Prine was stretched out on the couch, his head propped on a holster
pillow. He was reading The New York Times. 'Secrets?'
'I just found out that at your direction the company has hired a private
detective agency to snoop on Graham Harris' '
'They're not snooping. All I've asked them to do is establish Harris's.
whereabouts at certain hours on certain days.
'You asked the detectives not to approach Harris or his girlfriend
directly. That's snooping. And you asked them for a forty-eight-hour
rush job, which triples the cost. If you want to know where he was, why
don't you ask him yourself?'
'I think he'd lie to me.'
'Why should he lie? What certain hours? What certain dates?'
Prine put down the paper, sat up, stood up, stretched. 'I want to know
where he was when each of those ten women was killed.'
Perplexed, blinking somewhat stupidly, Stevenson said, 'Why?'
'If on all ten occasions he was alone-working alone, seeing a movie
alone, walking alone-then maybe he could have killed them.'
'Harris? You think Harris is the Butcher?'
'Maybe.'
'You hire detectives on a maybe?'
'I told you, I've distrusted that man from the start. And if I'm right
about this, what a scoop we'll have!'
'But Harris isn't a killer. He catches killers.'
Prine went to the bar. 'If a doctor treats fifty patients for influenza
one week and fifty more the next, would it surprise you if he -got
influenza himself during the third week? '
'I'm not sure I get your point.'
Prine filled his glass with bourbon. 'For years Harris has been tuning
in to murder with the deepest levels of his mind, exposing himself to
trauma as few of us ever do. He has been literally delving into the
minds Of wife killers, child killers, mass murderers.... He's probably
seen more blood and violence than most career cops. Isn't it
conceivable that a man, unstable to begin with, could crack from all the
violent input? Isn't it conceivable that he could become the kind of
maniac he's worked so hard to catch?'
'Unstable?' Stevenson frowned. 'Graham Harris is as stable as you or
me.'
'How well do you know him?'
'I saw him on the show.'
'There's a bit more you should know.' Prine caught sight of himself in
the mirror behind the bar cabinet; he smoothed his lustrous white hair
with one hand.
'For example?'
'I'll indulge myself in amateur psychoanalysis-amateur but probably
accurate. First of all, Graham Harris was born into borderline poverty
and-'
'Hold on. His old man was Evan Harris, the publisher.
'
'His stepfather. His real father died when Graham was a year old. His
mother was a cocktail waitress. She had trouble keeping a roof over
