Styx (30 page)

The memorial service for Chief Inspector Raphael Styx took place in the Ostend harbor, on the little square where the Kapellestraat meets the Leopold III-laan. The mayor was in attendance, as were Commissioner John Crevits, most of Styx's colleagues on the force, friends, acquaintances, and even some of Styx's rivals and enemies.

The crowd was gathered around a long box draped in a white cloth. It looked more like an altar than a coffin. Victor and Isabelle, both completely emotionless, were the first to approach the altar. Each of them laid a single red rose on the cloth.

It's like a puppet show
, thought Styx, who watched the proceedings from the balcony of Joachim Delacroix's apartment. Delacroix was wearing one of his most expensive suits for the occasion: a three-piece sea-blue Hugo Boss pinstripe set off by a matching pocket square and
a gold tie clip. His Borsalino hat was cocked at a somber yet somehow rakish angle.

Styx leaned on Marc Gerard's old walking stick and watched through a pair of binoculars, like a crippled king observing a military parade. He wondered how the squad had managed to organize it all so quickly.

“What are they trying to prove?” he asked.

“They're not trying to prove anything,” Delacroix said patiently. “They're burying you at sea.”

“But I'm standing right here. What's in the box?”

“About two hundred pounds of rock. It was Crevits's idea. We had to do something. The Stuffer called him. He said he'd stop killing if we'd turn your body over to him. He said you'd be his coup de grâce.”

“So Crevits set up this charade just to piss him off? Or does he think the bastard might actually turn up? To watch, or to try to stop the show?”

“What they
don't
want,” Delacroix said, “is to let him think he's got the upper hand. Crevits made it absolutely clear: we don't make deals with serial killers. So we're mounting this performace to show him he can't have what he wants.” He smiled. “We're doing a nice job, aren't we? The only thing missing's a choir.”

“Are Isabelle and Victor in on it?”

Delacroix's smile disappeared. “They know you're not in the box,” he said. “But they don't know
why
we're doing it. I think Isabelle assumes it's all for her benefit, to give her some sense of closure.”

There were several police vehicles parked on the
Mercator
side of the Kapellestraat, but it wasn't clear if they were intended as a sort of honor guard or if they were there in case the Stuffer put in an appearance.

As six uniformed officers loaded the box onto a small boat tied up
at quayside, the first notes of a song began to play through the speakers that had been set up for the event. Despite the specific instructions Styx had left, it wasn't “Come Sail Away.” Instead, he heard the lilting wail of Van Morrison:

Beside the garden walls, / We walk in haunts of ancient peace.

Styx had to admit that the song fit the occasion well.

“Who picked the music?” he asked.

“Isabelle.”

Her name floated away on the salt breeze.

“Where are they taking me?” Styx finally asked.

“Out there,” Delacroix said, pointing north to the sea.

“Isn't that what they did with Osama bin Laden?”

“I don't think they made such a big show of it,” Delacroix pointed out.

Through the field glasses, Styx watched John Crevits and a few of Isabelle's relatives step forward to offer comfort to his son and wife—his widow.

“Shit, this almost makes
me
want to cry,” Styx said.

The boat pulled away from the dock as Van Morrison's voice faded. It swung out of sight around the sharp bend that would take it out into open water, and the crowd gradually dispersed.

Styx focused the binoculars on his son, standing there stoically with an arm around his mother's waist. He was proud of the boy's strength, yet he wished he could assure him that his father wasn't really gone, not entirely.

Styx swallowed uncomfortably. “You think he showed?” he croaked.

“Who?”

“Who the fuck do you think?”

“The Stuffer?”

“Yes, the goddamn Stuffer! He must have heard about it, right? I mean, that was Crevits's whole point?”

“Paul Delvaux is probably long gone, but maybe.” Delacroix pulled off his Borsalino. “You think he'd have the balls?”

“Why not? We aren't even sure Paul's our guy. The Stuffer could be anyone.”

“It'd make sense he'd want a front-row seat.”

“I know one thing,” Styx said. “If it were me,
I'd
be there.”

A man stood on the
deck of the Mercator, the famous ship that had brought the mortal remains of Father Damien, “the Apostle of the Lepers,” back from Hawaii to Belgium. He had no interest in touring the ship. He'd bought an admission ticket only because it provided him with an almost perfect view of the policeman's funeral service. If it really
was
a funeral service.

He knew better than to show up at the quay, although he was confident that no one would recognize him. On the prow of the three-master, he felt safe enough to relax and enjoy the festivities: the eulogies, the poem read tonelessly by the tight-lipped little son, the oh-so-touching send-off ballad by that crabby Irishman Van Morrison.

What was going on here? What exactly were they up to?

The idea of consigning Raphael Styx's body to the sea simply made no sense. He had of course been following the case with intense scrutiny, and nowhere in the media—not in the papers, not on the radio or television, not on the internet—had there been any mention of the dead cop's body having been discovered.

There would
have
to be some sort of announcement if a missing person was found, wouldn't there? Dead or alive, it wouldn't matter, the news of such a find would be news indeed.

He didn't understand it.

And not understanding it made him angry.

Because he knew Raphael Styx wasn't dead. He'd seen him, still alive, with his own two eyes.

Delacroix said, “Crevits thinks the
funeral will force the Stuffer back out in the open, whether or not he actually shows up for the ceremony.”

“He won't be able to stand all the attention focused on something other than himself, you mean?”

“That's the idea.”

They were sitting in one of the eight theaters in the Kinepolis multiplex. Every September, the Ensors—the Belgian Oscars—were held here, but this week the complex was hosting a retrospective of the films of Ken Russell. On the screen, Russell's 1986
Gothic
was playing, and the poet Percy Shelley, his novelist-wife Mary, Lord Byron, and Byron's lover, Claire Clairmont, were gathered around a human skull before a roaring hearth in the huge main hall of an English castle.

Byron ripped open his shirt, so close to the fire that he was in danger of immolating himself. The flames cast menacing shadows of his body on the wall.

But Styx wasn't interested in the movie.

“I want you to do something for me,” he whispered.

“Sure,” said Delacroix.

“I want you to get a list of Dr. S. Vrancken's patients.”

“Vrancken? Your orthopedic guy?”

“I want to check a few names.”

“The man's a doctor, Styx. What's on your mind?”

“You ever heard of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? I was at his office yesterday, like I told you, and I did a little research after I left.”

“And?”

Styx began with some background. The rectangles on the waiting-room wall, the déjà vu similarity between the voices over the two intercoms. “And I found out,” he went on, “that Vrancken lost his medical license not too long after he advised me to hold off on a hip replacement and right before the Stuffer's first killing. Officially, his practice is closed. That's why there were no other patients there yesterday, and no receptionist or nurse.”

“Why'd they pull his license?”

“He was accused of malpractice. He's under investigation for negligence and medical errors.”

“What sort of errors?”

On the screen, a Venetian mask was carefully fitted over the face of one of the women. Styx leaned closer to Delacroix. “Two of his surgical patients complained to the commission.”

“Who? Don't tell me they were two of the Stuffer's victims?”

“No, but I'd really like to know if any of the dead women ever consulted the good doctor.”

“What were the complaints?”

“I found an article that said he apparently left a medical instrument inside one patient's body. In the other case, there was severe internal hemorrhaging as a result of unsterile operating conditions.”

Delacroix considered this. Finally, he turned away from the screen and said, “So?”

“So?”

“So what does that have to do with the Stuffer? Those cases prove the good doctor's a bad doctor, not a homicidal maniac.”

Styx got up and walked out of the theater. Delacroix followed him.

“Look,” Styx said, “you don't have to agree with me. Just get me the patient list.”

“Those records are confidential. I—”

“He didn't just have a private practice, Delacroix. He was also on staff at the Damiaan Hospital.”

“Which is important why?”

“Just listen to me. He saw some of his patients at his office—that was mostly people who could afford his private rates. His hospital patients were less well off. And the Stuffer's victims weren't exactly rolling in it.”

“So you want the hospital list, not the private-practice list, I get it. But I still don't know how you expect me to
get
it.”

“Don't play dumb. You know Isabelle works at Damiaan.”

“Oh, come on, Inspector. She won't—”

“Then figure something else out. Go back and talk to the murdered women's families and friends. You're a cop, remember? Check their appointment books, their medical histories, their bank statements. I want to know if any of them ever saw Dr. Vrancken.”

He turned away and hobbled off, then changed his mind and brought his dilapidated body to a halt.

“I want to rip off the fucking mask,” he said.

Although the memorial service had been tiring, and although Isabelle Gerard had been offered a week's compassionate leave by her supervisor, she went to the hospital that evening to work her usual overnight shift in the geriatric ward. There was no way she'd be able to sleep. She didn't like leaving Victor home alone, but he'd insisted he was fine to spend the evening by himself. They were so much alike in that regard—each of them respected the other's need to process the funeral in their own separate ways.

There was a fruit basket and a collection of sympathy cards in the fourth-floor canteen. From ten to ten thirty she was kept busy delivering cups of yogurt and glasses of water to her elderly patients. Then things began to settle down and by midnight the ward was quiet. The last medications had been administered, and the corridors were
empty. Except for dealing with the one old codger with Alzheimer's who jabbed his call button every ten minutes to demand she put the dentures he'd just fished out of the glass of water on his side table back into the glass of water on his side table, there was really nothing to do.

In the lull between denture calls, she sat in the canteen and reread Victor's last two texts:

Tired, Mom. Going 2 sleep. Think I'm set 4 tomorrow. Night!

And then:

Oh, don't forget 2 wake me when U come home. Want to study a little more b4 school.

This was the first time Victor had texted her since his exams had begun. Until now, he'd sat up till three or four
AM
, cramming like a university student pulling an all-nighter, but the events of the day had turned him back into a thirteen-year-old who needed the assurance of his mother before he drifted off to sleep.

OK
, she typed, hoping he was already dreaming,
will do. Proud of you. Sleep tight. xoxoxo

She was still holding the phone in her hands when the light on the nurses' station call panel flashed. Someone was buzzing for her. Yawning, she checked the panel and saw that, for once, it wasn't Mr. Alzheimer's. This time the call had come from the room next to his, number fourteen.

Isabelle got up and started down the hall. At the far end, she saw Francine—another of the night nurses—transferring soiled bedsheets from a wheeled cart to the laundry chute. The fluorescent corridor lights were dimmed, and the weak illumination made the ward seem small and claustrophobic.

The door to room fourteen stood ajar. She eased it open noiselessly and slipped into the darkened room. The figure in the bed lay hidden beneath his top sheet. He'd probably peed himself and felt ashamed of his incontinence; that happened all the time.