“I used to think so, but now I’m not so sure.”
He looked out the window of the bar at the wind-whipped pedestrians tilting their way home through another blast of winter, and it occurred to him that right then he wasn’t sure of much of anything.
CHAPTER FORTY
When Lee arrived at his apartment that evening, Chuck was sprawled on the couch watching television. He looked as though he hadn’t slept at all. His eyes were glassy, his skin pasty, and he wore a wrinkled rugby shirt over sweatpants. That wasn’t like Chuck—the only time Lee had seen him lolling around in sweatpants in their Princeton days was when he had the flu.
“Heya,” he said, tossing his keys into the basket by the front door.
“Hey,” Chuck answered without looking up.
“I didn’t hear you come in last night.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” Chuck said, still not taking his eyes off the screen.
“Where’d you go last night?”
“I went for a run.”
“For four hours?”
“What are you, my mother?”
“Hey, I’m just concerned.”
“I stopped by a bar,” Chuck said. “Want to check my blood alcohol level?”
“You’re a big boy—it’s none of my business, all right?” he replied, peeved at his friend’s rudeness.
Lee went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water, drinking it slowly. He needed time to think—Chuck’s behavior was so unlike him, it was unsettling. He came back into the room.
“Whatcha watching?”
“Football.”
“You don’t like football.”
“Jesus Christ!” Chuck exploded. “Can’t a guy just watch a little TV without getting the third degree?”
“Okay,” Lee said. “Message received.”
He went to his room, changed into sweats and went out for a long run. After a quick shower upon returning, he grabbed the case file from the living room, went back to his bedroom and closed the door. A couple of minutes later there was a soft knock on the door. He opened it. Chuck stood there, looking miserable.
“Christ, I’m acting like a real shit,” Chuck said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Lee put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s called depression—welcome to the club.”
Chuck smiled grimly. “Yeah? Am I going to be checking into the hospital too?”
“I hope not. The Bronx Major Case Unit isn’t going to run itself.”
“You got that right.” He ran a hand through his blond crew cut, which was as shaggy as Lee had ever seen it. “You have dinner yet?”
“Nope.”
“What do you feel like? My treat.”
“You can never go wrong with Indian.”
“Done—get your coat.”
The tabla player at the Raj Mahal was in rare form. He and the sitar player sat cross-legged on the tiny stage in front of the window, so that passersby could see and hear them. Lee had walked by the place a few years back—lured in by the music, he had returned again and again for the live classical Indian music as well as the creamy, almond-scented chicken kurma and spicy lamb vindaloo. The Raj’s tabla player was especially gifted—when he saw Lee, he smiled and launched into an inspired riff. Lee always tipped the musicians generously. In college he had played cocktail piano in a swanky restaurant to help pay for textbooks, and he knew what it was like to count on customer tips.
“So,” Lee said after they ordered, “Susan called last night.”
“Yeah?” Chuck plucked a piece of papadum from the basket on the table and popped it into his mouth. He was trying too hard to look uninterested. “What did she say?”
“Oh, you know Susan—wanted to know where you were.”
“What’d you tell her?”
“The truth—that I didn’t know.”
“Serve her right, to be worried about me for a change.” He broke off another piece of papadum. “What else?”
“She said she didn’t do it.”
Chuck grunted. “Yeah—right. I’ve been dealing with criminals for too many years not to know a lie when I hear one.”
“Maybe she didn’t.” Lee couldn’t believe he was defending Susan Morton, but he knew Chuck still loved her. And they had a son and a daughter, so there were the kids to think about.
“I can’t believe you’re saying that.”
“What if those phone calls have another explanation? Maybe she was looking into getting cosmetic dentistry and didn’t want you to know.”
“You’re stretching it, Campbell—you know it, and I know it.”
“Still, I think you should—”
“Is it getting on your nerves, having me around?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I just don’t want you to throw it all away without—”
“Funny. I got the impression you don’t much like her.”
“That has nothing to do with it. I just—”
“You don’t like her, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.”
“You dumped her, after all. Though I never could understand why.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I feel like we’re living in different universes.”
“Well, you know what they say: one man’s meat . . .”
“Yeah, right.” Chuck smiled, but in that smile Lee saw the truth: he was still hopelessly, shamelessly in love with Susan Beaumont Morton. At that moment their food arrived, and talk of love and betrayal took a backseat to chicken kurma with basmati rice.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Mandy Pritchard’s parents were the Wasp equivalent of the Adlers—refined, educated, well-spoken and utterly grief-stricken. Mrs. Pritchard was a striking woman with long black hair and pale skin; her husband was tall and professorial, with misty blue eyes behind square glasses and a thin, patrician nose. He was an architect, and she was a lawyer.
They stood behind the glass partition in the city morgue, unable to take their eyes off the form on the table on the other side of the glass. A crisp white sheet covered their daughter’s body; at a nod from Detective Butts, the attendant would oh-so-discreetly pull down the sheet to reveal the earthly remains of their only child, the little girl they had carried and coddled and caressed, their promise of immortality wiped away by the brutal hand of a psychopath.
Lee often wondered what it must be like, this final moment, the last time they would ever lay eyes on their beloved child. The Pritchards definitely didn’t look like open-casket people. Would they carry this sad image with them forever, seared into their brains, or would it gradually be replaced by happier memories of their daughter’s first bicycle, first puppy, first prom dress?
Mrs. Pritchard was working her mouth, compressing her lips tightly, hands clasped, knuckles locked in a kind of hopeless prayer position. Her husband had gone as pale as the sheet covering poor Mandy; his handsome face wore a stony expression of stoic grief. They were both delaying the terrible moment, as if by postponing it they could somehow prevent it. Lee knew all the tricks, all the mind games you played with yourself to get through grief and loss and its aftermath—they didn’t work, of course, but they were all you had, and desperate people often acted irrationally.
Finally Mrs. Pritchard took a deep breath and nodded to Butts, who in turn signaled the morgue attendant. When the sheet was lifted, she gave a low, throaty moan and crumpled into her husband’s arms. He didn’t appear very steady himself—if he hadn’t been forced to support his wife, Mr. Pritchard looked as if he, too, might collapse.
What the Pritchards didn’t see was the stippling on their daughter’s torso. They didn’t see the missing finger, either—but the ligature marks on her neck were all too evident. Purple and thick and ugly, they were a reminder of how she had died. Mrs. Pritchard buried her head in her husband’s chest and waved at Butts.
“No more, please,” she gasped.
Butts signaled
the attendant, who dutifully covered Mandy’s face.
“All right,” said Mr. Pritchard. “What’s next?”
His attempt at being businesslike was touching. His wife was too far gone to put up any kind of front. She stood leaning against him, making no attempt to wipe her tear-smeared face.
“Well,” said Butts, “if you think you’re up to it, we’d like to talk to you about your daughter.”
Mrs. Pritchard’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Her husband squeezed her hand and turned to Butts. “We’re up to it,” he said. “Whatever will help you catch the monster who did this.”
They accompanied the Pritchards back to the precinct, offered them coffee and did what they could to offer comfort. Jimmy was out interviewing Mandy’s classmates, so it was just Butts and Lee back at the station house. They didn’t get anything unexpected from the interview. Mandy was a good girl, a straight-A student working on a degree in biology at Columbia; she was working while taking classes part-time.
“We could afford to pay for her education, but she didn’t want everything handed to her, so we all agreed she would work her first two years at school,” Mr. Pritchard said apologetically.
“Where did she work?” asked Lee, handing him a cup of coffee.
“For a veterinarian on the Upper East Side. She was hoping to go to grad school to become a vet.”
“Oh, God,” his wife said. “Do you suppose whoever—did this—met her there? If we had only insisted on paying for school—”
“Now, Mrs. Pritchard,” Butts responded, “you can’t start thinkin’ like that. Nobody did anything wrong—not you, not your daughter. There’s some creep out there who does terrible, evil things, and it’s our job to catch him.”
“I just keep wondering what we could have done,” she said, her eyes pleading.
“Nothing. You can’t protect your child from creeps like this, and you can’t spend the rest of your life thinkin’ you shoulda done something different.”
The door opened, and Elena Krieger entered the room. Immediately the atmosphere became more charged. The air seemed to crackle, as though electric ions had swarmed in through the door with her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, seeing the Pritchards. “I didn’t realize—”
“That’s because you didn’t bother to knock,” Butts retorted.
Krieger stiffened. “I had some information that I thought might interest you.”
Butts glanced at the Pritchards, who looked intimidated by Krieger. “This is Detective Krieger,” he said. “She’s helping us with the case.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Krieger formally.
“Why don’t you wait outside?” Butts told her. “We’re almost done here.”
“No, wait,” Mrs. Pritchard piped in. “I—I’d like to hear what she was going to say.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Butts said. “We don’t release every detail of our cases to the public.”
Mr. Pritchard’s face reddened. “Is that what we are—the public?”
Lee stepped in. “What Detective Butts is trying to say is that in every investigation there are details only known to the investigators. It’s important in order to help solve the case and bring your daughter’s killer to justice.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Pritchard softly. “Whatever will help you find this—this animal.”
Butts looked grateful for Lee’s intervention—sometimes he forgot to smooth feathers and feelings, especially when civilians were involved.
“Thanks for understanding,” he said. “We’ll be in touch if there are any developments.”
Mrs. Pritchard clasped his hand and held it. “Thank you, Detective. Thank you for bringing our daughter’s killer to justice.”
Butts looked extremely uncomfortable, but he just squeezed her hand and nodded. “We’ll do whatever we can—I promise you that.”
“I know,” she said, her eyes brimming over. “I know you will.”
“Come on, Anne, let’s let the detectives do their job,” Mr. Pritchard said, taking his wife gently by the shoulders and ushering her out.
When they had gone, Butts turned to Krieger. “Okay, what is it that couldn’t wait?”
She regarded him coldly. “Perhaps you aren’t so interested. I can come back another time.”
His jowly face reddened. “Oh, cut the crap, and just tell me what it is!”
Krieger gave a triumphant smile. “I have the killer’s note.”
Butts’s mouth flew open in astonishment. “He did write one?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find it?”
“He mailed it to me.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The statement left Lee and Butts temporarily speechless.
Then the detective ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Christ, he’s a devious bastard.” He held out his hand. “Let’s see it.”
Krieger produced a single sheet of paper encased in a plastic evidence bag.
“Did you log it in yet?”
“Yes. Of course I made a copy, but I want us all to study the original first, in case we see anything useful.”
The note was typed, as before, with the same font, and looked to be from the same printer.
Dear Detective Krieger,
I thought it would be fun to keep you in the loop, so to speak, by sending this straight to you—after all, you’re the linguistics expert, right?
And a very luscious creature you are too, I must say. I do hope you’re enjoying our little game; otherwise, what’s the point? Get it? The point! As a German, I’m sure you enjoy puns.
So I hope you like the little “twist” in my design. I must say, it did take a while, and as you can imagine, my subject wasn’t very cooperative, but I’m a patient man. (Oh, yes, I’m a man, but you knew that already, didn’t you?)
Bye for now,
The Professor
“He thinks he’s so clever,” Butts muttered. “Just wait until I get hold of him.”
“So, any new observations?” Lee asked Krieger.
“The obvious things we already know are that he’s educated, literate, worldly—”
“And resourceful,” Lee added. “Isn’t your address unlisted?”
“Yes, but my teenage nephew could get around that,” she scoffed.
Lee tried to imagine Elena Krieger as an aunt but couldn’t quite manage it.
“He’s a smug son of a bitch,” Butts remarked.
“Yes,” Krieger agreed.
“What’s he talking about with the ‘twist’ in his design—the pattern on the girl?” asked Lee.
“I’d have to say so,” said Krieger. “He even mentions her reaction, to rub it in that he did it while she was alive, in case we had any doubt.”
“He’s gloating,” said Lee.
“He who gloats last . . .” Butts murmured.
“Those designs obviously have a meaning, but what is it?” said Lee.
“Some connection to his identity?” said Krieger.
“Right. Like he’s taunting us with a puzzle of some kind.”
Krieger studied them. “They’re very precise. Maybe he’s an architect.”
“Or a biologist. Maybe a marine biologist.” Lee reminded them that he’d discerned a chambered nautilus design in Lisa Adler’s puncture wounds.
“What about the notes?” Butts asked. “Find any connection to the designs in them?”
Krieger held up the first one. “No, but I’ve been pondering his comment that ‘one is the loneliest number.’ ”
“You think he might have a connection to numbers ?” Lee asked.
“Could be,” said Krieger. “But it’s such an ambiguous statement—it could mean so many things.”
They worked for another hour, then headed their separate ways, agreeing to be in touch first thing in the morning. Lee took the subway to the Bronx, just in time to catch Brian O’Reilly’s funeral.
St. Barnabas Catholic Church was a clunky Italianate build
ing looming over the intersection of Martha Avenue and 241st Street, in the same Bronx neighborhood of Woodlawn where Brian O’Reilly had lived. It looked more like a courthouse than a church, with its imposing granite walls, severe columns and triangular Romanesque façade. No cozy Baroque fussiness, warm wooden carvings or welcoming garden here—the sinner who entered its stern arch doors could be assured he would be judged and found wanting. Lee could hear the mournful strains coming from the vast pipe organ as he ascended the wide front staircase.
The interior was just as forbidding—the stained-glass windows lining the side walls did little to dispel the feeling of being inside a large box. The ceilings were oddly low, with none of the sweeping grandeur of other Catholic churches. The musky aroma of incense was overpowering. He slipped into the last pew just as the priest stepped up to the altar, where a graphically lurid carving of the Crucifixion was bordered by statues of Joseph and the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus.
He was struck by the similarity to pagan altars he had seen. The high marble table with its ornate carved figurines could double for a Druid or Aztec altar, where human sacrifices were delivered to appease pagan gods. A large corkboard holding photographs of Brian was surrounded by bouquets of lilies and roses and sat to one side of the altar. To the right of the altar was a large white casket.
The church was nearly full. Lee noticed several solid blocks of attendees in dress blues—the NYPD was well represented. The priest lifted his arms as the organ music died away. Tall and bespectacled and balding, he wore a long robe and purple vestments—the very icon of a parish priest.
“Bless us, O Lord, as we commend the spirit of our brother Brian O’Reilly into your care. ‘Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands. For God made not death, neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living. ’ ”
As the priest droned on, Lee craned his neck, looking for Gemma. The dense phalanx of bodies in front of him prevented him from seeing much of anything, so he leaned back in the wooden pew and gazed at the mourners near him, wondering if Brian’s killer was among them.
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