“Guess I just didn’t feel like talking about it.”
Stan raised his hands in sympathy. “I get that, believe me—when Rita and I were divorced, I got so sick of people askin’ me if I was okay. I thought I was gonna puke if one more person gave me that sympathetic routine, y’know?” He leaned in toward Lee. “So if that’s not what your mom’s upset about, what is it? Something’s the matter—I know it.”
“Fiona’s always been moody, Stan.”
“Naw, it’s more than that. I can tell. I can read her like a book.” Stan had a roster of clichés he rotated the way other people rotated their tires.
“She’s worried about Kylie.”
“Yeah? Anything in particular?”
“Just a grandmother’s worry, I think.” Lee didn’t want to lie to Stan, but he couldn’t betray Fiona’s confidence. Trying to walk the thin line between those poles was tricky.
“I’m gonna ask her what’s up.”
“I wouldn’t, Stan.”
“Why not?”
“Trust me on this one. Don’t.”
Stan raised his hands in surrender. “All right. I hear you. I’ll make like a clam and shut up.”
Just then Fiona entered the room with a tray of drinks. Rye and soda for Stan, a glass of single malt for Lee and red wine for her.
Stan raised his glass. “Cheers. Here’s to the holidays.”
“Cheers,” Fiona said, with a glance at Lee.
“To the holidays,” Lee said, raising his glass.
Outside, the feeble December sun slipped behind the old willow tree growing along the underground spring. Ninety miles away, a killer sharpened his knives in preparation for the hunt.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX
E
dmund looked out the bus window and sighed with contentment at the sight of rain-splattered streets. It was going to turn to snow later, they said—it was already snowing in the suburbs—but for now he could enjoy the rain. There was nothing better than a rainy night in the city. Fewer people on the streets, and even in the midst of a crowd, you could have the feeling you were alone. He loved darkened movie theaters and amusement park rides through blackened caverns and canals, the only light coming from dim bulbs that pulsed gently, casting a dim reflection on the surrounding walls.
Seeing but unseen
—that’s how he liked it.
The bus rumbled up to a stop, the engine sputtering as the driver shifted the transmission into Park. A lone wheelchair rider huddled on the pavement in front of Bellevue Hospital, rain dripping from his baseball cap onto his rubber poncho. The windowpane Edmund gazed out of dissected him neatly in half, the image blurry in the increasingly thick downpour. The driver lumbered to the back of the bus and pressed the switch to the automatic lift attached to the rear door. The bus shuddered as the lift’s machinery whirred, gears churning. The wheelchair occupant slid into the corner reserved for him, locking the wheels of his chair into place with swift, practiced movements.
The other passengers averted their gazes, obviously trying not to stare, but Edmund, having been stared at all his life, didn’t give a damn what a cripple thought of him. He looked directly at the man, taking in every detail. Hispanic, middle-aged, well put together, the muscular shoulders visible even beneath the heavy rain gear. He wore padded leather biking gloves, which covered his palms but left the fingers exposed. His hands were thick and powerful-looking. Edmund guessed the man had been a gimp for a while, maybe even all his life. He imagined crippled legs under the poncho: white, spindly as a chicken’s legs, the muscles atrophied from years of inactivity. He turned away, disgusted, and looked back out the window at the night.
Catching the flow of the streetlight, the raindrops glistened like jewels as they slid down the glass windowpane. He was transfixed by their beauty and purity. In that moment he saw the secret revealed to him in the reflection of a street lamp on a rain-soaked bus window. He must live his life in search of purity and perfection. Fleeting as it was, it was the only thing really worth living for. Everything else was ugliness, as deformed as the useless legs of a cripple.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SEVEN
K
ylie didn’t have much time to spare between arriving home from school, dressing for the concert and getting back in time for a pre-concert brushup rehearsal. She wolfed down some dinner and dashed upstairs to change. She had a ride with her friend Meredith, whose father was playing piano for the concert. She behaved normally enough during dinner, though that didn’t surprise Lee. With him and Stan around, she was bound to be on her best behavior—at least for now.
Kylie attended Stockton Elementary, the same public school Lee and Laura had gone to at her age. It was on the little town’s Main Street, just down from the Stockton Inn. The classes were tiny—only ten or so students per grade—and the L-shaped nineteenth-century stone and clapboard building was more than big enough to house grades K through six.
The entire school participated in the annual Christmas concert, and it looked as though half the town had turned up to attend. People bundled in winter coats and mittens flowed through the gate to the school’s side yard, their breath coming in thick white shafts of steam. A winter storm watch was on for all of Hunterdon County, and a few flakes fluttered from the sky as they lined up to go inside. Lee looked at his mother, hatless as usual—she liked to flaunt her hardy Scottish constitution—but he noticed she had wrapped her tartan scarf tightly around her neck. He recognized the red and gray pattern of the Clan Campbell. Lee found it odd that she still sported the clan colors of the man who had betrayed and deserted her. Stan stood stalwartly at her side, one hand resting lightly on her elbow in a proprietary way. Lee was a little surprised she put up with it. But Fiona was nothing if not surprising.
As he followed the crowd of people up the steps to the tiny auditorium in the rear of the building, Lee inhaled the familiar musty smell of damp wood and flagstone. His and Laura’s days at Stockton Elementary had been happy ones. Their parents were still together, their family unit intact, cozy and secure. The future had stretched out before them, promising and lazy as the waters of the Delaware that flowed under the narrow bridge to Pennsylvania.
But that had all changed the night their father left, never to return, and their family shrank from four to three. That got Lee to thinking about the Alleyway Strangler and his family. What was the arithmatic of his family, and what had it done to him? Had killing become a kind of mathematical puzzle for him?
One is the loneliest number. One missing digit.
But
why
? And even if he knew why, would it help him find the Strangler?
“Excuse
me
.” A middle-aged woman in a red wool coat and matching hat glared at him, and he realized he had stepped on her toes.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, taking a step backward. That caused him to bump into Stan, who gave him a playful nudge.
“Quite a crowd tonight, huh?”
“Yeah,” Lee said, preoccupied with why someone would remove just one finger from a victim. What was the significance of that? And what was the meaning of the elaborate pattern he had punctured into her torso? Or was the killer just toying with them all? The whole thing could be an elaborate red herring to throw them off.
They all managed to shuffle into the auditorium at last, and the concert got under way fifteen minutes late. It was clear the school hadn’t anticipated such a large turnout. But cultural events in the area were thin compared to New York, and everyone looked pleased to be there.
The program was a mix of Christmas carols and Hanukah songs, as well as a few more challenging pieces, including selections from Benjamin Britten’s
A Ceremony of Carols.
Kylie sang with the altos, who acquitted themselves with honor in the difficult “As Dewe in Aprille.” Looking at her eager, shiny face, Lee tried to imagine the dark thoughts and feelings his niece must be grappling with. But he knew from his own struggle with depression that it could come and go. One minute the sun was shining, and the next you were submerged in a flood of anxiety and darkness. He hoped he would be able to help her, though he realized each person’s experience was different.
Fiona sat stiff and upright in her chair, as always, her clear blue eyes focused on the stage, a proud little smile working the corners of her mouth. He knew she loved her granddaughter, but he could see why Kylie might feel uncomfortable talking with her about deep and troubling feelings. He only hoped his niece would be able to talk to him.
After the concert they joined the surge of bodies headed backstage. Families crowded around their happy and excited children—the younger ones hopped and squirmed and dashed in and out of the clusters of people, until they were stopped by teachers or parents and given the age-old caution of “No running!”
Looking at the happy faces around him, Lee was saddened to think of the Adlers sitting primly in their immaculate Westchester living room, no daughter to share the holidays with ever again. They might not be the most appealing people he had ever met, but their tragedy could not be denied.
Kylie was standing with a group of friends, and when she saw him, the expression that crossed her face took his breath away. It was a mixture of relief, regret, apprehension and joy. He held his distance and waved, but she ran over to him and flung herself into his arms. She was tall for her age and solidly built. He staggered backward, then lifted her in a bear hug.
“Uncle Lee, thank you so much for coming!”
He hugged her back, inhaling the honeysuckle scent of her yellow hair. Laura’s hair had smelled exactly the same. Kylie looked more like her mother every day, he thought—the same firm chin, thin nose and deep-set blue eyes.
“You were great. I’m so proud of you.”
She looked over her shoulder, then whispered to him. “Our choir director says I’m the anchor of the third-grade altos.”
“Good for you! You have to have a really good ear to sing alto.”
“Fiona says I got it from you.”
He laughed. Musicality was not among Fiona’s many talents—this ability seemed to have come from Duncan Campbell. Lee could still remember his clear tenor ringing out over the others in the church choir in their little Presbyterian church. He hated all the good memories of his father—they just confused him and made him angrier.
“Your grandmother has a theory for everything,” he said.
Kylie shot him a quizzical look, then wrested herself from his arms and ran back to rejoin her friends.
It was a happy, buzzing crowd that exited the little school yard that night—children safe in the embrace of their families, looking forward to the delights of the coming holidays. Gingerbread and Christmas cookies, the piney smell of decorated trees, presents and stockings and houses full of visitors. Lee stepped with them into the frosty air and watched the thick, fat snowflakes falling faster and faster from the sky. A thin sheet of white already covered the ground under their feet.
Here everything felt peaceful and secure, but somewhere ninety miles to the east, a predator was likely planning his next move.
C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-EIGHT
A
s predicted, the winter storm blew in from the west throughout the night. The weatherman had estimated twelve to twenty-four inches overnight, and by ten o’clock the snow was coming thick and fast, with three inches already on the ground. Lying in bed shortly before midnight, Lee heard the rattle of snowplows heaving up and down the street, their metal blades clanking harshly on the pockmarked pavement.
The snow murmured as it fluttered from the sky. Thick, wet flakes clung to the windowpanes, enclosing the inhabitants of the house. The wind whipped and whistled in the eaves, rustling and nestling against the stone walls, tapping at the windows and whining like a dog wanting to come in. It was hard to resist the pull of sleep, but he managed to stay awake, listening to the storm. He did some of his best thinking late at night.
He thought about the notes the Alleyway Strangler had written. Some of the hints about his identity could be false—but which ones? The man could be playing with them, leaving red herrings along with real clues. Of course, it was possible that every clue contained in the letters was false, but Lee didn’t think so. This UNSUB was too arrogant for that. He was enjoying the challenge of tossing out real clues about his identity—and he was also a sadist, toying with them intellectually.
A fierce gust of wind rattled the nearly three-hundred-year-old shutters. Lee sat up in bed and switched on the light in the antique sconce next to the headboard. Outside, the snow clung to the windowpanes like cold white hands, the pattern of flakes resembling long, thin fingers clutching at the glass.
One little piggy went to market . . .
He remembered his father reciting that nursery rhyme to him as he wiggled Lee’s toes one by one, starting with the big toe and working down to the little toe.
One little piggy stayed home . . .
If only his father had stayed home, instead of walking out of the house on a night very much like this one.
What kind of man does that to his family?
He felt the anger rising up his neck like steam in a pipe.
What kind of monster did this UNSUB have for a father? Surely worse than Duncan Campbell—who, though far from ideal, had graced them with his glamorous presence for a time. His love might have been somewhat distant, but at least it was there—for a while. But this killer . . . he was made, not born, Lee thought. He didn’t believe the Bad Seed theory of criminal psychology. He’d read of a few well-documented cases of brain damage or genetic mutation being responsible for criminal pathologies, but for every one of those there were thousands of cases of abusive and neglectful parents spawning killers. Psychopaths were more often than not the sad result of hopelessly dysfunctional families and brutal environments—and those, coupled with certain physical or mental vulnerabilities, could produce a perfect storm of psychopathology.
He felt a draft of air on his left cheek and turned to see a few flakes slipping through a space between the two ancient windows where the wood had warped and left a small gap. The wind had shifted, and a thin stream of air whooshed through the opening. He pulled the covers up higher and made a mental note to mention it to Stan in the morning. Stan liked to keep everything shipshape, perhaps hoping Fiona would learn to love him for his skill as a handyman and gardener.
But that’s not how it worked. It was sad, really—Stan Paloggia was so
worthy
. If only people could fall in love with worthy mates, he thought, the world would be a better place. But love wasn’t necessarily given to the deserving or the wise. Lee suspected if she had it to do all over again, Fiona would have still chosen the dashing, edgy Duncan Campbell, with his brooding black eyes, restless intellect and fine tenor voice.
The sound of his mother’s snoring rose from the room below. She had always been a sound sleeper. Even during a crisis, she could sleep through the night. But Lee had always been a finicky, light sleeper—a trait inherited from his despised father. He hoped Duncan Campbell was dead, because if he was alive and Lee chanced to meet him, the first thing he would do was take a swing at him. And he feared it wouldn’t stop there. It was odd that he chased murderers, with his murderous thoughts toward his own father.
Or, as Dr. Williams would say, maybe that’s exactly
why
he hunted killers. She was right, of course, but it was still irritating. He made a mental note to call her— it had been a few weeks since their last appointment. It was exasperating, the relentless logic of the unconscious mind. He sometimes wished he were a cocktail pianist playing in some smoky dive in Jersey City, instead of a forensic psychologist. Even that would be about his father on some level, though—Duncan Campbell had taught both his children to play.
As the snow danced and fluttered outside his window, he finally fell into a restless sleep populated by unquiet dreams of young women fleeing from an unknown assailant. He awoke around three in the morning with the impression that the faceless pursuer was his father, his dark eyes full of malice. He pulled the covers up to his chin and waited for the pale, reassuring light of dawn.