The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [136]
“She keeps pictures of children she’s murdered in her house?” Mr. Moore said.
“Don’t sound so shocked, Moore. After all, we have already posited that she does not hold herself responsible for their deaths—her mind will not allow it. In her view, they die despite her, not because of her—they are wanton, imperfect, defective children who defy her tireless maternal efforts to nurture them.”
“We’ve granted all that, Doctor,” Miss Howard said, herself sounding a little downcast; and she was always the last person to show flagging spirits. “But how can it help us here? I mean, practically speaking? How can we use it to rescue a child whose father has no interest in rescuing her—who, in fact, dispatches his macabre family servant to warn us against rescuing her?”
The Doctor turned to her quickly. “And so what should we do, Sara? Drop the case? When we know that the girl will die, and soon? And when we have no idea what the political repercussions of that death may be?”
“No.” Miss Howard spoke quickly, battling herself as much as the Doctor. “But I just can’t see any way into the thing anymore.”
Moving over to crouch by her, the Doctor took Miss Howard’s head in his hands. “That’s because you’re thinking like yourself, Sara—directly, in a straight, linear fashion. Think like her. Be indirect. Oblique. Even devious.” He picked up her plate and handed it to her. “But above all, eat.”
“Doctor—” Marcus, who had managed to finish his dinner, stood up, pointing at the board with his bottle of beer. “I think I understand. We—Stevie and I—when we were at their house, we saw things. And we started to understand things. About her, I mean. She may have planned this crime well, but—that doesn’t change the fact that she’s not the most capable of women, in many other ways.”
“I’ll say,” I threw in. “You shoulda seen their kitchen—I wouldn’t eat in it for love or money. And the yard—it’s like a cemetery.”
“Go on,” the Doctor said, encouraged.
“Well”—Marcus took a deep pull off his bottle—“It seems inconceivable that a woman like that could pull off six separate crimes as effectively as this one. And we also have to remember that part of what seems like her ‘skill’ here was just luck. If she had no idea who Ana Linares was, then she couldn’t have known that the child’s father would refuse to look for her or go to the police. So, in fact, she has made mistakes—we just can’t do anything about them. But that doesn’t stop us from pursuing her elsewhere—in the past, I mean.”
“Oh, this is perfect,” Mr. Moore moaned. “The case has fallen to pieces, and now Marcus thinks he’s H. G. Wells. Well, when you build your little time machine, Marcus, we’ll all pile in and—”
“No. Wait, John.” Miss Howard’s green eyes had gotten their usual glitter back, and she sat up. “He’s right. She must have slipped up somewhere in the past—it’s just that no one was looking for it, at the time. If we hold off on the Linares case for now, and dig around in some of these other deaths—then we can come at her from a blind side.”
“After all, Moore,” the Doctor agreed, “look at the new leads we have obtained. We now know where the woman comes from. That is crucial, and must be explored—for all such killers manifest some sort of aberrant behavior early in life. And we are nearly certain of the crime she committed before the Linares