Jessica just nodded.
'Kevin's arrest warrant came from on high,' Westbrook added. 'I had no choice but to serve it. You know that, right?'
Jessica said nothing. She could not get the image of Kevin Byrne in handcuffs out of her mind. The two of them had made so many arrests over the years, hunted down and brought to justice so many bad people, that she could not fathom Byrne being on that side of it all. The thought was beyond nauseating.
'So, I'll see you at the Roundhouse?' Westbrook asked.
Jessica looked at her watch. 'Give me an hour.'
'You got it.'
Westbrook took a few more moments, placed a hand on Jessica's shoulder and, perhaps trying and failing to find words, crossed the large atrium, stepped through the front doors and left.
Jessica glanced across the hall, at the steps which she had seen Christa- Marie descend earlier. She had to clear her mind. She had to think.
'Do you want me to drop you somewhere?'
Jessica turned around. It was Michael Drummond.
'Josh has my car,' Jessica said.
'Okay,' Drummond said. 'As soon as that scene is clear I'll send him back.'
Drummond stepped away, made a quick phone call. When he was finished he made his way over to where Jessica stood.
'I'm sorry it came down this way,' he said.
'I don't have much to say to you.'
'What are you talking about?'
'I just needed a little time, Michael. That's all. A little time.'
'I didn't make the call, Jessica.'
Jessica looked up sharply. 'You didn't? Then how did the fucking cavalry just happen to show up?'
'Police work, detective.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Russ Diaz followed up with Kevin's cousin Patrick. It turns out that Mr. Connolly's van had a Lojack installed.'
The Lojack was a recovery system that allowed police to track and recover a stolen vehicle.
'Russ called it in as a routine stolen vehicle, and got this location,' Drummond continued. 'I had nothing to do with it.'
Jessica's anger and rage did battle with her embarrassment for assuming that Drummond had dropped a dime.
'And just so you know, I talked to Detective Diaz,' Drummond said. 'Kevin is going to be handled with respect. I won't stand for any cowboy shit.'
Jessica had so much to say that nothing would come out. What she really wanted to do was scream.
'We're going to need your full statement tonight,' Drummond added.
Jessica nodded. She picked up her service weapon, slipped it into her holster.
'I know this is hard for you, detective, but the good news, for the people of Philadelphia anyway, is that this nightmare is over.'
The feelings inside Jessica began to swell. The one feeling missing from all of it was doubt. She had no doubts about her partner. Her work, the task of proving Kevin Byrne's innocence, started right now. Before she could make a move she noticed someone standing to her left.
'Ma'am?'
Jessica turned. Standing there were two patrol officers from the Fourteenth District. The one talking to her was a big kid, twentythree or so. He was pale as a ghost, but his hands were steady. 'The house is clear, ma'am.'
Jessica looked overhead, at the high ceiling, the large rooms. 'Are you sure? It's a big house, officer.'
The kid looked a little unnerved, then turned to look behind him. Four more officers stood there, and a pair of detectives from North that Jessica recognized. The kid was saying that a total of eight police officers had searched the house and that it was empty.
'I'm sorry,' Jessica said. 'It's not a good night.'
'No, ma'am,' the kid said. 'There are two locked doors — one in the attic, one in the cellar. Other than that, the structure is clear.'
He waited a few moments, perhaps to see if there was anything else. Jessica shook her head. The officer touched the brim of his cap, and together, single file, the eight cops walked out.
As the sound of the sector cars disappeared down the driveway, Michael Drummond put on his coat. He looked at Jessica, but remained silent. He walked through the door, closed it behind him.
The house was still.
Jessica was alone.
Chapter 97
Lucy put the lantern on the bench and got her first real look at the room. It was smaller than she'd thought. There was no window. It had been bricked in a long time ago. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere. There were mouse droppings along the wall.
Peggy.
Lucy closed her eyes, tried to blot it all out.
She looked at the doorknob. It too was caked with dust. She picked up an old rag, cleaned it off. It was an old-fashioned white porcelain knob, set into a cast-metal plate. She felt along the neck behind the knob, and found the set screw. She angled the screwdriver behind the knob found the slot, gently turned. A few seconds later the set screw fell out. She carefully pulled off the knob, holding the spindle tightly. She didn't need the knob on the other side falling to the floor and making a racket. Then she went to work removing the plate. Four screws. Although she could not see that well, it looked like the screws in the plate were nearly stripped. She'd have one chance to get them out.
She looked at the head on the screwdriver, which was also rounded, dull with age and use. She put the screwdriver into the slot, put all of her weight behind it, doing her best to keep the tool perpendicular to the door.
She took a deep breath and tried to turn it. Nothing. She backed off, tried again. This time she felt purchase.
The screw turned. Not much, but it turned. Yes, Lucy thought.
A lock was just a device with moving parts, right? If there were moving parts, Lucy Doucette could handle it.
She set about her task.
Chapter 98
The house was silent in a way that no small space could ever be; silent like a presence. Every so often its tranquillity was broken by rain hitting the huge windows in the great room or a branch scraping a gutter.
Jessica had lived most of her life in a place too small, a place where the extra closet or tiny room was a premium. This was a fact of life in a Philadelphia row house. But this place — with its high ceilings, tall doorways and cavernous rooms — was too much. She didn't think she could ever live somewhere like this, although the likelihood of that happening was somewhere between never and absolutely never.
As she peered out of the front windows, anxious to get back to the Roundhouse, her phone rang. She jumped at the sound. She hoped it was going to be Josh telling her he was on the way. It was not. It was a number she did not recognize. She answered.
'Hello?'
'I'm calling for Detective Byrne.'
It was a man's voice.
'Who am I speaking to?' Jessica asked.
'My name is Robert Cole. I'm trying to reach Kevin Byrne. He gave me this number as a backup.'
'I'm his partner, Detective Balzano. Is there something I can help you with?'
'I have that report he wanted.'
'The report?'
'He had me red-ball a DNA test. Cold case.'
'I'm sorry,' Jessica said. 'What agency are you with?'
Cole went on to tell her that he ran a private, independent lab, and the work he had done for Byrne was off the record. He also told her that the job was the twenty-year-old homicide case of Gabriel Thorne.
'How much of the file do you have?' Jessica asked.
'I have copies of everything.'
'The crime-scene photos?'
'Yes.'
'Can you send me the DNA summary and the photos of the crime scene?'
'Sure,' Cole said. 'I can send the photos now, but it will take a few minutes to scan the DNA summary. It's on another computer.'
Jessica gave him her email address. Thirty seconds later the file arrived on her iPhone. Jessica tapped the file, opened it.
Cole had sent her four photographs. The first photograph was of the hallway in which she now stood. The fact
that it had been taken twenty years earlier, in the precise space she now occupied, gave her a chill.
The second photo was of the kitchen. And it was a horror show. Gabriel Thorne's body was supine on the white tile floor, lying next to the kitchen island, a pool of blood beneath him, his chest butchered.
Jessica walked down the main hall, stopped at the kitchen, turned on the light. The room had not changed. Same island, same white tile, same light fixtures. She scanned the photo and the real room, item by item. They were eerily identical, right down to the color of the kitchen towels on the rack next to the sink.
The other two photos were of the floor leading into the pantry, which was just off the kitchen, and the music room just off the pantry. The music room too was identical, except that now the cello in the corner did not have blood on it.
According to the brief summary attached to the photographs, it was believed that Christa-Marie Schцnburg had stabbed Gabriel
Thorne in the music room, then followed him into the kitchen. When he collapsed, she had continued to stab him in the chest.
Jessica tried to imagine the scene that night. She could not. But she knew what she had to do. If she was leaving shortly, locking the house behind her, she had better snuff out the candles in the music room. One by one she blew out the dozen or so candles, the scent of burned paraffin filling her head.
When the room was dark, lit only by the gas lamps on the deck at the rear of the house, she walked back into the hall, checked her watch. Where the hell is Josh? She called him, got his voicemail.
Jessica's phone rang again. She answered, but the call began to drop out. She ran down the hall toward the front door, but was still unable to get a signal. By the time she made it across the great room, she was able to hear. It was Robert Cole.
'Did you get the photos?' he asked. 'I did.'
'I'm having some trouble scanning the DNA report. I could keep trying, or I could just read it to you. Which do you prefer?'
'Read it to me.'
Cole read her the report. As he did, Jessica felt a cold finger run up her spine. It turned out that, in addition to Gabriel Thorne's and Christa-Marie's blood on the murder weapon and the floor of the kitchen, there were two other distinct DNA profiles found.
In other words, two other people had been present on the night of the murder.
What did it mean to the case? What did it mean to Christa-Marie's guilt on that night so long ago?
Jessica felt gooseflesh break out on her arms as she listened to the rest of the report.
She thanked Cole, hung up, her mind spinning.
This changed everything.
She stepped back to the front doors, opened them, fully expecting to see a sector car from the Fourteenth District at the gate. There was none. This was strange. The house would not be searched for evidence and cleared for at least twenty-four hours, and a police presence was standard procedure.
She keyed her two-way handset, spoke into it. No response.
What is going on?
She closed the doors, walked back into the main hall.
That was when Jessica Balzano heard the music.
Chapter 99
As Jessica moved across the great room the music grew louder.
It took her back to the first time she'd heard this piece in Byrne's van, the nocturne by Chopin.
She soon realized it was coming from the music room, but it sounded live, not recorded. It sounded like someone was playing the cello in that room.
'The house is clear, ma'am.'
From across the hall she noticed candlelight illuminating the room, candles she had just put out. As she approached the entrance, peering around the doorway, she saw someone sitting in a chair at the opposite side of the room. It was Christa-Marie. She held the beautiful cello between her legs and was playing the nocturne, her eyes closed.
It made no sense.
Why is she back? Who let her come back?
Jessica drew her weapon, held it at her side, rounded the door- jamb, and saw a second figure standing in the shadow of the short hallway leading to the kitchen.
It was someone she knew very well.
Chapter 100
The figure in the hallway did not move. Christa-Marie continued to play, the notes rising and falling with the sound of the wind outside. As the piece came to a crescendo Jessica stepped fully into the music room.
'Is it now?' the figure in the hallway asked.
Jessica did not know how to answer. Too many things could go awry with the wrong answer.
The figure emerged from the shadows.
Michael Drummond had changed his clothes. He now wore a navy suit with thinner lapels. It was a style that might have been popular with fifteen-year-old boys when Drummond had been a guest, and probably a student, in this house.
There was something bulky in one of his suit-coat pockets. Jessica watched his hands.
'Teacher is mad at me,' Drummond said softly.
Jessica glanced at Christa-Marie. She was lost in the music.
'Is it now?' Drummond asked again.
'No,' Jessica replied. 'It's then, Michael. It's Halloween night, 1990.'
The notion registered on Drummond's face. His features softened in a way that told Jessica that his mind was returning to that night, when all things were possible, when love burned brightly in his heart, not yet tempered by the horror of what was to come.
'Tell me about that night, Michael,' Jessica said. She began to inch closer to him.
'We went to the concert. Joseph and I.'
'Joseph Novak.'
'Yes. When we came back, he was here.'
'Doctor Thorne?'
'Doctor Thorne!' Drummond spat the name like an epithet, glanced into the kitchen, then back. Jessica circled closer.
'What happened?' she asked.
'We argued.'
As Jessica closed the distance by another few inches, she noticed a shadow to her left, right near the entrance to the kitchen, just a few feet from where Michael Drummond stood. She looked over. So did Drummond. Someone was standing there.
'Joseph?' Drummond asked.
But it wasn't Joseph Novak, of course. Somehow, Lucinda Doucette was standing there. Lucinda Doucette from the Hosanna House and Le Jardin.
In one fluid motion Michael Drummond reached for Lucy, pulling her close to him. He now had a straight razor in his hand. He flicked it open.
Jessica leveled her weapon. 'Don't do it, Michael.'
'Zig, zig, zag.'
Everything Jessica had seen in Drummond's face, everything that told her he might be ready to give all this up, was gone. What stood before her now was a feral, calculating killer.
'Let her go.'
Drummond held Lucy even more tightly. Jessica saw the young woman's legs start to sag.
'I have a little more work to do,' Drummond said.
'Not going to happen.'
Drummond brought the razor up in a flash. The gleaming blade was now less than an inch from Lucy's throat. 'Watch.'
'Wait!'
Drummond glanced at the clock. It was 11:51.
'There's no time left,' he said.
'Just put down the razor. Let her go.'
Drummond shook his head. 'Can't do it, detective. There's one note left to play.'
'We'll get you help,' Jessica said. 'It doesn't have to end this way.'
'But it does, don't you see? This must be completed.'
Jessica glanced again at the grandfather clock in the hallway. 'It's not midnight yet. Let her go.'
'Look how many unfinished symphonies there are. Beethoven, Schubert. I am not going to leave a legacy like that.'
Jessica looked at Lucy. The girl was going into shock. Jessica knew she had to keep the man talking.
'Why these people, Michael? Why did you choose them?'
'They got away with murder, Jess. Surely you can understand that. They won't be missed.'
'They had families,' Jessica said. 'Sons, daughters, mo
thers, fathers. It's not up to us.'
Drummond laughed. 'We can't do it all, you and I. I've watched it for years. Police do their jobs, prosecutors do their jobs. Still people get away with it. Tonight all these people dance with the dead. Eddie Robles, Kenny Beckman, his sow of a wife. So many more.'
'What about George Archer?'
Drummond smiled. 'I'm not guilty on that one, your honor. But believe me, it wasn't for lack of effort. I tracked him for years. Ever since I got out of law school.'
'Who, Michael? Who killed him?'
'Do your job, detective. I did mine.'
Drummond leaned away from Lucy, the razor moving away from her throat momentarily. Jessica sighted down her weapon. She had a shot.
'Then why Lucy?' Jessica asked. 'She's innocent.'
'No, she is not.' On the word not, Drummond pulled Lucy closer. Jessica no longer had a line of sight. 'It's because of her that Peggy van Tassel is dead.'
'I don't understand.'
'Little Lucy could have told the police about George Archer. She didn't, and who knows how many other little girls Archer killed? This little piggy is part of the problem.'
Drummond stopped at the doorway to the kitchen. 'That's far enough, detective. Put your weapon down.'
Jessica did not move. 11:54.
'Do it now.'
'Okay, Michael,' she said. She lowered her Glock to the floor. 'It's down.'
Jessica glanced to her left. Through the doorway she could see the bare feet and rolled-up trousers of a body on the floor, a few drops of blood on the tile. She also saw the knife on the counter. It was the precise scene from that night twenty years earlier, a re-creation of the murder of Gabriel Thorne. Except that there was a new twist. There was a band of white paper and a red candle on the counter.
Jessica looked again at the kitchen floor.
Is this David Albrecht's body?
The horrors were piling up.
'Look,' Jessica began. 'Dr. Thorne is already dead.' She pointed to the kitchen.
Drummond glanced into the kitchen, at the body on the floor. He looked back at Jessica. His mind was gone, lost in some kind of vortex between the night of Thome's murder and now.
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