The Face of Fear by Dean Koontz

mine—like a sieve. Did you tell me why you didn’t come here at midnight, when you got off work?”
    “I had a date,” she said.
    Graham could tell from her expression and from the tone of her voice that the “date” had been a paying customer. That saddened him a bit. He liked her already. He couldn’t help but like her. He was receiving low-key waves, threshold psychic vibrations from her ; they were very positive, mellow and warm vibrations. She was a damned nice person. He knew. And he wanted only pleasant things to happen to her.
    “Did Edna have a date tonight?” Preduski asked.
    “No. I told you. She came right home.”
    “Maybe her boyfriend was waiting for her.”
    “She was between boyfriends.”
    “Maybe an old boyfriend stopped in to talk.”
    “No. When Edna dropped a guy, he stayed dropped.”
    Preduski sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, shook his head sadly. “I hate to have to ask this.... You were her best friend. But what I’m going to say—please understand I don’t mean to put her down. Life is tough. We all have to do things we’d rather not do. I’m not proud of every day of my life. God knows. Don’t judge. That’s my motto. There’s only one crime I can’t rationalize away. Murder. I really hate to ask this.... Well, was she... do you think she ever...”
    “Was she a prostitute?” Sarah asked for him.
    “Oh, I wouldn’t put it that way! That’s such an awful... I really meant ...”
    “Don’t worry,” she said. She smiled sweetly. “I’m not offended.”
    Graham was amused to see her squeeze the detective’s hand. Now she was comforting Preduski.
    “I do some light hooking myself,” Sarah said. “Not much. Once a week, maybe. I’ve got to like the guy, and he’s got to have two hundred bucks to spare. It’s all the same as stripping to me, really. But it wouldn’t have been something Edna could do. She was surprisingly straight.”
    “I shouldn’t have asked. It was none of my business,” said Preduski. “But it occurred to me that in her line of work there would be a lot of temptation for a girl who needed money.”
    “She made eight hundred a week stripping and hustling drinks,” Sarah said. “She only spent money on her books and apartment. She was socking it in the bank. She didn’t need more.”
    Preduski was somber. “But you see why I had to ask? If she opened the door to the killer, he must have been someone she knew, however briefly. That’s what puzzles me most about this whole case. How does the Butcher get them to open the door?”
    Graham had never thought about that. The dead women were all young, but they were from varied backgrounds. One was a housewife. One was a lawyer. Two were school-teachers. Three secretaries, one model, one sales clerk.... How did the Butcher get so many different women to open their doors to him late at night?
     
The kitchen table was littered with the remains of a hastily prepared and hastily eaten meal. Bits of bread. The dried edge of a slice of bologna. Smears of mustard and mayonnaise. Two apple cores. A can of cling peaches empty of everything except an inch of packing syrup. A drumstick gnawed to the bone. Half a doughnut. Three crushed beer cans. The Butcher had been ravenous and sloppy.
    “Ten murders,” Preduski said, “and he always goes to the kitchen for a snack afterward.”
    Stifled by the psychic atmosphere of the kitchen, by the incredibly strong, lingering presence of the killer which was nearly as heavy here as it had been in the dead woman’s bedroom, Graham could only nod. The mess on the table, in contrast with the otherwise tidy kitchen, disturbed him deeply. The peach can and the beer can were covered with reddish-brown stains ; the killer had eaten while wearing his bloody gloves.
    Preduski shuffled forlornly to the window by the sink. He stared at the neighboring apartment house. “I’ve talked to a few psychiatrists about these feasts he has when he’s done the dirty