Читать книгу The Next Killing - Rebecca Drake - Страница 10

There are flames licking her hands, curling around the pale pink of her skin like orange petals on some deadly flower. The heat is curling the tiny almost invisible hairs on her bare calves. Something sizzles and there is a smell she doesn’t know, a charred scent, steak on a grill but with something sweet overlying it.

Lauren woke with a start, breathing hard. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, expecting to see the brightly colored Matisse poster she’d hung over a long scar in the chipped plaster of her apartment in Hoboken. Instead there are bare, cream-colored walls.

She didn’t see the battered chest of drawers she’d rescued from someone’s garbage. There is only a single bed with a nightstand tucked beside it and a closet. Above the bed, hanging above her head, is a crucifix in dark wood with the Christ figure in silver. She reached up a hand and ran it over the cool metal. The clock on the nightstand glowed five o’clock. Her first class as a full-time teacher would begin in just under four hours.

Moving day had been yesterday. She’d arrived along with most of the students. The sound of car doors slamming and teenage voices squealing echoed through the halls. Boxes and trunks were hauled into rooms by drivers. Music began playing almost as soon as the first girl arrived.

There were ten dormitories, called “houses,” all of them in the same Victorian Gothic style as the main building, all of them named for Doctors of the Church. Six began with “A”: Ambrose, Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Anthony, and Avila. The remaining four began with “B”: Basil, Bonaventure, Bernard, Bede. Lauren’s apartment was in Augustine House.

The inside of the building was relatively modern. The long hallways were carpeted and each room was outfitted with twin beds, desks, dressers, and a shared bookcase. The windows were casement style, but they were double-glazed and the house smelled of fresh paint.

At one end of the hallway was a large common room, where girls could watch TV or play the board games that were stacked on a shelf. At the other end was her apartment.

“I know it’s small,” Sister Rose said, producing a key from some hidden pocket as she led the way down the hall toward a single wooden door painted a dark red, “but I think you’ll find it comfortable.” She jiggled the key in the lock, saying, “it sticks sometimes,” before the door suddenly swung open.

“I think these apartments are pretty charming.” The older woman stood back so Lauren could pass in front of her. The postage-stamp entry gave way to a larger living room.

“You’ve got a fireplace,” Sister Rose said, but Lauren had already seen it. “It’s gas—they were converted years ago—but it works and all you have to do is flip a switch. It’s around here somewhere.” She strode across to the white wooden mantel.

“That’s okay,” Lauren said quickly. “I don’t like fire.” Flames shot up, crackling around realistic-looking logs.

Sister Rose shut off the switch. “You might change your mind when it gets colder,” she said.

As soon as she’d gone, Lauren rearranged the beige love seat and two dark brown armchairs in the small living room so they blocked the hearth. They were comfortable, if a little worn, as was the cheery oriental rug on the floor. All of it was better than anything she’d had. Bookshelves flanked the fireplace and the other blank wall. There were plenty of books on the shelves and a wooden desk in one corner.

Lauren got out of bed and padded into the tiny kitchen that was adjacent to the living room. Small fridge, small stove, and sink. Soap underneath and a fresh sponge. The refrigerator was empty save for a box of baking soda and the carton of milk she’d picked up at a convenience store. The cupboards were lined with white shelf paper and her single box of Cheerios. There wasn’t a crumb in sight. Sister Agnes had left the place immaculate.

The photograph album was on the table where she’d left it after unpacking. It had taken her only an hour to settle in. Lauren wondered what that said about her that her entire life could be unpacked in an hour. At the bottom of a box of books she’d found the small photograph album she’d put together one rainy day in London.

Sitting down at the table, she’d turned the pages, looking at the photos of her and Michael on a hillside in Dover and at a café in Paris.

It was an indulgence, looking at Michael, at his smile, at his eyes. She knew there would be a time when she looked at these pictures and simply thought of him as her first lover, not her only. There would be a time, but that time was not now.

She put the album aside and sat down with a bowl of cereal, listening to the silence. Back in the apartment even at this early hour there were the noises of neighbors’ televisions and children. All she could hear now was the soft sound of rain slapping against the windows.

Between the kitchen and the bedroom, off a narrow hall, was a small bathroom with a shower. Lauren splashed water on her face and brushed her teeth, grateful that she didn’t have to share the students’ communal baths.

Stripping off her pajamas, she dressed quickly in a T-shirt and exercise pants, pulling a sweatshirt over her head and lacing up a pair of running shoes.

She was used to running early in the morning—she’d done it for years, kept it up when she was overseas, and didn’t stop when she returned to the States, running the streets of Hoboken every morning. She’d done it for so many years that sometimes she forgot why she’d started, the need to escape that had driven her when she was younger. It was still good for that, still a way to shut off the stress. She had to face a classroom in a few hours, but first she would run.

Locking her apartment door behind her, Lauren slid the key into her shoe and tiptoed down the hall to the front door. She slipped outside, closing it quietly behind her, and paused on the steps to do a few stretches.

It was so incredibly still. She could hear the far-off cooing of doves, but otherwise the only noise was from the faint patter of a soft rainfall. It was nothing more than a drizzle and she didn’t let it stop her from starting off at a good pace.

Up the path, away from the dormitory toward the main building, then cut across the asphalt road in front of the school and into the woods across the street. She’d discovered yesterday that the acres and acres of woods had crushed limestone paths running through them, a nature lover’s sanctuary and a perfect place to walk or run.

Morning fog had settled around the trees and there was a chill in the air. She was glad she’d worn the sweatshirt. Such strange weather for August, but she wasn’t complaining. Anything beat the summer heat.

Her feet crunched along the limestone and she breathed in the heavy loamy smell of wet earth and the underlying odor of wet wood and decaying leaves. Soon the paths would be blanketed by the leaves that were only starting to turn. She wondered what it would be like to run up here in the winter.

When she came to a “Y” she hesitated for a moment before bearing right, only to be startled into a full stop when something large and ghostly rose from the fog ahead of her.

It was only a statue, she realized, laughing at her fear and moving forward to run a hand lightly over the cold marble. She recognized the tableau. Jesus is Condemned to Death. She peered through the fog and saw another statue a few feet ahead. The Stations of the Cross cut in intricate detail on expensive stone. They’d probably been here since the beginning days of the school, if the dark green moss edging the marble’s surface was anything to judge by.

She ran slowly past the remaining eleven statues, looking at the story of Christ’s passion worked in stone. And then it was only trees again and the wind whipping lightly across her face. She ran hard, blanking her mind to everything but the movement of her feet. When a large pond came into view on her right she slowed and pulled off the path, feeling the grass cold against her ankles as she headed for the water’s edge. There was a small stone bench and she took a seat, breathing hard.

The water of the pond, murky and algae laden where it merged into grass, was a still oval of silver. Leaning against the bench, feeling the cold stone press into her back, she looked out over the water and went through the mental checklist of everything she needed to finish prepping for class that morning.

Something caught her eye. A glimmer of color between the trees. She stood up and squinted, trying to see it more clearly. A coppery red color. Something bright, but it couldn’t be a bird, could it?

She stood up and circled slowly around the approximately quarter-mile loop, running at a slower pace in an attempt to keep sight of it, but the trees blocked her view. Once she was on the far side she slowed to a walk, looking around in vain for that color and then back across the pond to find the bench where she’d been sitting so she’d have a reference point.

This was where it should be, but she saw nothing but green as she walked toward the trees until suddenly there it was again. Just a splash of color. She moved past the trunk of a maple and saw it clearly this time, that bright coppery red that should have seemed familiar.

It was hair, hanging damp and heavy. But Lauren didn’t notice that as much as she did the naked body it was attached to.

Stephanie was making love with Alex when the phone rang. They were in bed, half-asleep, a slow, sweet, good morning suddenly and rudely interrupted. The noise echoed through the small town house, a chorus of phones jangling in tandem. He ignored it, trying to hold her attention, but she couldn’t. Cursing, he slipped out of her as she plucked the phone off the nightstand.

“Detective Land.”

“It’s not even six,” Alex complained, grunting as he climbed out of bed and stalked to the bathroom still semi-erect.

“Got a call from the Hill,” the nasally voiced dispatcher said. “Detective Plane said ten minutes.”

“Okay.”

Stephanie hung up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, slipping into her panties and reaching for the pair of khaki pants she’d left on a chair the night before. She walked toward the bathroom, avoiding Alex’s work boots and fastening a bra as she went.

“What’s it this time? Someone shoot their neighbor’s dog?” Alex flushed the toilet and moved roughly past her.

“I don’t control the calls,” she said, but she was speaking to the air.

He was in bed, lying with his back to her side, when she came back out, fully dressed with her long brown hair twisted into a knot at the base of her neck. His short dark hair was disheveled and she could see the rigid set to his shoulders through the T-shirt he’d put back on. She took her weapon from the nightstand and checked it before slipping the holster around her shoulders with the ease of long practice. A light blazer on top, badge in the breast pocket and comfortable shoes on her feet. Nine minutes and thirteen seconds.

She leaned down to kiss Alex, but he didn’t open his eyes.

“Sorry,” she said in a whisper, breathing in his scent for a moment.

“S’okay,” he murmured, turning to press a brief kiss to her lips, but he sounded sulky.

Detective Oswald Plane, known as “Oz,” drove up in an unmarked sedan as she was pulling the door to the town house closed behind her.

“You gotta move closer to town, Land,” he said, shaking his grizzled head as she got in the passenger door.

“Yeah, move my paycheck closer to a living wage and I’ll see what I can do.”

Plane grinned, his walrus mustache parting to show large teeth yellowed from too much coffee. “Why don’t you just sleep with the chief?”

“And spoil the fun I’m having with your brother?”

This time he guffawed. Stephanie smiled and reached for the cup of take-out coffee closest to her. “You remember my sugar this time?”

“Oh, I know you like it sweet.”

“Sweet and hot, Oz, don’t forget it.”

Sometimes she wondered what Alex would make of this banter, whether he’d be appalled or embarrassed by the sexual innuendo that his girlfriend participated in with such relish. Fiancée, not girlfriend. She kept forgetting that. They’d been engaged for barely a month. The diamond solitaire sparkling on her hand was still new to her.

“Stop mooning at your ring, Land, and tell me where we turn off for the Hill.”

Stephanie flushed and looked up at the road ahead. “Another two miles at least. You need GPS. What’s up?”

“Some kid’s dead. Probably offed herself.”

“Shit. I hate those.”

“Yeah. If they’re going to kill themselves why can’t they go off a cliff in Morristown and spare us the cleanup?”

He reached toward a white bakery box sitting on the dash. “You want one?” he said, rustling around in it as the car swerved slightly on the road.

Stephanie steadied the corner of the wheel closest to her. “Way to be a walking stereotype.”

“They’re Danish, not doughnuts.” He took a big bite out of a pastry that managed to look pint-sized in his beefy hand.

“Same difference.”

“Now that’s just plain ignorant. They’re not the same thing at all.”

“It’s still just sugar and fat.”

“My two favorite food groups.” Oz grinned and waved the half-eaten Danish at her. “These are from Rosenbaum’s—best bakery in town. C’mon, have one already.”

“You shouldn’t be eating them.”

“Yeah, yeah—who are you, my mother?”

A patrol car was waiting by the stone-pillared entrance to flag them down—evidence that Oz’s notoriously bad sense of direction was known beyond the detective squad.

In the two minutes it took to climb the hill, Stephanie loaded up with latex gloves and checked to make sure that she had Vicks in her pocket. Oz shoved the rest of the Danish in his mouth and brushed crumbs off onto the floor.

They passed the main building, where a small crowd stood on the steps, and drove by a patrolman signaling them to go farther up the road. It ended in a large parking lot where Oz pulled up behind two black-and-whites, lights flashing. An EMS van was nearby and one of the paramedics was sitting on the back bumper smoking a cigarette. A sheriff’s department vehicle signaled that the crime scene unit had beaten them to the scene.

A uniformed officer, young and eager, practically hopped up and down next to an entrance in the woods.

“This way!” he called. “Crime scene’s this way!”

“Okay, junior, stand down,” Oz muttered, checking his weapon and adjusting his tie. Stephanie moved ahead of him, straightening her blazer as she walked.

“What is this, a nature hike?” Oz complained when they’d walked twenty feet along a footpath and still weren’t at the crime scene.

“Nice pond,” Stephanie commented.

“Yeah, fucking beautiful.” Oz was huffing and despite the coolness of the morning sweat was trailing down his broad face. He was a big man, both tall and broad, and he carried a gut. “Gotta lose this.”

“I’ll pick you up for the gym tomorrow morning.”

“I was thinking something easier. Like one of them gastric bypasses.”

“The only surgery you need is to staple your mouth closed.”

“Bitch.”

“That’s skinny bitch to you.”

“Laugh now. It’s all going to catch up with you when you hit my age and I’m going to be the one laughing when your tits droop and your ass spreads.”

Stephanie laughed. “You still going to be around?”

Oz was saved from replying because they suddenly came upon the crime scene. Another paramedic was standing there with a couple of cops and a young woman in running clothes. A crime scene investigator was expanding the perimeter of the scene, but that wasn’t where Oz was looking when he said, “Shit.”

Stephanie followed his gaze and swallowed hard. The naked body of a teenage girl was tied to a large oak tree, her red hair garish against the paleness of her skin. Very white, but with a purplish-blue sheen, it reminded Stephanie of skim milk.

“I thought you said it was suicide?” Stephanie said, ducking under the tape and drawing gloves on her hands. She stepped carefully toward the body, looking out for footprints or other evidence, and stepping around investigators taking pictures. She stopped short at seeing something else on the ground. “Look at that.”

A large circle had been scratched in the dirt and thin grass surrounding the tree. Within the circle was a five-pointed star. There were words scratched in each point of the star. “Water,” Stephanie read out loud the word in the point closest to her. She followed the circle.

“What is that?” Oz squatted down over a point with “Air” written in it, rocking back on his heels to take a closer look.

“It’s a pentagram. The other points say Earth, Fire and Spirit.”

“What is this, some satanic thing?”

“I don’t know.” Stephanie looked up and called to the investigator with the camera. “You get pictures of that?”

The guy nodded and she stepped carefully into the circle and closer to the body. The girl’s pupils were fixed and her skin and hair were wet. There was a small tattoo of a butterfly on her left shoulder, the brightly colored wings another startling contrast to the skin. The rope binding her to the tree looked like nylon. Approximately an inch thick and made of multicolored orange strands, it looked like something used by rock climbers.

It had been wound tightly around the body, compressing the collarbone and shoulders, cutting sharply into the skin just below the small breasts, digging into the softer skin of the lower abdomen, and wrapping twice around the thighs. It was knotted tightly behind the tree and Stephanie noticed that some of the bark was worn against the knot as if the girl had struggled.

“What’s the cause?” Oz asked.

Stephanie moved close to the body, trying to get a closer look at the girl’s neck. “Looks like there might be some blood back of the head. Maybe trauma and exposure?”

Oz stepped next to her and looked where she pointed and then peered at the other side of the girl’s head.

The medical examiner’s arrival was signaled by an impatient cough behind them. Dr. Harriet Wembley was wearing a bright blue tracksuit that did nothing to mask the fact that she looked tired, cold, and impatient.

“Whenever you’re done, detectives.”

Oz grinned at her. “Early enough for you?”

“I was having a nice dream, made nicer by the fact that you didn’t factor in it.”

Oz staggered dramatically, one beefy hand to his chest. “You wound me.”

Harriet rolled her eyes. “If only it was so easy to insult you.” She stepped past him with her case and then, seeing the victim, suddenly swore.

It was completely out of character for her and Stephanie’s eyes jerked from the victim to the older woman.

“Who called this in?” the medical examiner demanded. “This poor girl may not be dead at all!”

“What? But her pupils are dilated and she’s already in rigor.” Stephanie pointed at the girl’s eyes and the clear rigidity of her body.

“Severe hypothermia can mimic death. This might not be real rigor. Jesus H. Christ, we’ve got to get her down from here and warm her up. Get those paramedics over here,” she said to the air, “and see if they’ve got a Bair blanket!”

“We need to get photographs,” Oz said, even as he shuffled backward.

Dr. Wembley turned on him, blue eyes flashing. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about photographs! I’m trying to save this kid’s life!”

Oz held up his hands in defeat and hustled off, calling to the paramedic standing on the outskirts of the crime scene tape.

“Are you done with pix of the body?” Stephanie asked the investigator with the camera. She didn’t recognize him; he had to be new, which explained why he had a sheen of perspiration on his upper lip and looked like he might lose whatever breakfast he’d had time to grab.

He nodded in response and looked away from the body as if he’d seen enough. Poor kid was going to have to toughen up if he wanted to stay on the job.

“Okay, we can take her down,” she said to Dr. Wembley, who was practically shaking with anxiety. The paramedics hustled in with a stretcher and Oz pulled out a knife he was carrying and sawed away at the rope.

Stephanie signaled the young investigator to get some more shots of the girl once she’d been pulled away from the tree and then of the tree itself.

Then they hustled the girl away with some sort of heating blanket wrapped around her and Dr. Wembley rushed after them, promising over her shoulder to call Oz and Stephanie from the hospital.

“No way is that girl alive,” Oz said. “I’m sorry, but that is just wishful thinking.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Stephanie looked again at the crime scene, now devoid of a body, and walked over to one of the uniforms. “Who found the body?”

The female officer jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the path where the woman in running clothes was standing with another officer. “A teacher. She’s pretty shook up.”

“It would be news if she wasn’t,” Stephanie said. “Did she touch anything?”

The officer flushed, an ugly color climbing her neck, all the way to the roots of her hair, which Stephanie could see because she was taller. The woman had obviously forgotten to check and Stephanie was glad that she’d asked and not Oz or one of the other detectives. There weren’t that many women on the force and she knew how quick some of the guys were to assume that your genitals determined your judgment.

Schaeffer, the officer’s badge said. Somebody Schaeffer. Stephanie searched her memory, but couldn’t come up with the first name. Pam? Jan? Something short like that, but she didn’t risk trying one out.

“No problem. I’ll talk to her.”

The teacher was young enough that in her sweatshirt and exercise pants she could easily be mistaken for a student. She was average height and skinny to the point that she needed to put on a few pounds, with curly blond hair pulled back in a short ponytail.

Stephanie introduced herself and the other woman shook her hand, turning wide blue eyes on her with a look that Stephanie recognized as shock.

“Did you know the victim?” she said gently, but the woman still winced at the word.

She shook her head. “No. I’m new.” Her voice trembled, but she paused and it toughened. “I don’t really know any of the students, not yet.”

Stephanie talked her through the discovery of the body, taking notes while watching the woman’s body language and tone of voice, weighing almost unconsciously the truth of what she was saying. There was no deception that Stephanie could detect, at least not about this victim and this crime scene. There was a hint of fear, but it probably had as much to do with being the focus of police attention as anything else.

“Did you touch anything?”

“The rope. I tried to undo it.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears and she blinked them back. “I thought, I mean, I didn’t know if she was—” Her voice trembled again and she stopped talking.

Dead, Stephanie finished for her mentally. “Did you see anyone else this morning?”

“No.”

“Do you always run at this hour of the morning?”

The woman shook her head, blond curls escaping. She tucked them back behind her ears. “This was the first day of classes,” she said. “I have to teach this morning.”

Again, it sounded like the truth. She didn’t look like she’d spent the last couple of hours tying someone to a tree and her clothes weren’t wet.

“I need to get going. Can I leave?” she said, arms wrapped around her body again. She was shivering, but Stephanie doubted it was from the cold.

“I think you’re a little shocky,” she said. “You should probably see someone. Why don’t you let one of the officers take you over to the hospital to get checked out?”

But the teacher was shaking her head before Stephanie was finished. “No, thanks, I’m fine.” She forced a smile. “I’ve got to teach this morning.”

Stephanie thanked her and signaled for Officer Schaeffer to walk Ms. Kavanaugh back to the school. Then she retraced her steps to Oz, paying close attention to the ground around her. The grass was short and sparse in places, the ground softer the closer she got to the water. There was at least one visible footprint and she pointed it out to the CI taking shots. It made her wonder how the vic had gotten here. Walked? And if she were going for a swim, wouldn’t she have brought a towel?

Suddenly Stephanie thought of something and looked up. Circle. Tree. Naked body. Rope. “Where are her clothes?”

“What?” Oz turned from the body.

“The vic. Did she walk up here naked?”

He looked around. “And without shoes? Her feet weren’t cut up.”

Stephanie felt a little glimmer of excitement that faded when she found out that the clothes had already been bagged by an overzealous investigator.

“Stupid shit,” Oz grumbled once they’d taken a look. “Watched too many episodes of CSI and think they run this show.”

“So she comes up here and leaves her clothes in a neat little pile, takes a swim, and then someone comes along and ties her to the tree—”

“And what? Waits for her to die?”

“Unless she didn’t wasn’t supposed to die,” Stephanie said.

“What do you mean?”

“What if was a game or some sort of ritual?”

“Like hazing?”

“Yeah, something like that. Maybe it’s a club initiation.”

Only the headmistress denied that such a thing was possible at St. Ursula’s. “There is no hazing at St. Ursula’s,” she said, shaking her head at them as if they were foolish even to suggest such a thing. “Our girls simply would not tolerate anything like that.”

They were sitting in the headmistress’s office, admitted to the inner sanctum because she wanted them off the front lawn and away from the all-too-curious eyes of other students and teachers. A carafe of good coffee had been brought in by the secretary, along with porcelain cups with saucers and a silver cream-and-sugar set. It was all very dignified and seemed completely incongruous after the scene in the woods.

The crime scene investigators had been packing up when the captain called in on Oz’s phone to let them know that the victim couldn’t be revived. It was once they’d finished explaining this to the headmistress that she’d invited them into her office.

Oz looked like he didn’t know where to put his feet and the chair he was sitting on had creaked ominously when he sat down.

“I understand that the police have to ask these questions,” Sister Rose Merton said, “but it’s completely out of character for our school.”

Stephanie recoiled inwardly at that statement. The way Sister Rose said “the police” sounded suspiciously like someone saying “the help.” Like any good detective, she schooled her features so they wouldn’t reveal the hostility she felt toward this woman. It wasn’t personal as much as a knee-jerk, blue-collar bias from the daughter of a cleaning lady.

“We’ll need you to identify the body, Sister,” she said.

“Oh? But is that really necessary? I have trouble believing that this poor person could be connected in any way to our school.”

Stephanie blinked and even Oz looked stunned. “Well, we think she’s probably a student,” he said slowly. “She’s pretty young.”

“What? One of our girls?” Sister Rose sounded truly shocked. “I mean, I know she was found on our campus, but I just assumed…” her voice trailed off.

That tragedy only happened to other people? Poor people? Stephanie purposely slurped her cup of coffee before letting the cup clatter into the saucer. Coffee splashed onto the small table and Sister Rose’s eyes flickered to it, but she didn’t say anything.

“She had very distinct red hair,” Stephanie said. “About shoulder length. And a small tattoo of a butterfly on her left shoulder.”

Sister Rose frowned. “A tattoo? That doesn’t sound like a St. Ursula’s girl, we don’t allow—” She stopped short and her face changed.

“What?” Oz said. “Do you know who it is?”

A hand crept to Sister Rose’s mouth and she nodded, eyes large. “But it can’t be,” she whispered. “Not one of our girls.”

“It might not be,” Stephanie said. “But if you think you know who it is we really need to contact that girl’s family.”

“Morgan Wycoff.”

“She’s a boarder?”

Sister Rose nodded. “Just started last year. I think her mother thought it might help her fit in.” She fiddled with the pin on her lapel and looked up at them with concern. “That poor girl. Her poor mother.”

“Her family lives in town?”

“Yes. Her mother. It was just the two of them.”

“Do you have Mrs. Wycoff’s address? We’re going to need it.”

“Of course, of course.” Sister Rose went into the other room.

“That’s a little weird,” Stephanie commented in a whisper.

“What?”

“That she didn’t just assume it would be one of the students.”

Oz shrugged. “Nobody thinks it’s going to be someone they know.”

Stephanie thought about her own happy or at the least indifferent memories of attending the local public school, and wondered what it would be like to attend a private school like this one, with its uniform and tradition and the weird commingling of religion and education. She wasn’t a Catholic, though. Maybe it was normal for Catholics.

They drove straight from the school to the Wycoff residence, which turned out to be in the wealthiest neighborhood in Gashford, Briar Ridge. This was the land of large empty homes with security systems and housekeepers that commuted all the way from poor neighborhoods in Jersey or the boroughs.

The Wycoff home was a large frame Colonial in yellow with black shutters and front door. They parked behind a green BMW and the front door opened before they were halfway up the walk.

A red-haired woman in a business suit, who looked like an older version of the girl tied to the tree, greeted them without preamble. “Have you found her?”

Oz glanced quickly at Stephanie with a look that conveyed how shitty this was going to be. Then he said, “Are you Mrs. Wycoff?” Not because either of them were in any doubt, but you had to ask, you had to follow procedure.

“Yes, yes. I called last night and this morning. Where is my daughter? Have you found her?”

“Could we speak inside, Mrs. Wycoff?”

“Oh, God.” She was a tall woman with good posture, but she seemed to fold in on herself a little. “Yes, okay, yes.” She stepped back for them to pass and Stephanie stepped inside the cool hallway while trying to compose her own nerves.

“Is there a Mr. Wycoff?” Oz asked.

The woman frowned. Her trembling lips drew together in a thin line. “We’re divorced.”

They were standing in a tiled entranceway, the beige of the floor complementing the walls, which were painted in a corresponding shade of cream. On one wall was a painting of a placid landscape in a gilt frame, on another a gilt-framed mirror. All very ordered, very serene.

Oz glanced at Stephanie. She took the lead. “Mrs. Wycoff, when was the last time you saw Morgan?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I helped her move in. She was supposed to call me last night, but she didn’t. When she didn’t call this morning I phoned the police.”

“Instead of the school?”

Mrs. Wycoff nodded. “Morgan wasn’t happy there. She threatened to leave more than once.” One hand moved to her mouth in a fretful gesture. The other thin arm was pressed against her stomach. “Please. Has something happened?”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you that the body of a girl matching Morgan’s description was found this morning at St. Ursula’s.”

The woman uttered a groan so deep that it sounded primeval. She shook her head slowly at first, then faster, whipping it back and forth.

“We’ll need you to identify your daughter,” Oz said gently.

“No, no. God, no.”

Stephanie reached out a hand to steady her, but Mrs. Wycoff jerked out of her reach. “No!” she said again, screaming it this time.

“We’re so sorry,” Oz said.

“It isn’t Morgan,” the other woman said. “It isn’t!”

“Do you have any family member that we could call?” Stephanie asked.

Mrs. Wycoff shook her head and for the first time tears sprang to her eyes. “It’s just us. I’m an only child and so is Morgan. My mother’s in a nursing home.”

“How about a friend?”

In the end a neighbor came with them, a seventy-some-year-old woman in a baby-pink twinset with a matching headband in her iron-gray hair. She smelled faintly of menthol and gin, but she clutched Mrs. Wycoff’s hand firmly.

They took them both in the back of the car to the medical examiner’s offices. By the time they got there the body had been delivered, cleaned up for identification, and a sheet drawn over the pale limbs, the livid marks left by the rope hidden from view.

Mrs. Wycoff took several deep breaths, holding her friend’s hand before nodding for the sheet to be pulled back. After the briefest look she fell over backward in a full faint, pulling her friend down with her and hitting the floor before Oz or the lab assistant could catch her.

“Oh shit,” Oz said and the elderly friend gave him an affronted look. She accepted his arm to get to her feet. “Poor Janice,” she said. “Poor, poor Janice.”

It took waving a bottle of smelling salts under her nose to get Janice Wycoff to come to. She moaned as she sat up and tears ran down her face. Stephanie felt nauseated and had to fight the urge to run from the building.

Instead, she and Oz drove Mrs. Wycoff and her friend back to their pristine neighborhood and the friend took over, leading all of them into the living room, instructing them to place Janice on an upholstered sofa and disappearing into the kitchen only to return in a few minutes with a slug of whiskey.

Stephanie saw Oz looking longingly at the glass, but the woman had brought only one and she held it to Janice Wycoff’s lips as if she were a baby who needed to be suckled.

“Was your daughter depressed?” Stephanie asked after the woman had dutifully swallowed and grimaced on the harsh burn of liquor.

“She’s—she was—a teenager,” Janice Wycoff said in a dull voice. “They’re all depressed. Hormones.”

“Did it seem worse lately?”

“No. I don’t know. She didn’t tell me everything.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she didn’t blink them back. They slipped onto her cheeks and trailed down the powdered face, disappearing around her jaw and down her neck.

“Did she have any enemies?” Oz said.

More tears. Janice covered her eyes for a moment, her shoulders shaking. “She was different,” she said after a moment. “She was a smart girl, creative—not a joiner. She didn’t like school.”

“Was she religious?” Stephanie handed Mrs. Wycoff some tissues from the box on the coffee table.

Janice mopped at her face and shook her head. “Not as a Catholic, if that’s what you mean. She stopped going to church—outside of school, I mean—more than a year ago. She said it was hypocritical and frankly I couldn’t argue with that.”

She shot them a red-eyed but defiant look, as if expecting them to find this objectionable.

“Perhaps I should have forced her,” she said. “I’m sure her father would have argued for that, but I’m a single parent. I did the best I could.”

“Of course you did,” her friend said stoutly.

“Besides, she’d found another religion,” Janice Wycoff added.

“What was that?”

“Wicca. She was a self-proclaimed Wiccan.”