Richard Montanari (54 page)

    'That
was terribly forward of me,' Duchesne said. 'Please forgive me.'

    'No
harm done,' Jessica said.

    'No,
I've made a fool of myself. Mea culpa.'

    Jessica
needed a way to wrap this up. 'Mr. Duchesne - Frederic - I really do appreciate
this information. I'll pass it along to the other detectives working the case.
You never know. It might lead to something.'

    Duchesne
seemed to be a bit flustered. He was probably not used to being shot down. He
was not bad-looking in a Julian Sands kind of way, cultured and refined:
probably a hell of a catch in his social circle. 'Please feel free to call me
anytime if you think of something else that might be helpful,' Jessica added.

    Duchesne
brightened a little, although it was clear he realized what she was doing -
trying to placate him. 'I certainly will.'

    'By
the way, what brings you here tonight?'

    Duchesne
pulled a visitor badge out of his pocket, clipped it to his sport coat. 'I've
done some work as a forensic audiologist,' he said. 'Strictly on a contract
basis. My specialty is physical characteristics and measurement of acoustic
stimuli.'

    
You
never know,
Jessica thought. She extended her hand. They shook. 'Have fun.'

    As
she watched Duchesne walk across the room, her cellphone vibrated. She looked
at the screen. It was Byrne.

    'Kevin.
Where are you?'

    All she
heard was the hiss of silence. She wasn't sure Byrne was still there. Then:
'I've got to go in for more tests.'

    It
didn't register. 'What are you talking about?'

    Another
pause. 'They read my MRI. They want me to go back for more tests.'

    'Did
they say what it was about?'

    'They
don't want you back because everything is all right, Jess.'

    'Okay,'
Jessica said. 'We'll deal with it. I'll go with you.'

    More
silence. Then Jessica heard a bell on Byrne's end. Was that the sound of an
elevator? 'Where are you?'

    No
answer.

    'Kevin?'
The silence was maddening. 'When do they want you to—'

    'The
original homicides. The cold cases. It was right in front of us. I didn't get
it until I was driving up the parkway.'

    Byrne
was talking about Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

    'What
do you mean? What's on the parkway?'

    'I
drove by the hotel, and it all fell into place,' he said. 'You never know
what's going to make sense, or when it's going to happen. It's what ties them
together.'

    Jessica
got an earful of loud static. Byrne said something else, but she didn't
understand it. She was just about to ask him to repeat what he'd said when she
heard him loud and clear.

    '
There's
a package for you with the concierge.
'

    The
concierge?

    'Kevin,
you have to—'

    'It's
the music,' he said. 'It's always been about the music.'

    And
then he was gone. Jessica looked at the screen on her phone. The call had
ended. She called Byrne right back, got his voicemail. She tried again. Same
result.

    There's
a package for you with the concierge.

    She
walked out of the Crystal Room, across the lobby to the concierge desk. There
was indeed a package for her. It was a pair of nine-by-twelve envelopes. Her
name was on them, scrawled in Byrne's handwriting. She stepped away, looked
inside each envelope. Files, notes, photographs, charts. It was not the
official file, but rather a second one that Byrne had been keeping.

    She
raised Josh Bontrager on the handset. A few minutes later they met in a small
meeting room on the first floor. Jessica closed the door, told Bontrager about
her phone call from Byrne. Then she opened one of the envelopes, put the
material on the table.

    Why
had Byrne dropped off this information? She'd seen all of it before. What was
in here that he wanted her to notice?

    Jessica
scanned the pages, taking in the relevant data: Name, date of birth, address,
parents, cause of death, date of death.

    Date
of death.

    Her
gaze shifted from document to document.

    'It's
the dates, Josh,' Jessica said. 'Look.'

    Bontrager
ran his finger down each page, stopping at the entry for date of death.
'Marcellus Palmer was killed on June 21. Lina Laskaris and Margaret van Tassel
were killed on September 21. Antoinette Chan was killed on March 21. Marcia
Jane Kimmelman was killed on December 21.'

    'Those
are all the first days of the seasons,' Jessica said. 'The killer picked these
cases because the original homicides took place on the first days of spring,
summer, fall and winter.'

    'Yes.'

    'This
is what Kevin meant when he said it came to him when he drove by the hotel. He
was talking about the Four Seasons.'

    The
next documents in the file were copies of the photographs of the animal tattoos
in situ.
Jessica put the photographs side by side, six in all, spread
across the table. 'These are all animals in the
Carnival of the Animals
by Saint-Saens.'

    They
looked at the photographs left to right. Six tattoos, six fingers. Six
different
fingers.

    There
was one other item in the first envelope. Jessica reached in, slid it out. And
they had their answer.

    Inside
was a small booklet, about the size and shape of a
Playbill.
It bore a
date from 1990. Jessica looked at the cover.

    Jessica
opened the booklet. The program began with brief selections from each part of
The Four Seasons.
After that were selections from
Carnival of the
Animals.

    
Et
marche royale du Lion
was the lion.
Poules et Coqs
was the rooster.
Tortues
was the tortoise.
L'Elephant
was the elephant.
Kangourous
was the
kangaroo.
Le Cygne
was the swan.
Aquarium
was the fish.
Volière
was the bird.

    There
were eight selections in all.

    'Someone
is recreating her last performance,' Jessica said.

    Bontrager
pointed to the last part of the night's program. '
Danse Macabre
?' he
asked. 'What do you know about it?'

    'Nothing,'
Jessica said.

    Bontrager
sat down at the computer, launched a web browser. In seconds he had a hit.

    The
wild entry gave them the basics.
Danse Macabre
was written by Camille
Saint-Saens originally as an art song for voice and piano. What had Duchesne
said?

    'A
lot of times material has been written as an adjunct to the music - a poetic
epigraph, if you will:

    'See
if there's a narrative that goes with this,' Jessica said.

    Bontrager
did a search. He soon got hits. 'Yeah,' he said. 'There is. It was originally a
poem by a guy named Henri Cazalis.' Bontrager hit a few more keys. In a moment
the poem appeared on the screen.

    The
poem began:

    It
all began to make sense.
Striking a tomb with his heel
explained the
bodies found in the cemeteries, their legs broken.
Zig, zig, zig
was on Joseph
Novak's computer. Jessica's gaze continued down the page, a symmetry forming.

    Jessica
thought:
The dancer is naked.
The shaved bodies.

    'Is
there an explanation for this?' Jessica asked. 'Some sort of source material?'

    Bontrager
scrolled down. 'It says the poem was based on an old French superstition. Hang
on.' He did another search. He soon had the synopsis of the original
superstition.

    'According
to the superstition, Death appears at midnight every year on Halloween, and has
the power to call forth the dead from their graves to dance for him while he
plays his fiddle. His skeletons dance for him until the first break of dawn,
when they must return to their graves until the next year.'

    The
two detectives looked at each other, at their watches. It was 9:50.

    According
to what they were reading, there were two hours and ten minutes left. And they
had no idea where or whom the killer was going to strike.

    Jessica
opened the second envelope. Inside were six transparencies. The clear plastic
sheets were
8½ by 11 inches. At first it was not clear what was printed
on them. Jessica looked at the lower right-hand corner of one. There she saw a
number she recognized as the homicide case file number. She soon realized that
it was a transparency of the forensic photograph of the wounds to Kenneth
Beckman's forehead, a photograph of the white paper band that encircled the
victim's head.

    Jessica
took the transparency, held it up to the white wall. There was the Rorschach
blot of blood on the left, which had come from the mutilated ear, a shape she
had originally thought of as a rough figure eight. There was the straight line
across the top, as well as the oval of blood underneath. In this format, a
photographic transparency, the blood looked black.

    Why
had Byrne made these into transparencies?

    She held
up the next sample. The second transparency was from Preston Braswell's head.
It was identical. She looked at the third sheet, this time the evidence
photograph of Eduardo Robles. Identical. There was no doubt in her mind, or in
the mind of anyone else investigating these homicides, that the signature for
each of these murders was identical, and all but confirmed a single killer.

    Except
that they were
not
identical.

    'Josh,
bring that lamp closer.'

    Bontrager
got up and pulled the table lamp across the desk. Jessica sorted through the
transparencies, her heart beating faster. She put them all in the order that
made the most sense at that moment.

    'Turn
off the overhead light.'

    Bontrager
crossed the room, shut off the fluorescents. When he returned, Jessica held the
stack of transparencies up to the bright lampshade.

    And
then they saw it.

    There
were five lines, but they were in slightly different places, one above the
other. The puncture wounds were in different places, too. On the left side, the
bloodstains left by the killer's mutilation of the victims' ears formed a
stylized clef.

    'My
God,' Jessica said. The clarity was almost painful. 'It's a musical staff. He's
writing music on the dead bodies, one note at a time.'