Authors: C. E. Lawrence
The church was vast and empty, its dark marbled interior cold as the grave. A chill wind swept over Lee as he walked down the long corridor toward the altar. The pews were empty, but he could hear whispering, tongues slithering over consonants like so many snakes. The click of his heels on the hard stone floors was like a rhythm track underneath the wall of whispering. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but felt that they were talking about him in the dimly lit chapel, illuminated only by flickering votive candles lining the walls. He strained to see them, but saw only rows of empty pews stretching out before him, silent wooden sentinels
.
He walked on. The corridor stretched out before him, and the altar seemed to recede as he approached it. The whispering was behind him now, and he strained to make out the words, but the voices blended into a hissing like the sound of raindrops on a tin roof. A single white light shone down upon the altar as he as
cended the steps. The whispering got louder, thickening the air like the buzzing of cicadas
.
There, on the altar, Laura was waiting for him. She lay on her back, her hands folded over her spotless white communion dress. Her eyes were closed, her face peaceful in death—and there was no doubt in his mind she was as dead as the dried flowers lining the steps of the altar. Lee studied her face, waiting for the roses to bloom in her cheeks once again, to replace the gray pallor of death. Her hair surrounded her pale face like a dark halo, falling in crisp ringlets on her shoulders. Laura had always been proud of her hair—thick, black and shiny as polished river stones.
He felt sadness, but no horror. To his surprise, he also felt relief. He had always known she was dead, but now here was proof, and she was at peace. Instead of a rotting, mangled corpse cast off in a ditch somewhere, exposed to the elements, and eaten by wild creatures, she was perfectly preserved, pristine as a bride, her beauty intact forever. He was glad—glad for her and for his mother, who could now accept the reality of her death.
He bent to kiss her dead cheek, but as he did, her face morphed and changed before his eyes—into Kathy Azarian’s face. A fist of fear grabbed his heart, squeezing the breath from his body. He sank to his knees, blind terror wrapping itself around his brain, pressing down on him so that all of his senses began to fade. He struggled to see, to hear, to feel, but a cloud of unknowing draped itself over him, dimming his senses. He tried to cry out, but his vocal cords had turned to dust, dry as the dead flowers surrounding the altar.
He awoke to middle-of-the-night stillness. It took him a few moments to realize where he was. The phones at the nurses’ station had stopped ringing, and he heard the soft whirr of machinery from the ICU unit down the hall. He was flooded with an overwhelming sense of relief that his dream was just that: a dream.
The room was dark; the only source of illumination was the light seeping through the smoked glass door panel. The venetian blinds on the window next to his bed were closed, blocking out even the light from the street lamps. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, Lee had a strong sense of a presence in the room with him. He peered into the far corner of the room, where a straight-backed chair sat against the wall. At first glance Lee thought maybe someone had thrown an overcoat across the chair, but then he realized the dark figure on the chair was a person. He thought could just make out a man seated in the shadows—unmoving, as still as if he were made of stone.
He knew who it was.
Lee’s hand twitched, and he almost reached for the call button to summon the nurse, but something stopped him. Curiosity, maybe—or perhaps an instinct to submit to whatever fate held in store for him. The figure in the corner sat very still. Lee reached over and pulled the string on the Venetian blinds, letting in light from the street outside. As he did so, a gleam of moonlight reflected off the high, pale forehead. The room was still too dark to get a good look at his face, but he could tell that the man was thin and pale.
Lee ran his tongue over his parched lips. “How did you get in here?” he croaked.
His visitor laughed nervously. “I’m very good at getting into places—but you should know that by now.” The voice was young, high pitched, and raspy, and there was a soft wheezing sound when he breathed, as if his lungs were worn and tattered bellows, stiff and dried with age. Lee couldn’t resist feeling a sense of triumph.
So I was right about the asthma
. He also had the feeling he had heard the voice before, but where? In their brief encounter in Hastings, no words had been exchanged between them.
“What do you want?”
“What does anyone want? Money, power, immortality—but I’m not interested in those things.”
“What are you interested in?”
“Love. Like the love I feel for God: unconditional love and devotion.”
“Is there a difference? Between love and devotion, I mean?”
“I guess it depends on who you are. But there’s really no such thing as unconditional love—not in this life, anyway.”
“So why are you here?”
His visitor leaned forward in his chair. “To let you know that He tells me to do what I do.”
“God, you mean?”
“Yes. It’s His work I’m doing.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”
“The righteous cannot afford to feel fear.”
“But don’t you feel it anyway? To know all those people are out there looking for you?”
The pursuer becomes the pursued.
“I have God to protect me.”
“Is that what you think? That He’ll keep you from getting caught?”
“Until His work is finished, yes.”
“What about the girls? Don’t you feel bad for them at all?”
His breath became more hoarse. Lee heard the wheezing from deep within his chest, lungs struggling to pull in enough air.
“I have to save them.”
“From what?”
“Eternal damnation. I always ask their forgiveness, but it must be done.”
There was a pause. “I don’t want to kill you too, you know. I feel close to you.”
“Why do you keep going?”
“I couldn’t stop if I wanted to now. You should know that.” The voice was half ironic, half sincere.
“Why don’t you turn yourself in? Then you could rest—you could finally be at peace.”
His visitor inhaled, making the deep, rattling sound of congested lungs.
“I don’t think so. Why is it that cops always seem to think people are going to go for that one? Has anyone in the history of law enforcement ever actually fallen for that?”
Another pause.
Then Lee said, “Why did you have to kill Eddie?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. And now I have to go—I have an appointment with death,” he said, rising from the chair. He was out the door before Lee could find the call button. As the door clicked closed behind him, Lee imagined he was already on his way to Seventh Avenue, perhaps slipping into a stairwell to avoid being seen in an elevator.
Lee shivered and stared out the window as the moon slid behind a looming cloud. He wouldn’t forget that voice. It carried the buried rage of a life gone sour. He couldn’t shake the feeling he had heard the voice before, but he couldn’t quite place it.
To his surprise, Lee recognized some of himself in this man. Like most civilized people, Lee was forced to swallow his rage—but this man had given into it, punishing innocent young women for the sins of a careless and indifferent God.
Chuck Morton arrived the next afternoon with Detective Butts in tow. Butts was even more rumpled than usual, and he looked around the room uncomfortably, scratching the back of his neck. After a brief greeting, he lurked at the far side of the room, inspecting the idle hospital machinery at the end of the empty bed across from Lee’s.
“We just came by to see how you were doing,” Chuck said, but Lee sensed that was not the real reason for their visit.
“I’m ready to get out of this place,” Lee replied.
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”
“They can’t keep me here against my will.”
“Don’t you think you should listen to your doctor?”
“Aw, what do doctors know anyway?” Butts interjected, lowering his bulk into one of the plastic chairs and fanning his face with a packet of sterilized towelettes.
Lee began to get out of bed.
“Look, there’s no need to punish yourself because we haven’t caught this guy yet,” Chuck said.
“I’m not punishing myself,” Lee answered, even though he knew Chuck had a point.
“Okay, fine,” Chuck replied. “Don’t you think you should listen to your doctor anyway?”
Lee looked at his friend. He seemed ill at ease.
“Hey, I’m dyin’ for some coffee,” Butts declared. “You want some?”
“No, I’m fine,” Chuck replied.
“Uh, sure,” said Lee. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll be right back,” Butts said, leaving the room as though he couldn’t wait to get out.
“I don’t think he likes hospitals,” Lee remarked.
“Yeah—right,” Chuck answered, but he sounded distracted.
There was an awkward pause, and then he put a hand on Lee’s shoulder.
“Look, Lee…”
Something in his tone of voice caused a thin trickle of dread to seep into Lee’s veins.
“What is it? Was there another victim?”
Chuck avoided looking at him. “No, it’s not that.”
“What, then? What’s wrong?”
Chuck bit his lip and studied his shoelaces.
“The mayor’s been hounding the DA, you know, and he’s been coming down hard on us.”
“So? What are you saying?”
“Well, they’re pressuring me to bring in the Feds.”
“You mean bring in an FBI profiler?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m all for it—if they can spare the manpower.”
“And you really need to rest—”
“Look, Chuck, I’m fine now! I’m ready to go—”
“No, you’re not. Dr. Patel says you should stay in bed for at least another week.”
“Dr. Patel is a professional pessimist.”
“The thing is, we don’t have the manpower available we once did, since—”
“I know—we’re all stretched thin since September eleventh. But even if the FBI can spare someone, you’ll need help filling them in. I’m getting out of here right now.”
Lee struggled to get out of bed, but Chuck kept his hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, Lee, don’t be like that.”
“Like what, Chuck? Like
what
? What am I supposed to do? Stay in bed and take my medicine like a good boy? To hell with that!”
Lee pushed Chuck’s hand away and struggled out of bed, fighting not to show the dizziness the sudden activity caused him. He dug his clothes out of the bureau next to his bed and stuffed them into the leather satchel Kathy had brought him.
Chuck smacked a hand onto his own thigh. “I
knew
it—I knew this was too close for you!”
Lee wheeled around to face Chuck. “Do you want to know how close it is? Do you? He
came
to me last night!”
“What do you mean?”
“He was
here
—sitting in that chair!”
“What are you talking about? Did you have some kind of fever dream or something?”
“No, I was as clear as day. He got in somehow.”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know how! He probably just walked in.” Lee’s head throbbed, and he had to sit on the bed.
“The bottom line here is that you’re really not well yet.”
“Oh, don’t start with that again, for God’s sake!”
“Would you just slow down for a minute and think what you’re doing?”
“We’re moving too slowly already!” Lee pulled on his shirt so violently that he ripped the sleeve. “Shit!” he said. “God
damn
it!” He picked up a shoe and threw it as hard as he could across the room.
As he did, he looked up to see his mother and Kylie standing in the doorway to his room. Kylie’s eyes were wide with amazement, and his mother looked as though she had just swallowed a gnat.
“Well,” Fiona Campbell said frostily, “it looks as though someone is having a bit of a temper tantrum.”
“Uncle Lee, those are bad words,” said Kylie.
“Yes, they are, Kylie,” he replied, “very bad words.”
Butts returned with two cups of coffee and an enormous cheese danish.
“I thought you might be hungry, so I—” He stopped, sensing the tension in the air. “What’s the matter? Something happen while I was gone?”
“Well,” Lee’s mother said, “this is awkward, isn’t it?”
Half a dozen apologies later, Fiona was persuaded to take Kylie shopping, while Lee and Chuck went back with Detective Butts to Chuck’s office.
When they got there, Nelson and Florette were waiting for them. Nelson did not look happy.
“The
Feds
?” he bellowed. “The goddamn
Federales
? What the hell do you want to bring them in for?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Chuck pointed out.
“Good God!” Nelson fumed. “You’d think they have enough on their hands right now, with all their recent screwups!” His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks were lit up by a map of tiny red veins. It was clear to everyone in the room that he was not sober.
“Look,” Lee said, “why don’t you get some rest? You don’t look so good.”
“I don’t look so good?
I
don’t? You should take a look in a mirror, laddy—you look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Okay, okay,” Chuck said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “calm down.”
“I am perfectly calm,” Nelson replied.
“I think we can use all the help we can get,” Florette remarked. He was dressed in a dapper green suit with matching tie; his shoes were shined to a gleaming sheen. Next to him, Nelson looked ratty and scrappy, like a bar brawler ready to go.
“Well, then, why doesn’t someone
do
something about it?” he muttered. “Why all this goddamn pussyfooting around?
Butts stepped forward. “I think the first thing that someone should do is to send you home. You’re not—”
But he never got a chance to finish his sentence. Nelson growled and threw a punch at him. He was too drunk to make contact, though, and ended up flat on his back on the other side of the room.
“Oh, you wanna get into it?” Butts said. “Come on—bring it on! I’m ready for you.”
“Stop it!”
Chuck barked. “All right, that’s it,” he continued, kneeling beside Nelson. “We’ll take a little break and start up again in a few minutes.” He pulled Nelson to his feet. “What’s the
matter
with you?”
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with me,” Nelson answered. “This damn psycho has us all by the short and curlies—
that’s
what’s the matter with me.
“This isn’t helping things,” Chuck said. “Why don’t you go home until you can sleep this off?”
Nelson looked at Lee, who said, “I think you know Chuck is right.”
It took more convincing to get Nelson to leave. After he had gone, a pall settled over the room. They were all emotionally exhausted, and Nelson’s behavior reminded them how close to the edge they all were.
“All right,” said Chuck. “Let’s just try to concentrate for a moment, can we?”
“I know how Dr. Nelson feels,” Florette said, adjusting his already perfectly centered silk tie, “but don’t you think a fresh set of eyes might be a good idea at this point?”
“I’m surprised they’ve got anyone to spare, with all the antiterrorism work they’re doing right now,” Butts remarked.
“I trained with some of these guys at Quantico, and they’re terrific, but it’ll take time to bring them up to speed.” Lee said.
“What you said before is right,” Butts pointed out. “The bottom line is getting this guy off the street as soon as possible.”
“Yeah,” Lee agreed. He went to sit down, felt faint, and almost fell.
“Hey,” Chuck said, “maybe someone else should be going home right about now.”
“I’m fine,” Lee replied tersely.
Butts squinted at him. “Is there any chance that your infection was caused by—by something that was done to you?”
Lee stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Could he have—I mean, can someone cause that kind of infection in another person?”
“I think that’s unlikely,” Florette interjected. “I was a med student as an undergraduate, and I never heard of a case of bacterial meningitis that was the result of deliberate contamination. It’s not—”
“Okay, so let’s move on,” Chuck said, coming around to lean on the front of his desk. “Did you have any luck tracing Samuel Beckett?” he asked Detective Florette.
“Not really. We looked into the handful of people with that name, but no one came even close to the profile—an old retired sailor on Staten Island, one rich, middle-aged French businessman on the Upper East Side, and a would-be playwright using it as a nom de plume in the East Village, most definitely gay.”
“Any follow-up on how he got into the hospital room at that hour?” Chuck asked Butts.
“One of the night nurses found a discarded orderly jacket in a broom closet, but there are no workable prints on it,” Butts replied. “Probably wore gloves again—God knows there are plenty of those in a hospital.”
“Yeah, and he’s too smart to discard those in the hospital,” Lee remarked. “He would know that prints can be lifted from the inside of latex gloves.”
Chuck looked at his watch. “Look, it’s late. Why don’t we all get a few hours of sleep, and meet first thing tomorrow morning?”
“Okay,” said Butts. “My wife’s gonna be real shocked to see me—says she hasn’t seen me for so long that she’s forgotten what I look like. Which, in my case, maybe isn’t such a bad thing,” he added with a rueful smile.
They all headed out for their various subway trains as the city settled into early evening stillness. A few clouds punctuated an otherwise clear night sky, and there was a smell of fresh earth in the air.
Lee and Florette took the express train downtown together as far as Times Square.
“You know,” Lee said as the local stops flashed past the windows, “there’s got to be some key to this whole thing.”
Up on the walls of the subway car was an advertisement for horse racing at Belmont Park, a speeding thoroughbred with a jockey leaning low over its muscular neck. As Lee looked up at the picture, an idea slowly formed in his mind.
“Oh, my God—that’s
it
! A
key
.”
“What?” said Florette.
“Eddie,” he said. “The racing form—that was the key!”
“What key?” Florette asked, still confused.
He explained his idea to Florette as the stops continued to rush by.
Half an hour later, he was on East Seventh Street, headed for his apartment. The minute he got inside, he dialed Chuck’s number in New Jersey. After two rings a woman answered.
“Hello?”
It was Susan, her voice low and liquid, smooth as olive oil. Lee had seen her once since her drunken Christmas party confession, at one of the 9/11 police funerals, and he had done his best to avoid her then. He considered hanging up, and rejected the idea—knowing Susan, she would have caller ID, and hanging up would only make things worse.
He took a deep breath. “Hello, Susan.” He tried to sound natural, and ended up sounding completely forced.
“Hello, Lee.” She stretched out the
l
’s, rolling her tongue over the consonants sensually, like a cat stretching itself. “Long time, no see.” It was an accusation, an implication, and an invitation. Lee wondered if she was faithful to Chuck.
He took another breath and swallowed hard.
“Is Chuck around?”
“Yes, he’s in the basement working out. Just a minute—I’ll get him.”
She put down the receiver, and he could hear the click of her heels as she crossed the kitchen floor. Since being married to Susan, Chuck had become devoted to his weight routine, buffing his already athletic body to a burnished movie star musculature. If he didn’t exercise regularly, he was given to thickening around the middle—unlike Lee, whose appetite came and went, Chuck had been renowned at Princeton for his eating ability. He once ate four dozen Maryland crabs at a seafood festival, and Lee had seen him down a sixteen-ounce steak.
Susan had kept her looks, too—she worked hard at it. Hours at the gym, Botox, implants, micro this, retinol that—her body was a project. Within a week of giving birth to her son, according to Chuck, she was doing crunches in front of
Oprah
reruns. She’d get her beauty any way she could have it. From a bottle, a box, or a scalpel—it was all the same to her.
Susan came back on the line. “He’s coming,” she purred. “And don’t be such a stranger—come out and see us sometime. It doesn’t always have to be about business, you know.”
Oh, yes it does.
Chuck came on the line. “Hello?” he said, sounding out of breath. Lee imagined him standing on the immaculate kitchen floor, toweling off, being careful not to get a drop of sweat on the perfectly waxed floor.
“Listen, Chuck, I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I think Eddie’s racing form may hold the key—”
“What racing form?”
“Eddie Pepitone called me before he died to say he had an idea about the killer’s identity.”
“And?”
“He had just won some money on a horse called ‘Lock, Stock, and Barrel.’”
“So?”
“Eddie was a superstitious guy. I think he bet on that horse because of something he knew—or thought he knew—that he wanted to tell me.”
“What would that be?”
“Well, you know how this guy has been getting into the churches so easily?”
“Yeah. But some of the churches told us they often leave doors open.”
“I know. But remember how he got into the hospital the other night with no problem?”
“Right.”
“And got into the locked room where they kept the communion wine with no sign of a break-in?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, this may sound far-fetched, but what if he has an expertise that helps him do this?”
“Such as?”
“Well, what if he’s a locksmith?”
“Hmm. You mean as in ’Lock, Stock, and Barrel.’ That’s not bad. It’s worth a shot, anyway.”
“We agreed that he was probably self-employed, right?”
“Right.”
“So what if he actually
owns
a business?”
“Okay,” Chuck said. “We can put Florette’s men on it right away.”
“I rode the train down with him.”
“Yeah? And?”
“He liked the idea. I suggested we draw a radius to begin with of a mile around that church in Queens. That will be the most likely place—assuming he works not far from where he lives.”
“Okay. We can start calling places by about eight a.m.”
“I’ll be in your office at eight sharp.”
“Okay.” There was a pause, and Chuck spoke softly, as if he didn’t want someone in the room with him to hear. “Lee?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay. Do that, all right?”
“Sure. I may call Nelson first, but—”
“Oh, let him sleep it off. He acted like a total jerk.”
“I know. He’s in pain, though.”
“Yeah, right. Aren’t we all?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Bed, Lee.”
“Right. Good night.”
“Good night.”
There was a click on the line, and Lee imagined Susan wrapping her arms around Chuck, luring him to bed.
Well
, he thought,
one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
He put on a CD of some vocal music by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, and looked out the window at the fading light as the voices of the choir floated around him in the air, singing cluster chords in soft, spooky tones. The days were getting longer now, and on warm days he could smell a hint of spring in the air. He knew he was supposed to rejoice in the opening of buds and the quiet greening of the trees, and yet all he felt was wistfulness.
He longed for a retreat into darkness, to sink into the womb of winter, instead of having to claw his way into the light. The longer the day, the more he felt the pressure to solve this case, and the growing impossibility of his task shook him to the core.
He could not know that was something he had in common with the man he pursued.
His mother rejoiced in the sunlight, of course; in fact, she took Lee’s journey into depression as a rebuke to her very existence. When she asked about his mental health—which she did rarely—she danced around the topic as though it might bite her.
The phone rang. He picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me.” It was Kathy. “Just called to say good-bye.”
“Why?”
“I’m going back to Philadelphia tomorrow. The Vidocq Society monthly meeting. My dad invited me, remember?”
“Oh, right. Sorry—I forgot.”
“No problem. My place is being renovated, so I’ll be staying with my dad. I’ll call you.”
“Okay, great.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, make sure you get enough rest,” she said, sounding unconvinced.
“I’m going to go lie down right now.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to you later in the week.”
“Right.”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Me too.”
After they hung up, he looked out the window at the Orthodox Ukrainian church across the street. A ray of moonlight fell on the huge round window above the door of the church, lighting up the colors of the stained glass like a kaleidoscope.
He was reminded of the sun glinting off the windows of the World Trade Center, windows that would never reflect light again, and of the three thousand souls that lay buried in the debris. The sheer arbitrariness of the attack still stunned him.
But for the grace of…God? Fate? Nature?
What would you call it if you’d rejected traditional Christian notions of faith?
A leap of faith
—more like a dive, a plunge into the abyss. And yet, he thought, surrender could be sweet—so sweet that intelligent, educated young men had surrendered themselves, or so they imagined, to the will of Allah.
He wondered what was in the minds of the hijackers as they carried out their implacable plan. For, he was convinced, it was not so different from what was in the mind of his own Holyman, the Slasher.