“. . . ‘We shall all indeed rise again: but we shall not all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,’ ” the priest intoned solemnly. “ ‘For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise again incorruptible.’ ”
A whiff of sandalwood incense wafted down the aisle, choking Lee’s airway. He was unable to stifle a hacking cough; a few people in front of him turned around to glare at him. A dark-haired woman with the sharp nose and beady eyes of a crow cleared her throat loudly in disapproval.
The ceremony was a formal, old-fashioned Catholic rite, with none of the modern indulgences of get-up-and-say-whatever-you-feel memorials he had attended in Manhattan. There were hymns and readings and biblical passages; the priest himself delivered the eulogy. Lee didn’t know who had written it, but he suspected Gemma was the author—it was full of fond personal reminiscences and memories.
“. . . ‘Death is swallowed up in victory,’ ” the priest declared. “ ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?’ ”
Lee had some choice responses to that one, but he just shifted in his seat and looked around some more. He wasn’t sure what he hoped to find, other than Brian’s killer, but part of him thought that he (or she) would have to be pretty stupid to turn up here. On the other hand, what if his killer was someone who knew him well, and not showing up would look more suspicious? Both possibilities were equally viable, depending on the identity of the murderer.
“ ‘Now the sting of death is sin: and the power of sin is the law,’ ” the priest proclaimed. He was clearly enjoying himself. Actors, lawyers, clergy, Lee mused—all cut from the same cloth. They enjoyed performing in front of people, mesmerized by the sound of their own voices. He watched the congregation drink in his words—the crow-beaked woman in front of him nodded somberly. He has an attentive audience, at any rate.
The priest appeared to be lurching into the homestretch. “But thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast and unmovable: always abiding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Amen.”
“Amen,” murmured the congregation. The crow-nosed woman crossed herself piously and shot a glance at Lee. He smiled at her; she scowled and looked away.
He waited around for Gemma to extract herself from the throng of well-wishers who had attached themselves to her as if she were coated in Velcro. He stood watching, waiting for some behavioral clue on anyone’s part that indicated guilt or evasion of some kind. The crow-faced woman glanced around in a way that could be interpreted as nervous, but she struck him as a busybody who just wanted to keep an eye on what everyone else was doing.
Lee was beginning to tire of waiting—Gemma was still surrounded by people delivering condolences and sympathy. He had a long subway ride to his therapist’s office, so he pulled on his coat and was about to leave the church when he noticed a thin man in a camel hair overcoat. The man’s worn face was troubled, and he was fidgeting with his gloves; he seemed to be struggling with a decision of some kind. He stood just outside the circle of well-wishers and glanced furtively at Lee from time to time, as if trying catch his eye.
Lee stopped putting on his coat and gazed directly at the man. A thin, cold thread of anticipation shot through his stomach when the man held his gaze, then nodded toward the other side of the altar, near the organ keyboard. He nodded back and strolled in the direction of the organ, studying the stained-glass windows along the way, as if he was just idly wandering around the church. When he reached the other side of the organ, a hand clamped down on his elbow, and he turned to see the man in the camel hair coat clutching his arm. Without a word, he pulled Lee toward the back of the church, glancing nervously around him as he went, as if he was afraid of being followed.
He opened a door behind the altar and pulled Lee through it. Lee started to speak, but the man put a finger to his lips. Closing the door behind them, he took Lee down a set of stairs to a basement that clearly served as a combination rehearsal space and classroom. There were desks and a chalkboard and a piano in one corner. The man ducked inside the restroom, then came back out immediately.
“All right,” he said at last. “We’re alone. Dr. Campbell, is it?”
“Yes,” said Lee. “Who are y—”
“We don’t have much time,” the man said, his lined face showing intense worry. He had thick black hair with a single swath of gray in the front, and dark, deep-set eyes rimmed with pouches, as if he had missed many a night of sleep. It was impossible to guess his age—he was probably younger than he appeared. His voice was scratchy, and he cleared his throat constantly. “They’ll notice I’m gone and come looking for me,” he said.
“Who?” Lee asked.
The man waved off the question impatiently. “How much do you know?”
“About what?”
“Don’t waste time! I’m talking about Brian O’Reilly.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” Lee said—he had no idea if he could trust this guy.
His companion looked as if he were about to explode. “Brian O’Reilly did not kill himself,” he hissed. “He was murdered.”
“How do you know?”
The man cleared his throat nervously. “O’Reilly’s partner, Desmond Maguire, was also murdered—but they did a better job covering that one up. O’Reilly was about to stumble onto that fact, so they had to kill him.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Just then they heard heavy footsteps clunking down the basement stairs. The man clamped a finger to his lips, and Lee held his breath.
“Is anyone down here?” said a man’s voice. Lee recognized it as belonging to the priest.
“Just using the bathroom, Father,” he called out.
The priest appeared at the bottom of the stairs, still wearing his robe and purple vestments.
“I am so sorry to rush you,” he said. “But we have another service after this one—happily, a wedding this time.”
“Of course, Father,” Lee’s companion said, clearing his throat again. “We were just leaving.”
“Thank you,” said the pastor, ascending the stairs. “Again, my apologies.”
“Go—I’ll follow you,” the man whispered.
Lee climbed back up the narrow staircase, emerging into the main chapel, where the crowd had thinned out considerably. Most of the guests had left, and a couple of altar boys were preparing the room for the wedding, bringing in fresh flowers for the altar. There was no sign of Gemma. Thinking he heard footsteps behind him on the stairs, Lee turned around to say something to the man in the camel hair coat, but he had vanished. Lee peered back down the staircase, but there was no sign of him. Was there another exit? Perhaps he had left through the basement somehow.
Lee hurried up the aisle and out the front door of the church. Outside, the last of the cars in the funeral procession was just pulling out to follow the cavalcade of vehicles heading for the cemetery. He ducked around to the rear of the building to see if he could spot his mysterious companion, but there was no sign of him. He looked at his watch—he was due at his therapist’s office in half an hour. Even if he left now, he was sure to be late.
He made one more circuit around the church, but there was still no sign of the strange man. He wanted to call Gemma but realized the only number he had was Brian’s landline. That was too risky—he couldn’t know who might be listening in. He wrapped his scarf around his neck and pulled his collar up as a stiff wind whipped around the side of the building. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he jogged in the direction of the A train.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
As he predicted, Lee arrived late. Dr. Williams had squeezed him in right after her last regular patient—he slid into the office just as the Con Edison clock tower in Union Square chimed the quarter hour.
“So what’s going on?” asked Dr. Williams, closing the door behind him. “You missed your session last week.
And you’re late this week—that’s not like you.”
“Sorry about that,” said Lee, sitting on the couch opposite her. “I did call and tell you.”
She smiled. “I wasn’t complaining. I’m just wondering what’s happening.”
He looked around the office, with its familiar, African-inspired décor. Dr. Williams sat in her usual spot, the leather swivel chair, her ubiquitous iced tea in the tall blue thermos at her side. Today she wore a knit wool skirt and a lemon yellow blouse that showed off her milk chocolate skin.
“I got called in on a case,” he said.
“A tough one?”
“As bad as it gets. Have you read the work of Robert Keppel and Richard Walter?”
“I’ve heard of them, but crime isn’t my specialty.”
“They’ve created a way of classifying sex offenders and murderers.”
“That sounds useful.”
“Basically, they divide them into four types. This guy is a Type Four, the worst of the worst—a real sadist.”
“You’re working on the Alleyway Strangler.”
“Yeah.”
She shuddered. “I live not far from where the first girl was found. It’s all my neighbors can talk about.”
“It’s pretty horrendous.”
“No wonder you look so stressed. That’s a huge responsibility.”
“He’s smart too. Full of wit and playful humor . . . he’s really enjoying this.”
“Unlike you.”
“It’s still a mystery to me why some people become so twisted that they’re compelled to do these things.”
She looked at the bookcase with its volumes on psychology and human behavior, tomes of wisdom and experience and learning—none of which sufficiently explained the evolution of a ritualistic serial killer.
“Why do some people have horrendous childhoods and go on to lead productive lives, and others are turned into these . . . killing machines?” he said.
“There are so many elements in a person’s life, so many factors, that it’s impossible to trace and explain all of them.”
“I want to kill this guy with my bare hands.”
She took a sip of tea. “How’s your boxing going?”
“It’s a good way to release my anger.”
“Better than feeling depressed.”
“Much better.”
“But you’re still angry.”
“Yeah.”
“At life’s unfairness, your sister’s disappearance, your father’s betrayal. Which you still can’t talk about.”
“All in good time, my pretty, all in good time,” he said, doing a passable imitation of Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West.
She smiled. “Do you wish you could have as much fun as this killer you’re chasing?”
“Of course. And there’s been a . . . development in my sister’s case.”
She sat up straighter. “Oh? What is it?”
He told her about Brian O’Reilly’s death, Gemma, and the strange man in the church.
“That is mysterious. I wonder if this is something you shouldn’t be involved in. Maybe you should report it to—”
“To who? From what this guy says, the cops themselves may be involved—at least in that precinct. And I don’t know enough to report to anybody yet.”
“I’m afraid you may be in danger.”
“I’m more worried about Gemma.”
She cocked her head and smiled, the way she did when she was prying. “I get the feeling there’s something more going on there than you’re telling me.”
He felt himself reddening. Damn Celtic complexion. “There’s nothing much to tell. She’s Brian O’Reilly’s sister.”
“Attractive?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Dr. Williams took another sip of tea. “Okay, whatever you say.”
That night Lee tossed and turned in bed. He knew he should try to sleep, but he couldn’t help thinking about his conversation with Dr. Williams. He realized that, for all that separated them, he and the killer were more alike than he wanted to admit. There were times when hate filled him, a rancor as bitter as dandelion greens, an evil vine wrapping itself around his heart, choking the breath from his body. He struggled with the clinging tendrils clutching at him, but when he was in this state, Lee knew he was closest to feeling what he felt—the man he had begun to think of as more than just his prey, the hunted, but also his doppelgänger.
The killer was like a reverse image of himself, a mirror negative, a darker brother. He struggled with his lack of faith in any meaningful concept of God; this man served a cruel and exacting god. He fought every day to hold back the tide of his own rage and disappointment; this man gave in to these feelings, embracing them like old friends.
He finally drifted off around three o’clock, to a night of restless dreams and murky, fleeting images. He awoke to the sound of Chuck shaving. For a split second he imagined he was back in their old rooms in Princeton. Those were sweet times, with youth and innocence and the bright future of an Ivy League graduate ahead of them. Life was rugby, classes, girls and eating clubs. Even at the time, he knew enough to savor those days, realizing they would never return. He listened to Chuck puttering around in the bathroom, heard him turn the shower on. He watched the steam seeping through the crack in his bedroom wall, made a note to talk to the super about it, then hauled himself out of bed, hoping Chuck didn’t use up all the hot water.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
The evidence room at One Police Plaza was climate controlled and antiseptic, but Lee could taste the dust in the air as he followed the clerk down the endless aisles of boxes.
“Here you go,” said the clerk, a sleepy, dusky-skinned Latina with gold bangles in her ears that jingled when she walked. She pulled out a cardboard file box labeled in block letters with a black Magic Marker: CAMPBELL, LAURA. There was something surreal about seeing his sister’s name so objectively rendered by an unknown hand on the side of a featureless cardboard box, jammed in with thousands of others just like it. Sweat sprang onto Lee’s forehead as he signed the release form on the clipboard the clerk held out to him.
“Follow me,” she said, handing him the box.
He trailed after her, lugging the box, reminded of all the clips he had seen of criminals hauling their case files to court. There was something demeaning about the whole criminal justice system, necessary though it was.
The clerk led him to a locked room in the Records section. It was empty except for a couple of long tables and a water cooler. She unlocked the glass door and held it open for him.
“Just knock on the glass when you’re done,” she said, “and I’ll come let you out.”
“Thanks,” he said, heaving the box onto the table. Tiny granules of dust floated into the air and settled onto the heavy wooden table.
She left, locking the door behind her, and padded back to her station around the corner. He lifted the lid from the box and, for the first time since his sister’s disappearance, looked at the case files.
There wasn’t much. Copies of witness statements, the original Missing Persons report he and his mother had filed. He remembered the day they went to the station house together, his mother stern and anxious and full of questions. She couldn’t seem to believe that the desk sergeant they spoke with didn’t immediately produce her daughter as soon as they reported her missing. It was as though she expected Laura to be hiding in a closet somewhere in the building and that she would jump out yelling “Surprise!” with that big, toothy grin of hers. Laura had been living in the city less than a year when she disappeared. Kylie—thank God—was with her father that weekend.
The initial police response had been lukewarm, to say the least. In the scheme of things, a missing adult female didn’t seem to interest them much. Forms were duly filled out, records made and copied, and Lee and his mother were promised that someone would be assigned to the case if Laura didn’t turn up soon. The sergeant
reassured them that in most cases the person did surface, usually in a short amount of time.
But from the minute he was assigned to the case, Detective Brian O’Reilly took it very seriously indeed. He reported it at once with the FBI National Crime Information Center (NCIC), as well as the NYPD, and he called Lee several times a week with updates.
And now he was dead—murdered. At first he had thought Brian might simply be a suicide his sister, Gemma, just couldn’t accept. Lee had seen it before—family members never want to believe a loved one could take their own life, but they could and did every day. The position of the gun wasn’t that conclusive—he had seen guns end up in odd places in crime scene photos. But the man in the camel’s hair coat was pretty convincing; Lee now believed Gemma’s conclusion about her brother’s death.
He dug through the pile of papers, reports, phone records, e-mails and departmental forms. One thing he had learned since coming to work for the NYPD was that paperwork was the bane of all cops’ existence. It was endless, inescapable and tedious—but if you didn’t do it, there was hell to pay. Brian O’Reilly might have been a drunk, but he was thorough. Every step of the investigation into Laura’s disappearance was documented: phone calls made, interviews conducted, leads followed.
Lee was startled by the ringing of his cell phone, which he had forgotten to turn off. He grabbed it. The caller ID said Chuck, so he answered it.
He immediately regretted it. The call was from Chuck’s home phone in New Jersey, not his cell phone, and the caller was Susan Morton.
“Hello, sugar,” she said. Her voice was coated with the usual layer of syrup, but something was off.
“Hello, Susan,” he said, his voice flat, uninflected.
“Long time, no see,” she purred. She was trying too hard, pushing for effect.
“What can I do for you?”
She laughed her trademark laugh, like the tinkling of tiny bells, but it sounded forced. She was scared. Trying not to seem like it, but she was frightened.
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