What the Night Knows Read Free

the end of the question.”
    “Nothing implied,” John assured him.
    “If he’s not insane, his actions are. If he’s something other than insane, it’s a distinction without a difference.” He tossed the crumpled cup at a wastebasket, and scored. “I thought the case was closed. What did they send you here for?”
    John didn’t intend to reveal that he had never been assigned to the case. “Was the boy given my name before he met me?”
    Hanes shook his head slowly, and John thought of a tank turret coming to bear on a target. “No. I told him he had a visitor he was requiredto see. I once had a sister, John. She was raped, murdered. I don’t give Billy’s kind any more than I have to.”
    “Your sister—how long ago?”
    “Twenty-two years. But it’s like yesterday.”
    “It always is,” John said.
    The orderly fished his wallet from a hip pocket and flipped directly to the cellophane sleeve in which he kept a photo of his lost sister. “Angela Denise.”
    “She was lovely. How old is she there?”
    “Seventeen. Same age as when she was killed.”
    “Did they convict someone?”
    “He’s in one of the new prisons. Private cell. Has his own TV. They can get their own TV these days. And conjugal visits. Who knows what else they get.”
    Hanes put away his wallet, but he would never be able to put away the memory of his sister. Now that John Calvino knew about the sister, he read Hanes’s demeanor as less phlegmatic than melancholy.
    “I told Billy I was Detective Calvino. I never mentioned my first name. But the kid called me Johnny. Made a point of it.”
    “Karen Eisler at the reception desk—she saw your ID. But she couldn’t have told Lucas. There’s no phone in his room.”
    “Is there any other explanation?”
    “Maybe I lied to you.”
    “That’s one possibility I won’t waste time considering.” John hesitated. Then: “Coleman, I’m not sure how to ask this.”
    Hanes waited, as still as sculpture. He never fidgeted. He never made a sweeping gesture when a raised eyebrow would do as well.
    John said, “I know he was transferred here only four days ago. But is there anything you’ve noticed he does that’s … strange?”
    “Besides trying to pee on you?”
    “Not that it happens to me all the time, but that isn’t what I mean by strange. I expect him to be aggressive one way or another. What I’m looking for is … anything quirky.”
    Hanes considered, then said, “Sometimes he talks to himself.”
    “Most of us do, a little.”
    “Not in the third person.”
    John leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me.”
    “Well, I guess it’s usually a question. He’ll say, ‘Isn’t it a nice day, Billy?’ Or ‘This is so warm and cozy, Billy. Isn’t it warm and cozy?’ The thing he most often asks is if he’s having fun.”
    “Fun? What does he say, exactly?”
    “ ‘Isn’t this fun, Billy? Are you having fun, Billy? Could this be any more fun, Billy?’ ”
    John’s coffee had gone cold. He pushed the cup aside. “Does he ever answer his own questions aloud?”
    Coleman Hanes thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”
    “He doesn’t take two sides of a conversation?”
    “No. Mostly just asks himself questions. Rhetorical questions. They don’t really need an answer. It doesn’t sound all that strange, I guess, until you’ve heard him do it.”
    John found himself turning his wedding band around and around on his finger. Finally he said, “He told me that he likes books.”
    “He’s allowed paperbacks. We have a little hospital library.”
    “What kind of thing does he read?”
    “I haven’t paid attention.”
    “True-crime stories? True-murder?”
    Hanes shook his head. “We don’t have any of those. Not a good idea. Patients like Billy find books like that … too exciting.”
    “Has he asked for true-crime books?”
    “He’s never asked me. Maybe someone else.”
    From a compartment in his ID wallet, John extracted a business