Richard Montanari

by The Echo Man

  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.

  The first four pages on the top of the pile were photocopies of the death certificates for Lina Laskaris, Marcellus Palmer, Antoinette Chan and Marcia Jane Kimmelman.

  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.

  CHRISTA-MARIE SCHÖNBURG, CELLO

  AN EVENING WITH SAINT-SAENS AND VIVALDI

  SELECTIONS FROM THE FOUR SEASONS,

  CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS AND DANSE MACABRE ARRANGED FOR THE CELLO BY SIR OLIVER MALCOLM

  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:

  Zig, zig, zig, Death in cadence,

  Striking a tomb with his heel,

  Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,

  Zig, zig, zag, on his violin.

  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.

  Zig zig, zig, Death continues

  The unending scraping on his instrument.

  A veil has fallen! The dancer is naked.

  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 wou
nds 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.'

  Bontrager sat back down. He entered the search phrase: 'Danse Macabre sheet music.'

  In seconds they had a visual representation of the sheet music. The two detectives compared the samples with the transparencies. They were identical. The killer was carving the final measure of Danse Macabre on his victims.

  He was done with The Four Seasons. He wasn't quite done with Carnival of the Animals. There were two notes yet to write in the measure.

  Jessica glanced back at the poem. The answer was in there. She read it all again.

  Her stare fell on a phrase in the middle.

  A lustful couple sits on the moss

  So as to taste long-lost delights.

  Is the lustful couple Christa-Marie Schönburg and Kevin Byrne? Is their killer taking them back to the night they met?

  Jessica looked at her watch. It was 10:00. They had less than two hours to figure it all out.

  And Kevin Byrne was nowhere to be found.

  Chapter 77

  Lucy hid in a small room off the ladies' locker room in the basement, near the rear of the hotel. There were two other women in the room. They spoke animatedly in Spanish. Lucy did not understand the words, but she didn't have to. There was something going on in the hotel, and Lucy had to figure that they had seen the blood in the hallway.

  Meet me here on Sunday night at 9:30. Love, Lucy.

  She had to leave. They were going to discover what had happened, if they had not already done so. They were going to check the lock on the door to Room 1208 and think that it was her. Plus, there were all kinds of ways to know that someone was in a room, scientific things. She had wiped down everything she remembered touching, but she couldn't have gotten all of it.

  She listened to the other girls in the locker room. They would soon be going on shift. When the locker room was empty, she would slip out the back door.

  What had she done?

  Chapter 78

  Jessica and Bontrager stood in the gift shop off the lobby. Jessica had briefed Dana Westbrook on their findings and Dana in turn briefed the rest of the team.

  Jessica thought about the people milling around the lobby and the lounge, drinks in their hands. Something nagged at her. She couldn't put her finger on it.

  'I want to see that guest list again,' Jessica said.

  'Hang on. I'll get it.'

  A minute later Bontrager returned, handed her the small stack of papers. She put it down on the gift-shop counter.

  Her stare moved down each of the pages. She didn't know what she was looking for. She scanned the list of cities. Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Montreal, Sao Paulo, Zurich, Cincinnati.

  She leaned against the desk, took out her iPhone.

  She remembered the crime-scene photos. There was something about one of the photographs. She scrolled through the photos she had taken. Nothing jumped out. There were photos of the Federal Street scene, shots taken at the Mount Olive Cemetery. There were also photos taken of the alley where Eduardo Robles was found, as well as the paupers' graveyard in the Northeast. The last roll was pictures taken in and around Garrett Corner, Archer Farms, as well as pictures she had taken of the state police file on the murder of Peggy van Tassel.

  She had three pictures of the crime-scene photos. The scene was bloody and stomach-churning. One photo was a close-up of the girl's stomach.

  Jessica zoomed in on the picture, on an area where the girl's killer had bitten her. As she got closer she saw that it was not one of the bite marks, it was a bruise instead. She increased the size one more time. The image was beginning to blur, but it was still clear enough. The bruise looked to be in the shape of a snake.

  A ring?

  Had she seen someone tonight wearing a ring in the shape of a snake?

  Yes. A man wearing a ring of that description was one of the three men who had come up to the table, one of the Three Stooges. It was not the inebriated one, Barry Swanson. Nor was it the tall Finn.

  What was the other one's name?

  She remembered. She saw the name tag in her mind's eye. It was Jay Bowman.

  Bowman.

  Archer.

  Jessica walked the perimeter of the Crystal Room, her heart racing. Table after table. She didn't see him. She walked to the other side, her eyes scanning, searching. No. He was not here. She hurried out to the lobby. The man calling himself Jay Bowman was not to be found. She got on her comm. In seconds she had John Shepherd.

  'There's a guest here. He's registered under the name Jay Bowman.'

  'Hang on,' Shepherd said. Twenty long seconds later: 'We've got him. Room 1208.'

  The service elevator was agonizingly slow. For a moment Jessica considered getting off and taking the stairs, but that would probably delay her. Josh Bontrager and John Shepherd were taking the passenger elevator, which was on the other side of the hotel. On the twelfth floor they would be able to form a loose perimeter. There were now uniformed officers stationed at every exit on all the floors.

  When she got out on the twelfth floor she passed a handful of guests. Two women about her age, dressed provocatively as French housemaids. A shorter man dressed as a wizard. A pair of boys about ten. None of them were George Archer.

  She met up with Bontrager and Shepherd at the end of the hallway leading to the east wing. They moved down the hall, ears attuned to the sounds coming from the rooms. They reached Room 1208. Silence from within. Jessica made eye contact with the two men.

  Bontrager knocked. No response. He knocked again.

  Shepherd stepped forward, touched the electronic card to the top of the lock. Jessica and Bontrager drew their weapons. Jessica nodded. Shepherd swiped the card, turned the handle, and pushed open the door.

  Jessica rolled into the room first, her weapon high. There were no lights on. She reached out, felt along the wall, found the switch. It turned on a single light overhead, along with an under-cabinet light on the minibar across the room.

  'Police,' she said. No response. She stopped just short of the bathroom door. She nudged it open with her foot. Bontrager flanked her on the right. He reached around the corner, turned on the light.

  The bathroom was empty.

  They edged forward, deeper into the hotel room. Jessica saw it first. There was a small pool of blood drying on the carpet in front of the desk. Next to it was the unmistakable stain of vomit. She touched Bontrager's arm, nodded at the stain. Bontrager saw it too.

  They counted a silent three. Jessica rolled into the main part of the room first, her weapon raised.

  It was a slaughterhouse. Blood slathered the walls, the floor. A spray of crimson dotted the window overlooking Seventeenth Street.

  Josh Bontrager stepped forward, opened the closet. It was empty. He looked under the bed. 'We're clear,' he said.

  Jessica holstered her weapon.

  The body on the bed was covered with a single sheet. There was a full body print on the sheet, painted in blood. Josh Bontrager got on the far side, Jessica the near. They each grabbed a corner of the sheet, pulled it back.

  George Archer had been savaged. His throat was cut from ear to ear. His chest was crushed. There were bite marks across his stomach.

  There were also bruises across his thighs, bruises in the shape of a snake ring.

  The ring sat on the pillow next to his head. It was caked with skin and hair, bits of drying flesh.

  Jessica stepped forward, checked the dead man's fingers. No tattoos.

  John Shepherd got on his two-way, raising the head of the hotel's security detail. 'Lock the building down,' he said. 'No one goes in or out.'

  The lobby was in chaos when Jessica entered. There were a dozen uniformed officers deployed at exits, elevators, and service hallways. The restaur
ant's doors were closed. Inside Jessica saw patrons at candlelit tables, elegantly dressed, sipping their wines, perhaps figuring that, if you had to be locked down, being locked down inside a Michelin-starred restaurant with one of the most extensive and lauded wine cellars in the state was not such a bad thing.

  Inside the Crystal Room, in an attempt to keep the crowd at ease, a member of the protection detail made his way over to the attorney general's table, tapped his watch. The AG got up calmly, shook a few hands, but quickly walked out a door at the back of the ballroom.

  Jessica had changed into her jeans and hoodie. On her way out of the ladies' room she heard from Shepherd in her earpiece.

  'Jess. One of the wait staff saw something near the rear service entrance. Just east of the kitchen.'

  'What did she see?'

  'Blood.'

  Jessica and Bontrager met John Shepherd in the kitchen. Shepherd pointed out the handful of red dots leading to the rear entrance.

  Shepherd stepped forward, swiped a card. They entered the area near the loading dock. A PPD officer was deployed behind the building. When he heard noise he spun around, his hand on his weapon. He was young, in his mid-twenties, a little spooked. Jessica showed her badge, and the kid looked quite relieved to have a detective on scene.

  'How long have you been here?' Jessica asked

  'A minute or so,' the officer said. 'I just got the call.'

  The blood spots trailed over to a parking space, then disappeared.

  'Did you see anyone leave?'

  'No, ma'am.'

  Jessica stepped back into the service area, looked at the door to her left.

  'Where does this lead?' Jessica asked.

  'Women's locker room.'

  Jessica pushed through the door, her weapon low. The locker room had three benches, a row of sinks, a single shower, a pair of toilet stalls. Jessica checked them all. The room was empty. She looked at the inside of one of the toilet-stall doors. There was a smear of blood there.