The Mephisto Club

by Tess Gerritsen

  “You have a whole flock of souls to look after. And it is Christmas Eve.”

  “You’ll notice I have nowhere else to go tonight, either.”

  She paused and turned to face him. They stood alone in the church, breathing in the scents of candle wax and incense, familiar smells that brought back a childhood of other Christmases, other Masses. The days when stepping into a church provoked none of the turmoil she was now feeling. “Good night, Daniel,” she said, turning toward the door.

  “Will it be another four months until I see you again?” he called out after her.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve missed our talks, Maura.”

  Again she hesitated, her hand poised to push open the door. “I’ve missed them, too. Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t have them anymore.”

  “We haven’t done anything to be ashamed of.”

  “Not yet,” she said softly, her gaze not on him, but on the heavy carved door, which stood between her and escape.

  “Maura, let’s not leave it like this between us. There’s no reason we can’t maintain some sort of—” He stopped.

  Her cell phone was ringing.

  She fished it out of her purse. At this hour, a ringing phone could not mean anything good. As she answered the call, she felt Daniel’s eyes on her, felt her own jittery reaction to his gaze.

  “Dr. Isles,” she said, her voice unnaturally cool.

  “Merry Christmas,” said Detective Jane Rizzoli. “I’m kind of surprised you’re not at home right now. I tried calling there first.”

  “I came to midnight Mass.”

  “Geez, it’s already one A.M. Isn’t it over yet?”

  “Yes, Jane. It’s over, and I’m about to leave,” said Maura, in a tone of voice that cut off any more queries. “What have you got for me?” she asked. Because she already knew that this call was not a simple hello, but a summons.

  “Address is two-ten Prescott Street, East Boston. A private residence. Frost and I got here about a half hour ago.”

  “Details?”

  “We’re looking at one vic, a young woman.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “You’ll see when you get here.”

  She disconnected and found Daniel still watching her. But the moment for taking risks, for saying things they both might come to regret, had passed. Death had intervened.

  “You have to go to work?”

  “I’m covering tonight.” She slipped the phone back into her purse. “Since I don’t have any family in town, I volunteered.”

  “On this of all nights?”

  “The fact that it’s Christmas doesn’t make much difference to me.”

  She buttoned up her coat collar and walked out of the building, into the night. He followed her outside, and as she tramped through freshly fallen snow to her car, he stood watching her from the steps, his white vestments flapping in the wind. Glancing back, she saw him raise his hand in a good-bye wave.

  He was still waving as she drove away.

  THREE

  The blue lights of three cruisers pulsed through a filigree of falling snow, announcing to all who approached: Something has happened here, something terrible. Maura felt her front bumper scrape against ice as she squeezed her Lexus up next to the snowbank, to make room for other vehicles to pass. At this hour, on Christmas Eve, the only vehicles likely to turn up on the narrow street would be, like hers, members of Death’s entourage. She took a moment to steel herself against the exhausting hours to come, her tired eyes mesmerized by all the flashing lights. Her limbs felt numb; her circulation turned to sludge. Wake up, she thought. It’s time to go to work.

  She stepped out of the car and the sudden blast of cold air blew the sleep from her brain. She walked through freshly fallen powder that whispered away like white feathers before her boots. Although it was one-thirty, lights were burning in several of the modest homes along the street, and through a window decorated with holiday stencils of flying reindeer and candy canes, she saw the silhouette of a curious neighbor peering out from his warm house, at a night that was no longer silent or holy.

  “Hey, Dr. Isles?” called out a patrolman, an older cop whom she vaguely recognized. Clearly he knew exactly who she was. They all knew who she was. “How’d you get so lucky tonight, huh?”

  “I could ask the same of you, Officer.”

  “Guess we both drew the short straws.” He gave a laugh. “Merry goddamn Christmas.”

  “Is Detective Rizzoli inside?”

  “Yeah, she and Frost have been videotaping.” He pointed toward a residence where all the lights were shining, a boxy little house crammed into a row of tired older homes. “By now, they’re probably ready for you.”

  The sound of violent retching made her glance toward the street, where a blond woman stood doubled over, clutching at her long coat to avoid soiling the hem as she threw up in the snowbank.

  The patrolman gave a snort. Muttered to Maura, “That one’s gonna make a fine homicide detective. She came striding onto the scene right outta Cagney and Lacey. Ordered us all around. Yeah, a real tough one. Then she goes in the house, gets one look, and next thing you know, she’s out here puking in the snow.” He laughed.

  “I haven’t seen her before. She’s from Homicide?”

  “I hear she just transferred over from Narcotics and Vice. The commissioner’s bright idea to bring in more girls.” He shook his head. “She’s not gonna last long. That’s my prediction.”

  The woman detective wiped her mouth and moved unsteadily toward the porch steps, where she sank down.

  “Hey. Detective!” called out the patrolman. “You might wanna move away from the crime scene? If you’re gonna puke again, at least do it where they’re not collecting evidence.”

  A younger cop, standing nearby, snickered.

  The blond detective jerked back to her feet, and in bright strobe flashes the cruiser lights illuminated her mortified face. “I think I’ll go sit in my car for a minute,” she murmured.

  “Yeah. You do that, ma’am.”

  Maura watched the detective retreat to the shelter of her vehicle. What horrors was she about to face inside that house?

  “Doc,” called out Detective Barry Frost. He had just emerged from the house and was standing on the porch, hunched in a Windbreaker. His blond hair stood up in tufts, as though he had just rolled out of bed. Though his face had always been sallow, the yellow glow cast by the porch light made him look sicklier than usual.

  “I gather it’s pretty bad in there,” she said.

  “Not the kind of thing you want to see on Christmas. Thought I’d better come out here and get some air.”

  She paused at the bottom of the steps, noting the jumble of footprints that had been left on the snow-dusted porch. “Okay to walk in this way?”

  “Yeah. Those prints are all Boston PD.”

  “What about footwear evidence?”

  “We didn’t find much out here.”

  “What, did he fly in the window?”

  “It looks like he swept up after himself. You can still see some of the whisk marks.”

  She frowned. “This perp pays attention to detail.”

  “Wait till you see what’s inside.”

  She walked up the steps and pulled on shoe covers and gloves. Close up, Frost looked even worse, his face gaunt and drained of all color. But he took a breath and offered gamely: “I can walk you in.”

  “No, you take your time out here. Rizzoli can show me around.”

  He nodded, but he wasn’t looking at her; he was staring off at the street with the fierce concentration of a man trying to hold on to his dinner. She left him to his battle and reached for the doorknob. Already she was braced for the worst. Only moments ago, she had arrived exhausted, trying to shake herself awake; now she could feel tension sizzling like static through her nerves.

  She stepped into
the house. Paused there, her pulse throbbing, and gazed at an utterly unalarming scene. The foyer had a scuffed oak floor. Through the doorway she could see into the living room, which was furnished with cheap mismatches: a sagging futon couch, a beanbag chair, a bookcase cobbled together from particle board planks and concrete blocks. Nothing so far that screamed crime scene. The horror was yet to come; she knew it was waiting in this house, because she had seen its reflection in Barry Frost’s eyes and in the ashen face of the woman detective.

  She walked through the living room into the dining room, where she saw four chairs around a pine table. But it was not the furniture she focused on; it was the place settings that had been laid out on the table, as though for a family meal. Dinner for four.

  One of the plates had a linen napkin draped over it, the fabric spattered with blood.

  Gingerly she reached for the napkin. Lifting it up by the corner, she took one look at what lay underneath it, on the plate. Instantly she dropped the napkin and stumbled backward, gasping.

  “I see you found the left hand,” a voice said.

  Maura spun around. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “You want some seriously scary shit?” said Detective Jane Rizzoli. “Just follow me.” She turned and led Maura up a hallway. Like Frost, Jane looked as if she had just rolled out of bed. Her slacks were wrinkled, her dark hair a wiry tangle. Unlike Frost, she moved fearlessly, her paper-covered shoes whishing across the floor. Of all the detectives who regularly showed up in the autopsy room, Jane was the one most likely to push right up to the table, to lean in for a closer look, and she betrayed no hesitation now as she moved along the hall. It was Maura who lagged behind, her gaze drawn downward to the drips of blood on the floor.

  “Stay along this side,” said Jane. “We’ve got some indistinct footprints here, going in both directions. Some kind of athletic shoe. They’re pretty much dry now, but I don’t want to smear anything.”

  “Who called in the report?”

  “It was a nine-one-one call. Came in just after midnight.”

  “From where?”

  “This residence.”

  Maura frowned. “The victim? Did she try to get help?”

  “No voice on the line. Someone just dialed the emergency operator and left the phone off the hook. First cruiser got here ten minutes after the call. Patrolman found the door unlocked, came into the bedroom, and freaked out.” Jane paused at a doorway and glanced over her shoulder at Maura. A warning look. “Here’s where it gets hairy.”

  The severed hand was bad enough.

  Jane moved aside to let Maura gaze into the bedroom. She did not see the victim; all she saw was the blood. The average human body contains perhaps five liters of it. The same volume of red paint, splashed around a small room, could splatter every surface. What her stunned eyes encountered, as she stared through the doorway, were just such extravagant splatters, like bright streamers flung by boisterous hands across white walls, across furniture and linen.

  “Arterial,” said Rizzoli.

  Maura could only nod, silent, as her gaze followed the arcs of spray, reading the horror story written in red on these walls. As a fourth-year medical student serving a clerkship rotation in the ER, she had once watched a gunshot victim exsanguinate on the trauma table. With the blood pressure crashing, the surgery resident in desperation had performed an emergency laparotomy, hoping to control the internal bleeding. He’d sliced open the belly, releasing a fountain of arterial blood that gushed out of the torn aorta, splashing doctors’ gowns and faces. In the final frantic seconds, as they’d suctioned and packed in sterile towels, all Maura could focus on was that blood. Its brilliant gloss, its meaty smell. She’d reached into the open abdomen to grab a retractor, and the warmth that had soaked through the sleeves of her gown had felt as soothing as a bath. That day, in the operating room, Maura had seen the alarming spurt that even a weak arterial pressure can generate.

  Now, as she gazed at the walls of the bedroom, it was once again the blood that held her focus, that recorded the story of the victim’s final seconds. When the first cut was made, the victim’s heart was still beating, still generating a blood pressure. There, above the bed, was where the first machine-gun splatter hit, arcing high onto the wall. After a few vigorous pulses, the arcs began to decay. The body would try to compensate for the falling pressure, the arteries clamping down, the pulse quickening. But with every heartbeat, it would drain itself, accelerating its own demise. When at last the pressure faded and the heart stopped, there would be no more spurts, just a quiet trickle as the last blood seeped out. This was the death Maura saw recorded on these walls, and on this bed.

  Then her gaze halted, riveted on something she had almost missed among all the splatters. Something that made the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stand up. On one wall, drawn in blood, were three upside-down crosses. And beneath that, a series of cryptic symbols:

  “What does that mean?” said Maura softly.

  “We have no idea. We’ve been trying to figure it out.”

  Maura could not tear her gaze from the writing. She swallowed. “What the hell are we dealing with here?”

  “Wait till you see what comes next.” Jane circled around to the other side of the bed and pointed to the floor. “The victim’s right here. Most of her, anyway.”

  Only as Maura rounded the bed did the woman come into view. She was lying unclothed and on her back. Exsanguination had drained the skin to the color of alabaster, and Maura suddenly remembered her visit to a room in the British Museum, where dozens of fragmented Roman statues were on display. The wear of centuries had chipped at the marble, cracking off heads, breaking off arms, until they were little more than anonymous torsos. That’s what she saw now, staring down at the body. A broken Venus. With no head.

  “It looks like he killed her there, on the bed,” said Jane. “That would explain the splatters on that particular wall and all the blood on the mattress. Then he pulled her onto the floor, maybe because he needed a firm surface to finish cutting.” Jane took a breath and turned away, as though she had suddenly reached her limit, and could not look at the corpse any longer.

  “You said the first cruiser took ten minutes to respond to that nine-one-one call,” said Maura.

  “That’s right.”

  “What was done here—these amputations, the removal of the head—that would have taken longer than ten minutes.”

  “We realize that. I don’t think it was the victim who made that call.”

  The creak of a footstep made them both turn, and they saw Barry Frost standing in the doorway, looking less than eager to enter the room.

  “Crime Scene Unit’s here,” he said.

  “Tell them to come on in.” Jane paused. “You don’t look so hot.”

  “I think I’m doing pretty good. Considering.”

  “How’s Kassovitz? She finished puking? We could use some help in here.”

  Frost shook his head. “She’s still sitting in her car. I don’t think her stomach’s ready for this one. I’ll go get CSU.”

  “Tell her to grow a spine, for God’s sake!” Jane called after him as he walked out of the room. “I hate it when a woman lets me down. Gives us all a bad name.”

  Maura’s gaze returned to the torso on the floor. “Have you found—”

  “The rest of her?” said Jane. “Yeah. You’ve already seen the left hand. The right arm’s sitting in the bathtub. And now I guess it’s time to show you the kitchen.”

  “What’s in there?”

  “More surprises.” Jane started across the room, toward the hallway.

  Turning to follow her, Maura caught a sudden glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror. Her reflection stared back at her with tired eyes, the black hair limp from melted snow. But it was not the image of her own face that made her freeze. “Jane,” she whispered. “Look at this.”

  “What?”

  “In the mirror. The symbols.” Maura turned and stared
at the writing on the wall. “Do you see it? It’s a reverse image! Those aren’t symbols, those are letters, meant to be read in the mirror.”

  Jane looked at the wall, then at the mirror. “That’s a word?”

  “Yes. It spells out Peccavi.”

  Jane shook her head. “Even in reverse, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  “It’s Latin, Jane.”

  “For what?”

  “I have sinned.”

  For a moment, the two women stared at each other. Then Jane gave a sudden laugh. “Well, that’s a doozy of a confession for you. You think a few Hail Marys will erase this particular sin?”

  “Maybe this word doesn’t refer to the killer. Maybe it’s all about the victim.” She looked at Jane. “I have sinned.”

  “Punishment,” said Jane. “Vengeance.”

  “It’s a possible motive. She did something to anger the killer. She sinned against him. And this is his payback.”

  Jane took a deep breath. “Let’s go into the kitchen.” She led Maura down the hallway. At the kitchen doorway she stopped and looked at Maura, who had halted on the threshold, too stunned by what she saw to say a word.

  On the tiled floor, a large red circle had been drawn in what looked like red chalk. Spaced around its circumference were five black puddles of wax that had melted and congealed. Candles, thought Maura. In the center of that circle, positioned so that the eyes were staring at them, was a woman’s severed head.

  A circle. Five black candles. It’s a ritual offering.

  “So now I’m supposed to go home to my little girl,” said Jane. “In the morning, we’ll all sit around the tree and open presents and pretend there’s peace on earth. But I’ll be thinking of…that thing…staring back at me. Merry frigging Christmas.”

  Maura swallowed. “Do we know who she is?”

  “Well, I haven’t dragged in her friends and neighbors to make a positive ID. Hey, you recognize that head on the kitchen floor? But based on her driver’s license photo, I’d say this is Lori-Ann Tucker. Twenty-eight years old. Brown hair, brown eyes.” Abruptly, Jane laughed. “Put all the body parts together, and that’s about what you’d get.”