Where the White Dove Flies

[Therin]

The sun beat down miserably on the ground inside the prison walls. There was no grass, there were no trees, there was no green at all. Only gray walls, and the grayish brown of the dust that puffed like dreams around the feet and chains of the prisoners. The guards went about quickly and efficiently, trying to keep out of the blazing sun, rounding the cons from the play yard inside to the slightly cooler interior of the prison. The guards carried assault rifles chained to their belts in case of an emergency, but the prisoners went quietly, and without much fuss. These were some of the most feared and hated men in the country, serial killers all. Men, women, children, boys and girls, all had died under the blades or bullets of one or another of these men. Sometimes neither blades nor bullets. Sometimes rope. Sometimes fire. Sometimes the savage strength of psychotic hands alone. One inmate had even used toothpicks. And none of them was at all stupid. You had to be smart to get away with the things these men had almost gotten away with. They knew better than to assault the guards. The consequences were obvious.

They were ushered through the dim, gray, lackluster halls past an intersecting hallway where some split off, and into the massive room that housed the cells. Great imposing monstrosities they were, towering edifices of iron and stone, made to withstand anything the twisted minds and strong hands could throw at them. The ones who split off, five men and one woman, were led quietly through more halls and into separate rooms, nearly cubicles. In each cubicle sat a desk. Behind each desk sat a state licensed psychologist. These six were the lucky few who had problems that could be worked through, and eliminated. The rest were just doped whenever they got rowdy. Janus Bostrom sat down in the second cubicle from the left, staring down at the desk disconsolately. This was his first day in the psych ward.

“Mister Bostrom?” The voice was in the midrange, as voices went, light and confident, but with an odd, James Woods-ish quality to it. The man who owned it was probably very good at scaring children. Janus looked up. The man sat, not professionally opposite him at the desk, but on the low windowsill, leaning backward against the steel mesh-reinforced pane and looking at Janus thoughtfully.

Janus said nothing.

“Janus?” said the man, one of the few ever to pronounce his name correctly on the first try, Yonnus, as opposed to Jan-nus.

Janus raised his eyebrow and remained silent.

“You are Janus Bostrom, are you not? You match the description…” He let the question hang in the air.

Janus nodded slowly, and then returned his unblinking gaze to the man’s face. It was a young face, pale anglo, with dark brown hair, clipped short in the popular style. His eyes were just beginning to sprout crow’s-feet, and his mouth was just developing smile lines. His eyes were a deep brown, almost black, and they stared penetratingly at Janus, as if digging through his mind to find his innermost secrets, the ones he would take to his grave otherwise. Janus flinched at that powerful gaze, and then spoke for the first time since entering the room.

“Stop that,” he said harshly.

“Stop what?” said the man, the power going out his eyes in an instant.

“Looking…!” Janus snapped, then lowered his voice, “…looking at me like that. It makes me nervous.”

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking…”

“About what?” Janus asked in a hard voice before reverting to his earlier stare.

The psychologist remained silent for a while, staring motionlessly down at the desk. Then he lifted his head and spoke quickly, almost blurting it out, “Why did you do it?”

Janus was taken aback. “What?”

“Those girls,” said the man quickly, “Why did you kill them?”

Janus smiled and stared unflinchingly at the psychologist as he spoke, “To save them, doctor…?”

“From what?”

Janus ignored the discourtesy. This was a prison, after all, and he a prisoner. “From...pain.”

“But what about their lives? How do you know they would have suffered pain had you not ended their lives?”

Janus continued to stare at the man, a haunted look coming into his eyes. “Because that’s what life is, doctor. Pain. A never-ending road of agony, with occasional diamonds of happiness to tempt you in a given direction.”

The man paused thoughtfully at that, and his eyes took on that digging quality again for a moment, before he spoke softly, “What makes you think that, Mr. Bostrom?”

“Life, doctor. I’ve lived it longer than you have, and that is what my experience tells me. Life is pain.”

The nameless doctor stopped talking then, and was still staring intently at the desk when the guards came to escort Janus Bostrom to his cell. On the way out, he threw three words over his shoulder. “Later, Doctor Wolfe.”

The man looked up, his face registering shock, and he put his hand out to stop the guards and ask Bostrom how he had known, but too late. The door was already closed. Wolfe paused looked around the threadbare room for some sign that Bostrom could have read, but found none. He patted his pockets for a pen, and stopped when his hand came into contact with something in his right front pants pocket. He pulled it out slowly and examined it. It was a picture of his daughter, Sarah. She turned twenty-seven tomorrow, and he wouldn’t be there to congratulate her. The same age as all of Bostrom’s victims had been.

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[Therin]

“Welcome back, Mister Bostrom. I’ve been doing a bit of homework since our last session. Learning what makes you tick, so to speak.” He was sitting in the same spot he had been last time. Janus took his seat again, and waited for the guards to close the door before speaking, a sarcastic smile twisting his lips.

“Oh? What drove you to that extreme, doctor?”

“Sun Tzu.”

“Hmm?”

“’Know thy enemy.’ Apt words, don’t you think, for a psychotherapist such as myself?”

“That depends. Am I your enemy, doctor? Or am I your guinea pig?”

“Is there a difference, in a place like this?”

“You’ll find that out, you stay here long enough.”

Doctor Wolfe moved from his spot on the windowsill, and leaned close over the desk, his eyes narrowing.

“Why did she do it, Janus? Why, do you think, would she do such a thing?”

“I’m sorry, I must have missed something. Who?”

“Amy.”

The sarcastic, impudent smile melted from his face like butter under boiling water. His eyes flashed with a wild, dangerous, feral light, like a badger protecting its young. “Leave her out of this.”

“Oh, you won’t get rid of me that easily, Bostrom.”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“I think she has quite a lot to do with it.”

“No. Leave her out of it.”

“I will not. Amy is the cause of all this, is she not?”

Janus burst to his feet, knocking the desk backwards onto the astonished doctor. He planted his foot on the overturned desk, and leaned forward, putting his face nose to nose with the gasping psychologist. His voice was low, black with danger as he spoke, “You have not earned the right to call her that.” One of the guards knocked on the door, called a question, unheard by either of the room’s occupants. Janus’ eyes never wavered, locked on those of his foe. Wolfe wanted to move, wanted to struggle, wanted to holler for help, but something in those eyes, that piercing, powerful gaze, held him rigidly silent as the guards pounded harder on the door. Janus spoke again, voice calm, but still dripping with menace, “And you will not mention her again, or this will be the last time we see eachother. Is that clear, Doctor?” Wolfe nodded shakily, his eyes wide but still never leaving those of the man atop him. Janus stepped back just as the door burst inward and the two guards outside rushed in to tackle him to the ground. Janus kept his eyes locked on Wolfe’s even as the guards hauled him to his feet and began to drag him out of the room. The doctor didn’t answer.

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[Therin]

Wolfe sat on the windowsill, looked out upon the deserted prison grounds as he waited for his charge to show up. He thought about Sarah. She was twenty-seven. He hadn’t been able to be there, but he had called. She seemed happy. That was the way he always remembered her. Happy. She was lighthearted, almost chirpy. She always had been, even at a very young age. He remembered the first time it had struck him. She had been four at the time, had come running inside and tripped on the frame of the sliding patio door. Her mother had rushed to comfort their only child, plucking her into the air and whispering words of comfort and love. But Sarah hadn’t cried. She’d looked right into her mother’s eyes and said “It’s OK, mommy. I didn’t make a blood.”

A guard rapped quietly on the door, pulling Wolfe out of his reverie. He turned from the windowsill, and cracked the door. “Yes?”

“Bostrom ain’t comin’.”

“He what?”

“He ain’t comin’. He won’t even come out of his cell.”

Wolfe gave the guard a look of annoyance. “Well can’t you force him? He needs to be here if I’m going to help him, whether he wants to or not.”

The guard laughed. “Force him? Look, Doc, I don’t know who you think these guys are, but I’ll tell you flat out right now, they’re killers. All of ‘em. And me and the boys, well like ‘em much better when they’re quiet. Now, you got ‘im mighty riled last week, but you’re a head doctor and that’s what you do sometimes is the way I see it, but me, I ain’t gonna make one o’ these guys angry if there’s any way I can help it. And Bostrom, well let’s just say he don’t have a quiet temper. So no, not a one of us would force him if there’s any way we could help it.”

Wolfe thought for a few seconds, and then closed the door and went to the desk. When he opened the door again, he handed a note to the guard outside and said, “Give him this, and ask him if he’ll come see me.”

The guard raised an eyebrow, but acceded, saying, “I don’t think a love note is gonna get him outta there any better than forcing him would, but whatever you say. You’re the Doc around here.”

Wolfe returned to the window to wait.


He was still there when the guards opened the door to let Janus into the room once more. The desk was back in its customary position, and the Doctor was again sitting on the windowsill.

“I’m glad we finally see eye to eye on something, Doctor.”

Wolfe turned and regarded his subject once again. “We don’t. I hold fast to what I said last time. However,” Janus stopped in the act of turning to go, looking back over his shoulder and waiting, “However, I am willing to let it go, temporarily at least. Please. Have a seat, Janus.” He gestured to the desk and chair.

Janus didn’t move. “Do you believe you have earned the right to speak to me as a friend?”

“I believe that if we cannot be friends, at least partially, then we will get nowhere. And I believe you need a friend in here, Janus. In a place like this, you need a friend very badly indeed.”

“Then you believe incorrectly. First, friendship is not necessary for two people to talk to eachother. Only mutual understanding. Second, I don’t need friendship. I’ve made do without for all these years in here, and I can make do for as long as I wish to if need be.”

“Make do? Make do? Wouldn’t you rather do more than just ‘make do?’”

“What I would rather is immaterial here. If you haven’t realized that yet, then you have no business doing the job you’ve been hired to do.”

“But out there? What if I get you fixed, and they let you out on parole? Would you want to make do out there, or would you want to live?”

“Out there? Doctor, have you ever stopped to actually think what will happen when, if we finish here? Do you think they’ll let me go? Let a known serial killer loose upon the unsuspecting public? Are you out of your mind? At best, I am a guinea pig, a test subject to find out whether this approach is plausible on lesser criminals.”

“But if I can help you-“

“No. I have been awarded life in prison, is that getting through to you? I have been here for almost twenty years now, with no prospect of getting out in sight. Would you let a rabid dog run wild about your neighborhood? No. The same applies here. Face it. I will be here the rest of my life, no matter what you may or may not to try to alter that.

"And what makes you think I am deserving of such kindness? I killed sixteen young women, do not forget that.”

“But you realize that it was wrong to do so. Therefore-“

“No, I realize that American law says that it is wrong to do so. What I believe is my own business, to think about on my own time, of which I have plenty, be sure of that.”

“But that is why you are here, is it not? To discuss your beliefs, because at the core, they are what drive you, what motivated you to do the things you did. So enlighten me, my friend. What are they? Why did you murder those sixteen young women, who, but for your interference, would have had hope-filled and happy lives?”

Janus looked down at the desk, his eyes dark, looking at something only he could see. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me. It’s my job.”

He stared unseeing, his thoughts turned inward, to his memories, his past. A fleeting image of red hair, fanned out like a halo on hard blacktop, illuminated blue and red by turns. She…

Janus got up suddenly, and turned to leave. Wolfe didn’t move, only watched as his patient opened the door, and the guards escorted him down the hall and out of sight.

What pain those eyes had held, he mused. He wondered what that much pain could do to a man, how it could change someone. Drive them mad, perhaps. Turn them into a killer. What was it he had said two weeks ago?

That’s what life is, Doctor. Pain.

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[Therin]

“Well, Doctor, it seems it has become your weekly ritual to sit on that windowsill and contemplate the death that lies outside that window. I admit, I am curious as to what you find so interesting.”

Wolfe turned halfway from his perch, looking back over his shoulder at his weekly patient. “Death? Is that what you see out there?”

“What else is there to see? Gray walls, brown dust. Nothing living ever touches that ground. Nothing really living anyway.”

“You see your fellow inmates as dead bodies?”

“They are. Have you watched them out there?”

“I have. I see all the normal signs of life. They move, they are alert. They engage in leisurely activities when given the opportunity. Does that not indicate life?”

“It indicates boredom. To some schools of thought, boredom and death are inextricably linked.”

“And yourself? Are you ‘dead’?”

Janus’ voice grew quiet. “I have been dead for longer than you know, Doctor.”

“Yet you think. You are aware. You can see and comprehend what goes on around you. Again, does that not indicate life?”

“No, it indicates existence. Something, or someone can exist and yet not be alive, true? Otherwise, how would we be able to see the bodies which litter our burial grounds?”

“Yet by medical definitions, you are alive, no?”

“I think you’ll find, as you go through life, Doctor, that medical definitions only cover part of the whole reality.”

“Very well. When, then, did you ‘die’?”

“I think you can figure it out for yourself, Doctor.”

“Indulge me. Or give me a clue, at least.”

“A clue? Fine. What would it take to remove your life from you?”

“A knife. A blunt object. Any instrument of death would do the job, I guess.”

“You’re still adhering to those pesky medical definitions, Doctor. Step back. Let them go. What would it take to make you feel dead, to make you lose the drive to live, to exist?”

“I…don’t know, I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Take some time to think about it now,” Janus said quietly. Then a wry smile grew on his face. “I assure you, I won’t be going anywhere at all soon.”

Wolfe returned to his contemplation of the prison grounds for a time. Then he turned around, abruptly, realizing what his subject had done, and stepped down from the windowsill to stand over the desk, staring intently into the eyes of the killer. “I’ll get back to you on that, maybe next time. You’ve said you only see death outside that window, but I think it maybe you, instead of me, who is narrowing your perspective.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I think that you have been inside these walls, beneath this roof, on these grounds for long enough that you have forgotten what lies outside them.”

Janus grabbed the pad of yellow legal paper which sat on the desk, and turned it round to face him. He looked up at Wolfe. “May I have a pen please, Doctor?”

“How do I know you won’t stab me to death with it? The guards specifically warned me that you are stone cold killer. You’ve even admitted as much yourself.”

“But have I ever killed another man, much less one of your age?”

“Captivity does strange things to people. You may find the desire to escape too powerful to resist.”

“Escape? With a pen? In a bright yellow prison suit, with handcuffs still on my hands? I think maybe you should be going in for some of your own medicine. I’d be dead within seconds.”

“The desire to die, I think, can become as powerful as the desire to escape. As I said, captivity can do strange things to people.”

Janus smiled, an unreadable smile that was part wolf and part clown. “Die? And miss our time together? I wouldn’t do it for the world.”

Wolfe returned the smile with an unreadable look of his own, debating with himself. Finally, he retrieved a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt, and set it warily on the desk before back off silently to watch his subject.

Janus picked up the pen, removed the cap one-handed, letting it drop to the desk, and began to doodle idly on the yellow pad. He paused in the silence, and looked up at Wolfe. “For the sake of passing the time, please do tell me what lies outside those walls.”

Wolfe paused, gathering himself after this rather unexpected turn of events, then spoke strongly as he returned to the windowsill and looked out upon the grounds again. “Why, life, of course. Every day life, drives to the zoo, taking the bus to work, cooking macaroni lunch for the kids. You know, life. It’s what you see outside, not inside this place. You won’t find it here, but you can catch a glimpse of it if you simply look up,” he paused to point out the window, “At the sky.”

Janus paused in his doodling, and raised his eyes to regard the psychotherapist who stared raptly up out of the window. “I can see no sky, Doctor. All I see is dusty desolation. The land of the dead.”

Wolfe turned round with an exasperated sigh, and walked around the desk, speaking as he went. “Oh, don’t be stupid. Come. Come look,” he finished, bending over and urging his patient to his feet with hands on shoulders. Then he froze as he felt something cold under his chin. His eyes swiveled to meet the face of the man who, he was forcefully reminded, had killed sixteen innocent women, girls, really, in cold blood.

“If you don’t take your hands off me within the next five seconds, you will not live to see another day. Believe me when I say that.”

He couldn’t hesitate, if he hesitated, he would die. He might die anyway, he mused, laughing to himself. He wasn’t sure what made it funny, but it was. But he couldn’t think about that now. He smiled impishly into the face of his foe, into the face of death. “And miss our time together? You wouldn’t do it for the world.” He winked, and continued to urge, forcing himself to ignore the pen-turned-murder-weapon under his chin. “Now, come on. Come see what I want to show you. You won’t be sorry, I promise.” For a moment, those eyes darkened, and he was sure he was about to die. He gave a silent prayer for Linda and Sarah, that they would live long, easy lives in his absence. Then the pen was gone. He looked down in astonishment to see it lying, immobile, on the yellow legal pad. But where was the hand that had held it?

“I thought you wanted to show me something, Doctor? You can’t show me from over there, unless you want me to stare at my own writing.”

Janus was smiling smugly from the windowsill.

Shakily, Wolfe straightened, and returned to the windowsill, gaining confidence as he went. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but it felt like minutes on end before he approached this very dangerous man who leaned calmly against the windowsill. It was the same place he’d been during their first session. He stopped, and looked out. Out and up. He pointed, his reach limited by the solid pane of glass which let in light, but not air, from the world outside. “Do you see that cloud?”

“…Yes?”

“What does it look like to you?”

“A crucifix. Our supposed lord and savior being tortured to death by his own people.”

“How uplifting,” said Wolfe sarcastically, “Do you know what I see? I see a dove. A white dove, with wings spread wide, soaring through that infinite ocean of ephemeral blue. Can you see the resemblance?”

“If you say so, Doctor.”

Wolfe chanced a quick glance to the side. A smile rested on that once stony face. A real smile, not one of those phony ones he wore to anger Wolfe. Rather than say anything, and risk breaking his patient’s moment of happiness, he returned quietly, and sat at the desk, in the seat that Janus had occupied mere seconds before. His eyes wandered as he waited in silence. Down to the legal pad. Upon which there was no doodling, not a single artistic element. Just a name.

Jonathan Davies.

Who could that be? What could the name mean? Was it a pseudonym? Was it some distant relative? He remembered another, similar name. Amelie Davies. Amy. Her father, or brother, perhaps? A knock on the door snapped him out of his thoughts. It came from inside. Janus was at the door. How did he move without making a sound? He whispered something to the guards outside, and as the door opened wider to let him out, he paused, turning back to Wolfe.

“If you can find them, tell the parents of that child that they have my deepest sympathies and regrets. I won’t mind if you miss next week’s appointment. Goodbye, Doctor.”

Wolfe’s eyes returned to the name on the legal pad. Jonathan Davies. God forbid, was it her child?

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[Therin]

“Back so soon?” said Janus as he entered the familiar room one week later. Wolfe, however, was not at his customary post. He sat instead at the desk, with a legal pad and a sheaf of papers in front of him. Janus frowned. “Lost your interest in the outside world, have you?”
“Oh, quite the contrary. I thought I’d reserve the spot for you, so that you could look at the sky. A reminder, in a way, of what I intend to teach you.”
“And what, pray tell, do you intend to teach me, Doctor?” Janus asked warily, remaining just inside the door.
“Hope.”
“You must be joking.”
“Have I ever joked with you?”
“I seem to remember a distinctly unpleasant situation just last week, but if you think you were serious, so be it. You haven’t dealt with many of my kind, have you, Doctor?”
“What gives you that impression?”
“If you had, you’d know better than to talk about things like that.”
“Why?”
“Because hope is simply an indulgence. An indulgence which can, and often does, do more harm than good amid these particular surroundings.”
“How could hope be harmful? Hope is one of the pillars of humanity. It is one of the things that separates us from the animals!”
“Separates you from the animals, Doctor.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Separates you from the animals. We, here, we are animals. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“What makes you so different from me?”
“I’ve killed without feeling sorry about it.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Sure about what? Those girls are dead, there’s no mistaking it.”
“Are you so sure you don’t feel guilt?”
“What makes you think I would?”
“You are human.”
“I am no such thing.”
“Then why do you feel you must reject it so forcefully?”
“You haven’t the faintest inkling of what I feel, Doctor.”
“No, but I know that you do feel. And if you feel, you must be human.”
“Not true. Elephants mourn for their dead, do they not? Yet they are most certainly not human.”
Wolfe’s voice grew soft, his eyes far away. “They are more human than we are, I think, sometimes.”
“Then maybe we are not as ‘human’ as we think, hmm?”
The psychologist’s eyes snapped back to the present. “Regardless, you still haven’t told me how something so glorious as hope could be detrimental to someone like you. I would think you would need it more than most to remain yourself.”
“Wrong. Hope is like a drug, Doctor. It makes us happy, lets us believe that there might be some good to come. But hope also paves the way for disappointment; the crash after the high has run its course. As with any drug, the disappointment, and consequential disillusionment, have far worse effects than the lack of hope to begin with. Also, just like every other drug, in the wrong amounts, hope can drive a man out of his mind.”
Wolfe paused thoughtfully, staring out the window. Janus moved around and sat on the edge of the desk while he waited. Finally, the doctor looked up, steepled his fingers, and said quietly, “You know what? I agree. In the wrong amounts, hope can make someone insane. But did you ever think that the wrong amount might be zero, and that that someone might just be yourself?”
Janus didn’t move, gave no reaction. But he didn’t reply either. Wolfe yearned to see the look on his subject’s face, longed to see if he had finally broken through that barrier of ice. But he knew better. He wouldn’t disturb Janus’ thoughts. He would simply have to wait, and hope that his words had had the impact that he wanted them to have.
When the guards came to signal the end of the session, Wolfe had returned again to the windowsill, looking out thoughtfully. But Janus still sat on the edge of the desk, his head down, lost in a world of his own. Wolfe almost thought he would ignore the guards and continue to sit, but then he got up, and silently made his way out of the room.

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[kittenofsences]

YOU KEEP LEAVING ME ON CLIFF HANGERS DAMNIT! :: sobs::

[underpants]

I know!!! Lews, you have to stop doing that!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhh what about jonathan davies???????? ahhhhhhhhhh the suspense is killing me!!!!

[Ultrawolf]

yea definitly have to say this is one of Therin's best work. I've been priveledged enough to have a sneak preview of this story from its production and i definitly can say that so far it is Therin's best work. /clap

[Therin]

“Alright, Doctor. Out with it.” Janus stared balefully at Wolfe as he was ushered into the small room.

“Out with what?”

Janus smacked his hand on the desk angrily. “Jonathan Davies, Doctor! You put me off last time, and I don’t take kindly to that.”

“I hadn’t gone to see th-“

“Liar!”

Wolfe paused, taken aback, and then sighed, looking down at the floor from his perch on the windowsill. “I wasn’t sure what to tell you.”

“Start with the truth, Doctor, and work up from there. You can’t build a house with hollow bricks. You can’t build trust with lies, Doctor.”

“They…” Wolfe paused, then sighed again. “They’re dead. They died three years ago. Nicholas, the father, died of liver failure, among other things related to alcoholism, and his wife, Carol, died three weeks later, heart failure.” He looked up, and was astonished to see a slow smile spreading across Janus’ face. Then he made the connection. “You knew?”

“Yes, Doctor, I knew. I was let out long enough to attend their funeral.”

“You were…!”

“Yes. How old do you think I am, Doctor?”

For the first time, Wolfe looked at his subject’s face. Really looked. He had thought, from the thinning hair, and deep creases and wrinkles on his face, that Janus Bostrom must have been somewhere in his late sixties, possibly even in his seventies. Now that it came to it, though, he wasn’t so sure. Something about the man’s eyes held a vitality, an energy, despite his cold surroundings, that made it impossible to say for sure. “I…I couldn’t say.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Uh…sixty-two.”

“Wrong. Wrong by eight years, Doctor. I turn fifty-four next Tuesday, although there’ll be no one around to celebrate it.”

Wolfe was shocked. The man was barely a year older than himself. The Davieses had been old enough to be his parents when they had died. Who were they?

“Who…Who were they? Who was John Davies?”

“John Davies was my first victim. He was the little boy I killed.”

“You killed…! But that wasn’t your MO. You only killed young women age-“

“Twenty seven, with red hair, Doctor, correct. But before I killed them, I killed little Jonny Davies. He was the beginning.”

“But why? Why did you kill him? Who was he?”

“He was the man who killed his wife, the boy who was too weak to move on and get over it,” Janus spat, viciously.

“But why did you kill him?”

“It was kill or be killed, Doctor. Me or him. Him or Me. Aren’t you glad it was me who lived? I rid the world of a man who killed his wife, Doctor.”

“You caught him in the act.”

The older man grinned slowly. “…You could say that.”

“So what were you doing in another man’s house?”

The man at the desk only grinned wider.

“What were you doing in his house?” Wolfe repeated sharply, moving to lean over the desk and stare intently at his subject, “Did you break in, were you robbing him, had you decided to kill his wife?” His eyes narrowed suddenly as another thought came to mind. “Or…were you having an affair?”

No response. Only that incessant, almost manic grin by way of answer.

“Were you having sex with another man’s wife, Mister Bostrom?”

The grin vanished, like the moon sliding behind thick cloud cover. There was the sense, though, that, like the moon, it was still there. Only temporarily hidden. “No. And this session is over, Doctor.” The familiar deadpan was back. Janus rose quickly from the chair at the desk and turned toward the door, raising his manacled hands to knock.

“No. You will not be rid of me that easily!” Wolfe crossed the room in a flash, and grabbed Bostrom’s shoulder, turned him around, and flinched. The steel was back in the killer’s piercing blue eyes. Wolfe stepped back, let his hand fall, and simply watched, simmering, as his subject knocked, spoke quickly with the guards, and strode off down the hallway.

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[underpants]

COULDN'T BE WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh you're killing me with all this suspense!!!!!!