Murder Among the Angels (31 page)

Just then, the phone rang.

But it wasn’t Jerry with news that Jack Lister was under arrest. It was her old friend Kitty Saunders, who was not to be diverted from her goal of improving upon Charlotte’s appearance. She was calling from her home in Maine with yet another make-over scheme, her previous one having been defeated if not by Charlotte’s own reluctance, then by Dr. Louria’s suicide.

Specifically, she was calling to tell Charlotte about a Chinese acupuncturist who did face-lifts through acupuncture. “The theory is that you develop wrinkles because you habitually tense your muscles in a particular way,” she chirruped. “By relaxing the muscles through acupuncture, the wrinkles relax too. It’s not as good as a real face-lift, but it’s the next best thing.”

It was tempting. “How long does this take?” Charlotte asked.

“Typically, twenty or thirty treatments. The treatments are twice a week, so it ends up taking ten to fifteen weeks.”

Charlotte considered Kitty’s suggestion for a moment, and then said: “Kitty, I don’t have wrinkles, I have subsidence.”

“What’s that?” asked Kitty.

“It’s what happens in those Pennsylvania coal mining towns when the ground caves in over an old mine,” she said. “In short, sagging flesh. No amount of acupuncture is going to correct that.”

Kitty thought for a moment, and then said: “Maybe you’re right.”

“Thanks anyway,” Charlotte said. “Besides, except for my neck, I look fine. I’d rather wear scarves and turtlenecks than go through all that.”

“Yes,” Kitty conceded. “You do look pretty good.” Then she switched the subject. “How’s the investigation going?” she asked. “If you’re free, why don’t you come up to Maine? Stan and I would love to see you.”

“It’s almost over,” Charlotte said, more confidently than she felt. “I’d like to come up soon,” she said, thinking fondly of her summer cottage. “I’ll call you in a few weeks,” she added as she rang off.

She didn’t feel up to telling Kitty that Dr. Louria was dead.

Before she left, she glanced in the mirror to check her makeup. What she saw was the face of a seventy-two-year-old woman who looked twenty years younger. She had a bit of a jowl; she had a bit of a chicken neck. But so what. She should never have let Kitty get under her skin—so to speak. She didn’t need a face-lift. Besides, she had spent a lifetime worrying about her looks: makeup, camera angle, lighting. It was time to stop worrying. She resolved that she was going to continue doing what she always had. Which was to enjoy her meals, enjoy her Manhattans, and enjoy life.

On the drive up to Zion Hill, Charlotte found herself considering the man whom she believed to be the murderer. Or rather, the monster whom she believed to be the murderer. He had probably come from a dysfunctional family, Jerry had said. To her, a dysfunctional family meant a mother who drank too much, a father with a penchant for gambling, a brother with a drug problem. In short, a family with the kinds of problems that almost every American family seemed to have to some degree nowadays. She had once seen someone wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a huge auditorium on the front, above which were written the words: “Conference of Adult Children of Normal Families.” The auditorium had held only three conference-goers. If almost all seemingly normal people came from families that were dysfunctional to some degree, then what kind of dysfunction did it take to turn a child into this kind of monster? She couldn’t imagine that every murderer’s parents had been monsters as well. Or was it preordained, somehow? Was there a monster gene that became activated when exposed to family dysfunction the way a cancer gene becomes activated when exposed to a carcinogen? She knew the monster element manifested early in life: the children who turned into murderers as adults were also the ones who were torturing cats when they were five. Had Lister been one of those? And if he had harbored this predilection for murder since his youth, what was it that had removed his murderous inclinations from the realm of fantasy and deposited them in the realm of reality?

Or could it be, as many believed—Swedenborgians among them—that murderers of this nature were possessed by evil spirits that robbed them of their humanity? The black globules of coal-fire, Peter had called them, who get into your brain, and don’t shut up, who know your weak spots, and keep at you until you break. Until you commit murder, and commit it again and again.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting in Jerry’s office, waiting for him to get off the phone. The office had taken on the atmosphere of a command post for a military campaign: a map pinpointing the sites where the murderer might deposit the skull hung on the wall, and charts had been set up showing who was staking out which site at what time. Jerry himself was smoking a big cigar. He might have been Churchill in his wartime bunker.

He was talking with someone about travel schedules of some sort. Finally, he hung the phone up with a heavy clunk. He looked grim: his eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were pressed together in disgust. Or maybe it was frustration. “We were wrong,” he said.

“About what?” she asked.

“Lister has alibis for the dates of the disappearances of the first three victims. The only one he was around for was this last one.”

“Are they solid?” she asked.

“As the Rock of Gibraltar. He travels around the country helping police departments with unidentified persons cases. He’s got police in three states saying he was with them on the dates of the disappearances.”

“Damn,” she said. Just when she thought the strands were starting to form into a braid. Now they would have to start over with the tangled skein. “It’s gallant of you not to say
I
was wrong,” she said as she sat down.

Jerry smiled. “You had me convinced.”

“Did you talk with him?” she asked.

He nodded. “He took it well. I think he was a little pleased by the attention, if the truth be known. By the way, he was married for twenty-three years, and has three kids—all grown. His wife died just before I came here.”

“Oh,” said Charlotte. “Now what?” she asked.

“We wait,” he said.

Charlotte sat for a while listening to Jerry as he touched base with the policemen at the various stakeout locations, and then she got bored. Since she was easily bored, this took all of ten minutes. Then she decided to take a little tour of the crime scenes. “The crime scene is the mirror of the perpetrator,” was one of Jerry’s favorite sayings. He was full of stories about how a small detail at a crime scene had resulted in the solution of the crime. She remembered in particular a murder case that involved the “do not remove under penalty of death” tag on the cushion of a sofa. The tag had been left exposed when the cushion had been put back on the sofa—an oversight that was out of character for a victim who had been extraordinarily neat. Though Jerry had been present at the crime scene investigation, he hadn’t noticed this particular detail until he was studying the photographs later on. Somehow the recognition that the victim wouldn’t have left the cushion tag sticking out had led directly to the solution of the crime, though Charlotte couldn’t remember exactly how. Maybe if she went back to the scenes of the crimes, she would discover something equivalent to the tag on the sofa cushion. Besides, it was too nice a day to sit around inside.

She decided to visit the summer house first, and headed out in the direction of Archfield Hall, which, she had learned from Jerry, Dr. Louria had left to the town for a museum, just as Lily had wanted. It would be easier to reach the summer house from Archfield Hall than to park at the train station and walk along the tracks. After parking in the car park where she had parked as a patient on her first visit, she passed through the gate in the stone wall between the house and the music studio and crossed the lawn to the patio overlooking the river. Then she followed the path down the embankment to the summer house. The scene looked much different than it had only a short while ago: the trees were now fully leafed out, and the wisteria vines that overhung the half-open sides of the summer house were now in bloom, festooning them with a fringe of pale lilac. No longer did it look like the sinister Hudson River charnel house of the tabloids.

Ducking to avoid the blossoms, she entered the structure. The honey-like fragrance of the wisteria perfumed the interior, and bees buzzed around the long panicles of pea-shaped flowers. It was a lovely setting. Through the vines, she could see sailboats scudding across the wind-ruffled surface of the river. The presence of the railroad detracted somewhat from its appeal, but the comings and goings of the trains were confined mostly to commuter hours. She could easily imagine a servant in an earlier era serving an elegant tea here to the mistress of the house and her companions. But now the magic of this lovely place was spoiled forever by the memory of the horrible deeds that had been committed here. Though the smell was gone, the evidence could still be seen in the bloodstains on the worktable and on the cement floor.

She could easily see why the murderer had chosen this place to carve up his victims. It was isolated: tucked into the embankment as it was, it was well-hidden, despite the fact that the road above was lined with houses. And it was far enough away from the tracks that the murderer wouldn’t have been visible to the dog walkers, teenaged boys, or any others who might be walking along the tracks, especially with the wisteria vines covering the openings on the sides. Most appealing of all to the murderer would have been its proximity to the river. He would have had to haul the cut-up bodies only thirty yards or so in order to dump them, and the chances that he would have been seen in the act were very slim. A disadvantage was the fact that he would have had to carry the bodies from the parking lot at the railroad station, but this was mitigated by the fact that he could have left his car in the railroad station parking lot at virtually any time, and for however long he wanted, without its presence attracting notice.

Then there was the matter of the meat cleaver. Passing through the opening on the river side of the summer house, she continued on down the path leading to the tracks, and then walked along the tracks to the spot where Mrs. Snyder said her dog had discovered the meat cleaver. Or rather, rediscovered the meat cleaver. The spot was easy enough to find: she remembered Mrs. Snyder saying that it was just in front of an old canoe, which lay in the weeds about fifty feet south of the summer house. Why had the murderer thrown the meat cleaver away? Charlotte wondered as she looked down at a spot where the grass had been flattened, probably by the feet of Captain Crosby, who had come out here with Mrs. Snyder to investigate. Had he been afraid of being caught with it on him? But why would he have been worried about being caught? Unless the police had suddenly arrived, she thought. She made a mental note to ask Jerry if the police had been called to the area at any time immediately following Doreen Mileski’s disappearance. And if so, if they had noticed anyone unusual. Then there was the chance that he had simply dropped it, or it had fallen out of a bag. She remembered what Jerry had said when they found the extension cord, about it not being uncommon to find articles belonging to the perpetrator at the scene of the crime. Looking at the spot, she imagined the bloodied meat cleaver lying there. Then she imagined its blade coming down on a well-worn cutting board. But it wasn’t Jerry’s hands that she saw on the wooden handle, or even Sebastian’s, but a woman’s hands: hands with knuckles enlarged by arthritis, and dark skin roughened by constant immersion in dishwater. She had seen that meat cleaver before! she realized.

Her mind leapt nimbly from point to point, like a child crossing a brook on stepping stones. From the meat cleaver to the person using it to the room in which she had seen it being used. Finally, it alighted on the face of the murderer.

She hoped she wasn’t wrong, she thought as she scrambled back up the path. Jerry wasn’t likely to be as forgiving a second time. But she didn’t think so. This time, she had the gut feeling that she was right. All the psychological characteristics that Jerry had mentioned also described the new suspect, better than they had Jack Lister. But before she could go making accusations, she had to be sure. At the top of the embankment, she headed back across the lawn to her car. As she got in, she noticed that the clock on her dashboard said 11:15. Good! Connie would have some time before the lunchtime rush. Then she started her car and set out in the direction of Sebastian’s.

Arriving ten minutes later, she found Connie setting the tables in a dining room that was empty except for a couple of businessmen sitting at the bar. As before, they went out to the patio to talk.

“When we talked before, you told me that Lily made a practice of coming on to men,” Charlotte said. She was sitting with Connie at one of the umbrella-shaded patio tables.

Connie nodded. She lit a cigarette and tilted her long neck back to exhale. “I didn’t put it as politely,” she said.

“No, you didn’t,” Charlotte agreed. She continued: “I believe you also said that she took special pleasure in coming on to men who were unavailable.”

“Yes,” Connie said. “The more unavailable they were, the bigger the come-on. It was a game for her.”

“By unavailable men, I presume you mean married men.”

She nodded. “Married men, single men. You name it. The only men she didn’t go after were the ones she knew for a positive fact to be gay. And I’m sure she would even have gone after them had she thought there was any chance they’d sleep with a woman as well.”

“I presume that she’d have to find the”—Charlotte paused to pick a word—“the targets of her pursuits to be physically attractive to her. In other words, that she didn’t go after ugly men.”

“Not necessarily,” Connie replied. “In fact, she liked to go after men whom she assumed had never been with a woman, usually because they were ugly or shy. She’d brag about their becoming her love slaves.”

“Is there anyone in particular you can think of who fits this description?” Charlotte asked. “Like a man of God, for instance?”

Connie looked at her closely. Charlotte could almost see the wheels turning. Finally, she answered: “If you’re asking if the pastor was one of the men she pursued, the answer is yes. Is he a suspect?” she asked, her big blue eyes wide with astonishment.