"Right," he said. "Sometimes there is no answer, as much as you'd like there to be." Senseless, needless violence sometimes just happened and that was the sort of thing he sought to prevent. Especially with his own life and those he cared about. "And that is also true-- for whatever logic 'Stacy' has, there are some definite problems there."

Tim smiled a little. "To be fair, the job of the psychoanalyst is to be able to figure out when people are lying, too. The idea is to read into that, and to see what's not there as well, or else what's out of place." It wasn't that different from deduction, in the end. "It's not a perfect system, certainly not, but it's better than nothing, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Fair enough. Still, it's a useful skill, regardless. You have to know where you stand here-- and anywhere, really."