A Perfect Obsession--A Novel of Romantic Suspense

by Heather Graham

  Because of Kevin, she’d wind up involved one way or the other. Better that she’d been asked to go in; better that she could see the victim and the surroundings before trying to understand the psyche of the person who could do such things.

  She smiled. Though she was fairly tall herself, she stood on her toes to plant a quick kiss on his lips.

  “Face it. You don’t want me involved in any case.”

  “Okay. True. But, this...well, I guess you’ll see for yourself. It isn’t—it isn’t something you should see. It isn’t something anyone should see, and it’s sure as hell something that never, ever should have happened. But...”

  “I’m careful. I’m always careful, Craig, you know that. And I love my work with the doctors, even if it’s usually in an office.”

  “Let’s go, then,” he said.

  They left the office. While Craig dismissed the professor, Kieran spoke quickly with Declan, apologizing for running out, especially when the pub was now filling up. People who were never downtown were downtown that day. People who had nothing to do with architecture, churches, clubs, archaeology or anthropology. Despite police preference, Twitter had broadcast the news.

  The building that had once been a place of worship and now housed Le Club Vampyre was, beyond a doubt, beautiful. It was grand and tall with flying buttresses. Gargoyles had been created for every rain gutter and more. Entrances were designed with pointed arches. Inside, she knew, the ceiling was vaulted, majestically painted with angels gracing the heights.

  While Trinity and then Saint Paul’s Chapel had been designed for the use of the early British settlers, by the time Saint Augustine’s had been built, the city had grown. A colony had become a state in America, and that growing population had wanted to build something grand.

  The church was literally in back of the pub, but they had to head out the front and come around to the parallel street entry. In doing so, they waded through a sea of media and onlookers to reach the interior of the church. Once inside, there still seemed to be a crowd.

  “Seems like a lot of people at a crime scene,” Kieran murmured to Craig.

  “Up here, in what is the nightclub area now,” Craig said, “you have a lot of cops. Some of the nightclub workers. Some historic board people. But not down below. Even before Gilbert was found, only a few people were allowed down there.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yep, lucky girl,” he said drily, looking ahead.

  Kieran studied her surroundings quickly.

  She’d been in the church a few times when it had still been a place of worship. While she’d grown up in the Catholic Church, her parents had loved the beauty of the Episcopal house of worship so close behind their pub. It had been fantastic then, so beautifully built, and it had seemed they always had a great reverend, super music and lots of good things. It had been sad to hear of the place being sold.

  But not much had really been changed, not as far as the facade went, nor even the inner structure.

  The new owner had maintained the feel of great space. Where the altar had once been, there was now a long bar. To the left and the right, the smaller altar areas had now become little nooks with plush chairs and coffee tables. To the far right was a bandstand and DJ’s box. Heavy red velvet drapes kept the antique feeling while allowing for the little nooks to close off for privacy. The center of the room—with the exception of a secondary bar—was empty, spacious and airy.

  “There. Egan has gotten here himself, and he’s with the owner,” Craig said, taking her arm and walking over to a trio of men.

  She knew Richard Egan, Craig’s boss, head of the criminal investigation division at the FBI’s New York headquarters. He looked the part; he was somewhere in his fifties, Kieran thought, with a headful of neatly cropped silver-white hair and a tall, lean, fit and extremely dignified physique. He nodded grimly as he saw them approach.

  “Ms. Finnegan, thank you for coming so quickly. We have some of our people coming up, but due to the high-profile situation we have going on here, I wanted the good doctors Fuller and Miro in on it all as quickly as possible.” He paused for a moment to glance at Craig. “Mike says you went to look for Shaw?”

  “I did, sir. I found him, and Ms. Finnegan, of course.”

  “I’m grateful you were able to get here so quickly. Let me introduce you, Kieran,” Egan said, and turned to the other two men with whom he’d been standing. “Henry Willoughby, Ms. Kieran Finnegan.”

  She quickly shook hands with the man. He was middle-aged, lean, with a trim ring of gray hair around his bald head. He was very solemn—clearly concerned with the goings-on. She’d seen him on a local news show occasionally; he had a fine way of speaking, and his enthusiasm over a museum opening or city history was contagious.

  “Henry’s president of a wonderful group called Preserve Our Past,” Egan explained.

  “Yes, of course, I’ve seen you on TV,” she said, and offered a small smile.

  He returned it grimly.

  “And I’m Roger Gleason, Ms. Finnegan, owner of Le Club Vampyre—the business and the building. Obviously, we’re very distressed by what’s happened here.”

  “Certainly,” she said. Gleason was nothing like the other men. She judged him to be in his early forties. He was tall, stylish and handsome, with a sweep of blond hair that fell across his forehead. His suit, she estimated, had to have cost a month of the average workingman’s wages.

  “I hope you can help us,” he said.

  “I’m here for Drs. Fuller and Miro,” Kieran said. “Dr. Fuller will be here as soon as he can possibly get through traffic.”

  “Yes, well, thank you, Ms. Finnegan,” Gleason said. “Traffic—he could be hours.”

  He turned to Craig. “Do you think they can help?”

  “Definitely. There’s never a guarantee that profiling a perp will result in apprehending him—no two human beings are really alike. But, yes, profiling has been key in solving many cases. I’ll bring Ms. Finnegan down to the crypt.

  “Mike is still there?” he asked Egan.

  Egan nodded. “Mike, the detective, the ME and the forensic team,” he said.

  Craig nodded and led her behind the main bar—the old altar area. Kieran pictured the place as it had been as a church. Naturally, yes, the crypt would be beneath the altar.

  They descended marble steps into the cool dankness of what had been a crypt and now housed spirits of a different kind. Rows and rows of wine and liquor bottles now lined the walls and were neatly arranged on the concrete floor.

  The basement area here looked much like it did at Finnegan’s, she observed. Except, of course, at Finnegan’s, the cellar had always been solely for liquor storage.

  Not “storage” for the dead.

  “I wonder if the staff ever feels uncomfortable down here,” Kieran said.

  “The dead who rested in this area are gone,” Craig said. “Besides, you need to—”

  “Fear the living, not the dead,” Kieran said.

  “Yep. They’re the ones who will hurt you.”

  A patrolman stood to the far rear where large chunks of the wall had been knocked down and a broad opening had been created. Two women wearing jumpsuits that identified them as part of the forensic team were hunkered down over a black chest, working with samples. A photographer was snapping pictures.

  She spotted Mike standing with another man who appeared grim and weary but calm.

  He looked at her and nodded an acknowledgment. Kieran knew Craig’s partner well and liked him very much.

  “This is Detective Larry McBride, NYPD,” Mike said. “Detective, this is Ms. Finnegan. She’s with the psychiatrists the Bureau often uses in the city, Drs. Fuller and Miro.”

  The detective studied her as he offered a hand. He apparently hadn’t realized that it was s
till gloved. He pulled off the glove and shook her hand. “Ms. Finnegan. I know Dr. Fuller. Fine man.”

  “You know him?”

  He nodded, grimacing. “I’m a tennis player.”

  “Ah,” Kieran said.

  “Let’s do this,” Craig said. “Kieran, this way to the forgotten crypt.”

  He turned her around and led her through the broken wall.

  He was stoic. To anyone else it might appear that nothing bothered him. But she knew him well enough to know the crypt did bother him. Not because of those who had died long ago, and hopefully through natural means. He was a good agent, Egan had told her once, because he had empathy. He was sorry for the victim, the woman whose body he had already seen.

  She realized that she was far more squeamish than he—and she also realized that she had never been on the site of a murder before. The murder hadn’t taken place here, but...

  She paused for a minute, taking in what she saw.

  The crypt stretched far beneath the earth. There were marble sarcophagi here and there amid the rows of what she could only think of as shelving—shelving for the dead. She thought that the rows seemed to go on endlessly, housing hundreds of interments. She’d been in the catacombs in Rome and this felt very similar, except that slabs for the dead were not just against the walls, they were in those endless rows of stone as well, one on top of the other. It was almost as if the tombs where the dead rested were many tiered bunks in a dormitory. Some of the shelving had broken marble slabs. Some had nothing, and bone peeked from rotting shrouds. Toward the front where she stood, coffins lay upon the same shelving. Most were deteriorating; all seemed to be covered with a haze of dust and cobwebs.

  She pulled out her notepad and began sketching furiously, and then reached for her cell phone, taking pictures.

  “Kieran?”

  “Yes?” She turned.

  Craig was watching her. From his expression, she knew that he was unhappy—and not because he wanted to prevent her work in any way. He just hated that she had to see this macabre place.

  He tried a dry smile. “None of those is for Facebook, Twitter or any other social media?” he asked lightly.

  She glared at him, refusing to answer.

  He nodded. “To the left.”

  She tensed, knowing she was about to look at the dead woman.

  When she forced herself to turn, she felt chills seize hold of her spine and her limbs.

  It was surreal.

  Jeannette Gilbert still lay in the coffin—much as she had been found, Kieran surmised. The ME had been to the body, but as of yet, it remained undisturbed.

  And the woman...

  In life Jeannette Gilbert had been truly beautiful. Long, sweeping blond hair had curled over her shoulders, her lips had been generous and beautifully shaped, her cheekbones high. Now, even in death, she looked impossibly like a princess—as if she might be awakened by love’s first kiss.

  And yet...

  There seemed to be something out of focus. She just wasn’t quite perfect anymore. And, staring at the corpse, Kieran knew what it was.

  She was decaying. And coming closer to her, Kieran felt as if the scent of that decay suddenly began to permeate her.

  She forced herself not to back away. She saw then that the ME—out beyond the broken-down wall in the basement area—had a mask hanging around his neck. No doubt he’d donned it when he had examined the corpse.

  Craig, however, stood at her side unflinching, staring down at the body with sadness and regret—and something steely in his expression that said that he wouldn’t stop until the killer was found.

  She turned away from Craig quickly, actually taking a step closer to the corpse in the coffin as she lowered her head.

  Kevin! Kevin had been the mystery man she had been dating. Had he been in love with Jeannette Gilbert? Possibly. And if so...well, she knew her twin. Jeannette would have been a nice woman; she would have cared about people. She might have been a supermodel, but she would have given to charities, cared about children, possibly visited cancer wards.

  Thank God her brother wasn’t here to see this.

  She swallowed hard and took pictures first this time, then sketched what she saw, adding little notes to her sketch.

  The terrible smell of death seemed so close.

  “This is how—where—she was found?” she asked Craig.

  “Just about. The coffin was on the middle shelf. It appears to be the best preserved of those down here. That’s why Shaw opened it first, and, presumably, why the killer chose it.”

  Kieran added to her notes.

  “The entry wasn’t as big last night. More of the false wall was torn down to make way for Dr. Shaw and his crew and whatever historians might have been called in. He did note that the position on the shelf was a little extended, or more at an angle. Other than that, he noticed nothing that had changed in the crypt.”

  As she studied the corpse, Kieran felt a hand on her shoulder and nearly jumped.

  “Sorry, Kieran.”

  It was Craig, at her side, introducing her to the ME.

  “This is Dr. Anthony Andrews. One of the best MEs in the city,” Craig said, his hand now discreetly at her elbow, steadying her.

  “You’re with the profiling people?” the ME asked.

  “Yes, civilian profilers,” she said.

  He nodded. “I need to bring this young lady to my office now. We’ve waited here a bit longer than I would have liked. Do you need more time?”

  Kieran shook her head. “No, thank you. I was hoping that Dr. Fuller might make it, but...”

  “Yes, traffic. He could be quite a while. I’m sure you’ve recorded and noted everything that can be given to him. You’re not a psychiatrist?”

  “Psychologist,” Kieran said.

  Andrews glanced at Craig and turned back to Kieran. “Well, my dear, in my mind, you might be best suited to understand the mind of such a killer. Too many psychiatrists are pill pushers. Psychologists have to work with the human creation without benefit of mind-altering drugs. Anyway, a pleasure to meet you, though I have seen you. Finnegan—you’re related to the owners of the pub behind us, right?”

  “I’m one of the owners,” she told him. “There are four of us—my brothers, Declan, Kevin, Danny and myself. Declan manages the pub and usually tends bar.”

  He grinned solemnly again. “Ah, well, then, your brother may not be a psychologist, too, but he’s is a heck of good listener. I’ve seen him talking to people at the bar. Seems to know what makes them tick. For now, if you’ll excuse me... I’ll get to my part in this investigation.”

  She nodded and returned her phone and notepad to her bag.

  Craig led her out.

  Andrews called to him. “I’ve been told this takes precedence, so autopsy in about two hours. No, let me say precisely...3:00 p.m.”

  “Thank you. Mike and I will be there,” Craig said.

  He brought Kieran back to the marble steps.

  She was glad of his arm. Not only was she affected by the dead body, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. That he had been Gilbert’s mystery man, and that the model had alluded to her feelings for him in several interviews.

  She pictured the beautiful young woman on an autopsy table, giant pincers being used to crack open her ribs...

  She winced inwardly and began to worry.

  There was no way someone hadn’t seen something—or didn’t know something. She had to talk to Kevin, and he had to talk to Craig.

  News about the murder was out. Speculation was no doubt rampant already.

  And her twin was going to be a suspect in the murder.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  CRAIG HATED ATTENDING an autopsy.

 
He did, however, attend whenever possible. No detail was too small when seeking a murderer.

  And here, downtown, it was easy enough to get to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Young and old, victim of accident or murder—or just having faced death unattended or from causes unknown—the bodies of the deceased in lower Manhattan came here. The OCME had two other locations—in Brooklyn and in Queens, serving those who died farther afield or when a death toll rose dramatically due to assaults by nature or by man.

  This office was located on Twenty-Sixth Street—not far from Finnegan’s and Le Club Vampyre or the NYC offices of the FBI.

  “You’ll have my tape for anything you might have forgotten here,” Dr. Andrews said when he was finished, stepping back from the gurney and nodding to his assistant so that the man could take the body to finish the sewing-up procedure. “But it’s the weirdest damned thing I’ve ever seen. From my findings, I believe she’s been dead for most of the two weeks she’s been missing. Maybe only ten days, though, which would mean that he kept her for just a few days—and has preserved her or tried to preserve her until he chose to leave her. Obviously, gentlemen, we all know that she wasn’t killed in the crypt. Wherever she was killed, there has to have been a massive blood spill—she was stabbed straight in the heart. But what’s so disturbing is the way that she was kept. She was not sexually assaulted, and her remains were treated tenderly.”

  “As if the killer regretted the murder?” McBride asked.

  “I can’t speak to the killer’s mind. The facts of the case are this—she has been dead approximately ten days up to two weeks. There are no defensive wounds anywhere on her body. She was kept on ice, or at a very low temperature, slowing decomposition, until she was brought to the crypt. The temperature below the ground is much cooler than above, more toward the preservation side, but not enough that more decay didn’t begin to set in. But, even on ice, I believe she had begun to decay before being brought to the crypt. There is no other wound on her other than the fatal jab to the heart. I’m going to suggest a strong, broad knife, one-and-one-half to two inches in breadth, five to six inches long. The fatal stab was inflicted in one smooth and determined motion.”