"Gladly. Beats the hell out of sitting at my desk taking call after call from panicky citizens."
Scott said, "Hey, Andy, you think we might have something here? Maybe this guy is copying old crimes by hunting for look-alike victims?"
"Maybe," Andy said. "But let's not get too excited just yet, okay, guys? One sketch doesn't mean much, except maybe that all of us have-or had-doubles in the world. Just keep digging, and bring me anything you find."
"You bet, Andy. Want us to leave this file for you?"
"Yeah." Andy accepted the file and wished the younger cops a good night. They walked out together, talking, and he wasted a minute or so wondering if they were sleeping together. Not very surprising, if so, and they wouldn't be the first pairing in the department. But he hoped they were smarter than that.
When he was alone again, he stared at the sketch of a young woman long dead and gone. Hell, twice dead and gone, or at least that was how it looked. Pamela Hall, stabbed to death in 1934 after being brutally raped; Laura Hughes, brutally raped and beaten in 2001, blinded, dying days later of her injuries.
The two women didn't just resemble each other-they were virtually identical, right down to the little mole at the left corner of their mouths. But an artist had drawn this sketch with only the battered face of the victim as a guide, and Andy reminded himself that artists were hardly infallible.
Except for Maggie, anyway.
Andy combed through the file, but it held precious little information. From the sound of their notes, the investigating cops had been saddened by the murder of this young woman but not surprised; she had been found in the bad part of town, and it was clear they considered it her own fault that she had placed herself in the path of danger. Still, they had investigated methodically for a while-and then moved on to the next crime demanding their attention.
The postmortem notes were no more helpful. The victim had died of blood loss and shock; there was evidence of forcible sexual activity, and she was beaten and bruised. It was the opinion of the doctor that she had fought her attacker, evidenced by the injuries to her arms and hands, but her strength had, clearly, been no match for his.
Andy went back to studying the sketch. Were Scott and Jennifer right in their speculation? Was their modern-day serial rapist choosing his victims from old unsolved cases?
It was, of course, ridiculous to base an assumption such as that one on a single example, but Andy couldn't help doing a little speculating himself. So far, they hadn't been able to find any pattern in the means or reasoning their rapist had used to choose his victims. Since one of the women had been abducted from a crowded shopping mall and another from her high-security apartment building, they had ruled out simple ease of access, which meant he was picking his victims some other way and quite deliberately.
Could he be using old unsolved investigations? And if he was, had he found the information he sought in books? Or in the actual files themselves?
If he was, Andy hoped it was the former. He really hoped so. Because he was pretty sure that the only people who could have gained access to the old files without attracting notice were cops.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3
Maggie wasn't terribly surprised to find John Garrett at the hospital when she arrived to talk to Hollis Templeton shortly after two o'clock. She also wasn't terribly happy about it.
"The interview will be private," she told him.
"I know that. I just thought we might be able to get a cup of coffee somewhere afterward. Talk."
She didn't bother to explain that interviews such as this one was likely to be usually left her feeling something less than sociable. "I doubt I'll have any new information," she warned him instead. "The first interview with a victim seldom produces anything we can use."
"I understand that. I'd still like to talk. And-there's someone I'd like you to meet."
Maggie was curious enough about that to nod and say fine, that she'd meet him at the waiting area near the elevators when she was finished with her interview. Then she went on to Hollis Templeton's room, braced herself as well as she could, and knocked quietly before going in.
"Miss Templeton?"
"Yes?" She was sitting by the window, her face turned toward it even though bandages covered her eyes. She was dressed in jeans and a bulky sweater, much as Maggie was dressed herself-even to the comfortable running shoes. Her brown hair was short and styled for a casual look and ease of care, nothing at all fussy about it.
Maggie crossed the small room to stand by the empty chair apparently awaiting her. "I'm Maggie Barnes."
"I see." Her face turned toward Maggie, and lips that bore a healing cut moved in a smile. "Well, I don't, really. Have you ever stopped to think about how many things we say using words like see and look, when we don't actually mean to describe doing anything visual?"
Maggie slipped into the chair. "I've thought about it a lot lately," she answered.
Hollis smiled again, her face seemingly unmarked except for the healing cut-and those bandaged eyes. "Yes, I imagine in speaking to blinded victims you find verbal minefields all over the place. I'm Hollis, by the way. A ridiculous family name. My father tried to shorten it to Holly when I was small, but I hated that even more."
Maggie had talked to too many victims of violent crime to find the conversation in any way strange; some victims had to discuss irrelevant things first, partly to delay reliving the pain of what had happened to them and partly to at least attempt to establish a feeling of normalcy. So she was able to respond easily and without impatience.
"Most people think Maggie is short for Margaret, but it isn't. I've always been Maggie."
"It's a good name. It means pearl, did you know?"
"Yes."
"Hollis means lives by the holly trees. What kind of name is that for a grown woman?" She shook her head, adding abruptly, "Dumb subject. And trivial. Sorry, I don't mean to waste your time."
"You aren't, Hollis. I'm glad you called us."
"Us." She nodded as though a private thought had been confirmed. "So you do consider yourself one of the cops, huh?"
"I guess so."
"It can't be a fun job, listening to horrible stories about… man's inhumanity to man."
"No, that part of it isn't fun."
"Why do you do it?"
Maggie studied the other woman, noting the stiff posture, the hands still bearing faint scratches and fading bruises gripping the arms of the chair tensely. Slowly she said, "I… have a knack. I listen to disparate details and manage to put them together to form a picture. A face."
Hollis tilted her head slightly. "Yes, but why do you do it? Were you a victim once?"
"No."
"Somebody you cared about?"
Maggie almost shook her head, then remembered Hollis couldn't see her. It was an odd surprise; she could almost feel a gaze, feel attention fixed on her so completely that it was as if the other woman could see her. "No," she murmured, answering the question even as she wondered if what she felt was her imagination-or something more.
"Is it pity?"
If Hollis was expecting a swift denial, she didn't get it. Calmly Maggie said, "I imagine that's part of it. Pity, sympathy, whatever you want to call it."
Hollis smiled. "You're honest. Good."
"I try to be."
A little laugh escaped Hollis. "And truthful enough to know it isn't always possible to be completely honest with other people."
"A lesson sadly learned."
"Life is full of them." Abruptly, Hollis said, "I know I'm the fourth victim. I remember reading in the newspapers that the first two were dead."
"Yes."
"But he didn't leave them dead. They died later."
"Laura Hughes died of her injuries. Christina Walsh killed herself about a month after she was attacked."