The Mephisto Club (29 page)

THIRTY-FIVE

Lily Saul darted down one side street, and then another, weaving ever deeper into the maze of an unfamiliar neighborhood. She did not know Boston, and she had no idea where she was going. She could hear the sirens of cruisers, circling like sharks. The flash of headlights sent her scrambling into an alley. There she crouched behind garbage cans as a patrol car slowly crept up the street. The instant it disappeared around the corner, she was back on her feet and moving in the other direction. She was going downhill now, slipping on cobblestones slick with ice, her backpack slapping against her shoulder blades. She was not dressed for this bitter weather, and already her feet stung from the cold, and her ungloved hands were numb. Her tennis shoes suddenly skated out from beneath her and she landed on her rump. The impact sent a spear of pain straight up her spine. She sat stunned for a few seconds, her skull ringing. When her vision finally cleared, she saw she was at the bottom of the hill. Across the street was a park, ringed with shrubs, bare trees casting their spindly gloom over ice-glazed snow. A glowing symbol caught her eye.

It was a sign for the subway station.

She’d just jump on a train and in minutes she could be on her way anywhere in the city. And she’d be warm.

She clambered to her feet, her tailbone aching from the fall, her scraped palms stinging. She limped across the street, took a few steps along the sidewalk, and halted.

A police cruiser had just rounded the corner.

She dashed into the park and ducked behind the bushes. There she waited, her heart banging in her throat, but the cruiser did not pass. Peering through the branches, she saw that it was parked and idling outside the subway station. Damn. Time to change plans.

She glanced around and spotted the glowing sign of yet another T station on the other side of the park. She rose to her feet and started across the common, moving beneath the shadow of trees. Ice crusted the snow, and every footstep gave a noisy crack as her shoe broke through the glaze into deep snow beneath. She struggled forward, almost losing a shoe, her lungs heaving now with the effort to make headway. Then, through the roar of her own breathing, she heard another sound behind her, a crunch, a creak. She stopped and turned, and felt her heart freeze.

The figure stood beneath a tree—faceless, featureless, a black form that seemed more shadow than substance.
It’s him.

With a sob, Lily fled, stumbling through the snow, shoes smashing through the icy crust. Her own breathing, the slamming of her own heart, drowned out any sound of pursuit, but she knew he was right behind her. He’d always been right behind her, every minute, every breath, dogging her steps, whispering her doom. But not this close, never this close! She didn’t look back, didn’t want to see the creature of her nightmares moving in. She just plunged ahead, her shoe lost now, her sock soaked with frigid water.

Then, all at once, she stumbled out of a drift, onto the sidewalk. The T entrance was straight ahead. She went flying down the steps, almost expecting to hear the swoop of wings and feel the bite of claws in her back. Instead, she felt the warm breath of the subway tunnel on her face and saw commuters filing out toward the stairs.

No time to fool with money. Jump the turnstile!

She scrambled over it, and her wet sock slapped down onto the pavement. Two steps, and she skidded to a stop.

Jane Rizzoli was standing right in front of her.

Lily spun around, back toward the turnstile she’d just jumped. A cop stood barring her escape.

Frantically she gazed around the station, looking for the creature that had pursued her, but she saw only startled commuters staring back at her.

A handcuff closed over her wrist.

She sat in Jane Rizzoli’s parked car, too exhausted to think of trying to escape. The wet sock felt like a block of ice encasing her foot, and even with the heater running, she could not get warm, could not stop shaking.

“Okay, Lily,” said Jane. “Now you’re going to tell me the truth.”

“You won’t believe the truth.”

“Try me.”

Lily sat motionless, tangled hair spilling across her face. It didn’t matter anymore. She was so tired of running.
I give up.

“Where is Dominic?” asked Jane.

“He’s dead,” said Lily.

A moment passed as the detective processed that information, as she reached her own conclusions. Through the closed window came the wail of a passing fire truck, but inside this car, there was only the hiss of the heater.

Jane said, “You killed him?”

Lily swallowed. “Yes.”

“So his mother never came for him, did she? She never took him abroad. That’s why you wrote that letter to the school.”

Lily’s head drooped lower. There was no point in denying anything. This woman had already put it all together. “The school called. They kept calling, wanting to know if he was coming back. I had to write the letter so they’d stop asking me where he was.”

“How did you kill him?”

Lily took in a shuddering breath. “It was the week after my father’s funeral. Dominic was in our garage looking at my mother’s car. He said she wouldn’t need it anymore, so maybe he could have it.” Lily’s voice dropped to a tight whisper. “That’s when I told him I knew. I knew he killed them.”

“How did you know?”

“Because I found his notebook. He kept it under his mattress.”

“What was in the notebook?”

“It was all about us. Pages and pages about the boring Saul family. What we did every day, the things we said to each other. He had notes about which path Teddy always took to the lake. About which pills we kept in the bathroom cabinet. What we ate for breakfast, how we said good night.” She paused. Swallowed. “And he knew where my father kept the key to his gun cabinet.” She looked at Jane. “He was like a scientist, studying us. And we were nothing but lab rats.”

“Did he actually write in his notebook that he’d killed your family?”

She hesitated. “No. His last entry was August eighth, the day that Teddy…” She stopped. “He knew better than to actually write about it.”

“Where is that notebook now? Do you still have it?”

“I burned it. Along with all his other books. I couldn’t stand the sight of them.”

Lily could read the look in Jane’s eyes.
You destroyed the evidence. Why should I believe you?

“Okay,” said Jane. “You said you found Dominic in the garage, that you confronted him there.”

“I was so upset, I didn’t think about what would happen next.”

“What did happen?”

“When I told him I knew what he’d done, he just stared right back at me. No fear, no guilt. ‘You can’t prove it,’” he said. She took a breath and slowly released it. “Even if I could have proved it, he was only fifteen. He wouldn’t have gone to jail. In a few years, he would have been free. But my family would still be dead.”

“Then what happened?”

“I asked him why. Why he’d do something so terrible. And you know what he said?”

“What?”

“‘You should have been nicer to me.’ That was his answer. That’s all he said. Then he smiled and walked out of the barn, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.” She paused. “That’s when I did it.”

“How?”

“I picked up a shovel. It was leaning up against the wall. I don’t even remember reaching for it. I didn’t even feel the weight of it. It was like—like my arms were someone else’s. He fell, but he was still conscious, and he started to crawl away.” She released a deep sigh and said softly, “So I hit him again.”

Outside the night had fallen quiet. The bitter weather had driven pedestrians off the street, and only an occasional car glided past.

“And then?” asked Jane.

“All I could think of was how to get rid of the body. I got him into my mother’s car. I thought, maybe I could make it look like an accident. It was nighttime, so no one would see anything. I drove the car over to this quarry a few miles out of town. I rolled it over the edge, into the water. I assumed that someone would eventually spot it. Someone would report that a car was down there.” Lily gave a disbelieving laugh. “But nobody did. Can you imagine that?” She looked at Jane. “Nobody ever found it.”

“So then you went on with your life.”

“I graduated from high school. And I left town, for good. I didn’t want to be there if they ever found his body.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Jane said, “You realize you’ve just confessed to murdering Dominic Saul. I’ll have to place you under arrest.”

Lily didn’t flinch. “I’d do it again. He deserved it.”

“Who knew about this? Who knew you killed him?”

Lily paused. Outside, a couple walked past, heads bent against the wind, shoulders hunched inside winter coats.

“Did Sarah and Lori-Ann know?”

“They were my best friends. I had to tell them. They understood why I did it. They swore to keep it secret.”

“And now your friends are dead.”

“Yes.” Lily shuddered and hugged herself. “It’s my fault.”

“Who else knows?”

“I never told anyone else. I thought it was over with.” She took a breath. “Then Sarah received that postcard.”

“With the reference to Revelation?”

“Yes.”

“Someone else must know what you did. Someone who saw you that night, or heard about it. Someone who’s now having fun tormenting you.”

Lily shook her head. “Only Dominic would have sent that postcard.”

“But he’s dead. How could he?”

Lily fell silent for a moment, knowing that what she was about to say would surely sound absurd to this coldly logical woman. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Detective?” she asked.

As Lily could have predicted, Jane gave a snort. “I believe we get one shot at life. So you can’t afford to screw it up.”

“The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife. They believed that everyone has a Ba, which they depicted as a bird with a human face. The Ba is your soul. After you die, it’s released, and can fly back to the world of the living.”

“What’s this Egyptian stuff have to do with your cousin?”

“Egypt is where he was born. He had books and books from his mother, some of them quite old, with incantations from Egyptian coffin texts, magical spells to shepherd the Ba back to life. I think he found a way.”

“Are you talking about resurrection?”

“No. Possession.”

The silence lasted for what seemed like forever.

“You mean demonic possession?” Jane finally asked.

“Yes,” said Lily softly. “The Ba finds another home.”

“It takes over some other guy’s body? Makes him do the killing?”

“The soul has no physical form. It needs to command real flesh and blood. The concept of demonic possession isn’t new. The Catholic Church has always known about it, and they have documented cases. They have rites of exorcism.”

“You’re saying that your cousin’s Ba has hijacked a body, and that’s how he’s managed to come after you, how he’s managed to kill your two friends?”

Lily heard the skepticism in Jane’s voice, and she sighed. “There’s no point in talking about this. You don’t believe any of it.”

“Do you? I mean, really?”

“Twelve years ago, I didn’t,” said Lily softly. She looked at Jane. “But I do now.”

Twelve years underwater,
thought Jane. She stood shivering at the edge of the quarry as engines rumbled and the cable groaned taut, tugging against the weight of the long-submerged car. What happens to flesh that’s been steeped in water through the algal blooms of twelve summers, through the freeze and thaw of twelve winters? The other people standing beside her were grimly silent, no doubt dreading, as she did, their first glimpse of Dominic Saul’s body. The county medical examiner, Dr. Kibbie, lifted his collar and pulled his scarf over his face, as though he wanted to disappear into his coat, wanted to be anywhere else but here. In the trees above, a trio of crows cawed, as though eager for a glimpse, a taste, of carrion.
Let there not be any flesh left,
thought Jane. Clean bones she could deal with. Skeletons were merely Halloween decorations, like clattering plastic. Not human at all.

She glanced at Lily, who stood beside her.
It must be even worse for you. You knew him. You killed him.
But Lily did not turn away; she remained at Jane’s side, her gaze fixed on the quarry below.

The cable strained, lifting its burden from the black waters, where chunks of fractured ice bobbed. Already a diver had been down to confirm the car was there, but the water had been too murky, the swirling sediment too thick to clearly view the interior. Now the water seemed to boil, and the vehicle surfaced. The air in the tires had caused it to flip upside down when it had fallen in, and the underside emerged first, water streaming off rusted metal. Like a whale breaching, the rear bumper broke the surface, the license plate obscured by a decade’s worth of algae and sediment. The crane’s engine revved harder, the piercing whine of machinery drilling straight into Jane’s skull. She felt Lily cringe against her and thought that the young woman would now surely turn and retreat to Jane’s car. But Lily managed to hold her ground as the crane swung its burden away from the quarry and gently lowered it onto the snow.

A workman released the cable. Another rev of the engines, a nudge from the crane, and the car rolled right side up. Water streamed from the vehicle, staining the snow a dirty brown.

For a moment, no one approached it. They let it sit there, draining water. Then Dr. Kibbie pulled on gloves and trudged across the now-muddy snow to the driver’s door. He gave it a tug, but it would not open. He circled to the passenger side and yanked on the handle. He jumped back as the door swung open, releasing a sudden rush of water that drenched his boots and trousers.

He glanced at the others, then focused again on the open door, which continued to drip. He took a breath, steeling himself against the view, and leaned inside the car. For a long moment he held that pose, his body bent at the waist, his rump poking out of the vehicle. Abruptly he straightened and turned to the others.