The Dead Room by Robert Ellis Page A

got two minutes.’ Then she’d just stand there and let me look at her.”
    “Was she always in her bathing suit?”
    “A couple of times she was in her bra and panties.”
    Teddy thought about the pair of panties he’d found in Darlene’s bedroom closet. They were almost transparent.
    “Was she always wearing clothes?” he asked. “In her bathing suit or in her underwear?”
    Holmes nodded.
    “Did you ever touch her?”
    Holmes hesitated, but eventually shook his head. “I used to think about doing things to her though. I couldn’t help it. When I started thinking, sometimes I couldn’t stop.”
    “What kind of things?”
    “... Just things .”
    “Did you tell any of this to the police?”
    “I don’t remember,” Holmes said, lowering his hands. “I’m tired. I want you to go away now. I wanna go home.”

 
     
     
     
    SEVEN
     
     
     
    He used to think about doing things to her. He couldn’t help it and couldn’t stop....
    Teddy walked out of the lobby into the parking lot, looking for his car in the freezing rain and wet snow.
    Things ...
    The things Holmes had done to Darlene Lewis were so brutal, the slob blacked out and couldn’t even remember driving home. What Holmes had said didn’t amount to a confession, but the motive was clear enough.
    Teddy checked his watch. It was after eleven. When the day started, he was about to win his first ruling in civil court. Now he was helping Jim Barnett shepherd a maniac through the system who insisted on a trial. It would be prolonged. Loud and painful for everyone.
    He spotted his car ahead, keeping his eyes on the ground and pretending to check the wet asphalt for ice. He knew Holmesburg Prison was on the other side of I-95, and didn’t want to look at it. He was afraid to look at it because he thought he might break. It had been a long day of keeping everything down. Turning off his memories, forgetting what was past—he hadn’t told anyone that this was the stuff of nightmares for over half of his short life. Having to meet Holmes had only been the hideous icing on a poisoned cake.
    When the assistant warden told him about the Curran-Fromhold murders, Teddy had acted like he was hearing it for the first time, even though he wasn’t. His father had told him the same story when he was just fourteen. Teddy had heard the rumors at school and asked him about it while making a Saturday visit to the prison with his mother. His father admitted they were true, while trying to reassure his worried son that this kind of thing didn’t happen anymore.
    Everything would be okay.
    Teddy wiped the snow off the windshield. As he started the car his eyes went directly to the temperature gauge on the dash. Thirty-three degrees. The roads might be slippery, but they wouldn’t have turned to ice yet. He switched on the heat. While he waited for the car to warm up, he dug his cell phone out and checked his messages. There were three.
    The first was from Brooke Jones, requesting his original files on that personal injury case. She said she couldn’t find them in the canvas tote bag she’d taken from his office, and tried to make it sound like what she was doing for him amounted to a big favor. She was a bitch from the word go, and he couldn’t stand the affected tone of her voice. Jones was one of those people you see so often on the road these days. In a hurry going nowhere. Teddy deleted the message before she was through.
    The second message was from Jill Sykes, warning him that Brooke Jones was going to call. He smiled at her timing, listening to her urgent whisper with the sounds of the office in the background. As she hung up, he couldn’t help hoping that the firm would hire her once she got through her exams. He needed an ally. Someone who wasn’t always keeping score.
    The third message would be from Barnett. Teddy switched on the interior lights and grabbed a pen in case he had to write something down. The phone beeped and the message started. Two