• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

'Uh-huh.'

'It was Dupre,' the Doctor went on helpfully. 'I had offended him.'

'He offends easy. You don't happen to know where he is now, do you?'

'No,' said the Doctor honestly.

'Why'd he run off and leave you?'

'Something frightened him.'

'You happen to know what?'

'Not exactly.'

Rust sighed. 'You're going to get yourself killed, aren't you, and make my life a whole lot more complicated?'

'I assure you that's not my intention.'

'Getting killed is rarely anyone's intention, but it's sure been known to happen anyway.' Rust reached up, took hold of the branch, and hoisted himself up to sit beside the Doctor. They rocked there peaceably.

'What happened to Flood?' said the Doctor after a while.

'Damned if I know. Damned if the coroner knows, either.'

'Was it an accident?'

'Yeah. He accidentally got zapped in a giant microwave.'

They rocked some more.

'Does this close your case?'

'Yeah. But I don't like it.' Rust looked at him narrowly. 'You can't help me out here, can you?'

The Doctor gazed down at the bricks. 'Well, not within your present frame of reference.'

Rust exhaled irritably. They continued to rock.

'Do you believe in evil?' said the Doctor suddenly.

'What?'

'Do you believe in evil?'

Rust cocked his head toward the outbuilding in which Laura lived. "That used to be either slave quarters or where the half-caste sons of white men and their black mistresses had to sleep, so that the white man visiting his lover wouldn't have to share a roof with a black man, even one who was his son. Ask me another.'

'What about individual evil as well as social evil? You're a homicide detective. And a Catholic. Do you believe in original sin?'

Rust thought about it for a moment. 'In the sense of "We're all born bad", no. In the sense of, people have a natural tendency toward weakness and fear and destruction and stupidity and putting their own interests above everyone else's, yes.'

'That's a very humane view of the problem. And you may well be right. But sometimes I'm convinced that there exists something not merely corrupt but malign. A will to nothingness. A belief in what Mephistopheles says to Faust: "Everything created deserves to be destroyed."'

'What's deserving got to do with it? Everything created will eventually be destroyed anyway'

'Yes, but there's such a thing as helping the process along.'

'I don't know,' said Rust. 'I come into it after the process has been helped along to the point where there's a dead body'

The Doctor smiled grimly and didn't say anything else. Rust looked around: 'What's with the plastic bats?'

'Laura's decorating for Samhein.'

'For what?'

'It's a pagan festival concurrent with Hallowe'en.'

"This is a city of nuts,' said Rust. 'And this case is making me think I'm going to join them. You believe there was something to that charm, don't you?'

'"Is" something. Yes, I do.'

'You think there's been magic involved here.'

'Why don't we say "alternative methods of accessing energy"?'

"That doesn't make it any better.'

'Whatever it is,' the Doctor said, 'it's probably finished. At least as far as things here are concerned. I don't know what the fellow in Lyon will do with the charm.'

'Plan to find out?'

'It's not my business.'

'Has any of this been your business?'

'I did find the body,' said the Doctor mildly. 'I'd rather not have.'

'OK,' Rust conceded.

'Teddy Acree is missing. But that's not your department.'

'Not unless he turns up dead. Who is he?'

'The sculptor who designed the Nightmare of Horror. He was there last night.'

'With Dupre?' The Doctor nodded. 'He's a freak, too?'

'Not exactly. He's disturbed.'

'Why do you think he's missing?'

'He hasn't been home. I know -' as Rust started to speak - 'that ordinarily wouldn't mean anything. But apparently last night was the first time he'd left the house in several years. Perhaps the first time he'd even been downstairs.'

'Something frighten him too?'

'It was