Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (19 page)

An in-depth search of the doctor’s background and connections had turned up nothing untoward, at least nothing that would make him the target for such a violent death.

‘Yes, but these aren’t your run-of-the-mill revenge killings; this is something on a higher plane, a work of art, if you will,’ Reuben continued, waving his beloved pen in the air. ‘Our killer is undoubtedly well read, obviously highly agile, and will have a very domineering demeanor; will appear to be an definitive alpha male to those around him. There will have been a trigger, a recent event that acted as a significant stressor for our man and set him off on his distructive path.’

He paused for dramatic effect. ‘My belief is that we’re dealing with someone who is fashioning for themselves the very thing they see lacking in the moral architecture of this world, but which they have found in the fantastical world of a medieval manuscript.’

Reilly’s head shot up. ‘Medieval manuscript? You’re thinking he has some kind of blueprint for this?’

Yet all along the theatrical setup of the manner of death for all three killings had been niggling at her. She’d sensed the symbolism was familiar. Had she seen ... read about such a setup before?

‘Absolutely.’ Reuben paused once again to heighten expectation. ‘I believe our killer is casting himself in the role of Minos, one who judges and dispenses the divine retributive justice of
The Divine Comedy
.’

Reilly gasped. ‘Dante ...of course ...’

And all of sudden, everything began to make sense.

‘D
an who?’ Kennedy asked.

‘Dante Alighieri. The author of a famous medieval poem called
The Divine Comedy
,’ Reuben explained. ‘The part called
Inferno
is about a journey through Hell. There are nine different levels, and in each one, sinners are punished in various ways for various sins.  OK ...’ He picked up a nearby cup and went to take a sip, then remembered it was coffee. He set it down quickly and turned back to the team. ‘Let me explain further. The
Inferno
opens with a description of the process of judgement, whereby souls are categorized according to their particular transgression, judged and sentenced to their allotted place in perdition. Responsibility of this awesome task fell on the shoulders of a mythical demi-god known as Minos, who is often represented in the poem as a humanoid somewhere between a Minotaur and the sea god Neptune. As I said, I believe our killer is casting himself in this role.’

‘Huh. Doesn’t sound like much of a comedy to me,’ Kennedy commented.

‘A common misconception, my good man. The conventions of fourteenth-century Italian literature required that works be sorted into two major groups: tragedy, high literature; and comedy, low literature. Tragedy was written in formal Italian and did not end well for the protagonists  there was no happy ending. Comedy, on the other hand, was written in the local dialect, or vernacular language – the Florentine Tuscan dialect, in this instance  and typically had a happy ending. Dante, as a political statement in a time of great local upheaval, used the common Florentine Tuscan dialect to write what he then called simply
The Comedy
. So because the work ends with the highest achievement of the ultimate level of heaven, it has, of course, a happy ending. Common language and a happy ending therefore met the contemporary literary definition of  “comedy”.’

‘Right.’

‘Coffey was a journalist,’ Reilly spoke quickly, her words trying to keep up with her brain, as all at once the pieces began falling into place. She’d studied Dante’s
Inferno
at college and had a half-decent recollection of it. ‘He used words to exploit people. In one of the circles, flatterers are steeped in human excrement – Coffey was dumped into his own septic tank ...’

‘The Eighth Circle, Bolga Two, to be precise.’ Reuben continued. ‘Steeped alive in their own excrement, which is supposed to represent the filthy lucres with which their tongues polluted the world.’

‘Or just, journalists are full of shit?’ Kennedy said, putting it somewhat more succinctly.

Reuben gave him a dismissive look. ‘Now the policeman. When we apply the same coding scheme to your friend Mr Crowe, the second victim, we get round one of the Ninth Circle, or Caïna. In this mythical realm, those who betrayed their state were frozen in ice up to their faces. So yes, the number fits the punishment, but does the punishment fit the  “crime”? Is the killer trying to intimate that the trusty policeman was somehow traitorous to the people of the state?’

Chris looked at Kennedy. ‘That guy Ivan was right. Crowe must have been taking kickbacks.’

‘Maybe. This guy certainly figured he was up to something,’ he replied. ‘We’ll get on to it, talk to Maggie again.’

Reilly fixed Reuben with a quizzical expression. ‘What about the doctor? What was his trangression?’

‘It seems this too has yet to be discerned, but, again, the manner of death should give us some clue. The Seventh Circle has three rings, the middle one inhabited by the suicides. According to Dante, these poor souls are transformed into thorny bushes and fed upon by harpies, winged spirits that are half woman, half magpie. We had birds feasting on the corpse in the hawthorn tree. I’ll wager that this is the scene the killer was attempting to evoke.’

‘Meaning that Jennings actually killed himself?’ Chris was confused with how the explanation was unfolding.

‘No,’ Reilly replied. ‘We know from the ME that he was put there alive, and I doubt he would have slashed his own torso.’

‘So was our good doctor actually a bad one?’ Reuben wondered. ‘Maybe a little too willing to help distressed patients shuffle off this mortal coil?’

‘It’s an angle, if nothing else,’ Chris admitted reluctantly. ‘We’ll put in a request to see if we can get access to his disciplinary record. Maybe it might help shine some light on anything like that.’

Reilly shuddered, remembering all the times she’d considered how irreparably morally damaged the human race could be, and how much easier it would be if God acted as a punisher, and just stood up and started punishing sinners. Now some lunatic was taking that very calling to heart, taking it upon himself to be the punisher.  But instead of finding it reassuring, she found it bone-chilling.

‘So what’s the pattern?’ Chris asked, as though expecting further explanation. ‘OK, so you say they’re all connected to this poem. But what’s their connection to each other? I mean, there are shysters and criminals all over the place. Why single out these guys for punishment, and why this way? There’s more than just the poem in the message the perpetrator’s sending us. It’s got to be deeper.’

Reilly shook her head. ‘Deeper, Chris? I think it’s pretty deep already, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ Reuben replied with a sideways glance at Chris. ‘It isn’t very deep at all. Actually, it’s ridiculously shallow. Detective Delaney is right. This isn’t the real message, it’s simply part of the delivery.  He needs us to know that this is about the
Inferno
, and that the Circles are somehow important. It’s like we’ve found the bottle, but we still have to smash it open to see the note inside.’

Reilly looked at Reuben. ‘Good work on the symbolism. I think you’ve nailed it.’

‘Don’t mention it, but I really must go now,’ he announced. ‘I have important work to do.’ Putting his pen in his inside pocket, he buttoned up his jacket, and straightened his tie. ‘Naturally, I shall continue to apply my considerable talents to the resolution of this case. Rest assured, though,’ he warned, his tone grave, ‘there may well be more bodies before you catch this particular perpetrator. A single, dedicated individual, obviously technically adept, who’s determined to be judge, jury and executioner for all he considers to be morally compromised.’ Reaching the doorway, he flicked his scarf around his neck. ‘And if he’s styling himself as Minos then I fear he’s only just getting started.’

Gary and Lucy both appeared in Reilly’s office that afternoon.

Reilly put down the notes she was reading. It had been years since she’d studied the text, so she’d printed out Dante’s entire poem from the internet. But it was lengthy and the translation complex, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she should be looking for.

She looked up at the lab techs. ‘I’m guessing from your faces that you have some good news for me.’

Lucy grinned and nudged Gary. ‘Told you she’d guess. When I was a kid my dad always knew exactly what I’d done just from the expression on my face. Still does, actually,’ she added wryly.

‘Bet that was hell when you’d just had a hot and heavy date,’ Gary chuckled.

‘Are you insinuating that I was promiscuous?’

He blushed. ‘No ... I just meant—’

Reilly smiled. ‘Why don’t you two just tell me what’s going on, before Gary digs himself an even deeper hole?’

Shooting a mock glare at her colleague, Lucy headed down the corridor while Gary waited to hold the door open for Reilly. ‘Cheers, boss,’ he whispered as she passed.

‘Don’t mention it.’

The lab was brightly lit, a faint smell of chemicals in the air. Reilly followed Lucy over to her workbench. ‘You were working on the Coffey soil samples again? The ones with the horse feed trace.’

Lucy nodded.

‘What did you get?’

The younger woman held up two sheets of paper. ‘This is the chemical profile for the soil samples we took – minus the feed trace.’ She pointed to the second sheet of paper.  ‘I referenced it against some soil database samples from around the country.  This is the closest match.’

Reilly looked at the two sheets – the spiky lines illustrated the values of certain key organic chemicals in the soil: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. ‘That’s a pretty close match – where’s this sample from?’

‘The whole area around Kildare has similar soil.’

Thanks to her rudimentary knowledge of Irish geography, Reilly knew Kildare was an adjoining county within fifteen miles or so of Dublin.

‘And even better,’ Lucy added enthusiastically, ‘Kildare is horseracing country. Lots of studs and horse farms down that way.’

‘Interesting.’ Another gaping hole in Reilly’s grasp of local knowledge.

‘I thought I might take a trip down that way soon,’ Lucy said. ‘Take some comparative samples, and see if I can narrow down the ones we have any further.’

‘Good thinking.’  She turned to Gary. ‘What do you have?’

‘Well, I’ve been examining trace from Jennings’ clothes.  Take a look at this.’ He indicated a slide on the electron microscope.

Reilly held her hair back from her face, bent down and peered through the eyepiece.

‘Duct tape is fabric tape with a rubber adhesive for waterproofing,’ he explained. ‘Of course, these days they use synthetic rubber.’ He changed the slide.  ‘Synthetic rubber is made from the polymerization of a variety of monomers including isoprene, butadiene, chloroprene, and isobutylene.’

Reilly straightened up. ‘Where’s this from?’

‘The sleeve. There were no physical traces, but last night, as we were packing the evidence away I noticed a slight discoloration, a whiter patch on the sleeve. I swabbed it, and bingo.’

Reilly smiled. ‘Good work.’

Things were looking up. Now they knew for sure that both Jennings and Coffey had been bound with duct tape – and that their killer probably lived in or worked in stables in the Kildare region. Not forgetting, of course, that he styled himself as some form of medieval vigilante.

Reilly just wished she could figure out the source of that skunk-like smell she’d picked up at the factory and the church tower.

‘You definitely don’t have skunk or coon in Ireland?’ she asked the techs again, despite having been told already that neither species was native to the country.

‘Not unless they’re kept as household pets,’ Gary told her. ‘Although I can’t see why anyone would want to. Disgusting things.’

Still, the only comparison Reilly could think of for the foul pee scent she’d been getting was skunk spray. Was there a chance their killer was keeping skunk as a pet? Domesticating such animals was common in the US, despite being illegal in the majority of states, but most people who did this usually had the mercaptan-emitting glands removed so as to disable the defensive spray.

Even if the killer didn’t do this, how could he not be aware of the pungent odor he was carrying around? Or was he leaving it behind on purpose? Reilly made a mental note to ask Reuben if there was anything symbolic or significant in the
Inferno
about a foul-smelling scent.

Wading her way through the translation of the medieval Italian text, she found it difficult to make sense of it. Her brain was wired for science not literature these days. Interpretations of Dante’s allegorical references were varied and many, and she couldn’t determine anything that would ultimately help them catch the man who was acting as punisher, or, more importantly, help identify his next victim.

T
hat night, Chris lay wide awake in the darkness, wondering if he was losing it. On his way home from work earlier, he’d passed by a bridal shop and for some reason had stopped outside it, staring mindlessly at the window display – for how long he wasn’t sure.

Melanie was getting married at the end of next week.

He tried to pretend he hadn’t remembered, or it didn’t mean anything to him, but his subconscious wasn’t getting the message.  He could still clearly visualize that invitation. Lately, when he did manage to sleep, his dreams were fitful, full of images of him and Melanie as they tried – no, Chris corrected, as
he
tried  to piece their lives back together in the aftermath.

––––––––

F
our years earlier

Chris trudged wearily up the path to Melanie’s front door.  He paused, looked at the overgrown garden, and kicked at the weeds growing by the side of the path.  He knew that Melanie expected him to tidy the garden regularly, but when did he have the time? It was weeks since he had slept more than five hours at a stretch, he was so busy at work.

Chris shifted the bag of groceries into his right hand, reached up and rang the bell.