I remembered Micky Malone as an energetic man of medium height, balding, with a broad smile and a nose that peeled in the sun if he walked outside to get his morning paper. The cane and limp were additions too recent for me to have firmly stuck in my memory. Micky wore old, quality suits, and was careful never to get the jackets messy or his wife would never let him hear the end of it.

I didn't remember Micky with a fixed, tooth-baring grin and eyes spread out in that Helter-Skelter gleam of madness. I didn't remember him covered in small scratches, or his fingernails crusted with his own blood, or his wrists and ankles cuffed to the iron-framed bed. He panted, grinning around the neatly decorated little room. I could smell sweat and urine. There were no lights on in the room, and the curtains had been drawn over the windows, leaving it in a brownish haze.

He turned his head toward me and his eyes widened. He sucked in a breath and threw back his head in a long, falsetto-pitched scream like a coyote's. Then he started laughing and rocking back and forth, jerking on the steel restraints, making the bed shake in a steady, squeaking rhythm.

"Sonia called us this morning," Murphy said, toneless. "She'd locked herself into her closet and had a cellular. We got here right before Micky finished breaking down the closet door."

"She called the cops?"

"No. She called me. Said she didn't want them to see Micky like this. That it would ruin him."

I shook my head. "Damn. Brave lady. And he's been like this ever since?"

"Yeah. He was just … crazy mean. Screaming and spitting and biting."

"Has he said anything?" I asked.

"Not a word," Murphy said. "Animal noises." She crossed her arms and looked up at me, at my eyes for a second, before looking away. "What happened to him, Harry?"

Micky giggled and started bouncing his hips up and down on the bed as he rocked, making it sound as though a couple of hyperkinetic teenagers were coupling there. My stomach turned. No wonder Mrs. Malone hadn't been willing to come back into this room.

"You better give me a minute to find out," I said.

"Could he be … you know. Possessed? Like in the movies?"

"I don't know yet, Murph."

"Could it be some kind of spell?"

"Murphy, I don't know."

"Dammit, Harry," she snapped. "You'd damned well better find out." She clenched her fists and shook with suppressed fury.

I put my hand on her shoulder. "I will. Give me some time with him."

"Harry, I swear, if you can't help him-" Her voice caught in her throat, and tears sparkled in her eyes. "He's one of mine , dammit."

"Easy, Murph," I told her, making my voice as gentle as I knew how. I opened the door for her. "Go get some coffee, all right? I'll see what I can do."