The Face of Fear by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page A

clairvoyance had allowed him to predict sharp rises in the stock market rather than isolated pockets of maniacal violence. He would have preferred to see the names of winning horses in races not yet run rather than the names of victims in murders he’d never seen committed.
    If he could have wished away his powers, he would have done that long ago. But because that was impossible, he felt as if he had a responsibility to develop and interpret his psychic talent. He believed, perhaps irrationally, that by doing so he was compensating, at least in part, for the cowardice that had overwhelmed him these past five years.
    “What do you make of the message he left us?” Preduski asked.
    On the wall beside the vanity bench there were lines of poetry printed in blood.
     
Rintah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air ; Hungry clouds swag on the deep
     
“Have any idea what it means?” Preduski asked.
    “I’m afraid not.”
    “Recognize the poet?”
    “No.”
    “Neither do I.” Preduski shook his head sorrowfully. “I’m not very well educated. I only had one year of college. Couldn’t afford it. I read a lot, but there’s so much to read. If I were educated, maybe I’d know whose poetry that is. I should know. If the Butcher takes the time to write it down, it’s something important to him. It’s a lead. What kind of detective am I if I can’t follow up a lead as plain as that?” He shook his head again, clearly disgusted with himself. “Not a good one. Not a very good one.”
    “Maybe it’s his own poetry,” Graham said.
    “The Butcher’s?”
    “Maybe.”
    “A murderous poet? T.S. Eliot with a homicidal urge?”
    Graham shrugged.
    “No,” Preduski said. “A man usually commits this sort of crime because it’s the only way he can express the rage inside him. Slaughter releases pressures that have built in him. But a poet can express his feelings with words. No. If it were doggerel, perhaps it could be the Butcher’s own verse. But this is too smooth, too sensitive, too good. Anyway, it rings a bell. Way back in this thick head of mine, it rings a bell.” Preduski studied the bloody message for a moment, then turned and went to the bedroom door. It was standing open ; he closed it. “Then there’s this one.”
    On the back of the door, five words were printed in the dead woman’s blood.
     
a rope over an abyss
     
“Has he ever left anything like this before?” Graham asked.
    “No. I would have told you if he had. But it’s not unusual in this sort of crime. Certain types of psychopaths like to communicate with whoever finds the corpse. Jack the Ripper wrote notes to the police. The Manson family used blood to scrawl one-word messages on the walls. ‘A rope over an abyss.’ What is he trying to tell us?”
    “Is it from the same poem as the other?”
    “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Preduski sighed, thrust his hands into his pockets. He looked dejected. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’m ever going to catch him.”
     
The living room of Edna Mowry’s apartment was small but not mean. Indirect lighting bathed everything in a relaxing amber glow. Gold velvet drapes.
    Textured light tan burlap-pattern wallpaper. Plush brown carpet. A beige velour sofa and two matching armchairs. A heavy glass coffee table with brass legs. Chrome and glass shelves full of books and statuary. Limited editions of prints by some fine contemporary artists. It was tasteful, cozy and expensive.
    At Preduski’s request, Graham settled down in one of the armchairs.
    Sarah Piper was sitting on one end of the sofa. She looked as expensive as the room. She was wearing a knitted pantsuit—dark blue with Kelly green piping—gold earrings and an elegant watch as thin as a half dollar. She was no older than twenty-five, a strikingly lovely, well-built blonde, marked by experience.
    Earlier she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red. She was in control of herself now.
    “We’ve been through this