Richard Montanari (63 page)

    'Why
these people, Michael? Why did you choose them?'

    'They
got away with murder, Jess. Surely you can understand that. They won't be
missed.'

    'They
had families,' Jessica said. 'Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers. It's not up to
us.'

    Drummond
laughed. 'We can't do it all, you and I. I've watched it for years. Police do
their jobs, prosecutors do their jobs. Still people get away with it. Tonight
all these people dance with the dead. Eddie Robles, Kenny Beckman, his sow of a
wife. So many more.'

    'What
about George Archer?'

    Drummond
smiled. 'I'm not guilty on that one, your honor. But believe me, it wasn't for
lack of effort. I tracked him for years. Ever since I got out of law school.'

    'Who,
Michael? Who killed him?'

    'Do
your job, detective. I did mine.'

    Drummond
leaned away from Lucy, the razor moving away from her throat momentarily.
Jessica sighted down her weapon. She had a shot.

    'Then
why Lucy?' Jessica asked. 'She's innocent.'

    'No,
she is
not.
' On the word
not,
Drummond pulled Lucy closer.
Jessica no longer had a line of sight. 'It's because of her that Peggy van
Tassel is dead.'

    'I
don't understand.'

    'Little
Lucy could have told the police about George Archer. She didn't, and who knows
how many other little girls Archer killed? This little piggy is part of the
problem.'

    Drummond
stopped at the doorway to the kitchen. 'That's far enough, detective. Put your
weapon down.'

    Jessica
did not move. 11:54.

    
'Do
it
now.'

    'Okay,
Michael,' she said. She lowered her Glock to the floor. 'It's down.'

    Jessica
glanced to her left. Through the doorway she could see the bare feet and
rolled-up trousers of a body on the floor, a few drops of blood on the tile.
She also saw the knife on the counter. It was the precise scene from that night
twenty years earlier, a re-creation of the murder of Gabriel Thorne. Except
that there was a new twist. There was a band of white paper and a red candle on
the counter.

    Jessica
looked again at the kitchen floor.

    
Is
this David Albrecht's body
?

    The
horrors were piling up.

    'Look,'
Jessica began. 'Dr. Thorne is already dead.' She pointed to the kitchen.

    Drummond
glanced into the kitchen, at the body on the floor. He looked back at Jessica.
His mind was gone, lost in some kind of vortex between the night of Thome's
murder and now.

    'It
really is
then
?' he asked.

    'Yes.'

    Drummond
began to nod rapidly. 'He was going to take her away, see,' he said. 'For good.
That's why he had to die.'

    'I
understand.'

    Drummond
turned slowly toward the stereo cabinet behind him, touched the
play
button.

    Christa-Marie
seemed to return to the moment. She began to play a new piece, plucking one of
the strings - the same note, twelve times.

    'What
is
Danse Macabre
without the chorus?' Drummond asked. He turned up the
sound.

    A
moment later, beneath the resonance of Christa-Marie's cello, was a mix of
sounds - street sounds, sirens. Beneath it all a chorus began to sing:

    But somehow
the loudest part of this new background was the sound of a baby cooing.

    'The
dead own the world tonight,' he said. 'Listen to them. I've been collecting
their voices for years.' 11:56.

    The
voices began to grow in volume. Screams, shrieks of terror, death wails.

    'Look,'
Jessica said. She circled to her left. She had to get into the kitchen. 'My gun
is down, Michael. I can't hurt you. The doctor is dead. Let the girl go. We'll
talk.'

    'It's
not about me. It's never been about me.' Drummond began to sweat. He waved the
razor around, bringing it perilously close to Lucy's face. The chorus of
screams grew in the background. Christa-Marie's playing increased in volume.

    'She
gave herself to him,' Drummond said, pointing at the body on the floor. 'She
doesn't have long, you see. It had to be done.'

    'Who
doesn't have long?'

    'Teacher.
She's dying. That's why I had to write faster.'

    Drummond
took one step backward, into the kitchen, dragging Lucy with him. 'Listen to
them all,' he said. 'Can you hear?'

    'I
hear, Michael.' 11:58.

    Jessica
moved forward.

    'What
about Gabriel Thorne?' she asked, gesturing to the body on the kitchen floor.
'Christa-Marie didn't kill him, did she? It was you, wasn't it? You and Joseph
Novak?'

    'Thorne
was in love with her. He manipulated her.' Drummond shook his head, his eyes
filling with tears. 'Joseph was weak. He was always weak.'

    'But
you let Christa-Marie take the fall.'

    Tears
ran down his cheeks. 'I've had to live with that for twenty years.'

    Drummond
backed to the center of the kitchen as
Danse Macabre
neared its final
glorious section.

    From
somewhere beneath the cacophony came a man's voice: 'Michael.'

    
There
is one note left to play.

    
One
final note.

    Again,
from somewhere: 'Michael.'

    Drummond
hesitated for a moment, his head cocked to the sound. 'Dr. Thorne?'

    
One
more note.

    
One
more voice.

    Drummond
looked at Christa-Marie, playing furiously in the music room.

    Midnight.

    Michael
Drummond lifted the razor high into the air. He pulled back Lucy's hair,
exposing the white of her throat.

    'Teacher
...' he said.

    As he
brought the razor down Jessica saw the body on the floor move.

    It
was not David Albrecht.

    Detective
Kevin Byrne rolled to his right, raised his Glock 17 and fired, slamming a
single bullet into Drummond's head, just above the man's right eye. Thick
gobbets of bone and brain tissue burst from the back of Drummond's skull, onto
the white-tiled wall.

    Drummond
collapsed face down onto the counter, onto the band of cloud-white paper, his
bloodied face painting the sheet in a grotesque parody of a musical staff. His
body slumped to the floor.

    Jessica
looked into the kitchen, the sounds of the discharged weapon ringing in her
ears. As she stepped into the corner of the music room, and embraced Lucy
Doucette, she met Byrne's gaze. He was covered with blood, not his own. He had
been lying in wait. He looked at her, but his eyes saw something else, perhaps
something that had happened in this room a long time ago, something that had
just now come to a close.

    The
Echo Man was dead, his symphony now complete.

    For
the second time this night, the Philadelphia Police Department processed a
crime scene at this address. Dozens of personnel moved like silent ghosts
through the now brightly illuminated spaces.

    'I'm
way past upset,' Jessica said. 'When did you set all this up? Yesterday?'

    'No,'
Byrne said. 'Bullshit.'

    She
paced. Byrne gave her time.

    'Jess,
trust me on this. The arrest was real. Diaz and his team had evidence that the
tattoos were mailed to my address. They also had hair and fiber evidence from
my van. They came in hard to get me. I was completely blindsided.'

    'What
the hell were you doing here?'

    Byrne
looked at the house, then back. 'I'm not sure my answer is going to be good
enough for you.'

    'Try
me.'

    Another
pause. 'I knew the answer to all of this was locked inside Christa's mind. I
knew time was short, but I had to work that angle.'

    Jessica
just listened, deciding not to tell Byrne that she already knew about the
evidence Diaz had. But she now realized that it was Drummond who had planted
the evidence, hoping to buy himself more time tonight, counting on the arrest
of Kevin Byrne.

    'When
we got to the Roundhouse they patted me down,' Byrne said. 'They took my
cellphone. Russ Diaz started scrolling through the calls I'd made today. He
also saw the folder that holds the photographs. He saw this.' Byrne held up his
phone. 'I hadn't really looked at it before. When I did, it all fell into
place.'

    Byrne
tapped the screen, showed Jessica a picture. In it, Christa- Marie stood on the
steps of a huge stone building. Next to the scarred oak doors was an
inscription. Byrne tapped the screen again, enlarging the words.

    What
you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven
into the lives of others.

    Jessica
looked at Byrne. 'This is what Drummond said at his leaving party.'

    Byrne
nodded.

    'And
this picture was taken at Convent Hill,' she added.

    'Yeah.'

    Jessica
recognized the place. It was in the photograph that she had found in Joseph
Novak's journal. The photo captioned with the word
Hell.

    'Drummond
had been to Convent Hill to visit Christa-Marie. That was where he got the
inscription. From the Roundhouse we called the Prentiss Institute and had them
look through the records. Michael Drummond studied with Christa-Marie. Both he
and Novak were her students on the day when Gabriel Throne was murdered.'

    Jessica
took a step away, absorbing the new information. She turned back, her anger far
from dissipated.

    'I
had my weapon out, Kevin. More than once.'

    'I
know.'

    'Something
could have gone really wrong, really fast.'