"The M.E.'s report on Samantha Mitchell," he told Quentin, not without satisfaction. "A few hours earlier than expected."
"Anything we didn't know?" Quentin asked, accepting the folder and opening it.
"Nah, not really. At least, not that I can see."
Quentin began reading the report, and almost immediately stiffened. "Shit."
Alarmed by the tone, Andy said, "What?"
"She died there? Samantha Mitchell died where her body was found?"
"Yeah. But we knew that."
Quentin grabbed his cell phone and began punching in a number, saying grimly, "Not all of us knew it."
John couldn't have said why he felt uneasy. Maybe it was simply because he still had trouble even imagining what Maggie was doing, what it was like to literally feel the sensations and emotions experienced by another person days and even weeks before, simply by walking through a place where they had occurred. Maybe it was this dark, chilled, and definitely eerie building. Or maybe it was just his own increasing sensitivity to emotions. His.
And hers.
"Creepy place, even with only five senses," he offered, more to maintain contact with Maggie than anything else.
He saw her turn her head toward him for a brief instant, but then she was gazing toward that dark doorway at the end of the hall, moving toward it.
John had the strongest impulse to stop her, to get his hands on her so that he could-could what?
His cell phone rang, and he jumped as the strident sound broke the silence. Maggie didn't even seem to hear it, still walking toward the room, going through the doorway. He followed, though he was still behind her as he dug his phone out and opened it. And he heard even before he could get the phone to his ear.
"John? Get out of there." Quentin's voice was sharp, imperative.
"What? What're you-"
"Listen to me. Get out of there. Get Maggie out. Now. She died there, John. Samantha Mitchell died there, in that room. And if Maggie gets too close-"
John heard a thud, saw Maggie's flashlight hit the floor, and quickly pointed his own at her. He was still behind her and at first saw only the cloud of her hair, long and a little wild. But then she turned slowly, making an odd choking sound.
Her hands were at her throat, the face above them very pale, and her mouth was open as though she wanted to say something to him.
For an eternal instant, John was frozen, just staring at her. Then she took her hands from her throat, looking at them as though they belonged to someone else.
Her hands were covered with blood.
So was her throat.
Jennifer rejoined Kendra beside the car and shrugged wearily. "There are an awful lot of transients in this area, so I guess I can't blame the uniforms for not noticing one in particular. Dammit."
"We can check the shelters again."
"I know. But they won't start filling up until tonight."
Kendra nodded. "And I noticed that a few likely people to question sort of melted away when we got here."
"Yeah. The uniforms say everybody's jumpy as hell around here. And, of course, some of the transients figure if we can't find the actual rapist we'll make do with one of them." She sighed. "Really can't blame them for the distrust, but it doesn't make the job any easier."
"No." Slowly, Kendra added, "Didn't your patrolman friend say Robson was picked up for creating a disturbance?"
"Yeah. According to the arrest report, he was accosting people coming out of that liquor store just down the block, babbling something about how the ghost of his old enemy was coming after him. And he kept looking toward the building over there where Hollis Templeton was found." Jennifer shook her head, suddenly uncomfortable under the other woman's steady, clear-eyed gaze. "At the very least, this is turning into a real wild-goose chase. I don't know why I thought it could be a legitimate lead. Just a drunk rambling, probably."
"There must have been something that drew your attention. Something that alerted your instincts."
Jennifer fumbled for a toothpick and made herself say, "Maybe it was just desperation. Maybe I'm imagining leads where none exist."
Kendra smiled faintly. "I doubt that. You're too good a cop to imagine something like that. You trust the friend who gave you the tip, right? That was why you followed up on it initially."
"Yeah."
"But there was something else, wasn't there? Maybe something you read in the arrest report?"
Jennifer almost denied it, but then as she recalled details of the report one by one, she realized what had caught her attention. And felt the rush of adrenaline she always felt when a puzzle piece fell into place. "Yeah, there was something. Most of his ramblings didn't make sense-he's more schizophrenic than bipolar, if you ask me-but Robson did say something that struck me."
"What?"
"He said the ghost of his old enemy was carrying a sack over one shoulder-a sack with puppies in it. Robson was certain the ghost was going to drown the puppies, then come back for him."
Kendra nodded slowly. "There was something alive in the sack, that's what he saw. Something moving."
"Yeah. That, plus the fact that this ghost of his was carrying anything at all, seemed to me just a bit too detailed to be completely delusional."
Turning to study the building in the distance where Hollis had been found, Kendra said, "I'd guess at least a few transients use that half-demolished warehouse there on the corner for shelter when the weather's bad. It was cold when Hollis was found, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, very."
"Am I wrong, or can the rear of that building be seen from at least one side of the warehouse?"
"Let's go find out."
Ten minutes later, the two women stood gingerly on a rusted old catwalk still connected to a single interior wall of what remained of the warehouse. There wasn't much inside the building, but what was there was clear evidence that at least a few people had been using the place as shelter recently. There was some old furniture-a mildewed sofa and ragged chair- grouped in one corner with a threadbare tarp providing a third wall to help keep out at least the worst of the wind, and a fire had been kindled in an old trash barrel in the center of the area, obviously for warmth.
With the toe of one shoe, Jennifer nudged a pile of newspapers and old rags that had clearly been used as a bed up on the catwalk. "Scary place to sleep, I'd think."
"But maybe safer than down there," Kendra pointed out, gesturing toward the concrete floor below. "At least from the viewpoint of a paranoid schizophrenic. The way this thing creaks, it would certainly provide a warning if company came."
"Yeah. And maybe he slept underneath the window for the same reason-because he was paranoid and wanted to keep an eye on things." Jennifer looked at the window just above the makeshift bed; it was the only one that still had opaque frosted glass in most of its panes, but two of the panes were missing. And through the openings, she had a dandy view of the rear of the building where Hollis had been found. "And take a look-you were right."
Kendra leaned in to glance out the window. "Far as I can tell, this is probably the only vantage point in the area where that entrance would be clearly visible. Isn't that a streetlight just off the corner there?"
"Yeah. So even on a dark night, Robson-if it was him up here-could have seen someone go into the building and could have been able to tell he was carrying something wrapped in a tarp or in a sack, something that moved."
"A ghost. Maybe masked, eerie in the light. Or maybe even someone he really did recognize from his own past." Kendra looked at Jennifer with a faint smile. "If you ask me, this is no wild-goose chase we're on. I say we keep looking for David Robson."