Chapter Two
Gabriel was in a much better mood when Sara Michaels showed up promptly at one the following day. He had gone walking the night before, to the river, down Frenchman Street, then across Rampart over to Louis Armstrong Park, grateful for the cooler night air, appreciative of the fact that as an immortal, he could walk into areas that weren’t safe for the average man at night. The park was dark and desolate, the perfect place to be mugged, but Gabriel enjoyed the solitude it brought him, the joy in knowing that while everyone else stayed away, he could walk alone.
He had spent his whole life on earth walking alone. That hadn’t been his job. He had been sent to Watch. Guide. Protect. But he had failed on all counts and knew there was no forgiveness, no redemption for him. He could never make amends large enough to recompense the wrongs he had committed, though he wanted to at least try in Anne’s case.
It was a triumph, a goal well met that he was living a chemical-free life, and he fought hard against the temptation to slide back into bliss, the fog where he was smart and right and everything was easy and calm. That fight took everything he had and there was nothing left for sorting out a path to redemption, which was why he had never attempted to confront the truth in Anne’s case, had never wanted to know if ultimately he had been the man who had taken her life.
He was ready to face that truth now. And even if he didn’t and couldn’t seek true redemption, an entrance back to the kingdom of God, he wanted to be released from his punishment. He wanted to be more than a Watcher. He wanted to participate in humanity, something thus far he couldn’t do, because every woman he touched craved him as an opiate. They all spiraled down into desperate despair when he couldn’t give them enough, was never enough, and he had chosen to isolate himself entirely rather than bring that fate on any woman. But he didn’t want to be alone anymore, and he wanted to be released.
He thought maybe the answer to the future lay in the past.
Despite the rocky introduction, he felt cautiously optimistic as he let Sara into his courtyard, then up the stairs to his apartment for the second time. He had realized that this working arrangement with Sara could be mutually beneficial. They both wanted murders solved that they were personally haunted by, and it would be easier for both of them with the other acting as a buffer. They could each focus on the opposing case, and eventually compare the two, and as a result they would both be able to hold back, retain some measure of logic and control. He hadn’t addressed the facts of Anne’s murder since its occurrence, not wanting to find irrefutable proof that he had in fact killed her. But now it seemed the timing was providential, and there was more at stake than clearing his own name, or absolving his own guilt.
There was Sara’s mother, and the intense need to fix the future of his long, mortal, flawed existence.
He didn’t necessarily deserve companionship, but he was also looking forward to it. In some capacity. Without allowing Sara to get too close to him or his life. It was a fine line, and he wanted to walk it. That alone should alert him to the inherent danger, should serve as a red flag that he was seeking out the thrill again, disregarding good sense for the sake of personal interest. But Sara seemed harmless, and he was in control, in ways he hadn’t been before. He was stronger now and he could handle anything.
Sara looked tired, even more so than the day before, and her shoulders drooped, her expression pinched like she was suffering from a headache.
“Rough night’s sleep?” he asked as he led her into his office.
She sank without hesitation onto the couch when he gestured for her to sit. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Did you drink a lot of caffeine?” His editor complained about not being able to drink caffeine past seven, so it seemed like a safe thing to say.
“No.” Sara stared back out into his living room. “Do you play?”
“What?” He looked where she was gesturing, confused for a second. Then he realized what she was referring to. His baby grand, collecting dust in the left corner.
“The piano. Do you play it?”
Never. “I used to. Not anymore. But the piano’s been here since the house was built. It was brought in as they were framing the house so it would fit through the narrow doorways. There’s no way to get it out now without destroying it.” Much like him.
“Why don’t you play anymore?” Her sad, tired eyes locked with his.
Sara Michaels wasn’t losing sleep from too much caffeine. It was worry keeping her up. He felt that interest again, nagging, persistent curiosity scratching at him, and for some reason he told her the truth. Heard the words come out of his mouth before he even thought about the wisdom of speaking them. “I don’t hear music anymore.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “I’m sorry . . . That sounds sad . . . I didn’t mean to. . . .” She blushed, obviously distressed.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.” It was true. He didn’t hear music in his head, his heart, his soul anymore. Everything had gone silent. His fingers no longer ached to sketch, to capture the light and the figures around him, the notes no longer played in his mind, and words weren’t clamoring to escape onto paper. “I don’t miss it.”
Whether that was true or not, he wasn’t sure, but Sara looked like she needed reassurance. “Do you miss being in the lab?”
She propped her chin up with her hand, leaning forward so her elbows were on her knees. Wearing another flowing dress, she exuded that same sense of femininity, fragility, as she had the day before. “Not right now, I don’t. Which worries me. It’s been almost a year since I took a leave of absence. I should miss it more.”
“Maybe it’s a matter of going back. When you get there you’ll realize you missed it more than you thought.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look any more convinced than he probably sounded. “You too, then, you know. Maybe if you play, you’ll realize you miss it.” When he didn’t answer, Sara straightened up. “So what do you want me to do on the project? What’s my first assignment?”
Business was good. They should stay there. Safe and aloof and distant. Except that this business was based on his guilt and the need to appease it, along with the desire to find justice for Anne, who hadn’t deserved to die.
“First you need to familiarize yourself with the basic facts of the case. Then I want to hear your interpretation of the physical forensic evidence as we accumulate it. I’m writing the book passages myself, but I need you to assess the old evidence, determine if it’s possible to use modern forensics on any of the trace evidence that still exists. We need to show the difference use of forensics makes when we compare the old case to the current case. Most of the research hasn’t been processed yet. We need to follow the clues, try to unravel both cases from every possible direction.”
“Why do you write true crime?” she asked. “I saw your list of credentials. You’ve written ten true crime books and I’m just curious how you got into this.”
“I just fell into it,” he told her flatly. He wasn’t even sure why he studied violent crimes and wrote about them. But they were filled with negative emotion, and maybe that was why he did it. Maybe it was self-punishment. Retribution. “It’s puzzle-solving. And it pays the rent.”
He handed her a file folder he had put together that morning of pertinent info. “Go ahead and read this.”
Sara took the folder Gabriel was handing her and tried to make eye contact with him. But his eyes darted over behind her, and she sank back on the couch and opened the folder. Her brain felt swaddled in thick cotton, her body exhausted from lack of sleep. She’d lain in bed for four hours, staring at the ceiling of her stark rental, before giving up and surfing the Internet mindlessly until dawn. She’d taken an hour nap around ten, but besides that was running on about six hours of sleep over the last three days.
The folder contained the police report from Anne Donovan’s murder. The handwriting was hard to read, the photocopy a little spotty, but Sara could decipher the pertinent facts.
October 7, 1849
Second District
Name of Deceased: Anne Donovan
Residing at 25 Dauphine Street, The House of Rest, a gaming and drinking establishment
Location of murder the same
Murder assumed to take place between the hours of eight p.m. on October the 6th and 2 a.m. on October the 7th according to witnesses
Victim discovered by John Thiroux, reported to authorities by Madame Conti, owner of the dwelling
No arrests made at this time
Witnesses: John Thiroux, Madame Conti, various and sundry other women in residence at The House of Rest
That was it. No description of the body, the room. No interview with John Thiroux, no mention of a weapon. Nothing useful at all. The reports from her mother’s murder had seemed thirteen miles long, the questions endless, every hair, every fiber, every scrap of anything out of the ordinary collected, catalogued, saved. Sara glanced up. Gabriel was at his computer.
“Is this the only police accounting of the crime scene?”
He glanced back at her and gave a brief smile. “Not exactly stellar police work, was it?”
“No. It doesn’t tell us anything at all. If you line the two crime scene reports up next to each other in your book, you’ve proved your point already. Forensics has essentially altered the entire face of criminal investigation. I know you want to see if we can solve the Donovan case, but how can you solve a crime based on this piece of nothing?” She felt shut down, disillusioned already.
“I can’t. But better information comes from other sources. We have eyewitness accounts as told to journalists. We have the court records of the coroner’s report. And the testimony of the accused murderer.” He turned fully in his chair, his black T-shirt pulling taut across his chest. “Remember what I said . . . it’s scene-setting. Re-creating the months, the weeks, the day leading up to the murder. Then piecing together what happened afterward. Most crimes don’t have a murderer standing over the victim with the smoking gun saying, ‘Well, sir, I had to do it. Nellie drove me to it.’ ”
Sara raised her eyebrow in disbelief, suddenly wanting to laugh. Gabriel had put on a strange fake accent, like a Southern cowboy, and it was so totally unexpected it struck her as funny. “But how do you know who was telling the truth and who wasn’t?”
“You search for consistencies. And likewise, inconsistencies.” He shrugged. “It’s common sense. Logic. Read the rest of the folder and then tell me what you think.”
So ultimately science had to work with human deduction and reasoning. It was interesting. He was interesting.
Sara watched him turn back to his computer, his hair sliding forward. She wanted to touch his hair, to stroke it and see if it felt as smooth as it looked. Which must be the result of fatigue because she didn’t normally have any desire to touch a man’s head. But tired and edgy, she was strangely aware of her own body, of the tactile feel of her bare legs on the soft velvet couch, of the brush of the folder over her wrist, and for the first time in a year she wanted to feel a human touch. But Gabriel didn’t invite casual arm contact, let alone letting her fingers cascade through his soft hair. He had a barrier around him, a stance that said he walked the world alone, and at the moment, he had his back fully turned to her. He was tapping a silver spoon on the desk as he read his screen. It was a rhythmic tapping, a harmony that repeated over and over. She wondered if he even knew he was doing it, but it was definitely a song.
MURDERED!
October 7, 1849—Even in a city where a murder a week takes place in our less illustrious districts, the STABBING DEATH of Anne Donovan has captured the attention of the public due to the severity of the crime, and the lack of an immediate arrest. While it is no secret that a vast number of city officials frequent houses of ill repute, does their status alone preclude them from punishment? It would seem so, given the extraordinary circumstances explained below by Madame Conti, owner of the house where the crime took place, and first WITNESS on the scene.
Anne Donovan had been in the employ of Madame Conti for approximately one year prior to her death and was described by her employer as “kind, gentle, a redhead, who never gave me a day’s trouble, which can’t be said for a lot of these girls.” Most have been hardened by the age of Miss Donovan, handy with a knife and inclined to steal from the clients, but by all accounts these rough qualities did not apply to the victim. Madame Conti explained that she had let the victim’s current amour, John Thiroux, into Donovan’s room at eight p.m., and retired to her private salon to write letters to acquaintances. She heard nothing out of the ordinary until two a.m., when Mr. Thiroux sought her out. There was blood on his hands, in his hair, and on his right leg. According to Madame Conti, he said simply, “Anne’s dead.”
The sight that greeted the stout miss upon repairing to the girl’s room was a scene from a nightmare. “I’ve seen a lot in my life—I’ve seen murdered people before—but this was unlike anything I’ve ever laid eyes on. It was unbelievable. Blood everywhere.” What she saw was Anne Donovan, lying supine on her narrow bed, dressed in a simple chemise, her face and upper body mutilated by stab wounds. A knife rested in her left hand, and blood covered the bed, the floor below, the wall behind her head, and filled the room with a sickly sweet smell.
What did Madame think of Mr. Thiroux? “I never thought of him as a violent sort at all, but he was there, wasn’t he? I figured he must have done it.” When asked if she was afraid to be alone with him at that time, she replied, “Not at all. He had returned to his chair and was starting in on a brand-new bottle, eyes closed. I lit his pipe for him and figured I’d have a good two hours before he so much as stirred.”
Yet when police arrived, they made no attempt to arrest Mr. Thiroux, whom most of our readership will recognize as a wealthy artist, who has contributed greatly to the improvement of the arts in our city. It is also widely recognized that Mr. Thiroux does not pass a day without descending into drink or opium.