims, and precious few details of what he actually did to them-but they were all found with something covering their eyes, either bits of their own clothing or sheets, towels, something like that."

Jennifer drew a breath. "So he killed his own family-not what happened this time, with the victims all unrelated to each other. But he didn't want them to see or watch him-which is definitely like our guy and, apparently, the killer in 1934."

Quentin sat down at the table, rubbed his face briefly with both hands, and said, "Family members. Maybe the cop in 1934 was on to something."

Andy objected, "But our victims are unrelated, like Jenn said."

"Unrelated to each other, yes. But maybe at least one of them was related to her attacker."

"All the relatives have alibis for at least one period of time in which we know this guy was either snatching another woman or spending a few hours torturing one," Jennifer pointed out. "Every single one of them. We triple-checked that."

"What are we missing?" Quentin muttered. "There's something… a fact or question so all this will make sense."

Andy looked at Jennifer. "The list of the electronics company's employees was screened, but the computer was only looking for connections to family, friends, or acquaintances of the victims, you said?"

"Yeah."

"What about the victims themselves? Were their names included?"

"Sure. The computer said there was no connection."

He sighed. "Shit."

Quentin rubbed his face again and said, "You said you were going over the list yourself, Jenn, and I say it's a good idea. Maybe you'll see something that escaped the mathematical logic of a computer."

"Right." She immediately bent to the task.

"Andy, do we have a copy of that DMV list of black Caddies in the area?"

"Yeah-it's right here."

"Let's see if any of those names jump out at us."

"We can't possibly be that lucky," Andy said, but handed over half the list to Quentin.

They were all tired, too tired to be doing what they were doing. Not that it stopped them, of course. But the weariness did make Andy question what he thought he was seeing nearly half an hour later. "Reported stolen," he murmured.

Quentin looked at him across the table. "What?"

"There was a black Caddie reported stolen two years ago. Never found."

"Probably not so unusual," Quentin noted.

"No, not that part. It's who reported it stolen. Who it belonged to."

"Who?"

Before Andy could answer, Jennifer said, "Hey. Hey. Do you know who used to work for the same electronics company as David Robson? Who was, in fact, his boss in the software design department?"

Slowly, Andy said, "Simon Walsh."

She stared at him. "How'd you know that?"

"Lucky guess. He reported his father's old black Caddie as missing and probably stolen just over two years ago. I love a good coincidence, but this can't be one."

"Christina's husband," Jennifer said. "Christina's husband was David Robson's boss and had him fired, just like Robson said. And he used to own a black Cadillac?"

"Yeah."

"But he's dead."

"According to the record, yes." Andy looked at Quentin. "Which would explain why the computer didn't come up with a match. We didn't even have his name on our lists, since Christina was-or was supposed to be-a widow. It was a sailing accident, wasn't it? That supposedly killed him?"

"Yeah. In fact, since I knew Christina and John, I came to his memorial service." Quentin shook his head. "He was a sailing nut, often went out alone even in bad weather. This time, the storm won. And there were witnesses, of a sort. Another boat near enough to see Walsh struggling with equipment, see the boom swing and hit him. And over he went. The other boat pinpointed the area, there was a pretty massive search, and they recovered his boat mostly intact-but he was never found. As I remember, John hired experienced mariners and rescue people to search even after the official search was called off, but they had no better luck than the Coast Guard."

Jennifer fumbled for a cinnamon toothpick and thought longingly of a cigarette. "But, Andy-she was his wife. You're saying he did that to his own wife? The rape? The acid?"

Softly but with a distinct note of loathing in his voice, Quentin said, "Vows don't mean much to sociopaths, Jenn. After what you've seen him do, how can you doubt he'd balk at brutalizing a loyal and loving wife?"

Andy said, "And wasn't Walsh some kind of computer genius?"

Quentin nodded. "Electronic security systems would have been child's play for him."

Jennifer was still protesting. "If you're right about this, Christina was his second victim. Why marry her, then fake his own death a few years later-and not attack Laura Hughes until a year and a half after that?"

Quentin said, "He might have been drawn to

Christina without really knowing why and believed himself in love. Sociopaths don't feel the way we do, but they often pretend to feel, to live normal lives. He could have married her, intending to live that normal life. Then either felt too confined or just got tired of the game. Faking his death was a nice dramatic way out of all the ties binding him, gaining him his freedom without any messy emotional confrontations.

"Then he sees Laura Hughes one day," Quentin continued, "and something about her face triggers his psychosis. We can be pretty sure it's the way these women look that makes him single them out, even if we're not entirely sure what it is. He sees Laura-and goes after her. Once he attacks her, once he begins to explore and satisfy his needs, his hungers, whatever restraints he felt before would melt away. He not only has the taste of it but possibly understands now why he was drawn to Christina, why her face attracted him in the first place. And she becomes his next victim."

It sounded all too horribly likely, even to Jennifer. She stopped protesting.

Andy drew a deep breath. "Okay, we've got to start looking for a dead man. And we have to do something else."

"Yeah," Quentin said. "We have to tell John."

Hollis adjusted the sunglasses on her nose. They felt oddly loose somehow. Looser than the bandage had been.

"We'll keep the lights out in here, Hollis," the doctor said, his voice both soothing and disappointed. "We don't want to add any unnecessary strain. It may just take a little time, that's all. The muscles are working properly, and the pupils. The optic nerve looks fine. The eyes themselves are very bloodshot in appearance, but that's perfectly normal."

Hollis thought he minded more than she did. "It's all right, doctor. We both knew the odds."

"I don't want you to lose hope, Hollis. In optical surgeries, there's often a period of adjustment when the bandages come off. Give it a little time, okay?"

"I don't have any pressing appointments," she said lightly.

He sighed. "I'll come back in a few hours, and we'll check again."

"Sure."

When she was alone again, Hollis turned her face toward the window. The blustery night had been followed by a miserable day, according to the nurses. Wet, dreary, cold. So she wasn't missing much, at least as far as the view out the window went.

But she would have liked to see it.

She really would have liked to see it.

Hollis?

"Hello, Annie. Were you around when the doc was here? I'm still blind, you know." Her voice was the same as it had been with the doctor, even and calm, almost placid.

Hollis, listen to me. Are you listening?

"Sure. Sure I'm listening."

You have to see.

"I can't."

Yes, you can. The eyes are yours now, Hollis. They belong to you. They were a gift, so you could see. You must see.

"But I can't. Just darkness. That's all I see." Do you want to help Maggie?

Hollis sat very still, her fingers curling on the arms of the chair to grip hard. "You know I do." Then you have to see, Hollis.

"But-" You have to see.