"How?" asked Step. "Why can't people see through his lies?"

"Cause he doesn't lie," said Douglas. "It's like Bundy again. He really believes that he's innocent. Because it isn't him doing it, it's this evil thing inside him. He knows it's there, but it's not him, see, and so he doesn't even feel guilty, because he knows that he'd never do anything like those horrible things."

"So it could be anybody, and he wouldn't even know it himself?"

"Oh, he knows it," said Douglas. "Because all the time that he's telling himself that he would never do this bad stuff, in fact he's working as hard as he can to protect that other part of him. To keep anybody from catching him. No, he knows. If he didn't know what he was doing, if he was really crazy, we'd have found the bodies."

They heard DeAnne talking as she came down the hall. "It's nothing all that important," she was saying.

"He just wants to talk to you."

Stevie came into the room, looking sleepy. So he finally had taken a nap, Step thought. Douglas didn't stand up, just stuck out his hand. Because he was sitting down, his head was at about the same level as Stevie's.

"I'm Doug Douglas, son," he said. "Would you shake my hand?"

Stevie came forward and took Douglas's big hand and shook it, solemnly.

"I don't know how much your mama told you about me, but I'm a policeman."

Stevie glanced down at Douglas's suit.

"That's right, I don't wear a uniform. I'm a detective, so if your daddy ever drives faster than the speed limit, I'll let him go right by because traffic isn't my job."

Douglas paused, apparently waiting for Stevie to ask him what his job was. Of course Stevie didn't say a thing.

"The thing is," said Douglas, "there's a bad person in Steuben these days who's been kidnapping kids. Do you know what kid napping is?"

Stevie nodded.

"Well, you're going to be hearing a lot about this guy at school tomorrow. What grade will you be in?"

"Third."

"Yeah, you'll hear a lot. Your teachers will tell you, cops like me will come to school and tell you-stay away from strangers. If somebody grabs you, scream your lungs out."

"We already taught him all this," said DeAnne. "He already follows these rules."

"Well, I'm glad to hear that," said Douglas. "Do you always follow those rules?"

Stevie nodded.

"And what if somebody wanted you to go off alone with him, and you said no, cause it was against the rules, but then he said, All right, but don't you ever tell anybody that I asked you. What would you do?"

"Tell Mom and Dad," said Stevie.

"What if he said that if you told, he'd hurt you."

"I'd still tell."

"This boy's been well trained," said Douglas. "Stevie, I hear you have some good friends."

DeAnne stiffened, and Step said, "Mr. Douglas."

"Now, now, Stevie doesn't mind talking about his friends. Do you, Stevie?"

Stevie shrugged. A little one-shoulder shrug.

"Well, I'm not going to ask anything hard. I just want you to tell me one thing. Who was it who told you their names?"

"Jack," said Stevie.

"Jack," said Douglas. "Now,. is he one of those friends, or are you thinking about some other Jack?"

"He's one of them," said Stevie.

"So he told you his own name," said Douglas.

Stevie nodded.

"And everybody else's name."

Stevie nodded. "Except Sandy," he said.

"And who told you Sandy's name?"

"Sandy," said Stevie.

"Stevie, I bet you love your mom and dad, don't you?"

Stevie nodded, immediately, deeply.

"Well, I just want you to know that I've been talking to them for the last while and they really love you, too.

More than you even know, and I'll bet you already think they love you a lot, don't you."

Again he nodded.

"They love you so much that they want you to be safe, all the time. Now can you do that for them? Can you keep yourself safe? Follow all those rules?"

Stevie nodded.

"Well that's it then," said Douglas. "I'm glad to meet you, Stevie. And if anybody ever gives you any trouble, you just tell them that Doug Douglas is your friend, and they better be nice to you, all right?"

Stevie nodded again. And then said, "Thanks."

"Can you go off to your room again now, Stevie?" said Step. "We just need to talk to Mr. Douglas here a little bit more, OK?"

Stevie headed back to the hall. DeAnne got up and followed him; when she came back a moment later, she said, "I just had to make sure he was back in his room."

"Well," said Step. "I don't know what you could possibly have learned from that."

"Oh, I learned what I needed to learn," said Douglas.

"And what was that?"

"Your son's honest," he said. "He's sweet. Deep into his heart, he's sweet. If God could taste him, that's what God would say: This boy is sweet, right through."

Step wasn't about to disagree with him, but he didn't see how Douglas could know that from the banal little conversation he had with Stevie.

"He reminds me of my late wife," Douglas said. "She'd have nightmares sometimes, terrible ones. She'd wake up in the middle of the night and make me hold her close and she'd tell me the nightmare. And then I'd get up in the morning and go to work, or sometimes I'd get a call that very night, and it would be a crime that had something to do with her dream." Douglas leaned back, remembering. "One time she dreamed of a blue dress, trying to put it on, only it kept slipping off of her, she couldn't wear it, and it frightened her, you know the way it is when you're dreaming, you get scared over silly things like that, not being able to put on a dress. And then I get to work and there's this woman and they're taking her statement and the story is that she was raped that night, the guy chased her, and three times she slipped out of his grasp because of the dress she was wearing, that blue dress."

"Oh," said DeAnne.

Step had studied folklore in college and he knew from the start how the story would end. They all ended that way. "That actually happened to your wife? Or didn't you hear it from a friend of a friend?"

Douglas laughed softly. "You're the man who called me up because you had that list, and you're asking me if this is just some fairy tale? Yeah, we're always skeptical about the other guy's story. But I don't really care whether you believe me because that's not what I'm trying to tell you anyway. What I'm telling you is, there's some people who do things so bad it tears at the fabric of the world, and then there's some people so sweet and good that they can feel it when the world gets torn. They see things, they know things, only they're so good and pure that they don't understand what it is that they're seeing. I think that's what's been happening to your boy.

What's going on here in Steuben is so evil and he is so good and pure that he can't help but feel it. The minute he got to Steuben he must have felt it, and it made him sad. My wife was like that, always sad. The rest of us, we've got good and evil mixed up in us, and our own badness makes so much noise we can't hear the evil of the monster out there. But your Stevie, he can hear it. He can hear the names of the boys. Only, just like my wife made a dream out of it, a dream of trying to put on a dress, your Stevie takes those names and he makes friends out of them. And to him those friends are real because the evil that pushed those names into his mind, that is real."

"So you don't think Stevie is crazy," said Step.

"Hell, you know he ain't crazy. You got the list, don't yo u?"

"Is there something we should do?" asked DeAnne.

"I can't think of anything, except hold on to your children, hold them tight, keep them safe."

"Yes sir," said Step.

Douglas got up. "I need me a cigarette now, so I'll be on my way."

"I'm sorry we bothe red you about something that turned out not to be helpful to you," said Step.