“Abyssus abyssum invocat is a saying that dates back at least a thousand years. It means, ‘One evil deed leads to another.’ ”
Maura stared at the words. “He’s telling us this is only the beginning. He’s just getting started.”
“And these crosses”—Sansone pointed to a hornet’s nest of them, clustered on one wall, as though massing for attack—“they’re all upside down. It’s a mockery of Christianity, a rejection of the church.”
“Yeah. We’ve been told it’s a satanic symbol,” said Jurevich.
“These words and crosses were written here first,” said Maura, her gaze on the rivulets of blood that had trickled down the wall, partly obscuring the stream of Latin. She read the splatters, saw the arcing droplets left by arterial spray. “Before he killed her, before he slashed her neck, he took the time to decorate these walls.”
“The question is,” said Jurevich, “did he write these words while she was lying here, waiting to die? Or was the room already prepared as a killing place before the victim even arrived?”
“And then he lured her here?”
“There’s clearly evidence of preparation.” Jurevich pointed to the wooden floor, where blood had dried in a frozen pool. “You see the nails there? He came equipped with a hammer and nylon cord. That’s how he immobilized her. He tied the cord around her wrists and ankles. Nailed the knots to the floor. Once she was restrained, he could have taken his time.”
Maura thought of what had been carved into Sarah Parmley’s flesh. Then she looked up at the same symbols drawn on the walls in red ocher. A crucifix, turned upside down. Lucifer’s cross.
Sansone said, “But how would he lure her up here? What could possibly have drawn her to this house?”
“We know that a call came in, to her motel room,” said Jurevich. “It was the day she checked out. The motel desk clerk transferred it to her room.”
“You didn’t mention that,” said Jane.
“Because we’re not sure it’s significant. I mean, Sarah Parmley grew up in this town. She probably knew a lot of people here, people who’d call her after her aunt’s funeral.”
“Was it a local call?”
“Gas station pay phone, in Binghamton.”
“That’s a few hours away.”
“Right. Which is one reason we discount it as coming from the killer.”
“Is there another reason?”
“Yes. The caller was a woman.”
“The motel clerk’s sure about that? It was two weeks ago.”
“She doesn’t budge. We’ve asked her several times.”
Sansone said, “Evil has no gender.”
“And what are the chances that a woman did this?” said Jane, pointing to the wall, to the bloody handprints.
“I wouldn’t automatically reject the possibility it’s a woman,” said Sansone. “We have no usable footprints here.”
“I don’t reject anything. I’m just going with the odds.”
“That’s all they are. Odds.”
“How many killers have you tracked down?” shot back Jane.
He regarded her with an unflinching stare. “I think the answer would surprise you, Detective.”
Maura turned to Jurevich. “The killer must have spent hours here, in this house. He must have left hair, fibers.”
“Our crime-scene unit went over all these rooms with ALS.”
“They couldn’t have come up empty.”
“Oh, they came up with plenty. This is an old house, and it’s been occupied on and off for the last seventy years. We turned up hairs and fibers all over these rooms. Found something that surprised us. Let me show you the rest of the house.”
They went back into the hallway, and Jurevich pointed through a doorway. “Another bedroom in there. Lot of dust, plus a few cat hairs, but otherwise nothing that caught our interest.” He continued down the hall, past another bedroom, past a bathroom with black-and-white tiles, giving the rooms only dismissive waves. They came to the last doorway. “Here,” he said. “This turned out to be a very interesting room.”
Maura heard the ominous note in his voice, but when she stepped into the bedroom, she saw nothing at all alarming, just a space devoid of all furniture, with blank walls. The wood floor here was in far better shape than in the rest of the house, its boards recently refinished. Two bare windows looked out over the knoll’s wooded slope, which swept down to the frozen lake below.
“So what makes this room interesting?” asked Jane.
“It’s what we found on the floor.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“It showed up when we sprayed it with Luminol. The crime-scene unit surveyed the whole house, to see where our killer might have tracked blood. Whether he left traces that we couldn’t see in other rooms. We found his footprints in the hallway, on the stairs, and in the foyer, all of them invisible to the naked eye. So we know he did try to clean up as he exited the house. But you can’t really hide blood. Spray it with Luminol, and it’ll light right up.” Jurevich looked down at the floor. “It sure as hell lit up in here.”
“More shoe prints?” asked Jane.
“Not just shoe prints. It was like a wave of blood had washed through this room, splashed on the wall. You could see it in the cracks between the floorboards, where it seeped into the molding. That wall there, there were big swipes of it, where someone tried to wash it away. But they couldn’t erase it. Even though you can’t see it now, it was all over the place. We stood here, looking at this whole damn room glowing, and it freaked the hell out of us, I can tell you. Because when we turned on our lights, it looked just the way it does now. Nothing. Not a trace of blood visible to the naked eye.”
Sansone stared at the walls, as though trying to see those shocking echoes of death. He looked down at the floor, its boards sanded smooth. “This can’t be fresh blood,” he murmured. “Something else happened in this house.”
Maura remembered the FOR SALE sign, half-buried in snow, posted at the bottom of the knoll. She thought of the weathered clapboards, the peeling paint. Why was such a handsome home abandoned to years of neglect? “That’s why no one will buy it,” she said.
Jurevich nodded. “It happened about twelve years ago, just before I moved to this area. I only found out about it when the realtor told me. It’s not something she likes to advertise, since the house is on the market, but it’s a matter of disclosure. A little detail that every potential buyer would want to know. And it pretty much sends them running in the other direction.”
Maura looked down at the floor, at seams and cracks harboring blood that she could not see. “Who died in here?”
“In this room, it was a suicide. But when you think about everything else that happened in this house, it’s like the whole damn building is bad luck.”
“There were other deaths?”
Jurevich nodded. “There was a family living here at the time. A doctor and his wife, a son and daughter. Plus a nephew staying with them for the summer. From what everyone says, the Sauls were good people. Close family, lots of friends.”
Nothing is exactly what it seems, thought Maura. Nothing ever is.
“Their eleven-year-old son died first. It was a heartbreaking accident. Kid headed down to the lake to go fishing, and he didn’t come home. They figure he must have fallen into the water and panicked. They found his body the next day. From there, it just got worse for the family. A week later, the mother takes a tumble down the stairs and snaps her neck. She’d been taking some sedatives, and they figure she just lost her balance.”
“That’s an interesting coincidence,” said Sansone.
“What?”
“Isn’t that how Sarah Parmley’s aunt died? A fall down the stairs? A broken neck?”
Jurevich paused. “Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it. That is a coincidence, isn’t it?”
Jane said, “You haven’t told us about the suicide.”
Jurevich nodded. “It was the husband. Think ab
out it—what he’d just suffered through. First his son drowns. Then his wife falls down the stairs. So two days later, he takes out his gun, sits here in his bedroom, and blows off his own head.” Jurevich looked at the floor. “It’s his blood on the floor. Think about it. A whole family, practically wiped out within a few weeks.”
“What happened to the daughter?” asked Jane.
“She moved in with friends. Graduated from high school a year later, and left town.”
“She’s the one who owns this house?”
“Yeah. It’s still in her name. She’s been trying to unload it all these years. Realtor says there’ve been a few lookers, but then they hear what happened, and they walk away. Would you live in this house? You couldn’t pay me enough. It’s a bad-luck place. You can almost feel it when you walk in that front door.”
Maura looked around at the walls and gave a shudder. “If there’s such a thing as a haunted house, this would be it.”
“Abyssus abyssum invocat,” said Sansone quietly. “It takes on a different meaning, now.”
They all looked at him. “What?” said Jurevich.
“That’s why he chose this for his killing place. He knew the history of this house. He knew what happened here, and he was attracted to it. You can call it a doorway to another dimension. Or a vortex. But there are dark places in this world, foul places that can only be called cursed.”
Jane gave an uneasy laugh. “You really believe that?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter. But if our killer believes it, then he chose this house because it called to him. Hell calls to Hell.”
“Oh man,” said Jurevich, “you’re giving me goose bumps.” He looked around at the blank walls and shuddered, as though feeling a chill wind. “You know what I think? They should just burn this place. Burn it right down to the ground. No one in his right mind will ever buy it.”
“You said it was a doctor’s family living here,” said Jane.
“That’s right. The Sauls.”
“And they had a nephew staying with them that summer.”
Jurevich nodded. “Fifteen-year-old kid.”
“What happened to that boy? After the tragedies?”
“The realtor says the kid left Purity a short time later. His mother came and got him.”
“Do you know anything else about him?”
“Remember, it was twelve years ago. No one knew him very well. And he was only here for that summer.” Jurevich paused. “I know what you’re thinking. The kid would be twenty-seven right now. And he’d know all about what happened here.”
“He might also have a key to the front door,” said Jane. “How can we find out more about him?”
“His cousin, I assume. The woman who owns this house, Lily Saul.”
“But you don’t know how to find her, either.”
“The realtor’s been trying.”
Jane said, “I’d like to see the police reports on the Saul family. I assume the deaths were all investigated.”
“I’ll call my office, have the files copied for you. You can pick them up on your way out of town. Are you driving back to Boston tonight?”
“We planned to, right after lunch.”
“Then I’ll try to have them ready by then. You might want to head over to Roxanne’s Café. Great turkey club sandwiches. And it’s right across the street from our office.”
“Will that give you enough time to copy everything?”
“There’s not much to the files beyond the autopsies and sheriff’s reports. In all three cases, the manner and cause of death were pretty apparent.”
Sansone had been standing at the window, gazing outside. Now he turned to Jurevich. “What’s the name of your local newspaper here?”
“All of Chenango County’s pretty much covered by the Evening Sun. Their office is in Norwich.” Jurevich looked at his watch. “There’s really nothing else to show you here.”
Back outside, they stood in the biting wind as Jurevich locked the front door and gave it a hard rattle to make sure it was secure. “If we make any headway on our end,” he said to Jane, “I’ll give you a call. But I think this killer’s going to be your catch.” He zipped up his jacket and pulled on his gloves. “He’s playing in your neighborhood, now.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“He shows up in his fancy car and gets invited right into the crime scene,” said Jane, shaking a French fry at Maura. “What’s that all about? Who does Sansone know in Justice? Even Gabriel couldn’t find out.”
“They must have a reason to trust him.”
“Oh, yeah.” Jane popped the French fry into her mouth and snatched up another, agitation fueling her appetite. In a matter of minutes, she’d reduced an enormous club sandwich to a few crumbs of toast and bacon, and now she was dragging the last of her fries through a pool of ketchup. “Trust some millionaire with a crime-fighting hobby?”
“Multimillionaire.”
“Who does he think he is, Bruce Wayne? Or the guy on that old TV show. The rich man who’s a cop. My mom used to watch it.”
“I think you’re talking about Burke’s Law.”
“Yeah. How many rich cops do you know?”
Maura sighed and picked up her teacup. “Not a one.”
“Exactly. It’s a fantasy. Some bored guy with money thinks it’d be a kick to play Dirty Harry, except he doesn’t want to actually get down and dirty. He doesn’t want to walk a beat or write up incident reports. He just wants to drive up in his Mercedes and tell us idiots how it should be done. You think I haven’t dealt with people like him before? Everyone thinks they’re smarter than the police.”
“I don’t think he’s merely an amateur, Jane. I think he’s worth listening to.”
“Right. A former history professor.” Jane drained her coffee cup and craned her neck around the booth, scanning the busy café for the waitress. “Hey, miss? Could I have a refill over…” She paused. She said to Maura, “Look who just walked in.”
“Who?”
“Your friend and mine.”
Maura turned toward the door, gazing past the dining counter where men in billed caps sat huddled over their coffee and burgers. She spotted Sansone at the same instant he saw her. As he crossed the room, a dozen heads swiveled, gazes fixed on the striking figure with silver hair as he strode past tables and headed toward Maura’s booth.
“I’m glad you’re still in town,” he said. “May I join you?”
“We’re about to leave,” said Jane, reaching pointedly for her wallet, the coffee refill conveniently forgotten.
“This will only take a minute. Or would you rather I mail this to you, Detective?”
Maura looked at the sheaf of papers he was carrying. “What’s all that?”
“From the Evening Sun archives.” He placed the papers on the table in front of her.
She slid sideways across the bench, making room for him in the tight booth as he sat down beside her. She felt trapped in the corner by this man, whose mere presence seemed to dominate and overwhelm the small space.
“Their digital archives go back only five years,” he said. “These are photocopies from the bound archives, so the reproduction isn’t as good as I’d like. But it tells the story.”
Maura looked down at the first page. It was from the front page of the Evening Sun, dated August 11, twelve years earlier. Her gaze at once fixed on the article near the top.
BOY’S BODY RECOVERED FROM PAYSON POND
The accompanying photo showed a grinning imp of a boy, cradling a tiger-striped cat in his arms. The caption read: Teddy Saul had just turned eleven.
“His sister Lily was the last known person who saw him alive,” said Sansone. “She was also the one who spotted him floating in the pond a day later. What surprised everyone, according to the article, was the fact the boy was a very good swimmer. And there was one other interesting detail.”
Maura looked up. “What?”
“He supposedly went down to the lake to fish.
But his tackle box and pole were found a good twenty yards from the water’s edge.”
Maura handed the photocopy to Jane and looked at the next article, printed August 18. A week after little Teddy’s body was found, tragedy again struck the Saul family.
GRIEVING MOTHER’S DEATH MOST LIKELY ACCIDENTAL
Accompanying the article was another photo, another heartbreaking caption. Amy Saul was pictured in happier times, beaming at the camera as she held a baby in her lap. The same child, Teddy, whom she’d lose eleven years later to the waters of Payson Pond.
“She was found at the bottom of the stairs,” said Maura. She looked up at Jane. “By her daughter, Lily.”
“Again? The daughter found both of them?” Jane reached for the photocopied article. “This is starting to sound like too much bad luck.”
“And remember that call made to Sarah Parmley’s motel room two weeks ago. It was a woman’s voice.”
“Before you go jumping to conclusions,” said Sansone, “it wasn’t Lily Saul who found her father’s body. Her cousin did. It’s the first and only time Dominic Saul’s name appears in any of these articles.”
Maura turned to the third photocopy and stared at a photo of a smiling Dr. Peter Saul. Beneath it was the caption: Despondent over death of wife and son. She looked up. “Is there any photo of Dominic?”
“No. But he’s mentioned in that article as the one who found his uncle’s body. He’s also the one who called the police.”
“And the girl?” asked Jane. “Where was Lily when this happened?”
“It doesn’t say.”
“I assume the police checked her alibi.”
“You would assume so.”
“I wouldn’t assume anything.”
“Let’s hope that information’s in the police files,” said Sansone, “because you’re not going to get it from the investigator himself.”
“Why not?”
“He died last year of a heart attack. I found his obituary in the newspaper archives. So all we have to go on is what’s in the files. But think about the situation. You’re a local cop, dealing with a sixteen-year-old girl who’s just lost her brother, her mother, and now her father. She’s probably in shock. Maybe she’s hysterical. Are you going to harass her with questions about where she was when her father died when it clearly looked like a suicide?”
Tess Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Bundle Page 177
