What an interesting choice , the Watcher thought. Voodoo. There was a certain logic to the idea, of course, he could not deny that. But what was really interesting was what it showed about the other. He was moving in the right direction-and he was very close.

And when his next little clue turned up, the other would be that much closer. The boy had been so panicky, he had almost wriggled away. But he had not; he had been very helpful and he was now on his way to his dark reward.

Just like the other was.

THIRTY

I HAD BARELY SETTLED BACK INTO MY CHAIR WHEN DEBORAH came into my little cubicle and sat in the folding chair across from my desk.

"Kurt Wagner is missing," she said.
I waited for more, but nothing came, so I just nodded. "I accept your apology," I said.

"Nobody's seen him since Saturday afternoon," she said. "His roommate says he came in acting all freaked out, but wouldn't say anything. He just changed his shoes, and left, and that's it." She hesitated, and then added, "He left his backpack."

I admit I perked up a little at that. "What was in it?" I asked.
"Traces of blood," she said, as if she was admitting she had taken the last cookie. "It matches Tammy Connor's."

"Well then," I said. It didn't seem right to say anything about the fact that she'd had somebody else do the blood work. "That's a pretty good clue." "Yeah," she said. "It's him. It has to be him. So he did Tammy, took the head in his backpack and did Manny Borque." "It does look like that," I said. "That's a shame-I was just getting used to the idea that I was guilty." "It makes no fucking sense," Deborah complained. "The kid's a good student, on the swimming team, good family-all of that." "He was such a nice guy," I said. "I can't believe he did all those horrible things."

"All right," Deborah said. "I know it, goddamn it. Total cliché. But what the hell-the guy kills his own girlfriend, sure. Maybe even her roommate, because she saw it. But why everybody else? And all that crap with burning them, and the bulls' heads, what is it, Mollusk?"

"Moloch," I said. "Mollusk is a clam."

"Whatever," she said. "But it makes no sense, Dex. I mean…" She looked away, and for a moment I thought she was going to apologize after all. But I was wrong. "If it does make sense," she said, "it's your kind of sense. The kind of thing you know about." She looked back at me, but she still seemed to be embarrassed. "That's, you know-I mean, is it, um-did it come back? Your, uh…"

"No," I said. "It didn't come back."
"Well," she said, "shit."
"Did you put out a BOLO on Kurt Wagner?" I asked.