All the mysteries of Jocelyn he’d never unravel. The thought of her- the gone-ness. The day had barely broken, but he had.

When he walked to his car, the neighbor two doors down- the Romanian woman with the victimized eyes, the one who rarely left her own place and couldn’t see Jeremy’s house for the hedges- was standing by her front window watching.

Had Doresh been by, asking questions?

Mrs. Bekanescu was one of the few on the block who owned and didn’t rent. He waved at her, and her curtains snapped shut.

His ability to unsettle someone this early felt perversely gratifying, and he drove faster than usual, switched on bright music. When he got to his desk, he threw off his coat, organized some papers, booted up his computer, and spent the morning punching buttons and rechecking data tables and constructing pretty charts for his book. He gave a try at the introduction but his mind impacted and the words crumbled. He switched topics, began an outline for the chapter he’d have to write: Time/Space Disorientation Secondary to Pediatric Gnotobiotic Isolation.

The only analogues in the literature were studies of scientists stranded in the Antarctic or some such hellhole.

Jeremy’s mind wandered from bottomless glacial rifts to blue ice that could kill you if you kissed it, to the hackneyed horror of falling endlessly, a million ice violins scratching out a tundra symphony. A hard, confident knock on his door shook him upright, and Arthur Chess stepped in, beaming.

The pathologist made himself comfortable in an uncomfortable chair. “Have you given any more thought to the question I posed?”

“The origin of evil,” said Jeremy.

Arthur turned one hand palm-side up. “Evil is a… weighty word. Theologically burdened. I believe we’d settled upon ’very bad behavior.’ ”

We. “No, I haven’t thought about it. As I mentioned, there’s a database- sparse but suggestive. If you’re really interested.”

“I am, Jeremy.”

“I’ll get you some references. But the conclusions might be uncomfortable.”

“For whom?”

“An optimist,” said Jeremy. “A humanist.” He waited to see if Arthur would place himself in either category.

The pathologist smoothed his beard and said nothing. Jeremy’s desk clock ticked the hour.

“The bottom line, Arthur, is that certain people seem to be born with a hard-wired propensity for impulsiveness. Of those, a few turn to violence. Males, mostly, so testosterone may be part of it. But there’s more than hormones at work. The significant variable seems to be low arousability. Slower than normal resting heart rates. A cool nervous system.”

“Preternatural calm,” said Arthur, as if he’d heard it before.

“You know the research?”

Arthur shook his head. “However, what you’re saying makes perfect sense. A stranger to fear is a stranger to conscience.”

“That’s one theory,” said Jeremy. “Fear’s a terrific teacher, and those who don’t learn from it miss out on valuable social lessons. But there’s another way to look at it: adrenaline addiction. A congenitally understimulated central nervous system leads to a need for progressively stronger thrills. The everyday term is ‘excitement junkies.’ ”

“I’ve seen that in Army snipers,” Arthur agreed. “Fellows who lived for the thrill, registering heartbeats so slow one thought one’s stethoscope was malfunctioning. Had one fellow could sit for hours at a time, a veritable statue. Would you say, then, that military service is a form of sublimated criminality?”

Jeremy recalled Arthur’s own military history. The old man had enjoyed the service. “Thrill-seeking by itself isn’t the issue. Mountain climbers and sky divers are all hooked on the adrenaline high, but most of them don’t commit crimes. It’s the combination of recklessness and cruelty that leads to your very, very bad behavior. And that’s where environment comes in: Take a child with the biological markers, expose him to abuse and neglect, and you’re likely to create a… problem.”

Arthur smiled again. “A monster? Is that what you were going to say?”

“Monsters,” said Jeremy, “come in all forms.” He stood. “I’ll pull those references for you, send them over by tomorrow.”

A rude gesture, but Arthur was unfazed. Plinking a vest button, he sprang to his feet with the vigor of a much younger man. Those same pale pink stains speckled the left cuff of his lab coat. Identical color, different stains. “One more question, if you don’t mind?”

“What’s that?”

“Abuse, neglect- your assumption that those factors are environmental. Could it be that what you term family dysfunction is inherited as well? Violent parents passing on their proclivities toward their children?”

“Back to the bad seed,” said Jeremy.

“Another theologically loaded concept. And, as you said, discouraging. But are the data inconsistent with that notion?”

“The data are too muddy to prove anything, Arthur. They merely suggest.”

“I see,” said Arthur. “So you find it inconceivable that the totality of violence- or even the majority- is passed along in the nucleic acid.”

“Sins of the fathers,” said Jeremy. “Your jungle beetle injecting his parasitical spawn.”

Nothing’s accidental with you, is it, Dr. Chess?

Arthur chuckled and crossed to the door. “Well, this has been illuminating. Thank you for your patience, and anytime I can reciprocate, please feel free.”

He left, and Jeremy remained standing. Wondering if the old man’s parting words were simple courtesy, or did he really expect Jeremy to drop in with a question.

What would he ever want from a pathologist?

His mind camera-shuttered to Jocelyn’s face. What lay below her face. Wounds he’d never seen but had imagined. A rending of flesh that haunted him with its terrible ambiguity.

Now, Tyrene Mazursky.

There was nothing in common between a middle-aged hooker and sweet Jocelyn but the wounds.

Enough in common to put Doresh back on his trail.

His heart hammered as he punished himself with imagined horror. Arthur would be at home with all that, would reduce it to cell biology and organ weight and chemical compounds.

Arthur would deal with the stuff of screaming nightmares the way he waxed eloquent about carcinomas and sarcomas every Tuesday morning: avuncular manner, easy smile- perpetual coolness- what was his resting pulse?

The questions he wanted to ask the old man stuck in his craw.

Are we talking about this because you know what I’ve been through? Is this just morbid curiosity, or do you have a point?

Why hadn’t he spoken up?

What do you want from me?

When his heart slowed, Jeremy went on the wards and comforted his patients. He must have functioned adequately because eyes brightened, a few smiles broke, hands clutched his fingers, and one teenage girl flirted with him, harmlessly. When he was alone, charting, the imprint- the feel- of every single patient remained with him. As if he carried them around, a mama kangaroo.

The flesh of the afflicted felt no different than anyone else’s. Not until the terminal stages. Dying patients reacted in different ways. Some were gripped with last-minute bravura, became garrulous, told inappropriate jokes. Some reminisced endlessly or offered noble blessings to the acolytes who ringed their beds. Others simply faded. But they had something in common- something Jeremy had yet to identify. A person working the wards long enough could tell when death was imminent.

Jeremy had never felt anything but a terrible fatigue when a patient left him.