kitchen he peeled the apple and removed the center with a corer. The
skins and the core were piled neatly on one corner of his dinner plate.
That was a change from what we’d seen previously, and it got me
thinking. Why had he eaten like a Neanderthal the first four times-and
like a gentleman the fifth? I had the forensic boys open the plumbing
under the sink and take out the garbage disposal unit. They ran tests
on it and found that each of the eight kinds of food on the table had
been put through the disposal within the past few hours. In short, the
Butcher hadn’t taken a bite of anything in the Liedstrom kitchen. He
got the food from the refrigerator and tossed it down the drain. Then
he set the table so it would look as if he’d had a big meal. He did the
same thing at the scene of murders seven and eight.
That sort of behavior struck Graham as particularly eerie. The air in
the room seemed suddenly more moist and oppressive than before.
“You said his eating after a murder was part of a psychotic compulsion.”
“Yes.”
“If for some reason he didn’t feel that compulsion at the Liedstrom
house, why would he bother to fake it?”
“I don’t know,” Preduski said. He wiped one slender hand across his
face as if he were trying to pull off his weariness. “It’s too much for
me. It really is. Much too much. If he’s crazy, why isn’t he crazy in
the same way all of the time?”
Graham hesitated. Then: “I don’t think any court appointed psychiatrist
would find him insane.”
“Say again?”
“In fact, I think even the best psychiatrist, if not informed of the
murders, would find this man saner and more reasonable than he would
most of us.”
Preduski blinked his watery eyes in surprise. “Well, hell. He carves
up ten women and leaves them for garbage, and you don’t think he’s
crazy?”
“That’s the same reaction I got from a lady friend when I told her.”
“I don’t wonder.”
“But I’ll stick by it. Maybe he is crazy. But not in any traditional,
recognizable way. He’s something altogether new.”
“You sense this?”
“Yes.”
“Psychically?”
“Yes.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Sorry.
“Sense anything else?”
“Just what you heard on the Prine show.”
“Nothing new since you came here?”
“Nothing.
“If he’s not insane at all, then there’s a reason behind the killings,”
Preduski said thoughtfully. “Somehow they’re connected. Is that what
you’re saying?”
“I’m not sure what I mean.”
“I don’t see how they could be connected.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’ve been looking for a connection, really looking. I was hoping you
could pick up something here. From the bloody bedclothes. Or from this
mess on the table – ”
“I’m blank,” Harris said. “That’s why I’m positive that either he is
sane, or he is insane in some whole new fashion. Usually, when I study
or touch an item intimately connected with the murder, I can pick up on
the emotion, the mania, the passion behind the crime. It’s like leaping
into a river of violent thoughts, sensations, images…. This time all I
get is a feeling of cool, implacable, evil logic. I’ve never had so
much trouble drawing a bead on this kind of killer.”
“Me either,” Preduski said. “I never claimed to be Sherlock Holmes. I’m
no genius. I work slow. Always have. And I’ve been lucky.
God knows. It’s luck more than skill that’s kept my arrest record high.
But this time I’m having no luck at all. None at all. Maybe it’s time
for me to be put out to pasture.”
On his way out of the apartment, having left Ira Preduski in the kitchen
to ponder the remnants of the Butcher’s macabre meal, Graham passed
through the living room and saw Sarah Piper. The detective had not yet
dismissed her. She was sitting on the sofa, her feet propped on the
coffee table. She was smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling,
smoke spiraling like dreams from her head; her back was to Graham.
The instant he saw her, a brilliant image flashed behind his eyes,