A Cruel Season for Dying (47 page)

“Suicide points more to guilt than innocence.” He stood, turning to make tea.

“We can’t know that unless the killer strikes again.” There was an edge of excitement in her voice, as though she were holding
her breath, waiting for another murder.

“I’m leaving for Baltimore today.” He turned and saw she’d sat down. The room’s fluorescence had turned her legs to milk.

She raised her brows. “That’s convenient.”

He went back to the hot plate. “What do you want, Faith?”

She rose, moving to where he stood behind the desk. “You’re no fool, Sakura. Don’t let McCauley, or any of the others, force
your hand. You know as well as I do that the chances of Graff’s guilt were iffy at best. That killer’s still out there. When
you do get him, I want some solid evidence.”

“I’m running out of time.”

The green in her eyes shifted. Then reaching down, she slipped her hand between his thighs. A laugh curled in her throat.
“I can still give you a hard-on.”

His fingers tightened around her wrist, pulling her away.

She shrugged, then smiled. “But everyone knows it’s only what happens above the belt that counts with James Sakura.”

The ductwork in the apartment house was relatively new and spacious, and without his jacket the man fit easily inside the
galvanized corridor that ran between ceiling and floor and within the skin of the building. He left his shoes with the parka
and the camera bag next to the grille he’d replaced, and he crawled as silently as he could to the outmost lineal point, the
junction between the topmost floor and this one.

He had followed the light. From Police Plaza to the subway. Then emerged behind the man and the woman at the station, tracking
them through the streets to this building and its cryptlike lobby. He had waited in the shadow of a column, watching as they’d
walked together past the elevators and the ornate marble stairs, to disappear into a discreet hallway. After moments he’d
followed to find at its end a small private elevator to the top floor, its access controlled by a keypad.

Security was lax, and he was able to look around the lobby—a tourist with his camera, interested in old buildings—till the
receptionist at the desk had returned to her novel. Then he’d slipped down the stairs to the underground parking he had noticed
from the street. There were several vehicles parked in the designated spaces, including an SUV in a slot labeled
DARIUS
. He took his time checking everything out, then rode the elevator as far as it would go and, finding the stairwell locked,
he made his way into the ductwork.

He braced himself now inside the metal walls, the leg he’d reinjured in the church screaming its protest. He ignored the pain,
snaking upward the twelve-plus feet to the ceiling of the forbidden floor, crawling to an open grille. Below him was a hallway
and nearby a door. He could see the top of its frame, where a spare key was hidden.

He was still there, watching and waiting, when finally the door opened and the man and the woman came out, the ineffable light
of Samyaza spilling from the body bag called Darius. The woman was speaking, saying that Sakura would not be back from Baltimore
till
Wednesday. In silence he looked on as the couple passed below him and took the private elevator down.

In minutes he was inside the apartment, and for a short time he just sat in the dark, breathing.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
The woodsy scent,
pine,
he decided, hung heavy inside his nostrils, flushed deep into his lungs. The top note. Lower, the molecules were sweeter.
Fruity. He licked his lips and swallowed full. Then in the next inhalation he found the musk, elemental and defining. It clotted
inside him. A solid knot. A nucleus of beginnings. And endings.

He stood, expanding his vision to take in the whole of the living room. Love seat. Table. Rug. Then like a mass of unformed
flesh, a sofa in front of a bone white wall.
Leather.
He could smell the leather. Slowly he moved forward, hands reaching out like eyes. Touching.
Soft,
like new skin. Onto his knees he pressed his face into a cushion.
Ahhh,
his head falling backward. His musk here too. Soaked into the leather, a part of it now. His tongue stroked the pillow’s
edge, where the pieces of hide had been fitted and stitched. The darkness of the abyss parted, and Gadriel entered.

He collapsed against the floor, weak and shuddering with the deliciousness of his victory. He felt himself hardening, and
he pressed the palm of his hand flat against his erection. With his head tilted back, he gurgled, the musky rawness bubbling
inside his throat. Spittle ran down his chin, a single pearl landing on his chest.

Somewhere a clock ticked. He opened his eyes. Regaining his balance, he stood and walked to the telephone. He lifted the receiver.
Trembling, he pressed the numbers and waited.

“Hello.”

Her sweet voice. Zavebe’s voice.

“Hi, Hanae. Adrian Lovett. Had to miss class this afternoon,” he said. “But I hope we can get together before Christmas. I
have a little something for you.”

James Sakura sped along the turnpike. It felt like running away, even if it were true that his speech at the Law Enforcement
Conference was something that had been scheduled months ago. He was glad at
least that he hadn’t booked a flight. It was better to be driving, despite the chancy weather. It gave him the illusion of
control.

Adelia Johnson had called, catching him at home as he was packing his overnight case. Celia Mancuso had confessed to the lie.
The necklace was hers, not her sister’s, and had been lost in a make-out session with some boy. Without the necklace there
would never have been enough for an arrest, or even the credible threat of one. Without the necklace Thomas Graff might still
be alive.

He had managed to avoid McCauley before he’d left the office, which was a clear indication of the chief’s avoiding him. Not
quite ready to let the ax fall. Waiting, no doubt, for reaction to Kahn’s revelation to develop in the press. For public anger
to coalesce. A predictable anger that the monster, now preying on children, had not been caught, after all. That a priest,
no matter how flawed, had been hounded to his death by an incompetent investigation.

He had seen it all before. The cathartic public rage allowed to peak before the announcement, which would inevitably come
when the killer struck again. Lieutenant James Sakura would be replaced as the head of the task force by an officer of no
lesser rank than captain. Proof of the seriousness of the NYPD in addressing public concern.

He had never failed before, not in any serious way. And he found himself wondering how he would react when failure had to
be faced. This was itself troubling. A warning sign. He was observing himself like an object, as if emotion were divorced
from mind. He had strayed from his path, from the Tao.

An image of Hanae sadly bidding him good-bye flashed like silver in his mind. His wife had been unhappy for weeks. He had
sensed it clearly but had shut it out, allowing her to protect him from whatever was the trouble. He must be ruthlessly honest.
The truth was, he did not accept that he could fail, either in his job or in his marriage. But such confidence was unrealistic.
A mask for his fear.

He
could
fail. Any attempt to salvage his case must be based on this truth. He could waste no more energy on protecting his ego from
McCauley, or from himself. When he returned from Baltimore, he would have very little time. He must make the most of it. And
despite any cost, he had much to gain from a very long talk with his wife.

He was nearing the bridge now and he reached to turn off the wipers. The snow, which had seemed to follow him from the city,
had ceased.

Michael Darius, standing in the hallway, reached above the door frame for the key to the apartment. It was foolish putting
the key here. Probably foolish to lock his door at all, since only the staff and a very few people had the code for the elevator
keypad. But he had always locked his apartment, a symbolic thing no doubt, as symbolic as the hidden key had become. It was
Margot who had started leaving the key above the door. It had stayed here since she’d left him, in some half-unconscious belief
that someday she might come home and need it to get in.

Darius opened the door and, as if in a gesture of mere habit, put the key back into its place. He moved into the dark apartment
and, tossing his coat on the sofa, crossed the room to the long windows. The night he looked into was cold and still. The
snow with its stinging fury had died away—a torrent of white gnats that had plagued the day, matching his mood. An anxious
restlessness he could not shake, even here.

He moved to the cabinet and took out a bottle of scotch. Poured himself a double. The message light on his phone was blinking,
the light too irritating to ignore.

Sorry for wimping out on going back with you to Jimmy’s office this afternoon.
Willie’s throaty voice, distinctive.
Catch you there tomorrow…. Oh, and, Michael, bring my notes. I left them on your coffee table.
A hesitation before the click, as if she might have said something more.

He sank into the corner of the sofa. Downed half of the scotch. He had been glad today when Willie had decided not to join
him. Glad that Sakura had already been gone when he’d returned to Police Plaza. He had hoped that his time alone with the
files might produce some fresh insight. It had not.

He finished the drink and stared into the darkness. Something was not right. His restlessness was an energy that buzzed inside
these
walls. He reached and switched on the lamp, as if the light might annul its piercing frequency. But his tension only increased.

He stood. Knowing where he was going. But not why.

Their bedroom was as he’d left it. But not the same. Beneath Margot’s heady lingering of civet and roses, his and not his,
the odor of peaches dying.

T
he weather was again worsening by the hour. Clouds like dirty woolen batts seemed pinned into place. Working all day with
Darius in Sakura’s box of an office, Willie felt a gray oppression that was more than a reflection of the sky.