Fallen (10 page)

“I think it’s all oddly inconsistent. We have a man, with no history of violence, under the influence of opium, which is a passive drug, and intoxicated from absinthe, which is non-hallucinogenic.”

“You think. You said at the time they thought absinthe was a hallucinogenic. And can you really know what it was he took that night?”

“No, I guess not. We just have his words. And I’m sure quality of the product varied.” After sipping his water, Gabriel added, “But he stayed in the room. He sketched her. Why would he do that?”

“Because he had no clue what he was doing, what he had just done, out of it on drugs. Or because he took a sick pleasure in it? So he wouldn’t get caught leaving the house with blood on him?” Sara shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do criminals do anything? Crimes are random and weird.” She glanced over at the restaurant’s courtyard, its lush trees swaying in the night breeze, the fountain lit with a soft spotlight. There were tables out there, but none were being used, and it looked lonely, hidden, secretive.

“Not as random as you think. The reasons for murder are usually fairly simple. Greed. Rage. Curiosity. Greed is calculating, rage is messy, and curiosity kills are staged. It’s the psychopath who curiosity kills, and psychopaths all have two things in common—they feel no remorse and they don’t want to be caught.”

“Was John Thiroux a psychopath?”

Gabriel’s dark eyes stared steadily at her. “I don’t think in this case anyone at the time ever considered it could be a premeditated crime. They seemed to assume it was a crime of passion, and I would have to agree, given the frenzy of the kill. Mutilating the face is considered a personal crime by modern profilers. If he did it, he probably wasn’t a psychopath, because it would be odd for him to stay at the scene of the crime. Psychopaths don’t want to be caught, and you would think he would have planned an escape if he had intended to kill her. But the police and the prosecutor never approached the murder as intentional. The entire court case revolved around Thiroux’s culpability, his state of mind at the time of murder . . . Was he conscious of his actions? Strong enough in his stupor to kill violently? The coroner thought only a person of great strength could have committed the crime. The prosecutor contended that in a drunken rage, anyone can wield a knife to that fatal effect.”

Unfortunately, Sara figured the prosecutor probably had the right of it. Adrenaline and rage could allow almost anyone to kill when the victim was in a vulnerable position like Anne had been—in bed, possibly asleep already. “But if it wasn’t him, who was it? Could someone have come in and murdered her while he was just sitting there drugged out?” Sara had a hard time picturing that. It seemed like he would have heard something. Had a sense of danger. But then again, she knew what two sedatives at bedtime could do. Her house could have burned down around her some nights and she wouldn’t have known. That had been the point.

“Someone she knew? A stranger? I don’t know. But I imagine it wasn’t all that hard for someone to come and go undetected. The neighbors were used to seeing various men in and out of the house. No one would have paid attention.”

“But none of the women in the house said they saw anyone.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Didn’t most of them also claim to be occupied at the time?”

Sara felt an inexplicable blush creep up her face, which irritated her. They were prostitutes, of course they had been having sex. That wasn’t news, nor was it anything to be embarrassed about, since it wasn’t like she was talking about sex in relation to herself. Yet for some reason, there was heat in her cheeks as Gabriel smiled at her. “Yes, I think all but two of them were supposed to be occupied with men.”

“And people living in that kind of area, in that hand-to-mouth, vicious lifestyle tend to keep their nose to the ground and mind their own business. They don’t want to be involved in anything that might negatively impact them. We see that today too. You can have a gang shooting with seventy-five witnesses and they’ll all claim they didn’t see a thing.”

“I’m sure.” Sara shifted back to let the server set her salad down on the table in front of her. When he retreated, she asked Gabriel, “So what is the ultimate question here?”

“Did John Thiroux kill Anne Donovan? That’s the ultimate question. How intoxicated was he and could a man in that state of inebriation kill with that kind of fury? If he didn’t do it, who could have? If he did do it, how was it possible that he got away with it? And if forensic science had existed in the nineteenth century, could they have solved the crime? Or is the human factor of the jury always the deciding factor in a criminal case in court regardless of the forensic evidence?”

“Can we really answer any of those?” The task seemed daunting. The records were sparse. The evidence, for the most part, was unavailable to them. Sara considered herself a lab technician, not an investigator. She conducted serological and DNA analysis of unknown substances and evidentiary material from crime scenes and then wrote a report about it. Even though she was determining questions like whether a dried rust-colored liquid was blood or not, and if blood, whether or not it was human, she wasn’t involved in actually connecting that information to the criminal investigation. Wasn’t sure she knew where to start.

But Gabriel raised his water glass to her in a cocky toast. “We’re going to try.” Then he glanced over at her salad as she stabbed a cranberry, and his mouth curved up. “The Degas Salad, huh?”

“It’s very good,” she said, not sure how to read the expression on his face. He looked like something had amused him, a private joke. “Have you ever had it?”

Gabriel didn’t answer, his fork sitting unused next to his own chopped salad. “I haven’t been here in a long time.” He glanced around the restaurant. “It hasn’t changed much.”

“It’s very nice.” It was. A quiet, elegant restaurant with well-trained staff. She had been surprised that it had been his choice for a spontaneous dinner, having for some reason expected him to suggest sandwiches or burgers. “I guess the salad is named for the artist Degas. Didn’t he live here for awhile?”

“For about a year. So he gets a salad named after him.”

“Maybe it’s not named after him. Maybe it’s a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Sara swallowed her mouthful of lettuce and pecans and stared across the table, past the candlelight dancing off the votive, at Gabriel. He was an attractive man, his skin flawless, his cheekbones graceful, chin proud, hair unexplainably long, yet perfect for him. Overall it was a pleasant package of a man. Worth glancing twice at it, but nothing so extraordinary you should remember five minutes after walking past. Just another reasonably good-looking male. It seemed that should be the case. Until she met his gaze, and was reminded every time of how she couldn’t dismiss him, couldn’t push him from her thoughts. When she met those brown eyes, whether by intention or accident, they arrested her. Just absolutely stopped her, drew her in, held her. And she could see depth there, sorrow, a silent, desperate plea.

It had to be her. She was seeing what she wanted to see. Reflecting her own emotions onto him. Wanting to not be alone in her confusion, her grief, her search for a future that she could understand, embrace.

“What
do
you believe in?” she asked.

That sent his gaze skittering over her left shoulder. Then he picked up his fork. “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”

Definite secrets there. A story. “Like you don’t hear music anymore?”

“Yeah, something like that.” He stabbed his salad. “So how long have you been a forensic scientist?”

Not very subtle, but she’d let him change the subject if he needed to. “Seven years. I got my degree eight years ago, but since I haven’t been working this year I guess I can’t call it being a forensic scientist for eight years.”

“Don’t beat yourself up for taking some time off.”

Easier said than done. “I can’t help it. It makes me feel useless.”

He shrugged. “So be useless for awhile. Who cares? You’re entitled to be useless in your grief for a bit.”

Sara was so shocked by his response that she actually let out a brief laugh. She had expected a pep talk, a variation of the same one she’d heard from friends repeatedly over the past year about how she needed to forge ahead, work through it. No one had ever given her permission to be useless before.

“Who the hell said you had to spend every minute doing something meaningful? You can’t busywork your emotions away.”

God, that was the truth. She had tried to do that for two months after her mother’s death, and had discovered that when she ignored her feelings, they just reared up and bit her in the ass when she was least expecting it. “You’re absolutely right.”

Finishing her wine, she stared at him in wonderment. It was odd, surreal, weird, yet so completely right that she was sitting across from him, at that particular moment. And with one casual sentence, he had banished a year’s worth of guilt she had been carrying around. She had been through something brutal and debilitating, and while some people could brazen their way through, she couldn’t. And that was okay.

“So you’re a writer, a pianist, a photographer, and a philosopher. What other hidden talents do you have? Tell me about yourself.”

Tell me your story
, she really wanted to say.
Share that pain in your eyes with me
. It was a palpable need, the urge to hear his sorrow, to comfort him the way he had her, just by his company. His silent acceptance of her oddities.

“What do you want to hear?”

Everything. “Why the Degas Salad bothers you.”

Gabriel laughed. “It just does. No other painter gets a salad. What makes him so special?”

Sara dropped her fork, suddenly getting it. “You paint too, don’t you?”

“No. Not anymore.”

Of course. Not anymore. “What do you still do?”

“I write true crime books.” He lifted his fork, his smile charming. “And I have dinner with beautiful blond women.”

“One at a time, or in groups?” Sara couldn’t believe those words came out of her mouth. She was flirting. She actually remembered how, and she was enjoying it.

“Always one-on-one. I prefer no distractions.”

She had the feeling that she would really enjoy being the sole focus of Gabriel’s romantic intentions. “Are you distracted easily?” Sara picked up her glass of chardonnay, swishing the liquid around and around before taking a sip.

His eyes dropped to her glass before immediately returning to her face. “No. I’m not distracted easily. I’m tenacious in my pursuit of what I want, whether it’s wise or not.”

If that was a warning, Sara was fairly sure her hormones weren’t heeding it. She felt the smooth caress of his words all the way down her body, and the warmth between her thighs wasn’t the result of wine.

“What is it that you want?” she asked him, knowing she was being reckless, flirting both with Gabriel and danger.

If a certain small part of her wanted the excitement of hearing him say “you,” she should have expected that didn’t mesh with what she knew of Gabriel’s personality. He wasn’t a charmer, nor was he always obvious.

“I want to solve a murder. Then do it again.”

Of course he did. So did she. But it still felt deflating to hear him say it so baldly. Which was ridiculous. She had no intention of engaging in any sort of affair with him.

“Then I’ll be free to pursue other things I want.”

And that was all it took to reignite her desire.

Sara had envisioned Bourbon Street as a sort of really long pub crawl, and while that was accurate, nothing had prepared her for the assault of sound, smell, and sights. There were people everywhere, walking in and out of bars and clubs, talking, laughing, spilling drinks, grabbing beads thrown off of balconies, and groping each other companionably. Music poured from every direction, spun by DJs and played by live cover bands. Lights blinked and flashed, splashing across the dark, humid night, bright and raucous, yet somehow never entirely penetrating the corners and side-street shadows.

“Hey, how about a lap dance for your lady?” a doorman said to Gabriel with a wink.

Gabriel shook his head. “No, thanks.” But then he turned to her. “Unless you want one.”

“Uh, no.” Definitely not her thing. Though looking around, she was starting to wonder what was her thing. She’d been pelted on the head by a set of Mardi Gras beads, which hadn’t really been all that fun. She was wearing them now over her T-shirt to blend in a little. To try to embrace the experience.
What
experience remained to be seen. Gyrating to hip-hop wasn’t her thing any more than a lap dance was, though she did like to dance to classic party music. She had an odd fondness for eighties music, probably because her mother had enjoyed blaring Journey, Boston, and Whitesnake her entire childhood. Somehow though she didn’t see herself jumping out on the dance floor in her denim skirt, T-shirt, and ballet flats with Gabriel.

It was too loud to have a real conversation. Which left drinking and people watching. Gabriel gestured they should go into a bar, so Sara forged ahead of him at his urging, picking her way through the crowd until she reached a bar stool. The bartender asked her what she wanted and she ordered another glass of chardonnay. Before she could even open her purse, Gabriel had paid for it, brushing aside her protests.

“Thanks. Aren’t you getting a drink too?” she asked him. Sara realized that while she’d had several glasses of wine throughout the night, he had only been drinking water.

He shook his head, putting his wallet back in his pocket and lifting the glass of wine to hand to her. “No, I don’t drink. I’m an alcoholic.”

Sara almost fell off the stool, her shoes slipping on the rung they were resting on. “Oh, God. I had no idea. I’m sorry.” She instinctively snatched the wineglass out of his hand, horrified that she’d been flaunting temptation under his nose all night long.