The Devouring

by T. M. Wright

  Now, at a little past 7:00 on the Massachusetts Turnpike, thirty miles south of Boston, he got an occasional short psychic blast as cars zipped by—sometimes what he got was coherent, a sentence or two, and sometimes it was merely a brief feeling of pleasure, or a smell, or pain. Quite often he got nothing at all, and he would think momentarily, at such times, that he'd suddenly lost his psychic ability. It was his greatest fear—that he would wake up one morning to discover that the gift he'd been given at birth had been taken from him. If that did happen, he'd decided, then he'd have to look upon the loss as eminently fair; after all, he'd still have the use of five senses, and that was as much as anyone was entitled to. Still, he had to admit that he'd sooner lose his hearing or his sight than his ability to know, if usually just at random, what was going on in the minds of those around him.

  He stroked Creosote again, felt the wagon drift right, toward the guard rail, steered left with both hands. He whispered, "What's the matter, Woody? Tie rods going?" And he thought, not for the first time, how nice it would be if he could peer into the hearts of machines, too. And that brought up what, for him, was the old saw that he could not peer into hearts so much as into heads. He was, he imagined, much like the fledgling computer programmer who had gotten to the point where he could write and read very complex programs but had little idea how the lines and commands and algorithms he wrote were interpreted and acted upon by the machine itself. His experience buying his first house had proved that; and so had his experience dealing with the poor demented creature responsible for the murders in Rochester. That damned soul had proved dramatically that some people—many people, perhaps—were able to use the output of their brains to hide what was going on in their hearts, even from people like Ryerson. Even, amazingly, from themselves.

  Ryerson wondered if Joan Mott Evans was such a person. He didn't think so. He supposed that if he were still a betting man, he'd have put very high odds against it. But the simple fact that he had asked the question proved that there was indeed a question, a doubt. And that doubt was yet another reason he was going back to Buffalo.

  ~ * ~

  In Buffalo

  Gail Newman liked her work. Most of it, anyway. The challenge in homicide investigation was often—though by no means always—to outwit the murderer, and she'd been able to do that with an amazing degree of success. She was, in fact, the youngest female candidate for promotion to sergeant in the history of the Buffalo Police Department; it was a promotion which had, for various internal reasons, gone to her partner, Guy Mallory, instead.

  She did not, however, like the physical act of examining victims. She wasn't squeamish—at least no more so than any of her colleagues, and far less than some. She had, instead, a highly developed sense of what was private. A person's. body and a person's anguish were very private. So the victim of a murder—who had had his or her privacy violated in a terribly overt and ultimate way—should not have to suffer the indignity of still more violation. Never mind that a murder victim was, rationally, beyond suffering and anguish and violation. Rationally, the victim was merely a slab of flesh and hair and bone that the medical examiner could saw into and probe about in while making quick, grisly jokes to no one in particular. Rationally, the victim had ceased being a person at all. But that was, of course—as Gail bent over the body of Margaret Drake—just the sort of rational thinking that was all but impossible at times like these. There, for instance, were the victim's hands—long and graceful-looking, the ends of the red-polished nails chipped slightly. Maybe they were hands that had once drifted lovingly and beautifully over the keys of a piano. Or maybe they'd tried and had been found wanting. But they wouldn't try anymore. And there were the victim's eyes. Open halfway. With a soft glaze on them. What had they seen that morning, for instance, when they'd fluttered open from sleep? The usual and familiar things, no doubt. A nightstand. A clock radio. A window, curtains open; sunlight. A new day—better than yesterday, perhaps. Not as good as tomorrow.

  Gail heard from above her, "She's a real mess, isn't she?" It was Mallory's voice.

  Gail had yet to focus fully on the great gaping hole at the side of the woman's neck. "Yes," she whispered, and turned her head to look up at Mallory. "A real mess." A police photographer appeared, asked, "Can I get in here now?" Gail said, glancing stiffly at him, "No. Not yet. A few minutes, okay?"

  The photographer shrugged, said, "Okay," then said something about the body "not going anywhere anyway," which was his standard line, and backed off.

  Gail looked again at Margaret Drake's body. She focused on the gaping hole at the side of the woman's neck. There was, strangely, very little blood around the body, or even around that awful wound, possibly, Gail thought, because a wound like that would have caused the woman to go into shock, and thus inhibit the flow of blood. The M.E. would have a better answer, no doubt. She said, eyes still on the wound, "It's not as bad as the male victim's, though. It's not as bad as Mr. Brownleigh was."

  "It's bad enough," Mallory said.

  Gail turned from the body, started for the door, looked back at Mallory. "I'm going to talk to the daughter. You coming?"

  Mallory shook his head. "No. The two of us will scare her, I think. You go ahead. I think she'd probably rather talk to a woman anyway.''

  ~ * ~

  Andrew Spurling, Detective Third Grade

  Andrew Spurling, thirty-two, was tall, well-built, average-looking, which is to say that his face could have been an amalgamation of male faces at a football game or wrestling match. He had no hobbies, although he was very attentive of his gun, a Smith and Wesson .38.

  His record at the Buffalo Police Department was unremarkable. He'd been a little over a year with the force, and in that time had not distinguished himself in any way, good or bad. He was a run-of-the-mill cop who did his job and tried to stay out of the way. That had not always been his attitude; as a child in Syracuse, New York, he was known as the toughest kid on the block. That toughness did not transfer in any meaningful way to his work at the Buffalo Police Department. He was usually assigned the job of picking up people who'd written bad checks in amounts of under $100. Such checks constituted a class A misdemeanor, not a felony, which usually put the bad-check artist in the easy-to-handle category. Detective Spurling was not astoundingly happy with this kind of work, but he was willing to do it because it was work, after all. .

  Occasionally, he fantasized about being twelve years old, growing up in Syracuse, New York, when he was top dog and people did what he told them to do.

  Chapter Seven

  Laurie Drake was sitting on the edge of her bed with her arms and ankles crossed and her head lowered. , She was wearing blue jeans, and a white pleated blouse with puffed short sleeves which, Gail thought, made her look appreciably older than her twelve years.

  Gail stopped just inside the doorway. "Hello," she said gently. Laurie looked up at once, as if surprised, sighed heavily, lowered her head again. She said nothing. Gail went over, stood for a few moments next to her, then sat beside her on the bed. "Your name's Laurie, isn't it?"

  "Yes," Laurie whispered.

  "My name's Gail Newman, Laurie. I'm with the Buffalo Police Department. Do you think you're up to answering a few questions?"

  Laurie looked confusedly at Gail. Gail went on. "If you'd rather wait, that's okay." She paused. "Would you rather wait?"

  Laurie shook her head a little. "No," she whispered. She asked, "Is my mother dead?"

  Gail wasn't much taken aback by the question. In one form or another, of course, it was a pretty common question among a victim's close relatives. "Yes," she answered. "Your mother's dead. I'm very sorry."

  Laurie continued looking confusedly at her for a few seconds. Then she nodded as if in acceptance and said, "Yes, I thought so." A pause. "I mean, she looked dead." She lowered her head again. Gail heard her begin to sniffle, as if on the verge of tears. She patted Laurie's elbow. "I'm sorry, this isn't a good time." She stood. "We'll talk later—"
>
  Laurie looked quickly up at her. "Someone ate her, didn't they, Miss Newman?"

  Gail wasn't certain she saw a grin flit across Laurie's mouth. If she had seen a grin, she thought, it, too, would not be the first time. She shook her head vehemently. "No. No one . . . did that to your mother!"

  Laurie said, "She said that that was okay. She said that's how you got life back."

  "I don't understand, Laurie. Who said that?"

  Laurie cocked her pretty head. "And that's what it looked like, Miss Newman. It looked like someone ate her." She pointed at the exposed part of her neck. "Right here. Didn't you see that?"

  Gail said nothing for a moment. She thought this was going to be awfully tough. "Yes, I saw that," she said, and sat on the bed again. Laurie turned her head to look at Gail intensely as Gail went on. "And I think what we're dealing with here, Laurie, is some kind of dog. A large dog."

  Laurie nodded. "You mean like a guard dog or something?"

  "Yes. Like a guard dog."

  Laurie shook her head. "But we don't have one of those, Miss Newman. All we have is a cat. It's not even a big cat."

  "Yes, I know." Gail had seen the cat resting on a kitchen counter; it was a small white longhaired cat with a red collar. "What we're talking about is someone else's—"

  "My dad hated her."

  Gail was confused. "Your dad hated your mother?"

  Laurie grinned broadly, as if very amused. "No. Not my mother. The cat. He tried to kill it once. He threw it out the second floor window."

  "Oh," Gail said noncommittally. Then, "Where is your father?"

  Laurie's grin vanished. "He's dead," she said matter-of-factly. "Just like my mom."

  Gail found herself getting nervous. She wasn't sure why. Odd reactions among a victim's relatives were commonplace, and Laurie's reactions were actually no odder than others she'd encountered. She remembered, especially, the elderly man whose wife stuck her head into an oven and asphyxiated herself a year earlier. When she and Mallory got to the man's house, in answer to a call from the man's grandson, they found that the man had put foiled-wrapped potatoes around the woman's head, and a nice meat loaf on the shelf just beneath. "Well," the man explained heartily, "as soon as my wife gets her head out of the oven we can all eat." That had been pretty damned odd, she thought. So, if this young girl seemed to be seesawing back and forth between tears and so-what about her mother's murder, then it was only because the human mind is a very complex and fragile thing.

  Gail said, "When did you find your mother, Laurie?"

  "When I got home from school," Laurie answered, still matter-of-factly.

  "And that was when?"

  "About three-thirty."

  Gail got her notebook from her purse, wrote "3:30" in it. She asked, "And did you notice anything odd then? When you came home."

  "You mean in the house?"

  "Not particularly."

  "What you mean is, did I notice any strange cars on the street."

  Gail nodded. "Yes. Or people."

  "Or dogs?" She grinned again.

  Gail hesitated, then said, "Did you?"

  "No."

  "Nothing at all? Try to think back, Laurie; see yourself coming home again, down the street. What's the first thing you see when you get off the bus?"

  "Timmy Wheelock."

  "Timmy Wheelock? Is he your . . . boy-friend?"

  "No, but he wants to be. He waits for me on the corner every day after school. And he follows me home." She looked suddenly excited. "Do you think he's dangerous, Miss Newman? Do you think he's going to try and hurt me?"

  Gail chose not to answer that question. She said instead, "Does he follow you all the way home, Laurie?"

  "No," she answered, sounding suddenly weary of the conversation.

  "How far does he follow you?"

  "Halfway. He's got a paper route."

  "Oh, and he's got to get home to take care of it?"

  "No. He's got to finish it."

  "You mean, he doesn't ride the bus with you?"

  "No. His father picks him up at three. That's when school gets out."

  Gail nodded. "Do you know Timmy's address, Laurie?" Her idea was that Timmy, if he did indeed follow Laurie every day from the bus stop, could think of something that Laurie hadn't.

  Laurie shrugged. "For all I know, he lives in a hole in the ground. The big creep, the asshole!"

  Gail said, embarrassed, "I see," and decided to get off the subject of Timmy; how many Wheelocks could there be in Orchard Park, after all? He'd be easy enough to find if it became necessary. "After Timmy went home—" she began, and Laurie interrupted.

  "He rides a moped."

  "Yes. Good. Thank you. So after he drove off on his moped, and you were alone—"

  "He looks like a fucking jerk on it. Christ, he's sixteen years old and six feet tall and his knees stick up and he looks like a fucking jerk!"

  "Yes," Gail said, "but I think we're getting off the subject—"

  "Do you have a boyfriend, Miss Newman?"

  Gail sighed.

  Mallory appeared in the doorway and cleared his throat; Gail looked up at him. "Yes?" she said, her annoyance obvious.

  "Can I talk to you, Gail? Out here?"

  Gail looked quickly at Laurie, then back at Mallory. "Right now? Can't it wait?"

  "No. It can't." He sounded very firm.

  "Okay," Gail said; then to Laurie, "I'll be back in a few moments, Laurie. You going to be all right?"

  Laurie nodded brightly. "Sure. Why not?"

  To which Gail could say only, "Yes. Good," then she left the room to speak with Mallory in the hallway.

  He said, his voice low, "The kid's lying, Gail."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I just talked to the M.E. The woman's been dead for at least twenty-four hours."

  Gail took a deep breath. "Jesus Christ," she breathed, "I hate this."

  "Join the club, sweet cheeks."

  "Please don't call me that, Guy." A pause. "Okay, who's going to do it?"

  Mallory, putting on his magnanimous look, offered, "Well, since I'm the senior officer here—"

  "The hell with that," Gail cut in. "You'll scare the crap out of her. I'll do it." And she went back into Laurie's bedroom and told her, "Laurie, I'm afraid you're going to have to come with me."

  "Am I under arrest?" She seemed strangely unconcerned, even a little pleased.

  Gail shook her head. "No. You're not under arrest, Laurie. But I do have to remind you of your constitutional rights." She was not, she realized, doing this by the book.

  Laurie said, "You mean like I have the right to remain silent, and the right to have an attorney present and all that stuff?"

  Gail extended her hand. "Yes, Laurie." Laurie took her hand, stood. Gail told her her rights. "Do you understand?"

  "Sure." Laurie glanced quickly around her room. It was a very girlish room, thanks to her mother. The colors were all soft pastels, the bedclothes frilly, the furniture properly dainty-looking. She said, "This is really awful, isn't it, Miss Newman?"

  Gail answered after a few moments. "Perhaps you should bring a change of clothes, Laurie. Why don't I give you a moment to do that, okay?"

  Laurie answered, "Who's going to take care of Magic?"

  "The cat? That's his name—Magic?"

  "Uh-huh. He can't feed himself, you know." Gail put her hand comfortingly on Laurie's arm. "I'll take care of him, Laurie. He can keep my cat company."

  "He's mean, you know. He's real mean. I'll bet you he's the one that killed my mother."

  Gail let her hand drop. She nodded at the doorway. "I'll be out there waiting for you, Laurie." She glanced quickly around the room. Two windows; she'd have to tell a uniform to watch them. "I'll close the door to give you some privacy. You've got five minutes." And she turned and left the room.

  Five minutes later she knocked on the door. "Laurie," she called, "I'm sorry, but it's time to go." She waited, got no answer, knocked briefly again. She
pushed the door open.

  The room was empty.

  ~ * ~

  Benny Bloom

  At Buffalo Pierpont High School Benjamin Bloom (who much preferred the name "Benny") was almost universally thought of as "a nerd," especially by other nerds, who regarded the term as a badge of honor.

  Benny couldn't help being a nerd. He was very smart, loved poetry—especially the poetry of T. S. Eliot—and had a natural shyness that made him look clumsy and ineffectual. His hobbies included stamp collecting, butterfly collecting (he waited for the butterflies to die a natural death because he couldn't bear the thought of killing them), astrophysics, and, of course, poetry. At sixteen and a half his attraction to the opposite sex was in full bloom, so to speak, although he was yet to, as he told his closest male friends, "relieve myself of my cumbersome virginity."

  Part Two

  Chapter Eight

  Two Days Later

  Ryerson was rifling through the Yellow Pages of the Buffalo telephone book in search of veterinarians open twenty-four hours a day. It was 1:30 in the morning. At a little past 12:00, Creosote had begun to whimper pitifully. A half hour later he crawled over to a corner of the motel room, plopped down, still whimpering, and began to breathe very shallowly, and quickly. Ryerson was sure that each of those short, shallow breaths was going to be his last.