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tling scream, and when she put her hands around its head to wring its neck, it bit her. She had killed it, then thrown the carcass to the ground. She headed back to the house, calling over her shoulder for the boy to bring it for dinner. When she had gone over the top of a hill, he had taken a stick and beaten the little body until the fur came off in clumps.
He wrapped himself in a blanket and lit another candle.
He inspected his kit again, feeling a little warmer in the yellow light, a little clearer as he looked at the shiny tools, glinting, ready to cut, ready to carve, ready to impale.
Yes. He was ready.
Jenner walked home from Green’s office, cutting across Washington Square Park and then down Broadway into SoHo. The cold and drizzling rain felt good; he felt awake and alive. It was close to midnight when he pushed open the door; he was surprised to find the loft in darkness.
There was a sudden orange flare as a match blazed in Ana’s hand. The flame floated between two candles on the table, the glow lighting up two placemats laid side by side.
She slipped her arm around his waist, and laid her head on his shoulder while he looked.
She’d set the table for two. There was a pitcher of orange juice, and on each placemat a bowl of Weetabix waited for milk.
“I made your favorite: breakfast!” She kissed him softly on the cheek, her lips hot on his skin. “Thanks, Jenner.
Thanks for everything.”
She pressed him down into a chair, poured milk on his cereal, then sprinkled it with sugar before sitting down next to him. She moved her chair closer and leaned into him.
He asked her what she had heard.
“On the news it said you found him, that it was that doctor.”
He put his spoon down. “Ana, I’m not sure he’s the guy.”
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“On the news it said he’d been arrested before.”
“What?”
“He was arrested for some kind of sex thing a few years ago.”
Jenner pushed back from the table and turned the TV to CNN just in time to catch the headline summary at the top of the hour; they’d found Green’s old mug shot and captioned it “Inquisitor Suspect.” The story led the broadcast, with a reporter live in front of Green’s office running through the facts. Someone on the Inquisitor squad had discovered that Green had been arrested for sexual assault while at medical school in Mexico. There had been a date rape allegation, the case stalling out when the victim, another medical student, refused to testify.
He turned to her. “Does he look like the guy you saw?”
“Yes. I mean, I didn’t recognize him just looking at his face, but now that I see him again, I think that could be him.
It was dark, and he was . . . bloody.”
Maybe he was wrong. After all, hadn’t he always said that everyone has the capacity to kill?
“You finished? Come and lie down with me, Jenner. I want to lie down now.”
He stood and stretched, and let her lead him to the bed.
friday,
december 13
Jenner and Father Sheehan sat at Green’s desk with Angie Buonfiglio, the receptionist. The priest, clearly bemused to find himself in the office of a gynecologist, was doing his best not to look toward Ms. Buonfiglio, who was wearing the shortest miniskirt Jenner had ever seen over thick wool stockings and high boots.
For her part, Ms. Buonfiglio, who had been brought up in a respectful home off Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, seemed just as uncomfortable sitting next to Sheehan. She did her best to hide her legs under the desk and keep her arms folded across her chest when not typing. When the priest excused himself to visit the bathroom, she took the opportunity to find a lab coat to cover herself, after which things were a little easier.
The plan was Jenner’s; Sheehan, in Manhattan for a doctor’s appointment, had volunteered to come in and help.
They were going to correlate patient names to upcoming saint days. Roggetti had argued it was a waste of time, that Green would be too busy hiding to kill anyone, but Jenner held his ground. They started with the calendar and cross-referenced it to the patient database.
Shortly after 10:00 a.m., the filing clerk, Adeline Calixte, arrived. A serious-looking Haitian woman, she immediately took control, forcing the nonplussed receptionist to one side and creating a new database from scratch in Excel. Her speed was impressive, and as Sheehan spelled out the names of martyrs for each date, the cells onscreen seemed to fill up miraculously with contact names and telephone numbers.
Joey Roggetti arrived, a little bewildered by the mix of people surrounding the monitor. He didn’t do much, just sat and watched, occasionally sneaking glances at Ms. Buonfiglio, then trying to catch Jenner’s eye to do the arched-eyebrows-232
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and-subtle-nod-toward-the-hot-chick thing. Jenner rolled his eyes in response, which seemed to satisfy Roggetti.
They broke for lunch at about 1:00 p.m. Sheehan excused himself and was getting ready to head uptown when Garcia arrived.
“Father, Jenner. Ms. Buonfiglio. Ma’am. How’s it going?”
Sheehan glanced over to the monitor. “The next few days are pretty light as far as concordance goes. No patient/saint name matches for today or tomorrow, one match on Sunday, a couple in the early part of next week.”
“Good. Gives us time to catch up with him—don’t go too far into the calendar. Hopefully we’re not going to need it.”
“We figured we’d stop when we get to one month out.”
Rad nodded in agreement.
Ms. Buonfiglio leaned in and said, “That can’t be right.
You said there’s none for today? That’s got to be a mistake.
Today’s the feast of Santa Lucia—my sister’s saint day.
That’s a fact.”
Sheehan nodded. “Yes, the feast of Santa Lucia. We’ve cross-referenced Lucia, Lucy, Lucie, Lucille, nothing.”
The receptionist was insistent. “No, that’s definitely wrong. I know there’s a Lucy—she was in on Monday to talk about maybe going for a third round. Black hair, said her family’s from Sicily. Pretty name.”
Mrs. Calixte turned and said, “Well, she’s not in the database. Are you certain her name was Lucy?”
“Absolutely. Italian, baptized Lucia, goes by Lucy. I told her about my sister when I met her. She’s got to be there.”
“Well, she’s not.” Mrs. Calixte took her hands off the keyboard.
Angie walked quickly out to the waiting room and began clicking through the appointment calendar on the computer at her desk. There was a triumphant exclamation.
“Here! Here, you see . . . Monday . . . morning appointment . . .” Her voice trailed off. “This just doesn’t make sense! I know she was here, Monday morning.”
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“She’s not on the list?”
“No. I know I’m not crazy. She came in the morning . . .”
Jenner walked out of the office and stood near her.
She tapped the screen with one long fingernail. “This is where she should be, but she’s not. Instead, it reads Baer at nine a.m., then Baer again at nine thirty a.m.” She stood up, confident again. “Which I know is a mistake! If she’d needed a one-hour appointment, I’d have booked it as one solid block, instead of recording two half-hour blocks.
Someone’s messed with this list!”
Jenner looked at Garcia. Roggetti stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder and said appreciatively, “Great work, Angie!”
She basked for a second, then sat bolt upright.
“Wait!”
She dashed out of the reception area, through the office, and into the exam room. There was a metallic clank, and she emerged waving a fistful of papers.
“I have it! The original list I print up for Dr. Green every day!”
She quickly looked through them, and then pulled
out a single sheet with a flourish. The bright pink fingernail scratched across the page.
“Nine thirty a.m., Lucia Fiore.” She slapped the page down on the desk in triumph.
“Can you get this record for us? It’s very important.”
“Of course, Doctor. It would be my pleasure.” She shot a look at Mrs. Calixte, who continued to concentrate on the monitor. “My pleasure.”
She held the schedule up and read out Lucia Fiore’s medical record number in her clearest voice to the clerk, who typed it in and then turned back to her. “No record.”
“Try it again! It’s right here! It has to be that.”
The second try was unsuccessful, too.
“This is insane! I know she’s got a chart!”
Jenner said, “Maybe the chart hasn’t been filed.”
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The receptionist flew to the stack of charts piled on a low table in the filing room. She rifled through them, pulling out folders randomly to gauge her position in the chronology.
Finally, she held up the folder. She slapped it down on Green’s desk, in front of the monitor where “No Such Record” was still prominently displayed.
“You see?!”
Rad dialed Lucia Fiore’s number on his cell; still no answer.
Jenner, in the backseat, said, “It’s on Elizabeth, should be just a little below Spring.”
Roggetti drove. At a red light on Spring and Mott, he gestured up the street and announced that Martin Scorsese was born on that block.
Jenner said he thought Scorsese was born on Elizabeth.
“Nope. Mott between Prince and Spring.”
Garcia sighed. “He was born in Flushing. He grew up on Elizabeth, that’s where his parents were born.”
He pointed ahead of them. “Joey, park on the far corner.
We’ll walk—here’s as good a place as any.”
Jenner handed the address to Rad.
It was a generic five-story apartment building in tan brick, with cheap white gauze curtains in the aluminum-framed windows. Two old women in matching tweed coats sat on a bench by the steps to the front door, in front of the display window of a new boutique. The mannequin in the window was silver, with a tiny bikini made out of what looked like silver dollars and Christmas tree icicles. The women watched Roggetti walk up and ring the doorbell.
No answer. He rang it a second time.
“Who you looking for?” said one of the white-haired women.
“Lucy Fiore. Two F. You seen her?”
“Oh, she doesn’t live here anymore! She moved a month or two ago. Somewhere in the neighborhood, I think—she’s Precious Blood
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still working over on Cleveland Place, at Caffe Vaporetto. I saw her yesterday.”
“Thanks. You know where we could find her new address?”
The woman shrugged. “Well, you could try the post office, maybe. Or the café.”
The second woman nodded in emphatic agreement. “The café.”
Roggetti thanked them and rejoined Garcia and Jenner. “I still say this is a waste of time. She didn’t answer her phone, she isn’t home.”
“Well, Joe, maybe she’s home now. Either way, we have to let her know.”
He was silent for a minute.
“So, Doc. How did Saint Lucy die, anyway?”
“Badly, Joey.”
“Oh. Okay. No problem.” He looked offended.
Jenner shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, Joey—I’m a bit preoccupied. Lucy was condemned to a brothel because she was a Christian. When the soldiers came to haul her away, they couldn’t move her. Her eyes were so beautiful that they tore them out to disfigure her, so now she’s the patron saint of the blind, and of eye doctors—in paintings, she’s usually carrying her eyes on a little plate. Anyway, after putting out her eyes, they doused her with oil and set her on fire, but she wouldn’t burn, so they killed her with a sword.”
After that, they walked in silence.
Spring Street was rapidly gentrifying, and on every visit, Jenner saw a new boutique or trendy bar. Caffe Vaporetto was a small restaurant on Cleveland Place—the lone Italian place on the block, wedged in with a French bistro, a Mexican cantina, and a gourmet cheesecake shop. The owner was a pretty blonde, and Roggetti stepped up his pace when the barman pointed her out in the gloom at the back of the restaurant.
He told her they were looking for Lucy Fiore, that they 236
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were concerned for her safety, and she quickly found a cell phone number and street address.
“I was actually wondering where she’d got to—she has a paycheck here, and I thought it was weird she didn’t show up this morning.”
Roggetti dialed the number; instantly, there was a high-pitched chirruping from behind the bar. The owner reached down and held up a pink cell phone with a yellow plastic Pikachu fob. She opened and closed the phone quickly, cutting off the ring tone, a look of concern on her face.
“It’s a five-minute walk to her place. She’s on Mulberry between Grand and Hester. And please—tell her to call me, okay?”
She followed them out to the sidewalk and watched anx-iously as they walked down Center Street. They were walking fast.
Rush hour was nearing, and traffic had slowed to a crawl.
They hurried east along Broome toward the heavier side of the sky. No one spoke.
Making the turn onto Mulberry, the three men broke into a run: ahead, on the far corner of Grand, people were coming out of the second apartment building down, coming out in a hurry.
They dodged traffic on Grand, Roggetti holding one palm up flat like a traffic cop, shield raised high in the other. As they hit the sidewalk of Lucy Fiore’s block, the sound of a fire truck siren starting up floated toward them.
They ran up the stairs, Jenner stopping to check the names on the mailboxes. The stairwell smelled of smoke, and on the third floor, the corridor lights were off, emergency lighting now bathing the hall in a glowering red.
“She’s 3G, Rad—make for 3G.”
Rad pounded on the door, then leaned back and kicked it hard. And again. Roggetti slammed it with his foot until the door smashed open.
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Smoke rushed into the hallway in a hot blast. They ran in, yelling her name.
Most of the apartment was burning, the flames spreading from the windows toward the doorway, across the floor, and along the cabinet fronts like a curtain. There was already more smoke than air. In the center of the room was the body of Lucy Fiore, twisting against a central column, engulfed in fire, the axis of the blaze.
Jenner, holding his coat up over his nose and mouth, ran to the sink and turned the water on full blast. He grabbed a coffeepot from the sink, filled it with water, turned, and threw it over her body. Then a second, and then a third, then Garcia and Roggetti were soaking her with saucepans from the sink, and there was a popping sound, then a whoosh as the overhead sprinklers kicked in and the smoke turned white, and she stopped burning.
There was a crashing sound as one of the windows smashed in. Two firemen appeared and one clambered through, dragging the hose, yelling, “Are you all right? Are you all right?”
He started to blast the burning wallpaper of the free wall, and Jenner stepped around to protect her body from the water, making a slashing gesture with his hand and shouting
“Don’t spray here!”
The fireman, initially confused, nodded, and gave a quick spray to the kitchen area. The ceiling sprinkler had doused much of the fire now; the hose had put out the major flames, and would now only damage evidence. He shouted something to his hose man, then passed the nozzle out through the window before beginning to open all the windows.
Jenner stood in front of the body.
He yelled into her face, “Lucy! Can you hear me?” He had to try.
There was no response.
Eyes burning, g
asping for breath, he felt her neck for a pulse. As he lifted her chin up, the charred skin underneath 238
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fissured wide. There was no bleeding, and he knew she was dead.
She had been impaled, fastened to the pillar not only by loops of burned rope, but by a sword driven through her belly.
Rad grabbed Jenner and pushed him toward the windows, where Roggetti was already leaning out to gasp and retch into the fresh air. They were all three covered with soot, coughing up black phlegm, their eyes stinging and red-rimmed, their faces striped by tears.
The fireman signaled down to street level, where ambulances were arriving.
Jenner turned from the window; he had to see the body.
She was badly burned, her legs and lower body charred.
If she’d been wearing clothes, they were gone now. On the floor, a broad outline of charring flared across the floor in front of the body; Jenner could make out an archipelago of splash burns leading from the main char site—evidence of some kind of accelerant.
Her hair was badly singed, and there were scattered erosive burns on her forehead. Underneath, interrupted by the burns, covering her forehead, was a band of Coptic lettering.
There was one more thing. He knew the answer, but he had to see for himself, had to know for sure. He went to the sink and opened the cabinet underneath, looking for gloves.
“Jenner! We have to go down to the ambulances.”
Voice ragged, Jenner shouted back over the hissing sprinklers and sirens rising up from the street, “You go ahead, Rad. There’s something I’ve got to see.”
“Jenner! She’s dead! Leave her—you can come back.
Please, man.”
No gloves.
“In a second.”
He walked back to the girl’s body and, fingers trembling, reached out to her face. Very carefully, desperate not to split Precious Blood
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the skin, he lifted the girl’s eyelids. He stood in front of her, the tears now welling fast from his burning eyes as he looked into the empty sockets.
Behind the barricade across the street from the smoking building, the man watched with satisfaction as his creation played itself out.
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