Jon took a tentative step, then another. Everything hurt, but nothing seemed broken.
The engine of the Aston Martin ticked. Something metal creaked. The roof of the car was crumpled by the concrete barrier. As he watched, something gave, and the car slipped an inch farther toward the abyss.
“Help me.”
The voice was thin. Jon followed it until he could see Christopher Thomas. The face was different. It wasn’t just that he hung upside down, or the blood streaming from his nose, or the ragged mess of muscle and tissue that was his shoulder. It was the eyes. The cocksure certainty was gone. In its place was a raw and animal panic.
Nunn stared at those eyes for a long moment. Then, slowly, he tucked the gun back into his holster.
Thomas’s right hand still clutched the steering wheel, but the fingers were shaking. “You can’t do this.”
“What?”
The breeze off the water smelled vibrant and alive. The car groaned as the wind whistled over it.
“You can’t kill me.”
Jon shrugged. “I’m not killing you.”
“Then help me.”
“Help yourself.”
Thomas stared with a 100-proof hate. Slowly he took his hand off the wheel and fumbled for the door. Nunn watched. The man was pale and shaky. He got a grip on the handle and tugged it. The angle of the car caused the door to swing open wide, pitching the balance of the car. There was a sound of sickening friction. The hood tilted down. Christopher threw himself back in his seat and turned to stone.
Jon Nunn thought of Rosemary after the injections, the way her skin had faded almost immediately. The sirens drew closer. More than one of them, and coming fast.
“You’re not a cop anymore.” Christopher was laying a veneer of reason over a wobble of panic. “You can’t do those things. Shoot at people. Chase them.”
“I did them anyway.”
“Get me out of here.” The wind sighed, and the car slipped again. “Get me out and I’ll tell them it was just an accident.”
Nunn didn’t move.
“I’ve got money. In the back. Millions.”
Nunn didn’t move.
“It won’t change anything, you know. Killing me. It won’t bring Rosemary back.” The man’s voice was rational, not quite pleading. “The dead stay dead. You’ll just have one more ghost. Can you handle that, Jon? Another ghost?”
“I don’t know,” Nunn said, surprised to realize he meant it. He was tired, so very tired, and Thomas was right. You didn’t have to work homicide long to realize that vengeance did nothing to decrease the sum total of pain in the world. Not only that, but there would be consequences for his actions tonight. Everything he’d done since leaving the museum had been beyond the law. If he could produce a murderer, banged up but alive, it would go a lot easier on him.
Christopher was just trying to save his own tiny life; Nunn knew that. But that didn’t make him wrong. If Nunn let this happen, he would pay penalties—and possibly they were more than he could bear. He realized that, took a moment to acknowledge it. Then he said, “I don’t know if I can handle another ghost, Christopher. But you know what?” Jon Nunn smiled. “I don’t care.”
The man’s mask of reason disintegrated. “Goddamnit, get me out of here! Do you know who I am? Do you?”
“Yes.” Nunn took a moment to think of Rosemary, and to pray that she forgave him. “You were Christopher Thomas.”
Then Nunn turned and walked back to the Mercedes. A huddle of cars had stopped, people half in and half out. They froze when they saw him. Nunn ignored them. Carefully, he took the gun from his holster. He locked the safety, bent to set it on the ground. He could see the police cars now, two of them, lights flashing bright against the night, and behind them an ambulance. Nunn put his hands on his head and laced the fingers together. The first of the police cars jerked to a stop, two beat cops boiling out. Slowly, painfully, he eased himself down to his knees.
And as he touched the cold ground, as the police surged toward him and the breeze blew soft, as the lights of San Francisco twinkled through the fog, he heard a sound. A slow, metal creak like the yawn of some great beast, and a rush of air, and mixed with it, something that might have been a scream.
But not until he heard the splash did he let himself smile.
Diary of Jon Nunn,
Last entry
JONATHAN SANTLOFER AND ANDREW F. GULLI
I was detained for a couple of days. The cops asked me a hundred questions. Then they asked me a hundred more. I didn’t have all the answers, but I had enough. I knew that Christopher Thomas had faked his death. That Peter Heusen had helped him. That Artie Ruby had aided and abetted by shipping the iron maiden off to Germany. That Stan Ballard had worked with Peter to make both of them multimillionaires while cheating the Thomas children.
And I knew something else—none of it really mattered. Rosemary Thomas was still dead.
Tony Olsen spoke on my behalf. He had more than a little influence with the SFPD, and a few of my old colleagues spoke for me too. Then Tony gathered up everyone one more time and got them to tell what they knew, or thought they knew.
Belle McGuire described how an unknown man, who she now believed had to have been Christopher Thomas, had assaulted her in her studio and displayed the red mark that was still on her neck where he’d drawn a palette knife across it. Her husband, Don, corroborated her story and even put in a good word for me. I’m not sure why. Probably because he’d wanted to hunt down Christopher himself and my doing it was the next best thing.
Peter confessed that he and Christopher had been selling stolen art in Europe and Asia for the past decade while everyone thought Christopher was dead. Greed knows no boundaries. He also admitted that he and Christopher had planned the museum break-in and that he was the one who attacked Haile Patchett at the memorial that night to create a diversion to get the fake police inside. Of course he blamed everything on Christopher and said he was forced into it. I won’t even honor that by asking how you can force someone into committing such heinous acts. He also said that I’d come aboard his boat and threatened him with a gun, which he thought would get me in trouble. It did—for a minute—but it also helped establish that he’d told me where Christopher was staying and that I’d gone after him.
Peter’s trial has been delayed now for more than a year. His lawyer is arguing that the evidence against his client was gotten by force—by me, an ex-cop with a grudge. I’m sure to be called as a witness, and I won’t deny what I did, but I sure as hell hope the DA is tough enough to make Peter’s words stick to him.
Hank Zacharius got himself a new story.
INNOCENT WOMAN EXECUTED
That headline appeared in newspapers across the country and with Rosemary’s public, exoneration, the state of California was not only shamed but also forced to pay the Thomas children undisclosed millions in damages. It was exoneration for Hank, too, and from what I hear, he’s got a seven-figure book deal to write the whole story, but when he called to interview me, I turned him down. He understood.
Stan Ballard was disbarred and is awaiting trial, and he and Sarah separated.
Sarah.
She told the police how she’d been attacked in a department store dressing room and how she’d realized, too late, that her attacker had to have been Christopher Thomas. I was furious she’d never told me.
Eventually the cops let me go. They didn’t have much to hold me on other than reckless driving and swinging my gun around like a cowboy, and Christopher Thomas’s fatal splash into the bay was finally ruled an accident.
Maybe it’s poetic justice that he died painfully. Maybe not. Maybe it would have been better if he had to grow old in prison and live with what he’d done, although he’d need a conscience for that and clearly didn’t have one. Still, a part of me feels robbed that I lived with pain for more than a decade and Christopher Thomas got off so easily. Again, my fault. I might have saved him if I was thinking straight at the t
ime. But I don’t regret it. You could say the old Jon Nunn died that night too and I’m the guy who took his place. I was wrong—the phoenix does rise from ashes.
After everything settled down, I left San Francisco and bought a little ranch in Wyoming that was in foreclosure, nothing special, a dozen acres, a couple of old horses. The house was a mess, rotten floors and broken windows, but I’ve been fixing it up slowly and it doesn’t look half bad. Tony Olsen and I speak from time to time and he always asks me to come to San Francisco. But I’m not going back. I’ve tried too hard to get away from it all and forget. But then, you never forget, you just build a layer of scar tissue over the wounds and keep going.
Just the other day I got a little painting in the mail, an ocean scene, from Belle McGuire. No note, just the picture. I stared at it a long time and it brought everything back to me—the case, the trial, the ten years of sorrow and frustration, and the reckoning that finally arrived. I hung the painting in the living room as a reminder of all that had happened, but especially of Rosemary.
Afterward, I called Sarah.
She was surprised by my call. I told her I was more surprised. She laughed and it cut right through me. She asked how I was doing, and I turned the question around, and she said she was okay, but I think she was lying. I told her to come out to Wyoming for a visit sometime and she said maybe, so who knows…
Nowadays, I pay the bills doing some consulting for a security firm, and I’ve been lecturing on criminology at a community college, more to keep myself busy than anything else. But today I’m home. Next to the painting Belle sent me is a window, and in the distance I can make out the pointy, jagged tops of Cathedral Ridge, part of the Rocky Mountain range that I pretend belongs to me alone. Above it, the sky is bright blue with choppy, white clouds and looks to me like a landscape by van Gogh—vibrant, childlike, unbroken.
Appendix: Additional Police Reports
KATHY REICHS
I. THE FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGY REPORT
FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGY SERVICES
C/O DR. PETER M. GERBER
OSTENDERSTRASSE 129–162
13353 BERLIN
030 532 77 43
FESB # 0236 31 AUGUST 1998
NMB 03–79
CONTACT: DR. GERBER
Subject: Specimens were submitted hand to hand, from the Institute of Legal Medicine, arriving at Forensic Entomology Services of Berlin on 27 August 1998 at 1330 hours. Samples were in three specimen jars, no preservatives. One jar contained multiple puparial casings. A second jar contained multiple dead specimens. Label indicated specimens collected on 26 August 1998. The third jar contained preserved maggots preserved in 70% ETOH. A fourth jar contained a single dead specimen. 70% ETOH added to jar containing multiple dead specimens at 1400 hours, 27 August 1998.
EVIDENCE SUBMITTED
1. Specimen jar containing multiple puparial casings. No data on outside or inside of jar.
2. Specimen jar containing multiple dead insects. Labeled NMBa 03–73; collect: 26-8-98.
3. Specimen jar containing preserved maggots. Labeled NMB 03-73b; collect 26-8-98
4. Specimen jar containing a single dead insect. No data on outside or inside of jar.
IDENTIFICATIONS
1. Diptera: Calliphoridae: Chrysomya rufifacies—23 empty pupae
2. Diptera: Calliphoridae: Chrysomya rufifacies—23 adults
3. Diptera: Piophilidae: Piophila casei—3rd instar larvae
4. Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Dihammus szechuanus
ESTIMATED MINIMUM PERIOD OF INSECT ACTIVITY
18 to 30 days prior to collection on 26 August 1998. This estimate is based on the presence of late third instar larvae of Piphilia casei. These maggots arrive typically around day 15 in decomposition and complete their development by day 36. The maggots in the collections here are consistent with development of approximately 30 days. The empty puparial cases of C. rufifacies, while not definitive, are consistent with this time frame. During decomposition studies conducted at 26°C, empty puparial cases of C. rufifacies were first reported on day 14. The presence of C. rufifacies suggests exposure of the body outside or near a window prior to or during shipping. Depending on available food materials, degree of exposure, and temperature ranges, the estimate of 18 to 30 days must be considered a minimum and a longer postmortem interval is possible.
II. THE RADIOLOGY REPORT
Document Identifier: C1998073042
Name: Unknown (presumed, Thomas, Christopher, DOB 19 09 52)
Analysis: Radiologic observation, skull, torso, upper and lower limbs
Request By: Dr. Bruno Muntz, ILM
Received From: Hand to hand, Mette Brinkman
Date of Exam: 20/07/1998
Time of Exam: 1100 hours
Place of Exam: Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin
DECEDENT
Decomposed human adult found at German Historical Museum 18-7-1998
CRANIAL
The skull is complete and that of an adult. Bone quality is good. No antemortem healed or healing fractures are present. No congenital abnormalities or anomalies are present.
POSTCRANIAL
The skeleton is complete and that of an adult. Bone quality is good. Moderate remodeling is present in the right and left acromioclavicular and in the left tibiofemoral joint. No antemortem healed or healing fractures are present. No congenital abnormalities or anomalies are present.
A total of twenty-five (25) fractures and perforations are present in the following locations:
2—right humerus
3—right radius
2—right ulnas
2—left radius
1—right clavicle
1—left clavicle
1—sternum
5—ribs
6—vertebrae (4 thoracic, 2 lumbar)
1—right innominate
1—right femur
DENTAL
Thirty-two (32) permanent teeth are present at the time of death. All maxillary and mandibular roots are fully formed. Only fragmentary crowns remain, rendering observation impossible. (See odontology report.)
SUMMARY
The decedent is an adult male whose bones exhibit no congenital anomalies or deformities, no evidence of disease, and no healed fractures or surgical modifications. Perimortem blunt and sharp force trauma has caused extensive damage to the dentition, skull, torso, and long bones of the lower and upper extremities.
Hanne L. Windman, M.D.I 20 July 1998
Hanne Windman, MD 20 July 1998
III. THE FORENSIC ODONTOLOGY REPORT
FORENSIC ODONTOLOGY:
POSTMORTEM ORIENTATION AND RECONSTITUTION
AUTOPSY: 20-07-1998
DECEDENT: THOMAS, CHRISTOPHER (PRESUMED),
DOB 1952-09-19
ODONTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: 20-07-1998
ILM: 2000-43271-CO01
MORGUE: 32885
POLICE INCIDENT REPORT: BPD 08443
ME: DR. BRUNO MUNTZ
At the request of Dr. Muntz, I examined, at the Institute of Legal Medicine in Berlin, radiographs of the jaws and teeth of human remains found in the German Historical Museum in an apparatus called an iron maiden. The body was identified as ILM 2000-43271-CO01. See appendix 2.
• The victim had at least 32 permanent teeth present in the jaws at death;
• The victim had 32 teeth present when postmortem radiographs were taken;
• All crowns had been destroyed by blunt force trauma, leaving only roots embedded in the alveoli.
• Second lower left molar broken off and discovered in victim’s shirt pocket (sent to U.S. lab for further testing)
INDIVIDUATING FACTORS
Age is estimated at 35 to 50 years based on the following observations: full formation of the wisdom tooth roots, very large pulp chambers, minimal periodontal resorption.
CONCLUSIONS
The remains designated 2000-43271-CO01 are those of an adult aged 35 to 50 years at the time of death. No crowns remain
for observation. All crowns appear to have been destroyed by blunt force trauma. No antemortem dental records exist for comparison.
Hermine Kettgen, DDS 20 July 1998
Hermine Kettgen, DDS.
Forensic Odontologist
IV. THE FINGERPRINT COMPARISON REPORT
Report: 01-32432
Latent Examiner: Liesl Schwede #2766
Case Title: BNM
Comparison Date: July 20, 1998
Victim: Unknown
Location: German Historical Museum
INKED IMPRESSIONS
Print(s) of: Unknown
Print(s) taken by: Bruno Muntz, MD
Date print(s) taken: July 20, 1998
Total number of print(s): 1
Location of print(s): left fifth digit, hand
Condition of print(s): partial
Comparison requested by: Bruno Muntz, MD, Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin
Dossier supplied by: San Francisco PD (USA), via Bruno Muntz, MD
RESULTS OF EXAMINATION
Lift 1: Positive identification to left fifth finger of THOMAS, CHRISTOPHER, DOB 09/19/52
OTHER SUBJECTS COMPARED WHO WERE
NOT IDENTIFIED
None
Acknowledgments
It is impossible to thank everyone who has been a part of this enormous project. The first person I have to thank is my sister Lamia. I can’t think of a better person to collaborate with, and were it not for her attention to detail, her foresight, and vision, I doubt this book would be as gripping a read as it is today.
When I first embarked on this project, I approached some of the writers I knew well and asked them if they wanted to participate. Jonathan Santlofer, John Lescroart, and Tess Gerritsen agreed without asking how much they were getting paid or even receiving many details about the project. Participation from other writers snowballed from there.
As originally conceived, this book would have been an anthology had it not been for my late friend Les Pockell. An experienced hand in publishing and a vice president at Grand Central Publishing, Les possessed a mind that was as sharp as Sherlock Holmes. We became good friends and whenever I visited New York we had lunch or drinks with another friend, Susan Richman. One day, over drinks, Les suddenly paused when he heard about my plans to publish an anthology and donate the money to cancer charities. “If you want sales, Andrew, turn this into a novel in chapters,” he said. “I read one of those when I was a kid and it had a huge impact on me.” Then he picked up his credit card from the table and with raincoat in hand said good-bye. Susan Richman turned to me and said, “What a genius.” Sadly, cancer took the life of Les last summer; during rocky times with this project I’ve often felt Les’s invisible hand guiding me along.
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