Richard Montanari

by The Echo Man

  Chapter 99

  As Jessica moved across the great room the music grew louder.

  It took her back to the first time she'd heard this piece in Byrne's van, the nocturne by Chopin.

  She soon realized it was coming from the music room, but it sounded live, not recorded. It sounded like someone was playing the cello in that room.

  'The house is clear, ma'am.'

  From across the hall she noticed candlelight illuminating the room, candles she had just put out. As she approached the entrance, peering around the doorway, she saw someone sitting in a chair at the opposite side of the room. It was Christa-Marie. She held the beautiful cello between her legs and was playing the nocturne, her eyes closed.

  It made no sense.

  Why is she back? Who let her come back?

  Jessica drew her weapon, held it at her side, rounded the door- jamb, and saw a second figure standing in the shadow of the short hallway leading to the kitchen.

  It was someone she knew very well.

  Chapter 100

  The figure in the hallway did not move. Christa-Marie continued to play, the notes rising and falling with the sound of the wind outside. As the piece came to a crescendo Jessica stepped fully into the music room.

  'Is it now?' the figure in the hallway asked.

  Jessica did not know how to answer. Too many things could go awry with the wrong answer.

  The figure emerged from the shadows.

  Michael Drummond had changed his clothes. He now wore a navy suit with thinner lapels. It was a style that might have been popular with fifteen-year-old boys when Drummond had been a guest, and probably a student, in this house.

  There was something bulky in one of his suit-coat pockets. Jessica watched his hands.

  'Teacher is mad at me,' Drummond said softly.

  Jessica glanced at Christa-Marie. She was lost in the music.

  'Is it now?' Drummond asked again.

  'No,' Jessica replied. 'It's then, Michael. It's Halloween night, 1990.'

  The notion registered on Drummond's face. His features softened in a way that told Jessica that his mind was returning to that night, when all things were possible, when love burned brightly in his heart, not yet tempered by the horror of what was to come.

  'Tell me about that night, Michael,' Jessica said. She began to inch closer to him.

  'We went to the concert. Joseph and I.'

  'Joseph Novak.'

  'Yes. When we came back, he was here.'

  'Doctor Thorne?'

  'Doctor Thorne!' Drummond spat the name like an epithet, glanced into the kitchen, then back. Jessica circled closer.

  'What happened?' she asked.

  'We argued.'

  As Jessica closed the distance by another few inches, she noticed a shadow to her left, right near the entrance to the kitchen, just a few feet from where Michael Drummond stood. She looked over. So did Drummond. Someone was standing there.

  'Joseph?' Drummond asked.

  But it wasn't Joseph Novak, of course. Somehow, Lucinda Doucette was standing there. Lucinda Doucette from the Hosanna House and Le Jardin.

  In one fluid motion Michael Drummond reached for Lucy, pulling her close to him. He now had a straight razor in his hand. He flicked it open.

  Jessica leveled her weapon. 'Don't do it, Michael.'

  'Zig, zig, zag.'

  Everything Jessica had seen in Drummond's face, everything that told her he might be ready to give all this up, was gone. What stood before her now was a feral, calculating killer.

  'Let her go.'

  Drummond held Lucy even more tightly. Jessica saw the young woman's legs start to sag.

  'I have a little more work to do,' Drummond said.

  'Not going to happen.'

  Drummond brought the razor up in a flash. The gleaming blade was now less than an inch from Lucy's throat. 'Watch.'

  'Wait!'

  Drummond glanced at the clock. It was 11:51.

  'There's no time left,' he said.

  'Just put down the razor. Let her go.'

  Drummond shook his head. 'Can't do it, detective. There's one note left to play.'

  'We'll get you help,' Jessica said. 'It doesn't have to end this way.'

  'But it does, don't you see? This must be completed.'

  Jessica glanced again at the grandfather clock in the hallway. 'It's not midnight yet. Let her go.'

  'Look how many unfinished symphonies there are. Beethoven, Schubert. I am not going to leave a legacy like that.'

  Jessica looked at Lucy. The girl was going into shock. Jessica knew she had to keep the man talking.

  'Why these people, Michael? Why did you choose them?'

  'They got away with murder, Jess. Surely you can understand that. They won't be missed.'

  'They had families,' Jessica said. 'Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers. It's not up to us.'

  Drummond laughed. 'We can't do it all, you and I. I've watched it for years. Police do their jobs, prosecutors do their jobs. Still people get away with it. Tonight all these people dance with the dead. Eddie Robles, Kenny Beckman, his sow of a wife. So many more.'

  'What about George Archer?'

  Drummond smiled. 'I'm not guilty on that one, your honor. But believe me, it wasn't for lack of effort. I tracked him for years. Ever since I got out of law school.'

  'Who, Michael? Who killed him?'

  'Do your job, detective. I did mine.'

  Drummond leaned away from Lucy, the razor moving away from her throat momentarily. Jessica sighted down her weapon. She had a shot.

  'Then why Lucy?' Jessica asked. 'She's innocent.'

  'No, she is not.' On the word not, Drummond pulled Lucy closer. Jessica no longer had a line of sight. 'It's because of her that Peggy van Tassel is dead.'

  'I don't understand.'

  'Little Lucy could have told the police about George Archer. She didn't, and who knows how many other little girls Archer killed? This little piggy is part of the problem.'

  Drummond stopped at the doorway to the kitchen. 'That's far enough, detective. Put your weapon down.'

  Jessica did not move. 11:54.

  'Do it now.'

  'Okay, Michael,' she said. She lowered her Glock to the floor. 'It's down.'

  Jessica glanced to her left. Through the doorway she could see the bare feet and rolled-up trousers of a body on the floor, a few drops of blood on the tile. She also saw the knife on the counter. It was the precise scene from that night twenty years earlier, a re-creation of the murder of Gabriel Thorne. Except that there was a new twist. There was a band of white paper and a red candle on the counter.

  Jessica looked again at the kitchen floor.

  Is this David Albrecht's body?

  The horrors were piling up.

  'Look,' Jessica began. 'Dr. Thorne is already dead.' She pointed to the kitchen.

  Drummond glanced into the kitchen, at the body on the floor. He looked back at Jessica. His mind was gone, lost in some kind of vortex between the night of Thome's murder and now.

  'It really is then?' he asked.

  'Yes.'

  Drummond began to nod rapidly. 'He was going to take her away, see,' he said. 'For good. That's why he had to die.'

  'I understand.'

  Drummond turned slowly toward the stereo cabinet behind him, touched the play button.

  Christa-Marie seemed to return to the moment. She began to play a new piece, plucking one of the strings - the same note, twelve times.

  'What is Danse Macabre without the chorus?' Drummond asked. He turned up the sound.

  A moment later, beneath the resonance of Christa-Marie's cello, was a mix of sounds - street sounds, sirens. Beneath it all a chorus began to sing:

  Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence,

  Striking a tomb with his heel,

  Death at midnight plays a dance-tune, Zig, zig, zag, on his violin.

  But somehow the loudest part of this new background was the sound of a baby cooing
.

  'The dead own the world tonight,' he said. 'Listen to them. I've been collecting their voices for years.' 11:56.

  The voices began to grow in volume. Screams, shrieks of terror, death wails.

  'Look,' Jessica said. She circled to her left. She had to get into the kitchen. 'My gun is down, Michael. I can't hurt you. The doctor is dead. Let the girl go. We'll talk.'

  'It's not about me. It's never been about me.' Drummond began to sweat. He waved the razor around, bringing it perilously close to Lucy's face. The chorus of screams grew in the background. Christa-Marie's playing increased in volume.

  The lady, it's said, is a marchioness or baroness

  And her green gallant, a poor cartwright.

  Horror! Look how she gives herself to him,

  Like the rustic was a baron.

  'She gave herself to him,' Drummond said, pointing at the body on the floor. 'She doesn't have long, you see. It had to be done.'

  'Who doesn't have long?'

  'Teacher. She's dying. That's why I had to write faster.'

  Drummond took one step backward, into the kitchen, dragging Lucy with him. 'Listen to them all,' he said. 'Can you hear?'

  'I hear, Michael.' 11:58.

  Jessica moved forward.

  'What about Gabriel Thorne?' she asked, gesturing to the body on the kitchen floor. 'Christa-Marie didn't kill him, did she? It was you, wasn't it? You and Joseph Novak?'

  'Thorne was in love with her. He manipulated her.' Drummond shook his head, his eyes filling with tears. 'Joseph was weak. He was always weak.'

  'But you let Christa-Marie take the fall.'

  Tears ran down his cheeks. 'I've had to live with that for twenty years.'

  Drummond backed to the center of the kitchen as Danse Macabre neared its final glorious section.

  From somewhere beneath the cacophony came a man's voice: 'Michael.'

  Inside, where the music lives, in that gilded hall, i watch and wait. Teacher knows what I must do.

  There is one note left to play.

  One final note.

  At the sound of the man's voice everything slowed. Drummond held Lucy even more closely. Slowly, he lifted the straight razor to his own forehead and drew it swiftly across. Bright crimson blood washed his face, spilling onto Lucy.

  Again, from somewhere: 'Michael.'

  Drummond hesitated for a moment, his head cocked to the sound. 'Dr. Thorne?'

  One more note.

  One more voice.

  Drummond looked at Christa-Marie, playing furiously in the music room.

  They push forward, they fly; the cock has crowed.

  Oh what a beautiful night for the poor world!

  Midnight.

  Michael Drummond lifted the razor high into the air. He pulled back Lucy's hair, exposing the white of her throat.

  'Teacher ...' he said.

  As he brought the razor down Jessica saw the body on the floor move.

  It was not David Albrecht.

  Detective Kevin Byrne rolled to his right, raised his Glock 17 and fired, slamming a single bullet into Drummond's head, just above the man's right eye. Thick gobbets of bone and brain tissue burst from the back of Drummond's skull, onto the white-tiled wall.

  Drummond collapsed face down onto the counter, onto the band of cloud-white paper, his bloodied face painting the sheet in a grotesque parody of a musical staff. His body slumped to the floor.

  Jessica looked into the kitchen, the sounds of the discharged weapon ringing in her ears. As she stepped into the corner of the music room, and embraced Lucy Doucette, she met Byrne's gaze. He was covered with blood, not his own. He had been lying in wait. He looked at her, but his eyes saw something else, perhaps something that had happened in this room a long time ago, something that had just now come to a close.

  The Echo Man was dead, his symphony now complete.

  Chapter 101

  For the second time this night, the Philadelphia Police Department processed a crime scene at this address. Dozens of personnel moved like silent ghosts through the now brightly illuminated spaces.

  Outside, Jessica and Byrne stepped into the shadows. When they were alone, out of earshot, she turned to him, her anger at being left out of the loop seething within her. 'You've got about five fucking seconds to start explaining all this.' 'I know you're upset.'

  'I'm way past upset,' Jessica said. 'When did you set all this up? Yesterday?'

  'No,' Byrne said. 'Bullshit.'

  She paced. Byrne gave her time.

  'Jess, trust me on this. The arrest was real. Diaz and his team had evidence that the tattoos were mailed to my address. They also had hair and fiber evidence from my van. They came in hard to get me. I was completely blindsided.'

  'What the hell were you doing here?'

  Byrne looked at the house, then back. 'I'm not sure my answer is going to be good enough for you.'

  'Try me.'

  Another pause. 'I knew the answer to all of this was locked inside Christa's mind. I knew time was short, but I had to work that angle.'

  Jessica just listened, deciding not to tell Byrne that she already knew about the evidence Diaz had. But she now realized that it was Drummond who had planted the evidence, hoping to buy himself more time tonight, counting on the arrest of Kevin Byrne.

  'When we got to the Roundhouse they patted me down,' Byrne said. 'They took my cellphone. Russ Diaz started scrolling through the calls I'd made today. He also saw the folder that holds the photographs. He saw this.' Byrne held up his phone. 'I hadn't really looked at it before. When I did, it all fell into place.'

  Byrne tapped the screen, showed Jessica a picture. In it, Christa- Marie stood on the steps of a huge stone building. Next to the scarred oak doors was an inscription. Byrne tapped the screen again, enlarging the words.

  What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.

  Jessica looked at Byrne. 'This is what Drummond said at his leaving party.'

  Byrne nodded.

  'And this picture was taken at Convent Hill,' she added.

  'Yeah.'

  Jessica recognized the place. It was in the photograph that she had found in Joseph Novak's journal. The photo captioned with the word Hell.

  'Drummond had been to Convent Hill to visit Christa-Marie. That was where he got the inscription. From the Roundhouse we called the Prentiss Institute and had them look through the records. Michael Drummond studied with Christa-Marie. Both he and Novak were her students on the day when Gabriel Throne was murdered.'

  Jessica took a step away, absorbing the new information. She turned back, her anger far from dissipated.

  'I had my weapon out, Kevin. More than once.'

  'I know.'

  'Something could have gone really wrong, really fast.'

  Byrne pointed to the six SWAT officers gathered on the grounds. They had a direct line of sight to the eastern side of the mansion, the side where the kitchen and the music room were located.

  'At no time were you in jeopardy, Jess. They had Drummond in their sights through the windows. If he had made a move toward you they would have taken him down. We just hoped it wouldn't be before he talked. We had to get him to make the admission.'

  'Why? What are you talking about?'

  Byrne held up a CD in a crystal case.

  'What is that?' she asked.

  'It's the whole event. Christa-Marie has a very sophisticated recording studio upstairs. The music room has six microphones in it. Mateo is up in the studio now. He's like a kid in a candy store.'

  'You're saying everything that happened in there was recorded?'

  Byrne nodded. 'When Drummond got here tonight he slipped upstairs, into that room, started the whole process. It's all on here. Christa-Marie playing Danse Macabre, including the background of Drummond's sick recordings of death screams. He finally got his magnum opus.'

  Jessica's head was spinning. 'What about Lucy?' she asked. 'I
don't care how good the SWAT guys are - Drummond had that razor at her throat.'

  Byrne looked away for a moment as the ME's transport van pulled into the long drive. He looked back.

  'We didn't plan on Lucy,' he said. 'I had no idea she was here.'

  Ninety minutes later, with the house sealed and guarded, Byrne was waiting for Jessica in the large circular drive. They would head back to the Roundhouse to begin the long process of piecing together the horrors of the last few weeks.

  Jessica stepped through the front door, closed it behind her. She looked at her watch. It was 2:52.

  It was All Saints Day.

  Chapter 102

  Tuesday, November 2

  There was no shortage of media interest. For the still photographers and videographers alike, the Tudor house at Chestnut Hill was a feast of images. It would probably be on the list of horror tours next Halloween. The road in front of Christa-Marie Schönburg's house was crowded with national and international media. Two days after the horror, the numbers were still growing.

  For the police, the whole story would take far longer to assemble. The investigation revealed that Michael Drummond and Joseph Novak had both attended Prentiss, had both taken private lessons from Christa-Marie Schönburg. Over the years the rivalry between the boys had grown, not for first chair in an ensemble but rather for the affections of Christa-Marie.

  On Halloween night 1990, it came to a head. Although investigators might never know exactly what had happened, they believed that Michael Drummond and Joseph Novak killed Gabriel Thorne that night. Drummond, being the dominant one of the pair, held this over Novak's head for the next twenty years.

  The two men formed a small, unprofitable company, through which they published limited-edition reproductions of sheet music, penned reproductions in the composer's hand. The paper they used was Atriana.

  When Drummond, who had taken a job at Benjamin Curtin's law firm - Paulson Deny Chambers - learned of Christa-Marie's illness, his own psychosis led him down a path of destruction, a reign of terror that would be felt for a long time.