Touching Evil

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."

"You've been right more than you've been wrong," John admitted.

"Thank you,' Quentin said dryly.

"But how is it possible to know something before it happens? Explain that by taking what we know to be scientific and extending it to the next logical level."

"I can't. The truth is, I have no idea how I'm able to do it. If I understood it, I could probably control it. I could say to myself, Quentin old buddy, how will the stock market look by, say, the end of the year? What lottery numbers are going to come up winners? Which one of the dotcom companies is really worth an investment? Who'll win the Super Bowl?" He shrugged. "But it doesn't work like that. I wish it did-but it doesn't."

"Which is why you can't tell me if the police are going to catch this rapist."

"Which is why. I only know what my wayward mind chooses to tell me-and that isn't something I've been told. So far, at least. Sometimes, once I've got involved in a situation, I've been able to pick up facts related to the future of that situation-but my control could best be described as erratic as hell."

"That's not much help."

"Tell me about it. You know, my boss says that if a psychic is ever born who can totally control his or her abilities, the whole world will change. He's probably right. He usually is. Dammit."

John stirred slightly. "And speaking of Bishop-how long before he shows up here with blood in his eye?"

"Never, I hope." Quentin sighed. "Realistically, I figure I've got maybe forty-eight hours or so until the case he's on breaks or he has a spare minute or two to realize I should be back at Quantico by now. I was going to ask Kendra to run interference for me, but I figured we'd need her here. She's a crackerjack profiler and researcher as well as an adept, and we may well need all her abilities."

"She's at the hotel?"

"Yeah. On the computer, tapping into every database we thought might be helpful. And I suggest we go back there. This place is giving me the creeps."

"Professionally, or psychically?"

"Both. Not being empathic, all I get is a sense that the bastard picked his dumping place very carefully-but I don't know why. The cop in me sees the signs that other cops went over this area with a fine-tooth comb. I won't find anything they missed. You have the forensics report?"

"A copy, yeah." By mutual consent, both men turned and began making their way out of the abandoned building. "I have no way of knowing, of course, how complete it is. But I'm betting Drummond has given orders to hold back on at least some information."

"Probably. It's standard procedure to keep some facts within the investigating unit-to weed out copycats and more quickly zero in on similar crimes, if nothing else."

"Maybe, but I figure this is personal."

"Don't get paranoid."

"It isn't that. I've weighed enough competitors across boardroom tables to know when someone is out to beat me. Drummond wants his people to find this bastard, and he wants it bad. He isn't above keeping some information out of my hands just to make sure I'm handicapped."

"His political aspirations?"

"Partly. And he's the competitive sort by nature."

"Well," Quentin said, "we can work around that. Hopefully. You do realize we're going to have to be very, very careful not to do anything to impede the official investigation?"

"I realize that."

"And that your Maggie is going to have to walk a very fine line while she works to help both us and the police?"

"After what happened here, I'm not at all sure she'll be willing to help us," John said.

"Willing," Quentin said, "has little to do with it. Unless I miss my guess, Maggie Barnes feels she has to help us. She simply doesn't have a choice."

"I don't like it," Andy said. He stared down at the scrap of paper now sealed in a clear plastic evidence envelope, feeling as grim as he looked. "Jenn, you're sure this wasn't in your car when you got back from lunch today?"

"Positive. So somebody put it in there while my car-my locked car-was parked in a police lot. Lousy security around here, Andy."

He looked across his desk at Jennifer, not misled by the flippant tone. And he didn't blame her for being shaken. He was pretty damned unnerved himself. "Assuming this is useful information and not just a couple of random numbers, and assuming it's even connected to this particular case, I suppose somebody might have been trying to help us. Or it could have been some enterprising member of the press, maybe trying to get a reaction out of us," he speculated. "It's at least conceivable that one of them might have stumbled onto the 1934 murders."

Scott, sitting across from Jennifer in Andy's other visitor's chair, said reluctantly, "Isn't that a bit of a stretch? I mean, even supposing a reporter dug up the similar murders, why tell us-and anonymously? Why not just run with the story?"

"Yeah, it's a stretch," Andy admitted. "The truth is, I can't think of a reason why anybody'd do this. Except for our perp, that is."

Having given the matter a lot of thought, Jennifer shook her head. "I don't see that. He's gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to hide from us-why step out into the open and do this? If he wanted to taunt us, I figure he'd do it another way. Maybe leave something on the victim or change his M.O. suddenly. But notes left in a cop's car? No, I don't think it's him."

"Then who?" Scott demanded. "You and I stumbled into this just tossing around ideas because we were frustrated there wasn't more we could do. How likely is it that somebody else took the same turns and reached the same possibility?"

"Not very," she admitted. "Besides which, if this note was intended to be helpful, then why give it to us anonymously and make damned sure there were no prints on it? Why not come forward and explain themselves?"

Slowly, Andy said, "Unless whoever it is knows there's a connection because he-or she-knows or suspects who the rapist is. It wouldn't be the first time a family member or suspicious wife or girlfriend knew just enough to worry about it but was too afraid or ashamed of their suspicions to come forward openly."

"A good possibility. But why the hell did they have to pick my car? And how'd they unlock and then re-lock the doors without leaving signs, dammit?"

"Maybe it was a locksmith," Scott offered, only half joking.

Andy shrugged. "Hell, maybe it was just somebody who knows cars well enough to be able to get into yours, Jenn. Or had an electronic key that worked. In these days of glorified electronics, it's getting easier rather than harder to jack cars, so why not? Anyway, until we find out who left the note, there's no way of knowing."

"I really hate not knowing," Jennifer said gloomily.

Andy picked up the scrap of paper and studied it more closely. "Do any of those books of yours have murders listed for 1894?"

"Nothing like what we have here, or at least I don't think so. I might be able to find other books, but when I found these they seemed to be all the ones available on local unsolved crimes."

"That means we'll have to depend on our own police files. And we'll have to look all the way back to 1894."

Scott groaned. "Shit. I can already tell you that either we do the legwork ourselves, going into the basements and storage rooms of the other buildings to dig into the files, or else somebody's going to have to make it a priority request to get us some more willing hands. Andy, I've been pretty cagy about asking so far-I haven't wanted to say what case it is, not when all this is so…"

"Iffy?" Jennifer supplied dryly.

"Weird," Scott corrected. "Call a spade a spade. Anyway, without something more solid to go on, I didn't really want to tell file clerks in the other divisions why I was interested in the old files. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to talk to the detectives about it-at least not until we're sure there's a connection."

"Not even then,' Andy ordered after only a moment's thought. "We keep this among ourselves for the time being. If our guy is a copycat and we've managed to find his playbook, I sure as hell don't want to show our hand. The last thing we need is anybody outside the team discovering what we've found and broadcasting the info."

"That means we do the legwork." Jennifer didn't appear to be nearly as daunted as Scott was. Her eyes were very bright and she was smiling a little. "We'll need some kind of excuse, Andy, if we don't want the other cops to start wondering what we're up to. I mean, how often do we need to dig up files over a hundred years old?"

Andy pursed his lips as he considered that, his mind turning over various possibilities. Then he smiled. "I've got it. Everybody knows Drummond is ambitious as hell and always coming up with this theory or that plan to improve police efficiency so the political powers that be will take notice. So we tell anybody who asks that he's got a new bee in his bonnet and has us hunting down records of past crimes in order to do a comparative study. As long as it's one of you asking and not me, I don't see anybody tying it to a current investigation, and most especially not this one."

"Because we're glorified gofers," Scott said, sighing.

"No," Andy corrected, "because I've had TV cameras shoved in my face as the lead detective on this investigation; the rest of our team is thankfully invisible to the public-and to most cops outside this division.

Just keep your requests casual and try to sound completely bored with the whole thing."

"Are you going to tell Drummond about this?" Jennifer asked.

"Not yet. Not unless and until we have some very solid connections between past victims and present ones."

Voicing a reluctant thought, Jennifer said, "What if we do all this work and still end up with information that doesn't help us stop this creep? Knowing how many women he plans to attack won't help us identify possible victims before he gets them. Records this old, we're lucky to get sketches and reasonably accurate descriptions of the victims, and we can only connect those to crimes he's already committed."

"So what good will it do us to find all the files?" Scott echoed.

"It might do us a lot of good," Andy said. "Think about it. If this bastard is copying past crimes, he has to have a source for his information. And if we're lucky, it'll either be books like those Jenn found-or our files. Either way, we may be able to find something-a name on a library card or notation by a police file clerk that a certain file was checked out for research purposes by whoever. Anything that might point us in his direction."

"Would he have been that careless?" Jennifer wondered.

Andy smiled. "Careless? What possible fact or lead would have caused us to look a hundred years into the past for clues? The very idea is absurd."

Across town in his studio, Beau Rafferty worked on the painting that was his latest commission, using an exceptionally fine brush to get the most painstaking detail exactly right. He was a perfectionist. Always had been.

And he had an ever-present sense of his surroundings, a built-in radar that told him whenever someone was near. Even when they didn't make a sound opening his front door or moving through his house to the studio.

"One of these days, I'll have to start locking that door," he said without turning around.

"That might be a good idea. These are dangerous times."

"The times are always dangerous. People never change." Beau glanced back over his shoulder at the visitor. "Is that why you're here?"

"Don't you know?"

Beau returned his attention to the painting and very carefully shadowed a character line in the lovely face. "No. I didn't see you. I probably should have, I guess. You're usually around when bad things start happening."

"Bad things have been happening here for quite a while."

"Yes. So what brings you now? Maggie?"

"Would that surprise you?"

"No, not really. You were back east when it started, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"They never put it together when it started." Beau shook his head. "Not so surprising, I suppose. He's always more lucky than he is careful. And he's very careful."

"He doesn't want them to see him."

Beau turned at last from the painting, frowning as he began to clean his brushes. "But Maggie will see him. Sooner or later. She's determined to. The only question is, will she see him before he sees her."

"I know."

"I want to help her."

"I know you do. But you can't."

"I could at least tell her what to watch out for. Who to trust."

"No. You can't do that, and you know it. Free will. You've already told her too much."

Beau put his brushes away and studied his visitor wryly. "I haven't told her about you."

"I appreciate that."

"Do you? I wonder." Beau shook his head. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know after all. Is there a particular reason you came to see me today?"

"Yes. I wanted to talk to you about Christina Walsh. And why she died."