Derwin ran his fingers along the stubble of his jaw line. "I suppose if the profs and psychiatrists at the U couldn't find a way to talk with you, I can't. I understand when they couldn't learn how you mutants read minds--or even if you did--they tried to teach you to speak, and to live like human beings. You couldn't, or wouldn't, learn either. You wouldn't work, and nothing seemed to interest you. Until toward the end you turned surly, and scratched and even bit people who annoyed you." Derwin paused again. "Have I touched on what's troubling you yet?" The boy moistened his lips and nodded, his face eager. With a puzzled shake of his head Derwin tried again. "All right. The first person your group killed, I've read, might have been the doctor who raised you. Though personally I don't believe that. But there's no doubt that you did kill others." Derwin frowned. A smile had come to the boy's face as he listened--as though he were recalling something pleasant. The sheriff cocked his head to one side and shifted his position. He spoke with less enthusiasm now. "After the others were killed, they lost all trace of you until the day you visited Anchor Hospital in St. Paul. The attendants there didn't recognize you, and assumed you were just another visitor. But when you left, twenty-seven patients were dead!" A small shiver ran through the muscles of Derwin's back. The smile had returned to the boy's pink cheeks: a smile almost of delight. Derwin leaned forward, making no effort to hide his annoyance as he spoke. "You'll hang for those killings!" he said. "We still don't know how you do it, but the other patients in some of those wards saw you put your hands on the people who died, and saw them go limp. They didn't realize at the time that you had killed them." The smile on the boy's face was as tranquil as the smile of a cherub. A flow of angry blood crept into Derwin's face. "Just in case they can't pin any of those murders on you," he said, "we sure as hell can convict you of the three here in White Bear Lake." Derwin pulled himself to his feet. "I'll do my best to see that you hang for them," he said deliberately. His voice was low and flat. He limped away, dragging his chair at his side. The boy's expression of urgent request changed to one of reproach when he realized that Derwin was leaving; disappointment showed bleakly on his face. It was as though he had expected something more from Derwin. * * * * * The next morning Derwin drove in the last car in a funeral procession and waited at the fringe of the crowd as the coffin was lowered into the ground. The deceased had been the last victim of the boy killer.