of my people didn't show up, but…'
'But?' said Danny, reaching for the coffee carafe.
The coffee was good, but what would you expect at the Wallen School?
'Yesterday was crazy,' said Hexton. 'I was on alone when Mr. Havel was killed. I don't think I was in the video room for more than half an hour all day.'
'And the door was open?' asked Lindsay.
'Unlocked,' said Hexton. 'We've never had a problem with the video room before.'
'You've got one now,' said Danny.
'Big time,' Hexton agreed.
'Any of the students in Havel's class know enough tech to alter the tapes?' asked Lindsay.
'All of them, probably,' said Hexton. 'It's not that hard. It just takes a little time.'
'How much time?' asked Danny. 'How long would it take someone to make those changes to the tape?'
'I don't know… Maybe twenty minutes. Maybe fifteen.'
'Anyone fooling with the tapes ran the risk of being caught in the act, right?' said Danny.
'Not if there were two of them,' said Lindsay. 'One to alter the tape, the other to watch for security to return.'
The call from Mac came while Stella sat in a chair at Connor Custus's bedside. She had more questions for Custus, who pretended to be asleep.
Custus had seen a soft orange-red when Stella focused a light on his closed eyes. There was no rapid eye movement under the lids, no vibration to show that he was dreaming. What she did see was a slight occasional movement that told her that Custus was faking.
She could have called him on his deception. She could have turned him over to the district attorney's office, but she had questions and she knew she was unlikely to get anything from the man other than more games and lots of talk. Stella was patient, but she was also tired and the chair was not comfortable.
When her cell phone rang, Stella quickly checked the charge in her battery. It had enough. She checked the caller ID and said, 'Mac.'
'How's it going?'
'A few loose ends,' she said.
'Tie it up. I need you on the mutilation case.'
He quickly brought her up-to-date. She listened, glancing at Custus who had turned his head almost imperceptibly so that he could better hear the conversation.
Stella asked questions. Mac answered patiently. Custus listened.
'I'll be right in,' she said.
'No,' said Mac. 'Just go to the elevator. Take it up to six and go to room six-oh-three.'
'What's there?' she asked.
'I am. We've got a possible lead. He was shot.'
'The killer shot him?'
'It's more complicated than that. Come up and I'll explain.
'Hawkes?'
'He's back at the lab with a knife our wounded witness found in his pocket.'
'His pocket? The killer put the knife in his pocket?'
'He did,' said Mac. 'And I'm hoping that it was a big mistake.'
'I'll be right up.'
She clicked off her phone and Custus, eyes still closed, said, 'I gather from your end of the conversation that you have one very sick whelp you're trying to bring to ground.'
'Yes,' said Stella.
It happens sometimes. More often than Stella wished it. She would track down a murderer only to find that she felt sorry for him or her or even liked the person. Connor Custus, if that was really his name, was responsible for the death of four people and who knows how many before that. True, he had not meant to kill anyone in Doohan's, but the law called it murder. Still, Custus was a charmer.
'I'm somewhat of an expert on murder for revenge,' Custus said. 'I've worked for and with organizations that exist for the sole purpose of vengeance. It's all relative. They tend to be dull and mirthless fanatics and no fun at a pub or poker table.'
'Your point?' asked Stella.
'Murder weapon in the pocket of an unwary and randomly selected traveler. I've actually seen just that before. It's all relative. Why this traveler's pocket? Because he had a wide and open pocket? And why not just throw the weapon away? Why take a chance on being caught in the act of reverse pocket picking?'
'Why?' asked Stella.
'Because,' said Custus, 'he wants to be caught. He has a message to deliver to the world about the wounds he has suffered and he will continue to send that message through his murders until you catch him and give him a martyr's forum. He leaves messages, doesn't he?'
'Are you a psychologist, too?' she asked.
'Oh, far better and worse than that,' he said with a smile, looking directly at her now. 'But it's all relative.'
Hawkes had spent three hours in bed after showering, shaving and making himself a protein shake. He couldn't down solid food, not yet. He hadn't slept. Each time he started to fall asleep he had felt the sudden sensation of falling, rapidly falling backward into darkness, knowing that if he didn't wake up he would keep falling until he was too deep to awaken.
He had sat up moist with sweat, hyperventilating.
The phone had rung and Mac asked him if he were up to going to the lab and examining the knife he had recovered from James Park. Hawkes welcomed the excuse for getting up and out.
He had showered again.
He knew the symptoms. He knew what was wrong. He would continue to feel the urge to clean himself, try to get rid of the imagined and real darkness of the damp pit he had shared with Custus. He could prescribe something for himself, probably would but he knew he would also have to deal with that fear he did not want to face, the fear of being entombed in an avalanche of filthy water and sharp-edged heavy slabs of plastic, plaster, metal and dead rats.
If he was not better in three days, he would seek help, short-term patch-up therapy. The department had good people, good therapists. The problem, he knew, was that he would know what they would say and what they would try. It was the curse of being a physician. In the long run, even with help, it would be a matter of physician heal thyself.
The best thing to do was to lose himself in work and Mac had just offered him the opportunity.
Hawkes finished dressing. He had a knife to examine.
Waclaw handed the diary to his widowed daughter-in-law. The children, Thad and Clara, were playing video games in Thad's room. They had been told that their father had died. They had been told that it was an accident. The trick would be to keep the truth from them, an impossible trick given the ready availability of the Internet, emails, television news, friends who found out, newspapers. They were young, but they would, when they were older, find out. She would have to talk to them about it but Anne didn't know how or when.
Her father-in-law was no help. He sat in front of her, his heavy lids drooped, his eyes moist. She understood no Polish and Alvin was no longer alive to translate for her.
