TWENTY-THREE
“Are you sure you didn’t hear anything last night? No footsteps on the porch, nothing out of the ordinary?” asked Jane.
Maura sat on the couch, shivering despite her sweater and wool slacks. She had not eaten breakfast, had not even poured herself a cup of coffee, but she felt not the faintest stirring of hunger. During the half hour before Jane and Frost had arrived, Maura had remained at her living room window, watching the street, attuned to every noise, tracking every car that passed. The killer knows where I live. He knows what happened last night, in my bedroom.
“Doc?”
Maura looked up. “I didn’t hear anything. The writing was just there, on my door, when I woke up. When I went outside to get my…” She flinched, her heart suddenly thudding.
Her phone was ringing.
Frost picked up the receiver. “Isles residence. This is Detective Frost. I’m sorry, Mr. Sansone, but we’re dealing with a situation here right now, and this isn’t a convenient time for you to talk to her. I’ll let her know you called.”
Jane’s gaze returned to Maura. “Are you sure that writing wasn’t already on your door when you got home last night?”
“I didn’t see it then.”
“You used the front door to enter the house?”
“Yes. Normally, I’d come in the garage. But my car’s still on Beacon Hill.”
“Did Father Brophy walk you to the door?”
“It was dark, Jane. We wouldn’t have seen the writing.” We were only focused on each other. All we had on our minds was getting to my bedroom.
Frost said, “I think I’ll check around outside. See if there are any footprints.” He went out the front door. Though he was now tramping right outside the house, the sound of his footsteps did not penetrate the double-pane windows. Last night a trespasser could have walked right past her bedroom, and she wouldn’t have heard a thing.
“Do you think he followed you home last night?” Jane asked. “From O’Donnell’s house?”
“I don’t know. He could have. But I’ve been present at all three death scenes. Lori-Ann Tucker’s. Eve Kassovitz’s. On any one of those nights, he might have seen me.”
“And followed you home.”
She hugged herself, trying to suppress her shaking. “I never noticed. I never realized I was being watched.”
“You have an alarm system. Did you use it last night?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I—I simply forgot to arm it.” I had other things on my mind.
Jane sat down in the chair across from her. “Why would he draw those symbols on your door? What do you think they mean?”
“How would I know?”
“And the message he left—it’s the same one that he left in Lori-Ann Tucker’s bedroom. Only this time, he didn’t bother to write it in Latin. This time he made sure we’d understand exactly what he meant. I have sinned.” Jane paused. “Why direct those particular words at you?”
Maura said nothing.
“Do you think they were meant for you?” Jane’s gaze was suddenly alert, probing.
She knows me too well, thought Maura. She can see I’m not telling her the whole story. Or maybe she’s caught the whiff of lust on my skin. I should have showered before they got here; I should have washed away Daniel’s scent.
Abruptly, Maura stood up. “I can’t concentrate,” she said. “I need a cup of coffee.” She turned and headed toward the kitchen. There she busied herself, pouring coffee into mugs, reaching into the refrigerator for cream. Jane had followed her into the kitchen, but Maura avoided looking at her. She slid a steaming mug in front of Jane and then turned to the window as she sipped, delaying, as long as she could, the revelation of her shame.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” said Jane.
“I’ve told you everything. I woke up this morning and found that writing on my door. I don’t know what else to say.”
“After you left O’Donnell’s house, did Father Brophy drive you straight home?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t see any cars tailing you?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe Father Brophy noticed something. I’ll see what he remembers.”
Maura cut in. “You don’t need to talk to him. I mean, if he’d noticed anything last night, he would have told me.”
“I still have to ask him.”
Maura turned to face Jane. “It’s Sunday, you know.”
“I know what day it is.”
“He has services.”
Jane’s gaze had narrowed, and Maura felt her cheeks flame with heat.
“What happened last night?” Jane asked.
“I told you. I came straight home from O’Donnell’s house.”
“And you stayed inside for the rest of the night?”
“I didn’t leave the house.”
“Did Father Brophy?”
The question, asked so matter-of-factly, startled Maura into silence. After a moment, she sank into a chair at the kitchen table but said nothing, just stared down at her coffee.
“How long did he stay?” asked Jane. Still no emotion in her voice, still the cop, although Maura knew there was disapproval behind that question, and guilt tightened its fist around her throat.
“He stayed most of the night.”
“Till what time?”
“I don’t know. It was still dark when he left.”
“And what did you two do while he was here?”
“This isn’t relevant.”
“You know it is. We’re talking about what the killer might have seen through your windows. What might have inspired him to write those words on your door. Were your living room lights on the whole night? Were you and Brophy sitting there, talking?”
Maura heaved out a breath. “No. The lights…they were off.”
“The house was dark.”
“Yes.”
“And someone standing outside, watching your windows, would have to assume—”
“You know what the hell they’d assume.”
“Would they be right?”
Maura met her gaze. “I was freaked out last night, Jane! Daniel was there for me. He’s always been there for me. We didn’t plan for this to happen. It’s the only time—the one time—” Her voice faded. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Jane sat down at the kitchen table as well. “You know, those words take on new meaning. I have sinned.”
“We’ve all sinned,” shot back Maura. “Each and every damn one of us.”
“I’m not criticizing you, okay?”
“Yes you are. You think I can’t hear it in your voice?”
“If you’re feeling guilty, Doc, it’s not because of anything I said.”
Maura stared back at Jane’s unrelenting gaze and thought, She’s right, of course. My guilt is all my own.
“We will have to talk to Father Brophy about this, you know. About what happened last night.”
Maura gave a resigned sigh. “Please, when you do talk to him, just keep it discreet.”
“I’m not exactly bringing in the TV cameras, okay?”
“Detective Frost doesn’t have to know about this.”
“Of course he has to know. He’s my partner.”
Maura dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, God.”
“This is relevant to the case, and you know it. If I didn’t tell Frost, he’d have every right to cry foul.”
So I won’t be able to look at Frost again without seeing a reflection of my own guilt, thought Maura, cringing at the thought of Frost’s reaction. One’s reputation was such a fragile thing; one tiny crack and it disintegrates. For two years, they had regarded her as the queen of the dead, the unflappable medical examiner who could gaze without flinching at sights that turned the stomachs of even the most seasoned investigators. Now they’d look at her and see the weaknesses, the flaws of a lonely woman.
Footsteps thumped on the
front porch. It was Frost, coming back into the house. She did not want to be present when he learned the tawdry truth. Uptight, upright Barry Frost would be shocked to hear who’d been sleeping in her bed.
But he was not the only person who’d just stepped into the house. Maura heard voices talking, and she looked up in sudden recognition as Anthony Sansone swept into the kitchen, followed by Frost.
“Are you all right?” Sansone asked her.
Jane said, “This really isn’t a good time for a visit, Mr. Sansone. Would you mind stepping outside?”
He ignored Jane; his gaze stayed on Maura. He was not dressed in black today, but in shades of gray. A tweed jacket, an ash-colored shirt. So different from Daniel, she thought; this man I cannot read, and he makes me uncomfortable.
“I just saw the markings on your door,” he said. “When did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Sometime last night.”
“I should have driven you home myself.”
Jane cut in. “I really think you should leave now.”
“Wait,” said Frost. “You need to hear what he says, about what’s on the door. What it might mean.”
“I have sinned? I think the meaning is pretty obvious.”
“Not the words,” said Sansone. “The symbols beneath them.”
“We’ve already heard about the all-seeing eye. Your friend Oliver Stark explained it.”
“He may have been mistaken.”
“You don’t agree that it’s the eye of Horus?”
“I think it may represent something else entirely.” He looked at Maura. “Come outside and I’ll explain it to you.”
Maura had no wish to once again confront those accusing words on her door, but his sense of urgency forced her to follow him. Stepping outside onto the porch, she paused, blinking against the sun’s glare. It was such a beautiful Sunday morning, a morning to linger over coffee and the newspaper. Instead she was afraid to sit in her own house, afraid to look at her own front door.
She took a breath and turned to confront what had been drawn in ocher that was the color of dried blood. The words I have sinned screamed at her, an accusation that made her want to shrink, to hide her guilty face.
But it was not the words that Sansone focused on. He pointed to the two symbols drawn below them. The larger one they had seen before, on his garden door.
“That looks exactly like the all-seeing eye to me,” said Jane.
“But look at this other symbol,” said Sansone, pointing to a figure near the bottom of the door. It was so small, it almost seemed like an afterthought. “Drawn in ocher, as at the other crime scenes.”
Jane said, “How did you know about the ocher?”
“My colleagues need to see this. To confirm what I think it represents.” He took out his cell phone.
“Wait,” said Jane. “This isn’t some public showing.”
“Do you know how to interpret this, Detective? Do you have any idea where to start? If you want to find this killer, you’d better understand his thinking. His symbols.” He began to dial. Jane did not stop him.
Maura dropped to a crouch so that she could study the bottom sketch. She stared at arching horns, a triangular head, and slitted eyes. “It looks like a goat,” she said. “But what does it mean?” She gazed up at Sansone. Backlit by the morning glare, he was a towering figure, black and faceless.
“It represents Azazel,” he said. “It’s a symbol of the Watchers.”
“Azazel was the chief of the Se’irim,” said Oliver Stark. “They were goat demons who haunted the ancient deserts before Moses, before the pharaohs. All the way back in the age of Lilith.”
“Who’s Lilith?” asked Frost.
Edwina Felway looked at Frost in surprise. “You don’t know about her?”
Frost gave an embarrassed shrug. “I have to admit, I’m not all that well-versed in the Bible.”
“Oh, you won’t find Lilith in the Bible,” said Edwina. “She’s long been banished from accepted Christian doctrine, although she does have a place in Hebrew legend. She was Adam’s first wife.”
“Adam had another wife?”
“Yes, before Eve.” Edwina smiled at his startled face. “What, you think the Bible tells the whole story?”
They were sitting in Maura’s living room, gathered around the coffee table, where Oliver’s sketchpad lay among the empty cups and saucers. Within half an hour of Sansone’s call, both Edwina and Oliver had arrived to examine the symbols on the door. They’d conferred on the porch for only a few minutes before the cold drove them all into the house for hot coffee and theories. Theories that now struck Maura as cold-bloodedly intellectual. Her home had been marked by a killer, and these people calmly sat in her living room, discussing their bizarre theology. She glanced at Jane, who wore an undisguised expression of these people are kooks. But Frost was clearly fascinated.
“I never heard that Adam had a first wife,” he said.
“There’s a whole history that never appears in the Bible, Detective,” said Edwina, “a secret history you can only find in Canaanite or Hebrew legends. They talk about the marriage between Adam and a free-spirited woman, a cunning temptress who refused to obey her husband, or to lie beneath him as a docile wife should. Instead she demanded wild sex in every position and taunted him when he couldn’t satisfy her. She was the world’s first truly liberated female, and she wasn’t afraid to seek the pleasures of the flesh.”
“She sounds like a lot more fun than Eve,” said Frost.
“But in the eyes of the church, Lilith was an abomination, a woman who was beyond the control of men, a creature so sexually insatiable that she finally abandoned her boring old husband, Adam, and ran off to have orgies with demons.” Edwina paused. “And as a result, she gave birth to the most powerful demon of all, the one who’s plagued mankind ever since.”
“You don’t mean the Devil?”
Sansone said, “It’s a belief that was commonly held in the Middle Ages: Lilith was the mother of Lucifer.”
Edwina gave a snort. “So you see how history treats an assertive woman? If you refuse to be subservient, if you enjoy sex a little too much, then the church turns you into a monster. You’re known as the Devil’s mother.”
“Or you disappear from history entirely,” said Frost. “Because this is the first I’ve ever heard of Lilith. Or that goat person.”
“Azazel,” said Oliver. He tore off his latest sketch and placed it on the coffee table so that everyone could see it. It was a more detailed version of the face that had been drawn on Maura’s door: a horned goat with slitted eyes and a single flame burning atop its head. “The goat demons are mentioned in Leviticus and Isaiah. They were hairy creatures who cavorted with wild beings like Lilith. The name Azazel goes back to the Canaanites, probably a derivation of one of their ancient gods’ names.”
“And that’s who the symbol on the door refers to?” asked Frost.
“That would be my guess.”
Jane laughed, unable to contain her skepticism. “A guess? Oh, we’re really nailing down the facts here, aren’t we?”
Edwina said, “You think this discussion is a waste of time?”
“I think a symbol is whatever you want to make of it. You people think it’s a goat demon. But to the weirdo who drew it, it may mean something entirely different. Remember all that stuff you and Oliver spouted about the eye of Horus? The fractions, the quarter moon? So all of that is suddenly a bunch of hooey?”
“I did explain to you that the eye can represent a number of different things,” said Oliver. “The Egyptian god. The all-seeing eye of Lucifer. Or the Masonic symbol for illumination, for wisdom.”
“Those are pretty opposite meanings,” said Frost. “The Devil versus wisdom?”
“They’re not opposite at all. You have to remember what the word Lucifer means. Translated, the name is ‘Bringer of Light.’ ”
“That doesn’t sound so evil.”
“Some
would claim that Lucifer isn’t evil,” said Edwina, “that he represents the questioning mind, the independent thinker, the very things that once threatened the church.”
Jane snorted. “So now Lucifer isn’t such a bad guy? He just asked too many questions?”
“Who you call the Devil depends on your perspective,” said Edwina. “My late husband was an anthropologist. I’ve lived all over the world, collected images of demons that look like jackals or cats or snakes. Or beautiful women. Every culture has its own idea of what the Devil looks like. There’s only one thing that almost all cultures, dating back to the most primitive tribes, agree on: the Devil actually exists.”
Maura thought of that faceless swirl of black that she had glimpsed in O’Donnell’s bedroom last night, and a chill prickled the back of her neck. She didn’t believe in Satan. But she did believe in evil. And last night, I was surely in its presence. Her gaze fell on Oliver’s sketch of the horned goat. “This thing—this Azazel—is he also a symbol of the Devil?”
“No,” said Oliver. “Azazel is often used as a symbol for the Watchers.”
“Who are these watchers you keep talking about?” asked Frost.
Edwina looked at Maura. “Do you have a Bible, Dr. Isles?”
Maura frowned at her. “Yes.”
“Could you get it for us?”
Maura crossed to the bookcase and scanned the top shelf for the familiar worn cover. It had been her father’s Bible, and Maura had not opened it in years. She took it down and handed it to Edwina, who riffled through the pages, setting off a puff of dust.
“Here it is. Genesis, chapter six. Verses one and two: ‘And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.’ ”
“The sons of God?” asked Frost.
“That passage almost certainly refers to angels,” explained Edwina. “It says that angels lusted after earthly women, so they married them. A marriage between the divine and the mortal.” She looked down at the Bible again. “And here’s verse four: ‘There were giants on the earth in these days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’ ” Edwina closed the book.
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