Magician by Timothy C. Phillips Page B

within him the answer to the little girl’s fate. What was he doing now? Was he repeating his master trick on some other poor child, destroying another family forever?
    I had seen magicians as a child. I had never been able to figure out their tricks. Now I would have to learn.

 
    Chapter 10
     
    An hour later I sat in my office, thinking about the Fain mess as coffee got cold. Finally I lunged to my feet and walked to my office window and looked down at the street. The evening had cleared, and the rain and sleet had pulled back for a while, replaced by fickle winter sunshine. The people of Birmingham, used to the unpredictable climate, had cheerfully donned their summer clothes and headed out on to the still glistening sidewalks to make the most of the warmth.  
    What made Fain the way he was? What makes a man go after little girls? And what makes him want to hurt them as well?
    At what point had he become a calculating predator? Had some buried mental anguish from his own childhood resulted in his twisted sexuality? Or was it some other influence, something that other people wouldn’t even notice, that had pushed some inner button, and changed him irrevocably?
    I had seen cases of sexual abuse—more than I cared to remember. As a detective I’d photographed bite marks, burn marks, and other kind of marks I didn’t like to think about, on the bodies of young victims. Some were alive, others were dead, their bodies found in ditches and culverts. The victims who survived such attacks were rarely ever whole again.
    Could a history of abuse be Samson’s story? Had he become just like someone who had preyed on him in the past? Or was he just one of those rare few who are born into the world evil?
    The door to my office creaked open. Lester Broom was standing there, his enormous frame hunched slightly to get through the doorway.
    “Les, how are you?” I extended my hand, which disappeared in his much larger mitt.
    “Great. Just great.” He walked to the far wall and sat on the edge of my tattered old sofa, his customary seat in my plush office.
    We had quite a bit of history between us. Broom, like me, was an ex-military cop, but he was a little older. He was already a detective by the time I joined the force. For a long time, I had known him only as Detective Broom, who worked the same precinct, but who was far above me in the police hierarchy.
    Then, the summer of the Mountainbrook Slasher had come, and the city had been frozen with fear by the rapist who slashed his victim’s faces. I acted on a hunch and caught the man. But the arrest had been partially due to luck. This had gotten me three things; a promotion to detective; a scar on my face I would carry for the rest of my life; and my partner and best friend, Detective Lieutenant Lester Broom.
    Since then the world had changed considerably for both of us. We had seen each other through dark days. Broom had stood by me through my long fight with the bottle, and I had later comforted him while his wife of twelve years lost her long fight with cancer.
    “I was just going to call you, to thank you for the help earlier, Les,” I said.
    I sat back down. Les Broom was Broom to his friends, Big Broom to those who respected and feared him. To me he was just Les.
    “Well, instead, why don’t you just tell me you love me, and I’ll help you a little more,” Broom growled with a sly smile. I noticed he had a mischievous sparkle in his eye.
    “Les, you didn’t, did you?”
    “Of course not. But someone did, and they accidentally left it on my desk.”
    Broom reached inside of his coat and pulled out a thick brown folder bound with string. On the outside was stamped very clearly in red:
    Property of the Jefferson County
    Department of Juvenile Justice.
    In re: Fain, Samson.
    “Les, you shouldn’t have done this.”
    “Go ahead,” Broom said, a little mysteriously. “Take a look.”
    Inside was a police report, bearing the header of the Homewood Police