What the Night Knows

Beyond the glass, the furniture featured padded, upholstered legs. The cushions were smooth-sewn, without buttons or upholstery tacks.

Ceiling-mounted cameras on the visitor’s side covered the entire room. From the guard’s station, Coleman Hanes could watch but not listen.

Before leaving, the orderly indicated an intercom panel in the wall beside the door. “Call me when you’re finished.”

Alone, John stood beside an armchair, waiting.

The glass must have had a nonreflective coating. He could see only the faintest ghost of himself haunting that polished surface.

In the far wall, on the patient’s side of the room, two barred windows provided a view of slashing rain and dark clouds curdled like malignant flesh.

On the left, a door opened, and Billy Lucas entered the patient’s side of the room. He wore slippers, gray cotton pants with an elastic waistband, and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt.

His face, as smooth as cream in a saucer, seemed to be as open and guileless as it was handsome. With pale skin and thick black hair, dressed all in gray, he resembled an Edward Steichen glamour portrait from the 1920s or ’30s.

The only color he offered, the only color on his side of the glass, was the brilliant, limpid, burning blue of his eyes.

Neither agitated nor lethargic from drugs, Billy crossed the room unhurriedly, with straight-shouldered confidence and an almost eerie grace. He looked at John, only at John, from the moment he entered the room until he stood before him, on the farther side of the glass partition.

“You’re not a psychiatrist,” Billy said. His voice was clear, measured, and mellifluous. He had sung in his church choir. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“Calvino. Homicide.”

“I confessed days ago.”

“Yes, I know.”

“The evidence proves I did it.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Then what do you want?”

“To understand.”

Less than a full smile, a suggestion of amusement shaped the boy’s expression. He was fourteen, the unrepentant murderer of his family, capable of unspeakable cruelty, yet the half-smile made him look neither smug nor evil, but instead wistful and appealing, as though he were recalling a trip to an amusement park or a fine day at the shore.

“Understand?” Billy said. “You mean – what was my motive?”

“You haven’t said why.”

“The why is easy.”

“Then why?”

The boy said, “Ruin.”

Chapter 2 (#ulink_ffdb646e-bb52-59ac-b7a9-97def160e6d5)

The windless day abruptly became turbulent and rattled raindrops like volleys of buckshot against the armored glass of the barred windows.

That cold sound seemed to warm the boy’s blue gaze, and his eyes shone now as bright as pilot lights.

“‘Ruin,’” John said. “What does that mean?”

For a moment, Billy Lucas seemed to want to explain, but then he merely shrugged.

“Will you talk to me?” John asked.

“Did you bring me something?”

“You mean a gift? No. Nothing.”

“Next time, bring me something.”

“What would you like?”

“They won’t let me have anything sharp or anything hard and heavy. Paperback books would be okay.”

The boy had been an honor student, in his junior year of high school, having skipped two grades.

“What kind of books?” John asked.

“Whatever. I read everything and rewrite it in my mind to make it what I want. In my version, every book ends with everyone dead.”

Previously silent, the storm sky found its voice. Billy looked at the ceiling and smiled, as if the thunder spoke specifically to him. Head tilted back, he closed his eyes and stood that way even after the rumble faded.

“Did you plan the murders or was it on impulse?”

Rolling his head from side to side as though he were a blind musician enraptured by music, the boy said, “Oh, Johnny, I planned to kill them long, long ago.”

“How long ago?”

“Longer than you would believe, Johnny. Long, long ago.”

“Which of them did you kill first?”

“What does it matter if they’re all dead?”

“It matters to me,” John Calvino said.

Pulses of lightning brightened the windows, and fat beads of rain quivered down the panes, leaving a tracery of arteries that throbbed on the glass with each bright palpitation.

“I killed my mother first, in her wheelchair in the kitchen. She was getting a carton of milk from the refrigerator. She dropped it when the knife went in.”

Billy stopped rolling his head, but he continued to face the ceiling, eyes still closed. His mouth hung open. He raised his hands to his chest and slid them slowly down his torso.

He appeared to be in the grip of a quiet ecstasy.