Richard Montanari (42 page)

    Her
hair had turned a soft, shimmering silver.

    She
was wearing a black silk pantsuit.

    On
the table next to her was a pair of reading glasses and an open book.

    Byrne
crossed the room and found that he was at a loss for words. What power did she
have over him?

    Christa-Marie
stood, still as slender as ever, but standing this close Byrne saw the faint
lines that etched her face, her forehead, the papery skin on her hands. Still,
with her cascade of silken hair, she was a beautiful woman. Perhaps even more
elegant than before.

    He
had not stood this close to her since the night he had put her in handcuffs.

    He
took her hand. His first instinct was to lean forward and kiss her on the
cheek. He realized at the last instant that this would have been inappropriate,
to say the least. Still, the urge was present. She made the decision for him.
On tiptoes, she leaned in and grazed his cheek with her lips.

    She
had been twenty-eight the last time he had seen her. She was now almost fifty.
She had escaped, or postponed, so many of the things that can happen to a man
or woman in those years. Byrne found himself wondering what he looked like to
her, what the landscaping of his face and body by his job and habits and life
had done to the image she might have retained from that day in 1990.

    Without
a word she gestured to the other chair by the windows, perhaps five feet away.
Byrne sat down, but for some reason did not sit back. He leaned forward, the
way one might do at a job interview. Music played softly in the background. It
was a cello piece, with piano.

    After
a few long minutes Christa-Marie spoke.

    'It
was her last studio recording, you know.'

    'Who?'

    'Jackie
du Pre,' she said. 'She toured in 1973, and they savaged her. I wonder what
they would have said of me.'

    After
she was sentenced in 1990, Byrne read a few books that had been written about
Christa-Marie. The comparisons to Jacqueline du Pre were as specious as they were
expected. It was said of Jacqueline du Pre that on her final concert tour, due
to her illness, she could no longer feel the strings and had to play by sight.
Byrne, having never played an instrument, having never been considered great at
anything - he was only world-class at screwing up romantic relationships -
could only imagine the horror and heartbreak of something like this happening
to someone so gifted.

    In
Christa-Marie Schönburg's case, her skills had not eroded in the least when she
was sent to prison. She was still, at the moment of her incarceration, one of
the most celebrated and revered cellists in the world. Here, looking at the
woman so many years later, he wondered which fate was worse.

    'We
came from the conservatories in those days,' she said. 'I went to Prentiss. My
teacher was a childhood friend of Ormandy. They might never have found me if
not for him.'

    Christa-Marie
arranged herself on the chair, continued.

    'You
know, there really weren't all that many women back then. It wasn't until much
later that playing in a major orchestra, at least one of the Big Five - Boston,
New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia - was seen as a job, a full-time job
that a woman could do. Gainful employment, as they used to say.'

    Byrne
remained silent. While he was sitting there he felt his cellphone vibrate three
separate times. He couldn't answer. Finally he just said it:

    'Christa-Marie,
I need to ask you something.'

    She
sat forward in her chair, expectant. In that instant she looked like a
schoolgirl. Byrne held up the note card.

    'Why
did you write me?'

    Instead
of answering she looked out the window for a few moments. She looked back. 'Do
you know those scrolls on the bottom front of the cello? The holes cut there?'

    Byrne
glanced at the cello in the corner. He saw what she was talking about. He
nodded.

    'Do
you know what they call those?' she asked.

    'No.'

    'They're
called the F-holes. Can you imagine a group of young students hearing this for
the first time?'

    Christa-Marie's
expression soon changed from one of joyful remembrance to one of longing.

    'My
happiest years were at Prentiss, you know. There was no pressure. There was
just the music. Bernstein once told me that the only thing that mattered was to
love the music. It's true.'

    She
smoothed her hair, ran a hand across her cheek. 'I was just nineteen that first
night at the Academy.
Nineteen.
Can you imagine?'

    Byrne
could not. He told her so.

    'It
has been so many years since then,' she said.

    She
fell silent again. Byrne had the feeling that if he did not move forward with
his questions he would never again have the opportunity.

    'Christa-Marie,
I need to talk to you about your letter.'

    She glanced
at him. 'After all this time, you want to get to business.' She sighed
dramatically. 'If we must.'

    Byrne
held up the note card again. 'I need to know what you were talking about when
you wrote me, and asked if I'd "found them." If I'd found the lion
and the rooster and the swan.'

    She
stared at him for a long second, then rose from her chair. She walked the short
distance between them, knelt before him.

    'I
can help you,' she said.

    Byrne
did not answer immediately, hoping she would continue. She did not. 'Help me do
what?'

    Christa-Marie
looked out the window again. In this light, at this short distance, her skin
was translucent, the result of a lifetime spent hiding from the sun.

    'Do
you know the Suzuki method?' she asked.

    Byrne
had heard of it, but he knew nothing about it. He told her so.

    'He
focused on song-playing over technique. He allowed students to make music on
the first day. It's no different from learning a language.' She leaned in. 'We two
speak the language of death, do we not?'

    Christa-Marie
leaned even closer, as if to share a secret.

    'I
can help you stop the killings,' she said softly.

    The
words echoed off the misted glass walls of the solarium.

    'The
killings?'

    'Yes.
There will be more, you know. Many more. Before Halloween night at midnight.'

    Her
tone was flat, emotionless. She talked about murder in the same manner in which
she had talked about music earlier.

    'Why
Halloween midnight?'

    Before
she answered, Byrne saw the fingers on her left hand move. At first he thought
it might have just been some sort of twitch, an involuntary movement brought
about by being in one position for an extended period of time. But out of the
corner of his eye he saw her fingers curl around an imaginary thing and he
realized she was recreating some passage she had once played on the cello.
Then, just as suddenly as the movement began, it stopped. She dropped her hands
to her lap.

    'It
is not over until the coda, detective.'

    Byrne
knew the word. A coda was a final section to a piece of music, generally played
with some dramatic urgency - a flourish at the end of a symphony, perhaps. 'I'm
not sure what you mean.'

    'George
Szell would often stand in his office window and see which of his players took
their instruments home with them.'

    Byrne
said nothing, hoping she would return to the moment on her own.

    'Easy
for the oboist,
n'est-cepas
? she added. 'Not so for the bassist.' She
sat up on her heels. 'Did you know that the cellist and bassist must each
purchase an extra airline ticket for their instruments?'

    Byrne
hadn't known that.

    'The
Cavani String Quartet always books for five.'

    'Christa-Marie,'
Byrne said, hoping that his voice did not sound as if he were pleading. 'I
need—'

    'Will
you come back on Halloween?' she asked, interrupting him. 'I want to show you a
special place in the country. We'll make a day of it. We'll have such fun.'

    Byrne
had to find out what she meant in her note, the references to the animals. But
he now knew that getting the information was not going to be easy. Before he
could stop himself he said: 'Yes. I'll come back.'

    She
looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, her expression darkening. 'I
can help you stop the killings, Kevin. But first you must do something for me.'

    'What
is it, Christa-Marie?' he asked. 'What can I do for you?'

    Of
all the things he expected her to say, what she did say nearly took his breath
away. They were probably the last two words he would have expected to hear, two
words that would carry his thoughts well into the dark hours of the night.

    Christa-Marie
Schönburg took his hand in hers, looked deep into his eyes, and said: 'Love
me.'

    Lucy
stood in front of the door to Room 1208, her heart pounding. She wanted to go
in, but she was afraid, as frightened as she had ever been in her life. She had
done a little sleuthing on her own. She knew that everyone on this floor was a
member of
Société Poursuite.
The group had a seminar in the Crystal Room
that day, a seminar that was scheduled to run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.,
when they would break for lunch. Lucy figured that the floor would be empty
from about 9:30 a.m. until perhaps 2:00 p.m.

    Earlier
in the day she had stood on the mezzanine and watched everyone file into the
Crystal Room. Ever since she had been kidnapped, with everyone she met she was
always looking for something, some gesture, some familiar posture, a word, an
inflection, an accent that would draw her back to those three lost days and
what had happened to her.

    Once,
in Carlisle, she had heard a woman's high-pitched laughter, and it had drawn
her memory to a room - not necessarily a room in which she had been held, but a
room that had served as a stop along the way. When she had turned to look at
the woman - a doughy redhead of forty with cigarette-stained lips - the feeling
had gone. She understood then that the feeling would come and go. She only
needed it to stay for a moment, during which she could take a snapshot. And
remember.

    Right
now she had a job to do.

    Lucy
lifted her hand to knock but found she couldn't do it. Her arms felt weak and a
little too light all of a sudden. She tried again.

    'Housekeeping,'
she said, knocking. She soon realized it had come out in a mousy whisper.

    A
louder knock. '
Housekeeping.'

    Nothing.

    
Now
or never
.

    She
took out her section card, swiped the lock, and stepped into Room 1208.

    She wasn't
supposed to close the door, but sometimes they closed on their own and her
supervisor was well aware of this. This was one of those times. Except that
Lucy closed it herself.

    She
had lugged everything she needed into the room and had piled it on the bed. She
breezed through her checklist. She had never worked so fast in her life.

    This
was crazy. What was she doing? This was all in her head. She had created a
fantasy here - from the moment she'd heard about the Dreamweaver it had all
been some crazy dream. The fact that a girl had been killed in this room was
just a sick and tragic and horrible coincidence.

    Mr.
Adrian Costa had no special abilities, no special powers. The man was a
charlatan, and he was lying to her. Just another long con.

    Lucy
flew through the rest of her duties, clocking the room at something superhuman,
like fifteen minutes. When she was finished she felt a little better. A clean
fresh room had that effect on her. Now she could leave.