switcfied off the lights, went down the hall and through another door
into the lounge, intending to leave the printouts on Julie’s desk and
say goodnight to Hal before splitting.
When he walked into Bobby and Julie’s office, it looked like the
National Wrestling Federation had sanctioned a match there between tag
teams of three-hundred-pound hulks. Furniture was overturned, and
Scotch glasses, some of them broken, were scattered over the floor.
Julie’s desk was aslant and askew: tilting on one shattered leg; the top
no longer was properly aligned with the base, as if someone had gone at
it with prybars and hammers.
“Hal?” No answer.
He gingerly pushed open the door to the adjoining bat
“Hal?” The bathroom was deserted.
He went to the broken window. A few small shards of gi still clung to
the frame. Caught the light. Jagged.
With one hand against the wall, Lee Chen carefully lea out. He looked
down. In a much different tone of voice, he”Hal?” CANDY MATERIALIZED in
the foyer of the Dakotas’ house which was dark and silent. He stood
quietly for a mom head cocked, until he was confident that he was alone.
His throat was healed. He was whole again, and excited the prospects of
the night.
He began the search from there, putting his hand on doorknob in hope of
finding some of the residue that,lacking physical substance,
nevertheless provided the nourishment for his visions. He felt nothing,
no doubt partly because the Dakotas had touched it only briefly upon
entering and parting the house.
Of course, a person could handle a hundred items, leaving psychic images
of himself on only one of them, then touch same hundred an hour later
and contaminate every onehis aura. The reason for that was as
mysterious, to Candy, was so many people’s interest in sex. He remained
as grate to his mother for this talent as he was for all the others,
tracking his prey with psychometry was not always an or infallible
process.
The Dakotas, living room and dining room were unfurnished, which gave
him little to work with, although for so reason the emptiness made him
feel comfortable and at home That response puzzled him. The rooms in
his mother’s house were all furnished-as much with mold and fungus and!”
these days as with chairs, sofas, tables, and lamps; but hedenly
realized that, like the Dakotas, he lived in such a small Percentage of
the house that most of its chambers might as well have been bare,
carpetless, and sealed off.
The Dakotas’ kitchen and family room were furnished a obviously lived
in. Though it was unlikely that they had us the family room during
their brief stop between the office and wherever they had gone from
here, he hoped they might have lingered in the kitchen for a bite of
food or a drink. But the handles of the cabinets, microwave, oven, and
refrigerator provided him with no images whatsoever.
On his way to the second floor, Candy climbed the steps slowly, letting
his left hand slide searchingly along the oak balustrade. At several
points along the way, he was rewarded by psychic images that, while
brief and not clear, encouraged him, and led him to believe that he
would find what he needed in their bedroom or bath.
INSTEAD OF immediately dialing 911 to reportmurder of Hal Yamataka, Lee
ran first to the reception and, as he had been trained, removed a small
brown notebo from the back of the bottom drawer on the right side. For
benefit of employees, like Lee, who did not often get into field and
seldom interfaced directly with the county’s many lice agencies but
might one day need to deal with them in emergency, Bobby had composed a
list of some of the office detectives, and administrators who were most
profession reasonable, and reliable in every majorjurisdiction. The bro
notebook contained a second list of cops to avoid: thosehad an
instinctive dislike for anyone in the private investigation and security
business; those who were just pains in ass in general; and those who
were always on the lookout a little green grease to lubricate the wheels
of justice. It a testament to the high quality of the county’s law