Precious Blood Read online

Clearly, the killer had been able to gain access to both girls. Both had been vulnerable—he would have made sure of that. He’d probably stalked them for a while, learning 110

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  their habits, confirming their access and their vulnerability.

  Desirability was the key.

  What was it about Sunday Smith and Andie Delore that made him desire them? What characteristics did they share that made him track them, hunt them, butcher them?

  They were both students at Hutchins. They were both female, both young, both had dark hair. Both were white.

  He came back to religion. Neither seemed overtly religious, but what about the killer? Serial killers tend to kill within their ethnicity; do they also kill within their faith?

  He reached the Lincoln Tunnel at 4:00 a.m., and was home before five. Jun was fast asleep in the TV room. Jenner shook him gently, then let him out, closing the door quietly behind him.

  The loft was dark. He was exhausted, but too wired to sleep. He brushed his teeth and undressed quietly, and went to the couch; Ana had put away the sheets and pillow he’d been using.

  He walked over to the bed and watched her sleep, curled onto one side, a pillow held to her breast, the cat sprawled against her shoulder. She was so lovely, her face soft, her hair tousled. She breathed out heavily and turned, and as she turned he saw her hand held a steak knife.

  He sat down next to her, stroked her hair, and whispered,

  “Here, kitty. Let me take this.” Her eyes flickered open and she smiled at him, and relaxed her grip on the knife.

  She closed her eyes as he put his arm around her.

  Jenner lay in bed, hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. Ana was telling him about her big plan for the day: she would spend it in the TV room watching La Dolce Vita—she was going to watch all the Fellini in his collection, because he was Andie’s favorite director, and watching his movies made her feel like she was back with Andie, if only for a while.

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  Maybe she was safe now, Jenner thought. It had been five days since the murder: the killer would know that by now she’d have given any evidence she had to the police, would have given statements, looked at mug shots. He had little practical reason to interfere with her. Maybe just the threat, the terror swarming in behind the threat, maybe that was enough.

  But this wasn’t a normal man, a man who cared about

  “practicality.” This man tortured, murdered, and mutilated without gloves; he knew he was leaving his fingerprints everywhere, and he just didn’t care. This man would do whatever he wanted.

  She was lying there with her arm on his shoulder, her other hand gesturing expressively as she talked at him. Looking at her, he knew his own motives were hardly pure. He’d grown used to having Ana around. No, that too was dishonest: he actively liked it. He liked being with her.

  But when they caught the killer, when they killed the killer, when the killer killed himself, it would all be over.

  She’d go back to school; she’d see him from time to time, but it would soon begin to feel like an obligation to her. She’d feel weird about having shared his bed. At least they hadn’t had sex.

  Would she feel weird about it? He was almost twenty years older than her, more than enough to horrify her friends, enough to keep the guilt churning softly inside him. But she was very different from the girls he’d grown up with, so comfortable in her body, so unconcerned about showing it to him. Maybe it wouldn’t feel at all weird to her.

  He thought about the night before, driving back from Romen, the triumph of his discovery high in his heart, lying down next to her. He’d realized how much he wanted to touch her, to wake her up, stroke her, own her. He wanted her still, and he thought she might want him, too.

  And then he recognized that all the way back from Romen, underneath all his excited speculation, he’d been thinking 112

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  about fucking her, feeling that he’d really kind of earned it, hadn’t he?

  It was almost noon. He felt like a frustrated adolescent lying next to her, feigning politeness as he listened to her chatter, but covertly hungry and hard at the thought of her body.

  This was ridiculous. He should get up.

  He slipped out from under the covers, dragging the sheets over his lap. Ana clung onto him, giggling as she pretended not to let him go, her weight on his arm, dragging him back, making things worse. He waited a little; when it was safe, he stood up and pulled himself free of her grip.

  He went to the kitchen and poured himself water. He watched her stand and wrap herself in the gray cashmere throw, then head into the bathroom. The sun, bright behind linen blinds, cast curious shadows on the living room wall; he thought about the markings on Sunday Smith’s neck.

  He took his scene bag, removed the tracings, and placed them side by side on his desk. The marks on Andie Delore’s neck were repeated on the new tracing. They were the same alphabet, and it looked familiar. He was sure it wasn’t Russian.

  He sat at the desk. So what did he have? A religious element in the modus operandi, and an unusual character set.

  That this was some kind of writing with religious significance, maybe a scripture of sort, probably Christian given the praying hands. But what was it? Greek, Aramaic, maybe?

  What the fuck did Aramaic even look like?

  He remembered a show of ancient manuscripts at the Met-ropolitan Museum of Art two or three years back, Sacred Texts, something like that. There would be an exhibition catalogue in the gift shop.

  He showered and dressed. When he poked his head into the TV room, she was sprawled on the daybed, half awake in front of the TV, Marcello Mastroianni buzzing around Rome in his Triumph. She sent him on his way with a little hug, Precious Blood

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  locking the door behind him. He told Jun he was going out, and then walked over to the Spring Street station and took the 6 uptown to Eighty-sixth Street.

  He called Rad from the platform pay phone. The university provost, who, Rad observed, had known about the killing in Pennsylvania but hadn’t made the connection, had been informed that the two deaths were linked; he would alert the student body. It wouldn’t be hard—the news would rocket through the campus, and the tabloids, in their own special way, would make sure the rest of the city knew.

  At the Met, the vast banners draped between the tall Corin-thian columns had never looked so vibrant. It was a beautiful day, and the sunshine and warmth had lured crowds of tourists out of their hotels. The souvenir sellers, like camp followers after an army, were out in full force on the plaza in front of the museum.

  Jenner walked up the steps and into the echoing marble of the crowded entrance hall. The lobby was busy, and the gift shop busier than usual. He went through into the book section, quieter than the main room, but couldn’t find what he was looking for.

  He stopped one of the salespeople on the floor, but as he described the book he was looking for, the clerk stood there blankly. Luckily, one of the managers overheard.

  “What you’re looking for is Sacred Rites, Sacred Writing, sir. But I’m afraid we’re out of stock. Manuscripts and documents don’t tend to be big sellers, and the print run wasn’t very big—I’m afraid we’re not expecting it back in. Maybe you could find it on Alibris or eBay. I’m sorry.”

  Jenner thanked her. He’d try the main public library on Forty-second Street.

  He walked out into the sun and made his way through the people sitting on the steps and the impromptu portrait photography going on in front of the building.

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  This was annoying. He needed the book quickly, and while the library would have a copy, who knew how long it would take to get his hands on it?

  He looked around him. Everyone seemed so happy, thrilled at a gorgeous day in the greatest city on earth. Jenner relaxed a little. He should lighten up. Jun kept telling h
im that, and Jun was right. He decided to walk through the park.

  Making his way through a knot of nursery-schoolers and their minders gathered around the bronze bears near the playground entrance, he headed through the Glade. At the Mall, he sat on a bench and watched the passersby strolling down the allée of elms.

  It felt odd to sit outside. But apparently only to him—

  everyone he saw seemed cheery and bright.

  He stretched back, tried to get himself into the spirit of the day.

  He’d always liked the view over toward Central Park West, with its expensive doorman buildings capped with Gothic follies and strange ziggurats, like some lost kingdom in a Tarzan movie. It would be pretty great to live on the park, he thought.

  Although he could never live on the Upper West Side.

  He stood suddenly. Simon Lescure.

  Simon Lescure, the man who could solve his problems in a second, lived just across the park in a handsome white-stone town house on the corner of West Seventy-seventh.

  Simon was one of Julie’s publishing friends, one of the interesting ones. An absolute Anglophile, always immaculate in bespoke English suits, shirts, and shoes, Lescure was probably the most prominent lexicographer in the United States. He was a language pundit, a regular in print and on TV; and he lived a ten-minute walk from the Mall.

  The elevator attendant, in navy blue livery, waited in the elevator, watching Jenner through the open doors until Lescure appeared at his door.

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  “Edward Jenner . . .”

  “Simon! It’s great to see you!”

  They shook hands firmly. Lescure was clearly pleased to see him, although too polite to ask the reason for his unexpected visit.

  As Lescure put away his coat, Jenner glanced around.

  He’d visited Lescure’s apartment once before, for a party.

  The living room had a huge picture window with a beautiful view out over the treetops of the park, and the kitchen was the biggest Jenner had ever seen in New York. Lescure lived there with his wife and their three daughters, all of whom they’d named for characters in Willa Cather stories.

  Jenner declined Lescure’s offer of a drink, and sketched out his situation quickly, knowing it would fascinate Lescure.

  Lescure savored the problem like a connoisseur inhaling the heady scent of a forbidden Cohiba. “Ah, Edward. Most intriguing . . . Most intriguing indeed!”

  He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and, producing a linen handkerchief from his pocket, polished them with a flourish, then put them back on. “Come, Edward. Let’s go to the library. I believe I can help you.”

  The library, at the end of a long hallway in black-and-white checkerboard tile, had an elaborate doorway framed by Ionic columns; Jenner remembered it as the coat room for Lescure’s parties.

  Lescure said, “Of course, this would be easier if you had the documents, the, uh, evidence in question. It’s outside my area of expertise, but I do have some familiarity with ancient languages.”

  He stood in front of a bookcase, drumming his fingers on the case of a leather-bound encyclopedia, perhaps already anticipating the next lexicography conference, when he would tell the story of how he’d helped track a serial killer.

  He shook his head impatiently, then paced along the crammed bookshelves, searching the rows with pursed lips 116

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  and pointed index finger, finally selecting a volume.

  “There you go, Edward. Sacred Rites, Sacred Writings.

  There are better references, of course, but that’s the only one I have at home, I’m afraid.”

  He pulled over a chair for Jenner and then sat at his desk.

  “If you see a text you recognize, I may be able to help you.”

  The book’s designers had organized the plates chronologi-cally, the earlier examples little more than flakes of papyrus with occasional legible figures. Jenner kept turning the pages. The exhibition had been global in reach, and there were examples of ancient documents from Korea, Japan, and China, as well as of Middle Eastern and European provenance. After poring over the pages for a few minutes, he showed Lescure the pages he felt were closest to what he remembered of the writing.

  “Is it Greek?”

  “No, Coptic. Interesting. Very interesting. Used by the Copts, Egyptian Christians. There are a couple of major forms—Bohairic and Sahidic—some minor forms, too, as I recall. Your error is understandable: the text is related to Ancient Greek. Alas, my Latin is strong, but I’m afraid I’m at sea with the Nilo-Hamitic languages.”

  He gave an elegantly hapless shrug.

  Jenner thanked him, saying that even identifying the origin was a start.

  “Well, of course, the person you need to speak with is my friend Patrick Sheehan, who’s at Yardley College in Pennsylvania. He was actually one of the curators of this show.

  He won’t just tell you definitively what it is, he’ll tell you what it says and where it comes from. If it’s ancient Coptic, there aren’t many sources, and he knows them all.”

  Lescure seemed pleased. He polished his glasses again and said firmly, “Yes, Edward. Father Patrick Sheehan is your man.”

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  *

  *

  *

  The man lay on the floor, basking in the light streaming through the big casement windows. It was the first time since October that it had been warm enough for him to take down the heavy black cloth that sealed out the cold.

  To sustain the experience, except for his hands, he hadn’t washed afterward. He felt the sun baking the girl’s blood onto his chest. He loved the way blood slowly crusted and flaked, the way it finally sifted off as powder. He’d learned to stay naked, to be inside the blood, for as long as possible afterward.

  The days after a kill passed in a haze of indulgent pleasure. He felt agreeably spent. Relaxed. Mellow, almost.

  He looked at his Polaroids and wondered if they’d found the Wexler girl yet, what was left of her. This last one had gone well. No, this one had gone perfectly. He wanted them to find her; he liked thinking about that part. Liked it a lot.

  For him, it wasn’t really a killing until people knew about it. That was the completion—the moment when someone opens the door and discovers the body. He thought about the reaction, the horror. Nausea, even, if he’d gotten it right. He planned his work with his audience of one particularly privileged person—the Discoverer—always in mind. He thought a lot about the composition, particularly the color. He researched the positions, looking at paintings and drawings, and then did his own sketches. Sometimes he even planned the smell. He wanted the moment of discovery to be overwhelming, something that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. The last thing they thought about when they went to sleep, the image that woke them screaming in the darkest hours of the night.

  He’d done his job particularly well with Barbara Wexler.

  He thought about Ana de Jong. What would she have made 118

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  of his night’s work? Would she have worked with him? She could have helped bind the girl’s wrists, perhaps held her down while he cut at her throat, made sure that her skin was properly lit to receive his text. There were many ways she could have helped.

  friday,

  december 6

  Jenner found Ana making faces at herself in the bathroom mirror. Looking for wrinkles, she explained matter-of-factly.

  “You’re

  twenty-one!”

  She frowned. He sat on the tub and watched her put on eyeliner.

  “Well, a girl has to look after herself, Jenner. Sooner or later, I’ll need a nice, rich husband to look after me, and when that time comes, I’ll have to be looking my best.”

  She laughed at his expression. “Jenner! I’m joking! When the time comes, any guy who wants to be my husband better be looking his best—”

  The buzze
r rang.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, my God, Jenner! We never had so many callers, and we were two hot chicks!”

  Jenner went out into the living room, closing the door behind him. Garcia’s voice shrilled on the intercom.

  “Jenner?”

  “Come on up, Rad.” Jenner pressed the buzzer to let him in.

  “Naah, Jenner. You should come down. Ana with you?”

  “Not right here. Why?”

  “We got another one.”

  Hell. Jenner closed his eyes and leaned against the wall.

  “Where?”

  “Here. East Seventeenth. If we leave now, I can sneak you in before the ME arrives.”

  Roggetti nodded at Jenner as he climbed into the backseat.

  “Hang on, Doc—you’re about to learn why they call me Mario Roggetti.”

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  on the siren, and they plowed uptown, cars halting and turning, traffic parting, everyone hustling out of their way.

  They cut over onto Third Avenue. At Seventeenth, Jenner was surprised to see they’d taped off the whole block.

  Cadets had been drafted from the Police Academy a few blocks away to handle traffic. A short Hispanic cadet motioned them to turn back onto Third, so Roggetti tapped the Yelp button a couple of times to put him in his place. He snickered as the recruit jumped, then quickly raised the tape to let them pass.

  As he inched the car under the tape, Roggetti rolled down the window, leaned out, and called, “Hey, Sanchez! Diaz! Whatever the fuck your name is! In the future, try and watch just who the fuck you’re pointing your dumb-fuck cadet fingers at!”

  The cadet flushed and said, “Yes, sir!”

  Garcia rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Joey.”

  “Just keeping the kid on his toes, Rad.”

  “If I hadn’t been here, you’d have said ‘your fucking spic fingers.’ Pull over near the side of the park.”

  Across from the park, yellow crime scene tape sagged between the heavy black railings in front of a large brownstone. A uniformed officer stood at the bottom of the steps, impassively looking at the small handful of news cameras and reporters.