Authors: Kay Hooper
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."
"Did either of them have kids?"
"No."
"What about the third woman?"
"She has a little boy."
"I hadn't even decided if I wanted kids. Now it's a decision I don't have to worry about anymore."
Maggie didn't offer platitudes. Instead, she asked, "Is that the worst of it for you? That there won't be any children of your own?"
"I don't know." Her lips moved again in that small, brief smile. "I guess it might depend on whether the transplant was a success. The doctor's confident, but... I don't know what you learned in art school, but one of the things they taught us is that the eyes, like the spine, are hardwired into the brain. That's why there hasn't been a successful transplant before now. They can transplant corneas, of course, but not
the eyeball—or at least that's conventional medical wisdom. My doctor intends to become a pioneer."
"You'll be one too," Maggie reminded her.
"I'm not so sure I want to be. But I do want to see again, so I signed the papers. Any chance is better than none, right?"
"I'd say so."
"Yeah. But nobody really knows what might happen. My body doesn't seem to be rejecting the eyes, but the odds against them working the way they're supposed to are pretty long. The funny thing is . . ."
"What?"
She drew a little breath. "They say when you lose a limb, you get phantom sensations—that you still feel the limb attached to you, moving. Hurting."
"I've heard that."
"I asked my doctor if it was the same way with eyes. I don't think he quite got what I meant until I asked him if I should be able to move them. Because that's the kind of sensations I feel, that the eyes are moving under the bandages, behind my eyelids. Like now, when I think about looking toward the door ... I can feel them move."
"What did your doctor say?"
"That it was probably phantom sensations, there hadn't been time for the muscles and nerves to heal. That was just after the operation, so I guess he was right. But it still feels the same to me, those sensations."
"When will they take the bandages off?"
"Another week or so. Until then, all I can do is sit here . . . and wait. I never was very good at waiting."
"Is that why you called us?"
"Maybe. If I could do anything to help them catch that. . . monster . . . then I want to do it." She paused and swallowed hard. "At least, that was the plan. Now I'm not so sure I can talk about it yet. I'm sorry, but—"
"Hollis, it's all right. You have to do this in your own time and way. Look, why don't I come back tomorrow, and we'll talk again. We'll talk about anything you want for as long as you want. Until you're ready."
"If you don't mind."
"I don't. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon, okay?"
"Thank you, Maggie."
Hollis didn't move after the door closed behind her visitor. She turned her face back toward the window, thinking vaguely that if she'd been back in New England she might have felt the sunlight on her face even in November. But the nurses had told her it was a typical Seattle day, overcast and dreary, with no sunlight to be had. They hadn't understood why she'd wanted to sit by the window anyway.
You should have talked to her, Hollis.
"I did talk to her."
/
told you that you could trust her.
She laughed under her breath. "I don't even know if I can trust you."
You know.
"All I know is that I'm creeping out the nursing staff by talking to someone who isn't there."
I'm here. And you know I'm real.
Hollis turned her head so that she faced the chair across from her own. "If I could see, would I see you?"
Perhaps.
"And perhaps not. I think I'll make up my own mind who to trust, if it's all the same to you, figment."
Make up your mind soon, Hollis. We're running out of time.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I couldn't push her," Maggie said. "I can't push her
.
We just have to wait until she's ready to talk about it."
"And when will that be?" John asked. He sat back to allow the waitress to serve their coffee, wondering if Maggie had suggested this coffee shop across from the hospital because she liked it or because she wanted to spend as little time with him as possible.
"My guess is a few days. She's coping better than I expected, maybe because she has the hope of seeing again. But her emotional condition is still . . . very fragile."
"Did you ask her how she knew to ask for you by
name?"
"No. I didn't want to ask anything that might have been interpreted as ... suspicious." "Bad for the rapport?" "That's one way of putting it. If I can't establish a
strong bond of trust, then she won't confide in me. Especially as long as she can't see."
John didn't lack imagination, and it was not difficult for him to at least try to understand the terror of being suddenly locked away in darkness, especially as it applied to dealing with others. "No visual clues," he said slowly. "We use our eyes so much when it comes to weighing other people and judging the worth of what they tell us."
A little surprised, Maggie said, "Exactly."
He smiled but didn't comment on her surprise. "So you didn't learn how she knew about you. Anything else? Do you think she saw anything before he blinded her?"
"I don't know. She has something on her mind, but I have no way of knowing what that might be." If she hadn't been gazing directly at his face, she wouldn't have seen his instant of hesitation—and the decision to say what was on his mind.
"So what we need," he said lightly, "is a good psychic."
"Have a few on the payroll, do you?" Her voice was matter-of-fact.
"Not on my payroll, no. At least, not that I know of. But I have a friend who might be willing to help. Assuming he can, of course."
"You doubt his abilities?"
"I," John said deliberately, "doubt the entire concept, if you want the truth. I have a hard time believing in the so-called paranormal. But I've seen Quentin find answers when no one else could, and even if I'm not sure how he does it, at least his way is another option. Especially in a situation where there is so little information and so much need for more."
Maggie sipped her coffee to give herself a moment to think, then said, "I'm pretty sure Luke Drummond would balk at having one more civilian officially involved in the investigation."
"I'm positive he would. Which is why Quentin can only be involved unofficially."
"Which means access to the investigation is going to be a problem. Is that why you're telling me? Do you expect me to get him access to the victims?"
John immediately shook his head. "I wouldn't put you in that position
or
ask those women to talk to yet another stranger, especially a strange man. No, I'm telling you because from everything Andy's said about you, my hunch is that you're going to be at the center of this investigation for the duration—and I don't mean sitting in an interview room downtown."
"What do you mean?"
"Andy says you've walked the areas where the first three victims were found. True?"
She nodded slowly.
"Why?"
Maggie couldn't think of a simple answer and finally shrugged. "To gather impressions, I suppose. I told you, a lot of what I do is intuition."
"According to Andy, you always immerse yourself in an investigation. You don't just interview victims and witnesses or just study the crime scenes. You read all the reports, talk to the cops, comb through files, even hit the streets following up on your hunches. You talk to family and friends of the victims and construct your own diagrams of crime scenes. Andy swears he believes you have a filing cabinet tucked away somewhere at home with your own personal files of the investigations you've participated in."