Jessica helped Kim calm Chief Roth and Deputy Mayor Alsop, both fathers themselves, with assurances that the agents themselves did not wholly believe.
A telephone call came an hour later; another body had surfaced, discovered this time in the first stages of decomposition. Over the weekend both Leare and Locke had been in Houston, there had been a murder after all, but the body had gone undetected. Jessica steeled herself as she walked into the now familiar “cozy” death scene, a set of props and surroundings created between lovers, between victim and killer, or so it seemed, down to the leftover Pinot Noir, the candles, and soft music.
Time had taken its toll on the crime scene. Candles had burned out, spilling wax like small pools of lava over surfaces. This young woman's body had been discovered by her mother, who, after numerous attempts to reach her daughter by phone, had driven to her apartment and quietly let herself in; the hysterical woman now sat sobbing in a neighbor's apartment down the hall, a cluster of building residents standing about her in a protective circle.
It proved to be a carbon-copy murder scene, and it took little time to determine that the MO was that of the Poet Killer. Victim facedown on living-room floor, this time a pillow under her head, a soft down comforter pulled to her waist, a blatant message left by her killer, penned once again in angry red-to-ocher-burnished ink that made the words appear to be written in dried blood.
The only difference with this victim was the more advanced stage of decomposition; decay had caused some of the killer's penned words to sink inward, as it were, creating puckering slash like wounds in the skin. This time, the victim's skin had to be pulled tight on either side, held by forceps, in order for the poetic lines to be completely made out. Rigor mortis had set in days before and had long since released its grip on the corpse.
“Same MO, same setup,” muttered Parry, just to hear himself speak.
“It's definitely the work of the Poet,” Sturtevante agreed.
“The body gently posed for all eternity, and the victim is familiar as well. She is all the others, all the others are her,” added Kim Desinor.
After a cursory examination of the body, Jessica stepped aside for Kim to “read” it, but Kim's examination fell short. “Getting nothing; emptiness, save for those words again: rampage… quark, preflight, and outing… At least I… I think it's outing.”
Jessica then began collecting the minutiae of evidence left by the killer, searching in particular for the tearstained evidence. Under her magnifying glass, she found it. Using an adhesive, she collected the sample and placed it in a vial, labeling it and carefully putting it away.
Parry and Sturtevante had been searching about the room, Parry again going for the books. He held up a copy of Locke's poems. “It was on her shelf,” he said, opening the volume to a marker. “She appears to have been reading a poem entitled 'The Stage Is Set.' “ He began to read:
The Enochian world is made of gritty tectonics of mind, pressed against the choking smokestack of our lonely city, a place of diastrophic shifts thought masquerading as landmasses that grind into one another.
There, at the hazy altar of ruined pavement, vested in soot, the twin lovers to be wed; purity and iniquity.
They stand in pools of nervous devils, clutching one another with vows of betrothal, caught in the tactile rush of Thorazine bedlam.
They are the lost children elected to host the supraliminal.
On the marker, Jessica read the name and address of the bookstore where the victim had purchased this autographed copy of the book-Darkest Expectations. Also on the marker was a scribbled note, which the victim had apparently written as a reminder to herself. Purchase Leare's work next, it read.
From the look of the apartment, Jessica imagined that the victim could ill afford to purchase both books at the same time, but then Kim entered from the bathroom, carrying a copy of Leare's book.
“It all keeps going back to Locke and Leare and that bookstore,” said Jessica. “Somehow I believe their work is connected to the killings.”
“What are you saying?” asked Sturtevante. “You have no proof of that. None whatever.”
I believe that somehow Locke, Leare, or both are connected to the killings, or at the very least, their poetry is somehow inextricably mixed with the reasoning behind the killing spree.”
Kim supported Jessica. “Such phrases as Enochian world in Locke's poem-that refers to occultism and ancient rites and conversations with God or his agents, angels?”
“Vladoc spoke of it,” said Sturtevante. “But Leare was out of the city all weekend, and Locke with her. Neither of them could possibly have had anything to do with this.”
Jessica felt a sense of relief coming from Sturtevante. Had she begun to suspect her friend Donatella Leare?
“Yes, so they say,” Jessica commented.
“They were both out of the city all weekend, and according to your own findings, the victim died Saturday night,” countered Sturtevante. “And as for Locke's reference to Enoch, Donatella tells me that many poets are familiar with ancient religions and magical practices. Hell, that Dr. Burrwith guy, his poetry alludes to the Four Quarters all the time. Vladoc told me that that's part of the Enochian belief system, too. It's more widespread among artists and writers than you would imagine.”
“Vladoc did make some brief mention of strange belief systems,” said Kim. “I think I remember that.”
“They both left the city on a flight for Houston, or so we are told,” Jessica said, thinking aloud. “But suppose one or the other faked the flight out of here, not getting on that plane, asking the other to cover for him or her?”
Jessica stepped out and down the hallway to talk to the mother. Sturtevante followed. The woman said she was Rowena Metzger, wife of Phillip K. Metzger. Sturtevante knew what this meant, so she explained for Jessica's sake. “Only the most powerful business leader in the city.”
“Cinthia, our daughter, absolutely rejected her father's and my lifestyle and all that we offered her. This began after she started at the university.”
“University of Philadelphia?” asked Jessica.
The mother nodded, still sobbing. Finally, she added, “She wanted so to become an artist and poet. Now… my God… nooooo!” The wailing moan ripped at Jessica's heart.
'Take her to St. Behan's Hospital,” Sturtevante told a nearby medic as she helped Mrs. Metzger to her feet. “She will need something to calm her down until her husband can be located.”
When the sobbing woman was led away, Sturtevante said to Jessica, “The Metzgers, Phillip and Rowena there, regularly appear on the society pages.”
“And now they're front-page news.”
Jessica and Sturtevante returned to the death room to find Kim Desinor attempting a second reading of the body. “It's teasing, something being held out of reach,” Kim muttered, when suddenly Phillip Metzger, a tall, barrel-chested, white-haired man, charged in bull-like. He had become another of the walking wounded-another victim.
“Get away from her! Get away!” he cried out at them as if they were all ghouls, and as if he somehow believed the girl might be saved by his touch. He fell to his knees over his daughter, grabbed her up in his arms, and rocked and sobbed as uncontrollably as a hurt child.
Sturtevante looked shaken, Jessica thought as the PPD detective moved her toward the door. “Can we talk privately?” the detective asked. “I need to talk to you alone… now.”
Jessica did not argue; Sturtevante's voice had become at once tremulous and conspiratorial.