Free Face of Fear by Dean Koontz

psychiatrist would call that delusions of grandeur. And delusions of grandeur characterize schizophrenia and paranoia. Do you still think the Butcher could pass any psychiatric test we could give him?”
    “Yes.”
    “You sense this psychically?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Have you ever sensed something and been wrong?”
    “Not seriously wrong. No worse than thinking Edna Mowry’s name was Edna Dancer.”
    “Of course. I know your reputation. I know you’re good. I didn’t mean to imply anything. You understand? But still—now where do I stand?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Graham... if you were to sit down with a book of Blake’s poems, if you were to spend an hour or so reading them, would that maybe put you in tune with the Butcher? Would it spark something—if not a vision, at least a hunch?”
    “It might.”
    “Would you do me a favor then?”
    “Name it.”
    “If I send a messenger right over with an edition of Blake’s work, will you sit down with it for an hour and see what happens?”
    “You can send it over today if you want, but I won’t get to it until tomorrow.”
    “Maybe just half an hour.”
    “Not even that. I’ve got to finish working on one of my magazines and get it off to the printer tomorrow morning. I’m already three days late with the issue. I’ll be working most of tonight. But tomorrow afternoon or evening, I’ll make time for Blake.”
    “Thank you. I appreciate it. I really do. I’m counting on you. You’re my only hope. This Butcher is too much for me, too sharp for me. I’m getting nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. If we don’t get a solid lead soon, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

9
    Paul Stevenson was wearing a hand-sewn blue shirt, a blue-and-black-striped silk tie, an expensive black suit, black socks, and light brown shoes with white stitching. When he came into Anthony Prine’s office at two o’clock Friday afternoon, unaware that Prine winced when he saw the shoes, he was upset. Because he was incapable of shouting and screaming at Prine, he pouted. “Tony, why are you keeping secrets from me?”
    Prine was stretched out on the couch, his head propped on a bolster pillow. He was reading The New York Times. “Secrets?”
    “I just found out that at your direction the company has hired a private detective agency to snoop on Graham Harris.”
    “They’re not snooping. All I’ve asked them to do is establish Harris’s whereabouts at certain hours on certain days.”
    “You asked the detectives not to approach Harris or his girlfriend directly. That’s snooping. And you asked them for a forty-eight-hour rush job, which triples the cost. If you want to know where he was, why don’t you ask him yourself?”
    “I think he’d lie to me.”
    “Why should he lie? What certain hours? What certain dates?”
    Prine put down the paper, sat up, stood up, stretched. “I want to know where he was when each of those ten women was killed.”
    Perplexed, blinking somewhat stupidly, Stevenson said, “Why?”
    “If on all ten occasions he was alone—working alone, seeing a movie alone, walking alone—then maybe he could have killed them.”
    “Harris? You think Harris is the Butcher?”
    “Maybe.”
    “You hire detectives on a maybe?”
    “I told you, I’ve distrusted that man from the start. And if I’m right about this, what a scoop we’ll have!”
    “But Harris isn’t a killer. He catches killers.”
    Prine went to the bar. “If a doctor treats fifty patients for influenza one week and fifty more the next, would it surprise you if he got influenza himself during the third week?”
    “I’m not sure I get your point.”
    Prine filled his glass with bourbon. “For years Harris has been tuning in to murder with the deepest levels of his mind, exposing himself to trauma as few of us ever do. He has been literally delving into the minds of wife killers, child killers, mass murderers.... He’s probably seen more blood and violence than most