Murder Among the Angels (17 page)

Since Jerry was still busy, she decided to take a walk. As she headed north, she heard snatches of sound from a distant loudspeaker, and wondered where they were coming from. As a compound on the river shore came into view, however, she realized from the guard towers and the sodium vapor lamps that shone even in the sunshine that the source was the Ossining Correctional Facility, otherwise known as Sing Sing, and, next to Alcatraz, probably the most famous prison in America.

She hoped that its overcrowded cell blocks would soon be accommodating another inmate: one who would be there for the rest of his life.

Six minutes later, she found herself at the south end of the railroad station parking lot, which sat at the foot of a cliff. The station building was located at the other end of the parking lot, a hundred yards away. Moreover, there were no other buildings, and the access road came in from the opposite end. Though there wasn’t an empty parking spot in the lot, the station was devoid of people, and she guessed that no one other than an occasional teenager would come here in the middle of the night.

The murderer could easily have parked his car at this end of the lot, removed a body from his trunk, and carried it along the tracks to the summer house.

A few minutes later, she hooked up again with Jerry back on the riverbank by the summer house. For a few minutes, they stood looking out at the gray-green water. Then Charlotte said: “It was probably right at this spot that the murderer dumped the bodies into the river.”

“Two of them anyway,” Jerry concurred. “I think he probably chopped up Kimberly’s body somewhere else.”

“Why?” Charlotte asked.

“Because the smell would have alerted somebody. The smell isn’t bad now because it’s only just started to warm up. But it would have been terrible in early September. We always used to get bodies in August and early September that would have gone undiscovered at any other time of year.”

“That would also explain why Kimberly’s body parts washed up in Manhattan, while the body parts of the others washed up here,” Charlotte said. “He probably cut the body up somewhere else, and threw it in there. I wouldn’t imagine that the parts turn up very far from where they’re thrown in.”

“I think you’re probably right, Graham,” Jerry said. He smiled. “I’m glad we’re paying you the big bucks.” Then he turned serious: “We’re going to have to bring Dr. Louria in for questioning,” he said.

The next day was overcast, with intermittent drizzle. But only the worst weather deterred Charlotte from her daily pre-breakfast walk. She was turning the corner onto First Avenue when she noticed the screaming headline on a copy of the
New York Post
displayed in a news kiosk: “
WESTCHESTER PLASTIC, SURGEON QUESTIONED IN LOOK-ALIKE MURDERS
.” The headlines in the other newspapers were similar. She immediately bought a copy of the
Post
, and then copies of the
Daily News
, the
New York Times
, and
Newsday
, all of which also contained stories on the murders, although the
Times
, with its typical disdain for any story that smacked of sensationalism, had buried theirs on the fifth page of the metropolitan section. All the stories included photographs of Dr. Louria and descriptions of his career as a cosmetic surgeon and his volunteer work with the World Health Organization. Several also included photographs of the summer house, or, as the
Post
called it, the “Hudson River charnel house.” The combination of the fact that the photographs had been taken from some distance (it must have been cordoned off), and that the newspaper reproduction made it look almost black, gave the charming little building a decidedly sinister look—an impression that was enhanced by its sheathing of leafless vines. The
Post
also featured an article on Jerry’s career with Manhattan Homicide, which was entitled “One Smart Cop.” The photograph must have been an old one from their files: it pictured him with a thinner face and a fuller hairline than Charlotte had ever known him to have, and she had known him for ten years.

As she drank her morning coffee and ate her customary bagel, Charlotte read every last word of every story. It was clear from Jerry’s statements that he had gone to great lengths to make the point that Dr. Louria was only being questioned, not accused. She readily understood why he had done so. Dr. Louria as the murderer simply didn’t make sense. It was also clear that the questioning of Dr. Louria had been fruitless, as had that of his housekeeper, who hadn’t even admitted to knowledge of the Lily look-alikes, though Dr. Louria himself had said that she knew about them.

As she sat there pondering the case, her housekeeper, Julie, came in. Julie and her husband Jim were a Chinese couple who had worked for Charlotte for over thirty years. Her highbrow friends referred to them as Jules and Jim after the French art movie of that title.

“Why so many newspapers?” asked the ever-inquisitive Julie, nodding at the newspapers that were spread out on the counter. “Aha,” she said, reading the stories over Charlotte’s shoulder. “Westchester. That’s why you’ve been spending so much time up in Westchester lately.”

Charlotte looked up at Julie over the tops of her reading glasses—half glasses with tortoiseshell frames. There wasn’t much that Julie didn’t catch, and what she didn’t, Jim did.

“What do you think?” Julie asked. “Did the doctor do it?”

Julie was a great follower of tabloid crime. She also watched the live broadcasts of criminal trials on court television. She had been following the Yonkers murder case for weeks with the avidity that sports fans reserve for the National Football League play-offs.

“I don’t think so,” Charlotte said.

The phone rang, and Julie answered it. “For you,” she said, holding out the phone. “It’s Chief D’Angelo,” she added. “It must be a new development in the look-alike murder case,” she whispered as Charlotte took the phone.

“I thought you might want to come up,” Jerry said. “We just got a call from the pastor at Zion Hill Church. Peter De Vries found a skull in the undercroft this morning. The county crime scene guys are coming over here, and then we’re all heading up to the church.”

“In the undercroft,” she repeated. It was a place where bodies were traditionally buried, but it wasn’t a cemetery. Very clever of him, she thought. “He outwitted you, didn’t he?” she said. The look-alike murderer was beginning to take on his own personality.

“Yeah,” Jerry said unhappily. “We had every cemetery in town staked out, and he goes and deposits the skull in the basement of the church.”

“It will take me an hour or so to get there,” Charlotte said.

“That’s okay. We expect to be there for a while.”

Though it was still rush hour, Charlotte was going against traffic, and it took her only twenty-five minutes to get to the outskirts of Zion Hill, in spite of the wet weather. At the light at the Zion Hill Road intersection, she turned right and followed the road up the hill to the turnoff for the church parking lot, where she pulled into an empty space at the end of a row of police cars. Then she climbed the stairs to the church lawn. At the top of the stairs, she paused again to take in the view. Though it was only misting in Zion Hill, she could see storm clouds hanging over the Hudson Highlands, and she could feel the wind picking up. The water was already getting choppy: it was only a matter of time before the storm came whipping down the river.

Continuing on to the church, she asked a policeman posted outside the entrance how to get to the undercroft, and was directed to the door at the base of the crenelated bell tower. As a result of their discussion with Peter, she took notice of the door, which was hand-carved of the same rich wood she’d seen at Archfield Hall, and fitted with ornamental hardware that had been wrought of monel in an intricate medieval design.

She opened the door, and was greeted by another policeman, who was sitting on a Gothic-style side chair in what appeared to be the vestibule of the church. Racks for hanging up coats lined the walls.

He stood up. “Mrs. Lundstrom?” he said.

She nodded.

“The chief’s in the undercroft,” he said. Crossing the vestibule, he opened yet another hand-carved door for her.

She noted that this door was of a different design—another way to God. A spiral stone staircase led downward to the undercroft, and upward, she presumed, to the belfry. From below, she could hear the murmur of men’s voices. She followed the steep, narrow stairs around until she came to yet another door, which opened into the undercroft. It was a large room—it presumably ran the length of the church—with a low, vaulted ceiling supported by twisted columns topped by early Gothic capitals.

A simple wooden altar stood at the east end, and on the altar rested Doreen Mileski’s skull. The skull was flanked by two tall votive candles in red glass containers, whose dim, flickering light made the setting all the more eerie. Like the other skulls, this one had been bleached white.

Seeing her, Jerry broke away from the cluster of crime scene specialists who were busy measuring, photographing, and dusting for fingerprints. “Hi,” he said, a grim expression on his face. He turned to the altar. “We’ve found Doreen Mileski’s skull, as you can see.”

As Charlotte looked again at the skull, she noticed the sweet fragrance that perfumed the dank air of the underground room. Then it dawned on her that it came from the fresh bouquet of lilies of the valley that lay on the altar to one side of the skull. “Jerry,” she said, “I just realized something.”

He gave her an inquiring look.

“
Muguet
is French for lily of the valley. Muguet is also the name of the perfume that Lily Louria always wore. She always ordered it from France. Remember Dr. Louria’s comments to Kimberly on the videotape?”

Jerry nodded. “Which means, as we suspected, that the murderer of the Lily look-alikes was someone who knew Lily well enough to know what her favorite perfume was,” he said.

Charlotte added: “And still had enough regard for Lily to have buried her look-alikes with her favorite scent.”

After Charlotte had taken a closer look at the skull, she and Jerry climbed back up the spiral staircase to the vestibule, where they opened yet another of the church’s beautiful doors. This door led into the church proper, where they were to meet with the pastor and the sexton, Peter De Vries. The interior of the church was unusually austere, with an open timber roof, unplastered stone walls, and a simple ceramic tile floor. Despite the spare detailing, however, the intimate beauty of the space and the richness of the materials gave it a feeling of luxurious elegance. The only decorative elements were the stained-glass windows and the statues of angels that were mounted above the arcade of the nave. As Lister had said, there were thirteen of them, six on one side and seven on the other, each with the face of Lily Louria. Or to be precise, her mother Lillian. There were no memorial plaques or statues of the saints, no stations of the cross or banners with liturgical themes. There wasn’t even a cross, which was unusual for a Christian church. Instead, the focus of attention was an altar surrounded by tall brass candlesticks. On the altar, a large Bible lay open, its pages illuminated by shafts of soft violet light that streamed down from the stained-glass windows at the sides of the sanctuary.

The effect was moving, and unearthly.

“I remember that light from when I used to come here sometimes as a kid with my friends,” said Jerry, as they looked at the Bible on the altar. “I always thought it was very spooky.”

“It is,” said Charlotte. “And very beautiful.”

As they stood there admiring the effect, a tall, thin man emerged from the door to the sacristy and headed down the aisle to join them.

He wore a black clerical shirt with a white collar, and over it, a light blue golf cardigan. An old-fashioned watch chain hung across his midsection. But he might have been wearing a frock coat and a tricorne hat, so closely did he fit the role of the old-fashioned country parson.

“Hello,” he said, extending his hand to Jerry. “I’m John Cornwall, the pastor.” He had a thick cap of dark brown hair, and a large nose whose profile matched that of the oversized Adam’s apple that appeared to be resting uncomfortably atop his clerical collar.

“Jerry D’Angelo,” Jerry said, returning his handshake.

“I believe I met you once at the town hall,” the pastor said. He gestured toward the door from which he had just emerged. “We can meet in the sacristy,” he said, and went on to add that he would be happy to answer any questions Jerry might have about the church.

“We were just admiring the unusual light in the sanctuary,” Jerry said as they continued down the aisle.

“Yes. It’s very striking. It was the product of a great deal of experimentation. The side windows are made up of red and blue medallions, and it took a while to get the proportions that would produce the right color of light. The church is famous for its stained-glass windows,” he added.

“I understand that the windows are the major attraction of the tour, which I regret to say that I have yet to take,” Jerry said. “In full, that is,” he said, adding, “Peter gave us an abbreviated version on Friday. But I don’t think today is the day to take the rest of it.”

“No,” the pastor agreed as he led them into the sacristy and showed them to two of the chairs that surrounded a table. After a few minutes of conversation about the “unfortunate incident,” they were joined by the sexton, Peter De Vries.

Peter explained that he’d discovered the skull at about nine that morning when he’d gone down to the undercroft to get out the folding wooden chairs that would be needed to accommodate the crowds that were expected for the upcoming concert.

“It was quite a shock,” he said. “To come upon it in the dark like that. At first I thought it was some kind of prank.”

“How often do you go down there?” Jerry asked.

“Not much,” he said. “We don’t use it much. I only go down there to get out the folding chairs. On big church holidays, and for the concert, basically.” He looked over at the pastor, who explained: