Curse of the Painted Lady (The Anlon Cully Chronicles Book 3)

by K Patrick Donoghue

  Ishikawa propped his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. Shaking his head, he said, “No disrespect intended, but the torture Ms. Simpson suffered wasn’t conducive to her talking. Screaming, yes. Talking, no.

  “Whoever killed that poor woman wanted to inflict some serious pain. Her legs were broken, well, more like pulverized. The wounds to her torso look like someone stabbed her with an electrified implement like a cattle prod.”

  The medical examiner went on to explain how he envisioned the murder unfolding. From the forensic evidence, he said, it appeared her legs received the first attack, shattering the tibia and fibula of both legs. From the striations of the scrapes on her jeans and knees, it appeared to Ishikawa as if she had then tried to crawl away or was dragged across a stone surface. The front of her sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers had traces of granite dust and moss. The first stab entry wound went through her back at an upward angle, suggesting she was still in the act of crawling, or lying on the ground facedown, when attacked by the killer pursuing her from behind. She must have rolled over at some point, Ishikawa had surmised, because the next stab wound was in her chest. The final use of the prod went the deepest into her chest and was held in long enough for her right lung to catch fire.

  The blow by blow sickened Jennifer. She closed her eyes and held a tightly balled fist beneath her nose. Her other hand gripped her knee, the fingernails digging deep into the denim fabric. When he finished the description, all she could say was, “Poor Anabel.”

  Ishikawa cleared his throat to attract Jennifer’s attention. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “That’s not all, unfortunately.”

  The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes made Jennifer feel queasy. It’s one thing to have an M.E. describe the murder of a stranger. It’s another thing entirely when it’s someone you know, someone you might consider a friend.

  “At some point between the second and third stab, something exploded in her hands,” he said.

  Jennifer recalled Anabel’s mangled hands in the photos of the crime scene. Ishikawa ran his hands down his neck, chest and legs. “She had hundreds of shards lodged in her tissue from the neck to her thighs, not to mention what was left of her hands. The trauma to the hands and the shard pattern in her body was very similar to what one would see from a hand grenade explosion. Only the shards weren’t metal, they were stone. Well, two different types of stone.”

  Jennifer stared at him and whispered, “Olivine basalt and kimberlite.”

  He nodded. “I don’t know what to make of it. There was no residue of explosives on the shards or in the wounds, just bits of stone. I don’t think she was forced to hold the stone object; there was no sign her hands were bound. From what I can tell from the shrapnel pattern, when the stone exploded, she was lying on her back on the ground, looking up with her arms extended about waist high. The grenade, or whatever, was grasped in both hands. She could have been trying to throw it at her torturer, but what made it explode beats me.”

  “What color was the stone?” Jennifer asked.

  “Huh?”

  “The olivine shards, what color were they?”

  “Why?”

  “Humor me.”

  “Pinkish.”

  Of all the Munuorian Lifintyls, there was only one Tyl with a pink-gray tint. She mumbled, “A Terusael?”

  “A what?” Ishikawa asked.

  A ghoulish thought crossed Jennifer’s mind. Were they looking at the physical evidence all wrong? She asked Ishikawa, “Are you positive about the timing of when the stone exploded? Is it possible it happened before any of the stabs?”

  “No, I’d say not. It definitely happened between the second and third stabs. There was shrapnel embedded in the surface area of the second stab wound, but not in the third. If it had happened before the first stab—”

  Jennifer interjected. “Did she have any burn marks on her head or the back of her neck? They would be small, probably laid out in a line or a pattern.”

  Ishikawa’s face reddened. “What? No. What makes you think that?”

  Lost in thought, she didn’t answer right away. A frustrated Ishikawa said, “Look, if you know what happened to this woman, you have an obligation to step forward and share what you know!”

  Jennifer leaned back and calmly said, “Hey, Doc, we’re on the same side. I don’t know for sure what happened to her, but I’m starting to get a clearer picture.”

  “Well, make it clearer for me. My ass is getting chapped by everyone up the chain for answers, and I don’t have any!” he said, rapping his knuckles on the desk.

  “All right, all right. Simmer down. I’m here to help in any way I can. Promise,” Jennifer said, placing a hand over her heart. “Why don’t we take a break and grab some fresh air. I could use a few minutes to organize my thoughts, and you’re gonna need a clear head for what I tell you.”

  After shutting down his office for the evening, Ishikawa led Jennifer out the main entrance of the medical center. It was now past 10 p.m. and quite chilly outside, but Jennifer welcomed the brisk air, though she was ill-dressed for the nighttime stroll.

  Their path initially led them past Converse Hall, a circa-1900 stone building that still served as a student dormitory. With high-pitched roofs and corner spires, the dorm took on an eerie appearance in the dark. It was rumored, Ishikawa told Jennifer, to be haunted, having been the site of a student suicide in the 1920s — a rumor that had grown into a full-blown mythology over the past one hundred years. A perfect setting for their talk, Jennifer thought.

  A few minutes later, with Converse Hall behind them, they approached the center of the university’s campus. At the late hour, there weren’t many people out and about, but there were small groups of students here and there, trundling between buildings surrounding the quad.

  Jennifer found it hard to find the right place to begin the story. There was still much to absorb from their earlier conversation and she wasn’t sure how each piece of information from Ishikawa fit into the story. Separately, she worried how the medical examiner would take the fantastical elements of the story and what he might say to “higher-ups” and Detective Hall. Although Ishikawa had rightly pegged Anabel’s death as having spooky qualities, Jennifer wasn’t sure whether he’d buy into the Munuorians, their special Stones and Muran.

  After several minutes of silent walking, she said, “So, what I’m about to tell you will take an open mind. A very open mind.”

  “Understood,” he said.

  Oh, I’m not sure you do, she thought. She zipped her jacket all the way up to her chin and took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure Anabel’s murder is connected to some rare, ancient artifacts. They’re, sort of, Stone-Age tools, but they have some, um, unusual properties. They’re very valuable, valuable enough that several people have already been killed over them.

  “Anabel had knowledge of the Stones and their properties. How much she knew, I don’t know, but I’m confident she knew more than she told me. And I know she had at least two of them in her possession. She may have had more. Matter of fact, given what’s happened, I’m pretty sure she had more. But I didn’t see any in the house when I walked through it with Detective Hall yesterday, and he said the forensics team didn’t take away any stones or art pieces as evidence. So I presume the killer snatched them, or they’re hidden in the house or somewhere off-site.”

  “Ah, the keys,” Ishikawa said. “That’s why Detective Hall asked me to take another look at the keys they found.”

  “Yeah, it’s possible she had a storage locker or safe-deposit box somewhere. She supposedly had other artifacts that were worth quite a bit, and none of those were in the house, either. Anyway, I truly don’t know who the killer is, but I think I’ve got a better handle on the motive. She was either killed by someone who wanted the Stones she had, or she may have known something about the Stones the killer wanted to know. For example, if she didn’t have more of the Stones herself, she may have known where more of the
Stones were held. I know for a fact that, at one point, she was holding a map that led to more of the Stones.”

  “A map? I see,” Ishikawa said. “Possibly the missing document the police think was taken.”

  “Yep. But the brutality of the murder is disproportional for either motive,” Jennifer said. “And none of the other murders connected with the Stones involved torture. You said it yourself, the torture seemed personal. That’s what makes me wonder if there’s another motive at play here.” She shivered as a gust of wind funneled down the quad.

  Ishikawa, bundled in a heavier coat, shivered as well. He suggested they head for Davis Center, the on-campus student social center.

  Several minutes later, they huddled over hot coffee in a popular pub in the building. Over the din of students imbibing a different kind of refreshment, Ishikawa asked, “You said earlier, the Stones have unusual properties. I take it your police report didn’t exaggerate what you saw at Stillwater Quarry?”

  “Uh, no. Exaggerations don’t go over well in police reports. If anything, I downplayed what I saw,” she said.

  “So, you’re telling me the kidnapper, this Pacal Flores, literally lifted the Cully fellow in the air by blowing on a stone?”

  “Open mind, remember, Doc?” she said with a slight smile. After a sip of coffee, she explained, “The Stones, they’re magnetic. Magnetic in ways that give them special capabilities. The one that was used at Stillwater produces sound waves that allow a person to move heavy objects through the air. Anabel had one, in fact. It’s a bowl that kind of looks like a speaker-woofer. You put your lips against the backside of the bowl and hum on it. It projects sound waves at the object you want to lift or move. It works. I have one myself. I’m pretty handy with it, too.”

  “You’re joking,” he said with a dismissive flourish of his hand.

  “I shit you not,” she replied, a deadly serious look on her face. “I could lift any car out in the lot above this building in less than twenty seconds.”

  He frowned and crossed his arms. She said, “Tell you what. If you let me come back tomorrow and make a copy of Anabel’s file, I’ll bring my Breylofte, that’s what it’s called, and show you in person.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s against the law,” he said.

  “I won’t tell if you don’t tell,” she said.

  “Not a chance. I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you suggest it.”

  “Not even if I agree to tell you why Anabel’s physiology was so weird? Why she had that special enzyme and cryptochromes in her blood?” she said.

  Ishikawa didn’t flinch.

  “Sounds like a pretty good trade to me, Doc. You’ll dig the explanation. It’s all X-Files-ey.”

  The stoic medical examiner maintained a steady stare, though Jennifer did notice him squirm ever so slightly.

  Jennifer relented. “Okay, okay. As a sign of good faith, I’ll give you a hint. Go back to her house. Look in the refrigerator. You’ll find a pitcher with a pink fluid in it. Test it, see what you come up with.”

  “You’re suggesting whatever’s in the fluid altered her physiology,” he said.

  It was Jennifer’s turn to display a stoic expression.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll test it. But tell me, where did she get it?”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me something in return,” she said. “In your office, you said Anabel died from blunt force trauma to her heart, not from the torture.”

  “Yes, that’s right. She would have eventually died from the torture injuries, but the killer didn’t wait for that,” Ishikawa said.

  “So…what happened to her heart?”

  “You first. Where did she get the fluid?”

  “She made it, using two of the Stones and flowers from her garden,” Jennifer said. “She crushed up petals and ground them up with the Stones. The friction of the Stones electrified the enzymes in the flowers’ juices. The fluid has…healing properties.”

  “She had cancer; her organs were very diseased,” he said.

  “That I can’t explain. But you’ll find the same enzyme in both her blood and the fluid. You’ll find cryptochromes in both, too. Now, your turn. What happened to Anabel’s heart?”

  Ishikawa leaned forward and lowered his voice. “The killer reached into her chest and crushed her heart with a bare hand.”

  Dr. Ishikawa’s words replayed in Jennifer’s mind as she laid in the dark hotel room. “Crushed her heart with a bare hand...”

  Revenge. Cancer. An exploding Terusael. Crime of passion. Torture. Jennifer had hoped the meeting with Ishikawa would help winnow her three possible crime scenarios, but the evidence he’d shared suggested at least one other scenario she hadn’t previously considered: the murder was about payback. But payback for what? By whom?

  As she tossed and turned, one of her prior scenarios seemed out of the running. Anabel had not been Muran. In her mind, the torture aspect ruled it out. Even the Foucault-kills-Muran scenario seemed less plausible. While Foucault certainly had some emotional energy tied up in bringing Muran to justice on behalf of Mereau, Jennifer couldn’t imagine the smallish man using his bare hands to crush Anabel’s heart. Maybe his associate, Christian Hunte, could have pulled that off, but not Foucault.

  That left two viable scenarios. Either someone tortured and killed Anabel for her Tyls, or other artifacts, or someone tortured and killed her because of some unknown dispute. If the latter, Jennifer thought, it must have been one helluva dispute.

  Chapter 5 – Opening Volley

  Middlebury, Vermont

  September 27

  Pulling the bank’s heavy glass door open, Aja stepped into the lobby. To her left, she spotted an elderly lady with a walker. She was chatting with the lone teller, who listened attentively with a smile. To her right, a young man in suit and tie spotted her from behind a glassed-in cubicle. He popped out from behind and said, “Good morning, ma’am. May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see the bank manager, Ms. Bailey. I have an appointment.”

  “Sure, no problem. Your name is…?”

  “Warwick. Evelyn Warwick.”

  “Okay, just have a seat, Ms. Warwick. I’ll let her know you’re here,” he said with cheer before he loped off.

  Shortly thereafter, he returned to escort her to Debbie Bailey’s office. As they entered the office, Debbie smiled and rose to greet Aja, but there was no mistaking the malice in her eyes. Before departing, the young man asked Aja, “Cup of coffee?”

  “No,” she said.

  “How about your coat? Can I hang it up for you?”

  “No. I won’t be long.”

  The young man bowed and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Aja said, “Let’s do this quickly. Remember what’s at stake.”

  Debbie, red-faced, dutifully led the way to the vault. At the security door separating the lobby from the vault’s anteroom, she miskeyed the code to enter. After flexing her shaking hand, she tried again. This time, the door sounded a click and they entered the anteroom. Debbie paused and turned toward Aja. “You have the keys?”

  “Of course I do,” Aja said with irritation. “Keep moving.”

  Once inside the vault, Debbie asked, “Which ones?”

  Aja rattled off the box numbers. Debbie scanned for the numbers and located the two large boxes on the bottom row. She glared at Aja and said, “Pick one. Your key goes in first.”

  Leaning over, Aja removed a ring with two keys from the pocket of her slacks. She inserted the key to the box on the left and turned it. Debbie knelt down and inserted the bank’s key. When it turned, the door opened and she slid out the box. It was heavy, and she almost dropped it when she tried to stand. The items inside shifted and clanged against the box. Instinctively, Debbie apologized.

  She carried the box from the safe to a small privacy cubicle in the anteroom and placed the box on the table inside. Debbie exited and stood aside. Aja glared at her. “Quickly, now the other box.”

  Debbie hesi
tated. Aja snapped, “Do it! Now!”

  “It’s not the way it’s done,” whispered Debbie.

  “I don’t care. You have the keys. Get the box. Bring it to me.”

  While Aja settled in the cubicle, Debbie obeyed and retrieved the second box. Aja then commanded Debbie to step inside the cubicle and shut the door. Above the cubicle, a security camera captured every move.

  Aja stared at the two boxes and her pulse quickened. In a moment, she would be reunited with her long-lost treasure — treasure that had been nicked by the ungrateful bitch seventy-six years ago. As Aja thought of that fateful night, she was overcome by a flood of memories.

  The air raid sirens began to wail throughout London just before midnight. The date: May 10, 1941. Ensconced in the drawing room of the Notting Hill hideaway of a charming member of parliament, Aja had been enjoying an evening of conversation, cigarettes and brandy. While the rakish M.P. regaled her with tales of his adventures in Egypt, Aja had gazed at him with feigned wonderment, and for much of the evening he had seemed mesmerized by her attentiveness. But as soon as the first claxon sounded, the M.P. had abruptly stopped his storytelling, extinguished his cigarette and called for his valet.

  Although the M.P. had offered his sincere apologies with a smile, Aja’s more prominent memory was his grip on her arm as he ushered her out of the drawing room. In gentlemanly fashion, he had given her directions to an air raid shelter in the neighborhood while escorting her to the rowhouse’s back door. He hadn’t offered a reason for choosing the rear exit, but Aja had understood. Parliament members were not keen on being seen in public with their mistresses, and the street outside the front door had been flooded with neighbors on their way to the shelter.

  Evelyn Warwick, Aja’s handmaiden, had followed close behind, escorted by the M.P.’s stoic valet. Evelyn had barely finished draping a mink stole over Aja’s bare shoulders before the pair had been rushed out the door and into the alleyway behind the rowhouse. Aja remembered the sight of people scurrying past the alley and their own hurried gaits to join them. There had been a raid two nights prior that had inflicted heavy casualties on the Kensington neighborhood, and everyone, including Aja, feared a repeat. Despite their haste, however, they found the shelter fully occupied by the time they arrived.