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He gestured toward the staircase. “There was an undisturbed layer of dust on the upper steps, but the bottom steps were smeared. I could make out what looked like a boot print on the bottom and a handprint on the railing. It’s harder to see now, because it’s been a couple of weeks and there’s a fresh coating of grime.”
“Show me where you found the used hypodermic needle.”
He pointed toward the rusted bedsprings a few feet away. “Under that old bed. My theory of the crime is that someone used a powerful sedative to subdue or murder Geddings. Maybe there was a short struggle before the drug took effect. Whatever—the killer dropped the needle and either didn’t bother to search for it later or didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“Because even if it was found, it would look like an addict had used it and discarded it,” Pallas concluded.
“Right.”
She waited a beat.
“Go on,” she said when he didn’t continue his tale.
He drank some more coffee while he contemplated the staircase. “The use of a drug as a murder weapon points toward the Institute, but I admit it’s a very thin piece of evidence.”
Her eyes widened. “You think the director of the clinic, that doctor you mentioned—”
“Fenner. Conrad Fenner.”
“Do you think he murdered Geddings?”
“If he found out that Geddings was going to sell me information about what happened at the clinic that night, he had motive.”
“Was Geddings a big man?” Pallas asked.
“Over six feet and solid.”
“What about Dr.Fenner?” she asked.
“Shorter and much softer. You’re wondering what happened to the body, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Pallas said. “That, combined with the fact that no one seems to have reported Geddings’s disappearance, raises a few questions. It’s not that easy to dispose of a body.”
“I’m aware of that.” He finished the last of the coffee. “I write thrillers for a living, remember? Or at least I used to.”
“Any idea why Geddings wanted to meet you here at the asylum?”
“I assume it’s because of the remote location and the limited access. Just the one narrow road. You can see a vehicle coming long before it gets here.”
Pallas gave him a very bright smile. “Assuming you don’t happen to be in a trance.”
Ambrose raised his empty cup in a faint salute, silently acknowledging the accusation that he had taken her by surprise. “When you think about it, this makes a logical rendezvous point. Everyone’s got a camera these days. The one thing you can be sure of out here on the cliffs is that no one is hiding in the bushes. There aren’t any.”
Pallas shuddered and looked up the staircase. “This place is horrible. I don’t even want to think about what it must have been like to be locked up in one of those little rooms.”
“Given your claim that you can draw the energy left at the scene of a death and my claim to being able to see human auras, there’s adamn good chance that, a few decades ago, both of us would have wound up in a place like this.”
“I know.” Pallas turned away from the staircase and picked up her messenger bag. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea.”
Without another word he wrapped his fingers around her arm and steered her gently through the rubble. She did not attempt to pull away.
She did not ask any more questions until they were in the car, driving down the narrow, badly rutted lane that would take them back to the main road.
“Tell me again what you recall about the night in the Institute,” she said.
“I checked in shortly after ten,” he said. “I was in bed and hooked up to the monitors before eleven. That’s early for me. I’m a late-night person these days, but the clinic has rules. I planned to read for a while before I tried to sleep.”
