praying for an adventure in my life.”
“Well, dear,” The Library Lady said, “I think God is smart enough to understand you really meant a man.”
Glinda jammed her key into the lock and turned. On that note, she was no longer primarily worried about water damage in the storeroom. She was worried about having to spend just long enough with The Library Lady to turn homicidal. The key stuck and she rattled it. The key to the storeroom always stuck. It drove her nuts. She got the thing to turn and pulled the door open.
The Library Lady saw it first, because she was standing on the side where the gap widened. Standing a little behind the moving door, it took Glinda a little longer. The Library Lady cried out. Glinda just stared. Maybe it was all too bizarre to accept at first glance.
“Oh, dear,” The Library Lady said. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”
“Go back toward the front doors,” Glinda told her. “Go back now. Run.”
The Library Lady didn’t run. She might not have been able to. For a second or two, Glinda thought she was going to have to push the old woman to get her to move at all. Then The Library Lady gave a shuffle and a cough and started to back slowly away.
“Don’t you touch those things,” she told Glinda. “Don’t you touch them.”
“I won’t,” Glinda promised her.
She meant to keep that promise, too. Out there in the storeroom, there was no water except for a few dark spots of damp that trailed along the carpet from the outer door. There were no green baize cardboard tables, either, which was what had been in there the last time Glinda looked. As far as Glinda could tell, the storeroom was empty, except for the body of Brigit Ann Reilly stretched out across the floor—
—and the snakes.
It was the snakes that changed everything.
Glinda would have rushed in to see if the girl was all right, or if there was anything she could do to help, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t for the same reason that The Library Lady had taken direction for once and retreated to the library’s front doors.
Brigit Ann Reilly was covered with hissing, snapping, spitting water moccasins, and water moccasins were very poisonous snakes.
Part One
Thursday, February 28
—
Sunday, March 3
One
[1]
W HEN GREGOR DEMARKIAN FIRST heard about the death of Brigit Ann Reilly, he was standing in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in New York City, wondering what he was going to do about his shoes. It was one o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, February 28, a cold, gray, bitter day with too much wind, and Gregor had just come from four solid hours of listening to a lecture on VICAP. VICAP was the Violent Criminals Apprehension Something, Gregor couldn’t remember what. It was also a computer program, devised and implemented to help the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Department help state and local police forces find wandering serial killers. Before his retirement, Gregor had been head of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Department. In fact, he had been the man who set it up. He had also been the man who had argued, time and time again, for a computer system like VICAP. Standing by the long wall of plate glass windows that looked out on a curving drive that connected to a street whose name he couldn’t remember, Gregor tried counting all the bureaucratic reasons he had been given for why he couldn’t have one. It was amazing, really, what bureaucrats would tell you when they knew you wanted something from them. It went beyond lying and got tangled in a form of occupational pathology. It got worse when there was true and undeniable need for whatever you were asking for. Those were the last days of the career of Theodore Robert Bundy, with the papers full of stories about college girls killed in their sorority-house beds. Congress and the American people had been all primed to spend money—to do anything—to protect the country from repeat performances. Gregor had gone to the attorney generals office and
“Well, dear,” The Library Lady said, “I think God is smart enough to understand you really meant a man.”
Glinda jammed her key into the lock and turned. On that note, she was no longer primarily worried about water damage in the storeroom. She was worried about having to spend just long enough with The Library Lady to turn homicidal. The key stuck and she rattled it. The key to the storeroom always stuck. It drove her nuts. She got the thing to turn and pulled the door open.
The Library Lady saw it first, because she was standing on the side where the gap widened. Standing a little behind the moving door, it took Glinda a little longer. The Library Lady cried out. Glinda just stared. Maybe it was all too bizarre to accept at first glance.
“Oh, dear,” The Library Lady said. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”
“Go back toward the front doors,” Glinda told her. “Go back now. Run.”
The Library Lady didn’t run. She might not have been able to. For a second or two, Glinda thought she was going to have to push the old woman to get her to move at all. Then The Library Lady gave a shuffle and a cough and started to back slowly away.
“Don’t you touch those things,” she told Glinda. “Don’t you touch them.”
“I won’t,” Glinda promised her.
She meant to keep that promise, too. Out there in the storeroom, there was no water except for a few dark spots of damp that trailed along the carpet from the outer door. There were no green baize cardboard tables, either, which was what had been in there the last time Glinda looked. As far as Glinda could tell, the storeroom was empty, except for the body of Brigit Ann Reilly stretched out across the floor—
—and the snakes.
It was the snakes that changed everything.
Glinda would have rushed in to see if the girl was all right, or if there was anything she could do to help, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t for the same reason that The Library Lady had taken direction for once and retreated to the library’s front doors.
Brigit Ann Reilly was covered with hissing, snapping, spitting water moccasins, and water moccasins were very poisonous snakes.
Part One
Thursday, February 28
—
Sunday, March 3
One
[1]
W HEN GREGOR DEMARKIAN FIRST heard about the death of Brigit Ann Reilly, he was standing in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in New York City, wondering what he was going to do about his shoes. It was one o’clock on the afternoon of Thursday, February 28, a cold, gray, bitter day with too much wind, and Gregor had just come from four solid hours of listening to a lecture on VICAP. VICAP was the Violent Criminals Apprehension Something, Gregor couldn’t remember what. It was also a computer program, devised and implemented to help the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Department help state and local police forces find wandering serial killers. Before his retirement, Gregor had been head of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Department. In fact, he had been the man who set it up. He had also been the man who had argued, time and time again, for a computer system like VICAP. Standing by the long wall of plate glass windows that looked out on a curving drive that connected to a street whose name he couldn’t remember, Gregor tried counting all the bureaucratic reasons he had been given for why he couldn’t have one. It was amazing, really, what bureaucrats would tell you when they knew you wanted something from them. It went beyond lying and got tangled in a form of occupational pathology. It got worse when there was true and undeniable need for whatever you were asking for. Those were the last days of the career of Theodore Robert Bundy, with the papers full of stories about college girls killed in their sorority-house beds. Congress and the American people had been all primed to spend money—to do anything—to protect the country from repeat performances. Gregor had gone to the attorney generals office and
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