“How kind of you to say so, dear—oh yeah, it's been a blast. PR's a bullshit business, so I'm perfect for it. Throwing parties, setting up promos. Feeding rumors to the idiot press. Well, the show must go on. Ciao. It was real, stud.”

She stood and nearly ran out of the restaurant.

I put money on the table and followed her, caught up as she was getting into a red Mustang convertible. The car looked new, but there were dings and dents all along the driver's side.

“Uh-uh, no more,” she said, starting the engine. “You get a quickie mind-fuck for your ten bucks, and that's it.”

“Just wanted to thank you,” I said.

“Polite, too,” she said. “I really don't like you.”

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER

30

Robin said, “Bad love. The hypocrisy.”

“The bastard coins a phrase to describe poor child rearing, but has his own private meaning for it.”

“Victimizing little kids.” Her hands tightened around the handle of a wood rasp. The blade caught on a piece of rosewood, and she pulled it free and put it down.

“And,” I said, “if this woman's experience was typical, the victimization was perfectly legal. De Bosch didn't sexually molest anyone, and none of the physical things he did would fall under any child-abuse statutes but Sweden's.”

“Not the poking and slapping?”

“No bruises, no case, and usually you need deep wounds and broken bones to get anywhere legally. Corporal punishment's still allowed in many schools. Back then, it was accepted procedure. And there's never been any law against mind control or psychological abuse—how can you pin down the criteria? Basically, de Bosch behaved like a really rotten parent, and that's no crime.”

She shook her head. “And no one ever said anything.”

“Maybe some of the children did, but I doubt anyone believed them. These were problem kids. Their credibility was low and their parents were angry. In some cases de Bosch was probably the court of last resort. This woman came back to her family traumatized but perfectly compliant. They never suspected the summer at the school was anything but successful.”

“Some success.”

“We're talking ultrahigh levels of parental frustration, Rob. Even if what de Bosch did had come to light and some parents had pulled their kids out, I'll bet you others would have rushed to enroll theirs. De Bosch's victims never had any legal recourse. Now, one of them's evening the score his own way.”

“The same old chain,” she said. “Victims and victimizers.”

“The thing that bothers me, though, is why the killer didn't strike out against de Bosch, only the disciples. Unless de Bosch died before the killer was old enough—or assertive enough—to put together a revenge plot.”

“Or crazy enough.”