On four she opened the door, stepped to the left in attack stance, weapon leveled. The driver's seat was empty, as was the seat on the passenger side. Keys in the ignition.
Bontrager opened the passenger door on five, pointed his flashlight inside the van. Behind the driver's seat were a pair of side racks. Strapped into them were David Albrecht's equipment — tripods, equipment cases, lights, microphone stands, a short ladder.
Jessica flipped on the van's interior light.
There was no one inside.
Near the back doors they could see the video camera on its side.
The camera was on, the blue rectangle of the flip-out LCD screen glowed. Jessica took a single latex glove out of her pocket, snapped it on. She crossed to the back of the van, opened a door. Reaching in, she tilted the camera back onto its side. There had to be two dozen buttons.
'Do you know how to operate one of these?'
'Sort of,' Bontrager said. 'I took the video of my cousin's wedding last year.'
'There's video at an Amish wedding?'
'My cousin left the church. She married English.'
Bontrager put on a glove, looked closely at the camera for a few moments. He hit a button. They heard a whirring sound, then a click. The side of the camera opened.
'There's no tape,' Bontrager said.
Jessica scanned the back of the van, looking for a tape. Then she went back to the front of the vehicle, searched through the console and the glove compartment. Empty.
'Sometimes there's a memory card,' Bontrager said. He clicked a few more buttons. Different menus flicked by on the LCD screen. 'Yeah, the card's still in there.'
Bontrager thumbed a few more buttons, the screens ticked by. He hit a button. A video copied to the memory card began to play.
There were only twenty seconds or so of video and audio, but it was chilling. The video showed someone walking up to the camera along a dark lane. The camera was shaky, showed the figure from the shoulders down.
'It's you,' a voice whispered. Was it Albrecht speaking? Impossible to tell.
Without another word, the door of Albrecht's van was yanked open. The video spun into a collage of images: trees, night sky, the side of the van.
The image then became a stationary shot along the ground, showing Sawmill Road stretching out into the darkness. This continued for a few moments before the screen went black.
Bontrager stepped a few paces away from the van, pointing his flashlight at the ground. 'Jess.'
Jessica walked over. On the trunk of a fallen tree was a small pool of blood. A few more drops on the grass led deeper into the woods, over trampled branches.
Weapons in hand, the two detectives stepped into the forest.
Chapter 89
Lucy couldn't move. She was lying on a cold stone floor. A draft was coming from somewhere. She had been yanked roughly out of the van, walked down some stairs, and deposited on the floor. Then she heard a door slam and a lock turn.
Then, nothing.
The good news was that her captor had not tightened the plastic band around her wrists. She still had a little slack. She rolled over and began to work on the band, flexing and relaxing her wrists. After a few minutes her lower arms began to feel numb. She stopped for a while, started again. After ten minutes or so it felt as if she might be able to begin to work her hand free.
When she had been dropped on the floor she'd felt a small puddle of water. She rolled over and over until she was on top of it. She angled her body so that her hands got wet. The water was freezing. She had never done well in science classes, but she figured that this might be a good thing, if it helped her hands contract and not the band.
She took a deep breath, bracing against the pain she knew was coming, and started to twist her wrists out of the plastic band. No dice. She wet her hands a second time. They were growing numb again, but she couldn't stop.
The third time she tried, she felt the band slip over the base of her thumbs. With great effort she pulled her right hand out of the plastic band.
Lucy stood up, a little shaky, pulled the tape from her mouth. She gulped the cold air.
There was virtually no light in the room. With her hands out front, she felt along the wall. It was a small room, a cellar of some sort. Stone walls. There was a bench, a couple of old chairs. Everything had a deep layer of dust on it. She felt her way over to the door, listened for a while. Silence. As gently as possible, she tried to turn the knob.
Locked.
Chapter 90
The trail of blood stopped about twenty yards into the woods, where the forest became thick and tangled before dropping into a steep gorge.
Jessica and Bontrager shone their flashlights into the ravine, but the beams were instantly swallowed by darkness.
'Albrecht is hurt pretty bad,' Bontrager said.
'If this is Albrecht's blood.'
Bontrager looked at Jessica, then back at the blood trail, which was quickly being washed away in the drizzling rain. 'You're right. We don't know if this is Albrecht's.'
'We have to call it in, Josh.'
Bontrager hesitated a second, no longer. He ran back to the road, called PPD dispatch, identified himself and their position. Dispatch would contact the closest emergency services agency and police K-9 units.
Jessica returned to the road. They stood on the shoulder.
'I'll stay here,' Bontrager said. 'I'll wait for the search team.'
'It's over, Josh. Even if Mike Drummond keeps his word, they're going to put all this together.'
Bontrager took a few steps away, thinking, turned back.
'Okay. Here's what happened. I was following a lead. I saw the vehicle, pulled over, discovered the blood. I called it in. Before I could get back to my car I was ambushed. This is why I'm a little unclear on the details after that.'
'No one is going to buy that.'
'Maybe yes, maybe no. We'll worry about that later.'
Jessica considered the scenario. 'Are you sure?'
'Yeah,' Bontrager said, planting his feet apart. 'Make it look good.'
Jessica took a step back. 'Josh…'
'I know you box, so try not to kill me.'
Jessica put on one of her wool gloves, hesitated. This was getting deeper and deeper. 'Are you sure sure?'
'You're talking me out of it.'
Jessica reared back and threw the punch, pulling it a little. It caught Bontrager on the right side of his jaw. Bontrager reeled back, nearly toppling over.
'Wow.'
She had bloodied his lip.
'Jesus Christ. Are you okay?'
Long pause. 'I'm fine. I may never sing with the opera again, but I'm fine.' He reached down, gathered some dirt from the side of the road, scuffed up his suit coat.
Jessica looked from the van, back to Josh, then up Sawmill Road. According to the map she was about a mile away.
She wanted to tell Josh to call or text her, keeping her in the loop, but it was not a good idea. That would put everything on the record. 'You sure you're all right?'
Bontrager rubbed his jaw, which was already starting to swell. 'Go.' Jessica checked the action on her Glock, snapped it back into her holster, and started down the road.
Chapter 91
The smell of just-turned earth fills my senses. Each shovelful brings with it a plaintive voice: a plea of innocence, a shout of unrepentant pride, a wail of sorrow. I hear them all.
With the swing of his crimson hammer Kenneth Beckman took Antoinette Chan to the other side. His wife Sharon had helped. They too smell the earth now, rich with fur and blood and bone. They are joined by Preston Braswell, Tyvander Alice, Eduardo Robles, Tommy Archer, Dennis Stansfield, so many others. The earth always reclaims.
Tonight, in this place, white skeletons pass through the gloom. They are all around me.
There is one more note to play. I hear the player coming, creeping through the night. I push the sounds of murders past from my mind, listen for the footfall as it a
pproaches.
There. Can you hear it?
I hear it.
One more note.
My instruments are ready.
Chapter 92
Jessica walked down the road in a darkness so pure and complete that she could not see her own feet. The drizzle made the going even slower. Her only guide to the road was the white stripe on either side, along with the compass app on her phone, which she was reluctant to use. It seemed to put a spotlight on her. According to the GPS, she would be coming up on the parcel in a few minutes.
She passed a drive every so often, a gravel lane that snaked back into the woods.
When she came to the rear entrance to the Briarcliff Cemetery she saw that it was unmarked. Instead there were two fieldstone pillars, connected by a chain with a padlock on it. On one of the pillars was a rusted sign warning that trespassers would be prosecuted. Jessica clicked on her Maglite, aimed it at the ground, and headed into the cemetery.
The only good thing about walking through the woods was that she was now somewhat sheltered from the rain. Before long she came up to the southern end of the graveyard. She couldn't see far, but she did see lights in the distance. There appeared to be three large houses, perhaps a quarter-mile apart. She continued down the access road, passing crypts, monuments, row after row of manicured graves and expensive headstones. This was a world apart from the Mount Olive cemetery.
At eleven-thirty she reached the far end of the cemetery, the area that abutted the rear of Christa-Marie Schцnburg's house.
Just as she was about to cross the field, to the rear of the property, her Maglite found a headstone bearing the legend:
DR. GABRIEL THORNE
HEALER AND FRIEND
The grave had recently been dug up.
As Jessica got closer she was overwhelmed by the size of the house. It was a three-story Tudor, half-timbered, with cross gables and a steeply pitched roof. Two massive chimneys rose at either end, both topped with chimney pots. A large deck jutted out over the backyard.
She could hear nothing but the rain.
Jessica studied the windows in the back of the house. There were faint lights in three of them. She watched for movement, for shadows. She saw none.
Jessica put her two-way handset on silent, crossed the backyard, and stepped onto the rear deck.
The sliding glass door was locked. Jessica walked down the steps, rounded the house to the east wing. She tried to lift the windows. All were shut tight.
She had no choice. She found a fist-sized rock in the garden, stood atop the air-conditioning unit, broke out the window in the first-floor bathroom.
Once inside, she ran a towel through her hair, wiped her face. She opened the bathroom door. Straight ahead was a long hallway, leading to a large foyer and the front door. She left the bathroom, walked slowly down the hallway. To the left was the entrance to a small pantry, beyond that the kitchen.
Soft music played somewhere in the house.
Jessica saw that most of the rooms were lit by candles, dozens of them casting a pallid yellow light in the cavernous spaces.
She made her way cautiously down the hallway, watched by the eyes of dead ancestors peering down from huge oil paintings overhead. In the dim candlelight, objects waxed and waned — the occasional sideboard, end table, armoire. Each held danger. Jessica drew her weapon, held it at her side.
She approached a room, its door ajar. There was only darkness within. She edged up to the room, slowly inched the door open with her foot.
In borrowed candlelight she saw shapes in the room. A pair of bookcases, a sewing machine, a chair. There were two other doors. She could not clear them. There was no time. She had to take the chance.
She moved deliberately, right shoulder to the wall, sweat trickling from her shoulders, down her back.
Before she turned the corner, into what she was certain was the main hall, she stopped, tuned her ears to every sound. The music continued: a string quartet. Beneath it she heard a woman's voice, humming the melody.
Jessica took a deep breath, rolled the corner, her weapon held low.
Someone stood at the foot of the grand staircase, not fifteen feet away from her. It took Jessica a moment to adjust her eyes.
Kevin Byrne.
He was at the base of the steps, splendid in a dark suit, white shirt and deep burgundy tie. Above him was an enormous crystal chandelier. Jessica looked at Byrne's hands. He held a single white rose.
No, Kevin.
Please, no.
Before she could speak, Jessica looked up to see Christa-Marie at the top of the stairs. She wore a long black dress and a simple strand of pearls. Her hair was soft and luminous, a brilliant silver. She was radiant. She descended slowly, her slight hand on the railing, never once taking her stare from the man at the foot of the staircase.
When she reached the final step Christa-Marie paused.
Kevin Byrne handed her the white rose.
Chapter 93
There is beauty so rare and ephemeral that it has confounded the poets for centuries. Byron, Shakespeare, Keats, Wordsworth — all failures. This is the beauty that is Christa-Marie. From the first moment I saw her she has owned my heart, taking it around the world, then into the deepest confines of hell.
I have never asked for it back.
I've always known that we would have this one last moment together, this moment when our hearts would once again be joined.
Chapter 94
Christa-Marie stood face to face with Byrne. Jessica watched, mesmerized by the tableau as Byrne took Christa-Marie by the hand and led her to the center of the hall, beneath the exquisite chandelier.
A new song began, a waltz. They danced.
As the strings played, Kevin Byrne and Christa-Marie Schцnburg moved in beautiful, fluid lines, as if they had danced together all their lives. When they were finished, Byrne took Christa-Marie in his arms and kissed her.
The scene was so surreal, so unexpected, that Jessica found she had been holding her breath the entire time. She snapped out of it. She had a job to do.
She opened her mouth to speak.
She didn't get the chance.
The front door burst open, the sound of the battering ram echoing through the cavernous space. A pair of SWAT officers rolled into the foyer, their AR-15 assault rifles high. They were followed by Russell Diaz and two of his men, all three of them with weapons drawn. They ran down the main hall toward Byrne and Christa-Marie.
Diaz reached the couple first, stopping a few feet away. He pointed his weapon at Kevin Byrne.
'Down on the ground!' Diaz shouted.
Byrne edged slowly away from Christa-Marie, his hands out to his sides.
'Get down… on the fucking… ground!' Diaz repeated.
Christa-Marie stepped back, a look of horror and confusion on her face. The house was suddenly filled with silence. Byrne eased himself to the floor, put his arms out to the side. Two uniformed officers pinned him down and pulled his hands behind his back. They handcuffed him.
Seconds later, more people streamed through the door — Michael Drummond and Dana Westbrook among them. A dozen more officers spilled into the house.
Byrne was read his Miranda rights. As they took him into custody, Jessica put her weapon on the floor. She stepped into the foyer, her hands held high.
Chapter 95
Lucy felt her way back to the long bench. She had stopped a few moments earlier, having heard muffled shouts from somewhere far away. Or had she? She didn't know. But all was silent now, and she had to get on with her business.
There were two drawers. She opened them, felt around, discovered some sandpaper, an oily rag, book matches, a pair of short screwdrivers. She felt the tips. One slot head, one Phillip's.
On top of the bench were a few more rags, along with a small stack of papers, some dried-out magazines. There was also an old lantern. Lucy picked it up, gave it a shake. There was liquid inside — she immediately caught a whiff of old k
erosene.
She went back to the drawer, found the matches, opened one pack. They were damp. She tried them anyway. One by one, they smeared on the flint strip. Not even a spark. She found another pack, felt the matches. The top row seemed damp, the back row less so. She peeled off the top row of matches. She picked up one of the old magazines, tore off a page, rolled it up.
She tried the first match, got a spark, but the paper didn't light. On her third try she got a flame. She held the lit match to the rolled-up paper, got a torch going. She then pushed down the lift lever on the lantern. The wick caught, and the room was suddenly bathed in a warm glow. Lucy had never been more grateful for anything in her life.
Chapter 96
There is a moment, almost sexual in its feeling of release, when a police detail winds down. Most of the time during this period of deceleration, in the minutes and hours after an arrest, there is a lot of handshaking and backslapping and fist-pumping in the air; never a shortage of gallows humor. But not this time. The personnel who made their way through this enormous Chestnut Hill mansion found no joy or happiness in this arrest. This was one of their own.
Kevin Byrne was in custody and en route to the Roundhouse. Christa- Marie Schцnburg had been taken to Mercyhurst Hospital as a precaution. Her private nurse, Adele Hancock, had been at the opera. She was contacted and was on her way to meet Christa-Marie.
Before long it was Jessica, Dana Westbrook, and Michael Drummond, along with a few officers, searching and securing the house. Soon it would be November 1, All Saints' Day, twenty years to the day when Christa-Marie had been arrested in this very place.
Westbrook took Jessica aside. They stood in silence for a full minute, neither of them finding the right words to say. 'We'll sort this out,' Westbrook said. 'There's a hell of a lot about this I don't understand.'
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