A Curtain Falls (13 page)

And dogs. Oban retrieved the stick, but dropped it when he found another dog for a playmate— this one an energetic white terrier who wanted only to be chased.

“Shall we walk?” Isabella gestured toward the dogs.

“Of course.” I picked up the white box and stepped into pace alongside her. Looking south, a few of Manhattan’s tallest buildings— the kind they called skyscrapers— rose majestically into the sky. And other, similar buildings were under construction as the city continued to expand northward.

I glanced down at Isabella. She was smartly dressed in a heavy, dark blue coat, the sort women wore outdoors to protect their nicer clothing from the dirt and muck that was the reality of the city’s streets. She had dressed appropriately for the weather, unlike other women I observed passing by. In small groups or
accompanied by gentlemen escorts, they strolled in elaborate hats and silk dresses sure to spoil from today’s mud. Isabella was the only woman within sight who walked alone— a habit that I knew concerned Alistair, despite her many assurances that Oban was escort enough.

“It’s been a while, Simon. You might have called on us. I know Alistair invited you on several occasions around the holidays.” Her rich brown eyes looked up at me, full of reproach.

“I had trouble making it into the city,” I said, knowing the white lie would not fool her.

I had purposely avoided Alistair, politely declining some invitations while ignoring others. I had treated him unfairly and I had hurt Isabella— and that realization cost me a fresh pang of guilt. But I had believed no good could come of continuing my connection with them. While Alistair had claimed to be my partner in good faith, determined to help me catch a brutal killer in last November’s murder investigation, he had in fact withheld crucial information from me. I had not once doubted his brilliance, but I had questioned his trustworthiness.

As for Isabella, we had become close during the weeks of that investigation. Uncomfortably close. No doubt it had been an affinity resulting from our mutual loss: the death of her husband, Teddy, and that of my fiancée, Hannah. The fact that my feelings for Isabella might have had something to do with my decision to keep away was a truth I was not yet prepared to acknowledge.

When I could bear her silence no longer, I added lamely, “Work has kept me busy.”

She nodded. “And now work brings you here again. . . .”

It was the opening I’d hoped for. “Actually, it leads me to
ask for your help once again.” I looked down at her to gauge her reaction.

“Please.” She shook her head. We had caught up to Oban, and she retrieved his favorite stick from the ground. He grabbed it from her hand and trotted beside us as we followed the walking path toward the lake, where a handful of ice skaters struggled against the melting ice this Saturday morning.

“Oban,” I said. “It’s an unusual name. Is it from the whiskey?” I hazarded a guess.

“No, Simon, not the whiskey.” She laughed, and it was the merry peal that I remembered so well. “But the whiskey— and my dog— are both from the town of Oban in Scotland. It’s a small, beautiful resort town on the west coast, where I stayed for a while after Teddy died.”

We were silent for some moments as an awkwardness rose again between us.

“It wasn’t kind of you to treat Alistair as you did,” she said slowly. “When we met you last fall, you reawakened something in him that I haven’t seen since—” she took a breath, “well, since Teddy died. He felt it keenly when you ignored him these past months.”

“Nonsense.” My voice was rough. “Alistair has his own obligations at the law school, as well as what appears to be a full social calendar.”

“Yes, but not one of his many friends or associates is like you. Most of them want something from Alistair— particularly, to take advantage of his wealth and connections. No one will stand up to him, let him know when he’s wrong. As you’ve done, Simon. And he respects you for it.”

“Maybe.” I gave her a bemused smile, going on to explain to
her how things had gone last night— how Alistair and I had tried to talk with the actors and actresses backstage and been completely upstaged by the
Times
reporter. “His name’s Jack Bogarty, and he’s even more charming than Alistair,” I added ruefully. “So last night I considered: how could we have better success? And the answer involves you.”

“Me?” She seemed genuinely puzzled.

I shrugged. “People seem to trust you. I observed it last November, when you helped me interview witnesses in the Win-gate investigation. Maybe it’s because you’re not a police detective. Or even a worldly criminologist of a certain age. I promise you will encounter no danger.”

But she ignored me, unconcerned as always about personal risk.

“So you’d like me to speak with the actresses at the Gar-rick?” She was serious, sober.

“Yes. This afternoon, if you can.”

She turned to face me. “All right, but I have one condition. I want to be fully included in the case. Meaning, I want to accompany you to the autopsy later this morning.”

“How did you . . . ?” I didn’t bother to finish the question. Obviously Alistair had told her when he saw her earlier this morning. He had known she was headed to Central Park, for he had told me where to find her.

“I want to be involved, Simon.” Her voice was even. “If you want my help, I won’t be pushed to the sidelines.”

“Unless it becomes too dangerous,” I said. I looked down at her with concern. “We’re hunting a killer who targets young women.”

“Actresses, that is,” she reminded me.

“Not necessarily. Just because the two recent victims we know of . . .” I couldn’t finish saying it. Luckily, I didn’t have to.

“I see,” she said. “You think there could be more who don’t fit the pattern.”

“Or—the pattern could be something larger and more complex than we think at this point. That’s what worries me most.”

She called Oban back to her side and, turning around, we headed back to the western edge of the park and the Dakota building. “I guess we’d better get to the autopsy then, and begin learning what we can. Things that are complicated always take time to understand,” she added with a reassuring smile.

But I didn’t necessarily have to understand this killer— at least, not completely.

I just had to stop him.

City Coroner’s Office

It was called the dead house. And, as coroner’s physician, Max Wilcox was its guard and protector. He defended the place— and those unfortunate enough to end up there— from all interference, political or otherwise. Max had only two allegiances to speak of: the first to science and the truths it revealed, and the second to the poor souls who found themselves upon his autopsy table. A bald-headed man with lean features and a concise, soft-spoken manner, he moved with graceful agility among large soapstone tables. Each table had grooves carved into it, designed to channel all manner of fluids into the drains located strategically around the room. Three tables were stacked with equipment, including vials, sponges, jars, even scales. And there was no mistaking what lay covered under a white sheet on the room’s back table: Annie Germaine’s corpse.

This was the part of my job I enjoyed the least. With my aversion to blood and my weak stomach, I prepared myself for these visits by forcing my mind to detach. By focusing only on strict analysis, I usually managed to subdue my visceral reaction. Even so, I blanched in reaction to the room’s overwhelming stench— a peculiar mix of bleach and bodily fluids that made my eyes tear and my breath come in short gasps.

Wilcox had just completed the postmortem examination and was ready to explain his findings. Alistair and I barely merited his attention when we entered the room, but the moment he noticed Isabella, he stared long and hard.

“You’re not dressed,” he said finally, his tone disapproving.

Before we had been permitted to enter the autopsy room, one of the coroner’s assistants had ushered us into separate changing rooms. Alistair and I had dutifully put on the white trousers, coats, and hats that were customary to wear when entering the autopsy room. While Isabella had chosen a white coat to cover her dress, the pants would not have fit even had she chosen to remove her petticoat and skirt and wear them. And the hats we had been provided would not have begun to cover her thick hair, pulled back as it was into a loose twist.

She returned Wilcox’s gaze steadily. “I’m not dressed because you’ve no appropriate clothing for ladies.”

Wilcox seemed to consider the situation for a moment. Women were entering nursing school in greater numbers and becoming active in the medical profession. But that was not to say a man like Max Wilcox welcomed them, even as observers. He took his time sizing up Isabella.

“What you will see here is not for the timid,” he warned darkly.

“Fair enough.” She set her chin in determination.

“Just don’t come too close to the autopsy table or my open samples. I need to protect my evidence from outside contaminants.” His voice was gruff, but he seemed to suppress a smile. “But you,” he gestured to Alistair and me, “should come here. I have things to show you.”

We obeyed almost reluctantly, leaving Isabella toward the back of the room, next to a glass-covered cabinet that held a variety of steel utensils.

“You’re seeing Mulvaney after we’re done here?” Max asked me.

I nodded, adding, “Or at least telephoning him.”

“Hrmmph.” He made a guttural noise. “Well, you can tell him he was right. All external evidence to the contrary, this young lady is indeed a victim of murder. My internal postmortem examination leaves no doubt.”

He pulled back the sheet that covered Annie Germaine to reveal her face and upper body— or what was left of it after the coroner’s scalpel had done its work. My stomach lurched as I noted the start of the deep Y-shaped incision that began at her shoulders and ran down the front of her chest. He had needed access, I knew, to her major internal organs.

Alistair’s intake of breath was sharp, but Max, a consummate professional, ignored our reactions and continued to explain.

“When I examined this young woman, with the aid of advanced equipment such as I did not have at the theater, I immediately noticed some very small pinpoint hemorrhages. You can see yourself if you look closely at the conjunctiva.” He took his steel utensil that resembled a buttonhook and turned her eyelid
inside out, just as he had done yesterday at the theater. “The tiny red marks can indicate asphyxiation.”

“So this gave you your evidence of strangulation?” Alistair asked.

“On its own? No. Alone, it can neither prove nor disprove strangulation.” Max closed the eyelid and put down his button-hook tool. “But taken together with other signs? Yes.”

He crossed to the table next to us and returned with three jars containing what looked to be dry samples of skin and sliced muscle tissue.

“The problem confronting all of us was the entire absence of external evidence of injury. And it was important to wait until this morning before conducting the autopsy. You see, the element of time is quite often necessary for the severity of internal injury to appear.

“When I cut the Y incision and accessed her lungs, I immediately discovered that they were collapsed, with no air in them. I determined that I needed to dissect her cervical vertebrae. In other words, her neck.”

He drew forth a large specimen jar filled with a pink organ of some kind and reached for a pair of steel tongs. Slowly, he pulled it from the specimen jar and we were once again overwhelmed by the smell of its formaldehyde preservative, designed to prevent shrinkage or distortion. Despite the odor, we went closer to look.

“This is her larynx, including her hyoid bone,” he announced. “You will see that I left her tongue still attached.” He turned the organ around for us to observe.

I swallowed hard and stole a glance at Isabella. She was
leaning forward with interest— handling the gruesome sight better than I was.

“There was no sign of fracture to the laryngeal skeleton. But look at these telltale signs of contusion hemorrhage in the deep tissue.”

We observed the red marks he had indicated.

“You used the term
asphyxiation
earlier,” I said. “Can you tell whether she was smothered or strangled?”

His eyes lit up as he led us to the back table, nearer where Isabella continued to stand. I glanced at her and caught her stoic expression. With another steel instrument, this one with a hooked end, he picked up a sample of what I knew to be skin.

“This,” he said with a confident air, “is what tells me she was definitively strangled. As the skin dries, sometimes small contusions such as these become apparent. They are from the anterior of the neck. And notice the slight curvilinear abrasion that appears as a small set of two. That is a sign of two fingernail marks.”

“Made by her killer?” Alistair leaned in eagerly.

“No.” Wilcox’s tone took on the indulgent note it often had when he had to explain something to an amateur. “Such marks are usually made by the victim, and these marks are no exception. I measured them against her own nails to confirm she made them herself.”

“It was likely an involuntary reaction on her part, to pry off whatever— or whoever— was choking her,” I added for Alistair’s benefit.