“Hello?” she called.
“In the office.” Ted’s wife, Darla, sat behind the big cluttered desk, a pencil stuck in her graying hair. Darla managed the books, which meant the most important function of the museum-her paycheck-was in capable hands. “How was your weekend, dear?”
Sophie shook her head. “You really don’t want to know.”
Darla glanced up, her eyes concerned. “Did your grandmother take a turn?”
It was one of the reasons that Sophie liked Darla. She was a nice person who really cared. And she seemed fairly normal, which made her the odd Albright. With the exception of Darla, Ted’s family was… just plain off.
There was Ted himself with his bizarro-world approach to running a history museum and his son, who Sophie always thought of as Theo Four. Theo was nineteen, a sulky, angry boy who played hooky more than he showed up. That wouldn’t have been such an issue, but Theo’s new job was to run the Knight tour and when he played hooky, the responsibility fell to Sophie who was the only other one big enough to fit the suit. Darla was barely five-two and the Albrights’ daughter, Patty Ann, even smaller.
Patty emerged from the ladies’ room, wearing a very conservative blue suit, and Sophie narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Patty Ann looks nice today. How come?”
Darla smiled without looking up. “I’m just glad it’s not Wednesday.”
Wednesday was Patty Ann’s goth day. Any other day you never knew how she’d show up for work. A struggling actress, Patty Ann hadn’t yet found her persona, so she imitated everyone else’s. Usually not well.
Sophie questioned the wisdom of assigning her to the reception desk and wondered how many visitors took one look at Patty Ann and went on to the Franklin Institute or some other real museum, especially on Wednesdays. But Sophie kept her mouth shut because as much as she hated doing the tours, she hated the thought of cheerily greeting visitors even more. I miss my pile of rocks.
Darla looked up, reluctantly. “Theo’s got a cold.”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “And we have a knight tour scheduled. That’s just great. Dammit, Darla… I’m sorry. I really wanted to do some real work today.”
Darla looked distressed. “The tours will bring in a lot of money, Sophie.”
“I know.” And she wondered if she was whoring herself for that money, participating in an enterprise that cheapened history. But as long as Anna was alive, she needed the money. Sophie hoped she needed the money for a long time. “So what time am I on?”
“The knight tour is at twelve-thirty, Viking at three.”
Oh joy, oh rapture. “I’ll be there with bells on.”
Monday, January 15, 8:45
A.M.
“You got lucky, boys,” Katherine said as she pulled the Knight’s body from cold storage. “This guy has a tattoo. May make identifying him a little easier.” She pulled the sheet away, revealing the man’s shoulder. “Can you guess what it is?”
Vito crouched down and stared at the tattoo through narrowed eyes. “It’s a man.”
“Not just any man. If you look at him as closely as you watched Sophie yesterday, you’ll figure it out.”
Vito’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t realized his scrutiny of Sophie Johannsen had been so obvious. Feeling squirmy, he turned back to the victim’s shoulder, but not before he caught Nick’s look of amusement. It wouldn’t have been so bad had Sophie not turned him down cold. It still stung. “It’s a yellow man,” Vito said flatly.
Nick looked over Vito’s shoulder. “It’s Oscar. You know, the movie award statue.”
Vito squinted. “Not a particularly good rendition, but it could be.” Straightening, he looked at Nick. “Maybe our Knight’s an actor?”
Nick shrugged. “It’s a place to start. It’ll narrow down the missing persons reports.”
Vito took his notebook from his pocket. “Cause of death was the hole in his gut?”
“That seems likely. I’ll start the autopsies today. So far I’ve only done external exams on the three victims from yesterday.” She looked back at the Knight and sighed. “But this one suffered, I can tell that right now.”
“Being disemboweled has got to hurt a little,” Nick said sarcastically.
“I can only hope he was dead at least for part of it, but I don’t think he was. I’m fairly certain he was alive when every major bone in his body was dislocated.”
Vito and Nick flinched. “My God,” Vito murmured. “How would…? He’s a big guy.”
“Six feet three, two hundred twenty-five,” Katherine confirmed. “And he fought hard. There are deep abrasions on his wrists and ankles where he was tied with rope. And yeah, I sent a sample of the rope fiber to the lab, but that’s a long shot, kids. Other than the dislocations and an empty abdominal cavity, he appears to have been in good shape.” She held up a hand. “And yes, I’ve already started a urine tox. I can’t see how he could have been overpowered without being drugged. I don’t see any head trauma.”
Nick blew out a breath. “Anything on the woman?”
“Official cause of death is a broken neck.” She pulled out another drawer, their female victim, the sheet forming a tent over her folded hands.
“You need to see her back.” Katherine lifted the sheet and carefully pushed the woman’s hip so that the back of her thigh was visible. “A pattern of contusions, regularly spaced and very deep.” She looked up, her face grim. “I’m thinking nails.”
Vito’s eyes were already beginning to water. Blinking, he focused on the pattern on the woman’s skin. Each hole was round and small. “Is it only on her legs?”
“No.” Katherine slid the drawer back into the wall. “It’s deepest on the backs of her thighs, but the same pattern is visible on her back, calves and the backs of her arms. From the depth of the thigh punctures, I’d say she was sitting up, all of her body weight driving her down onto the nails.”
Nick’s expression became strangely strained. “A chair of nails?”
“Or something like that. Her gluteus was severely burned. No skin remains.” Katherine cocked her jaw, anger in her eyes. “And she was alive the whole time.”
Vito’s stomach churned as the extent of this killer’s cruelty became clearer. “We’re dealing with a creative sadist here. I mean, how the hell would anybody even conceive of a chair of nails?”
Nick sat down at Katherine’s computer. “Come here, Chick. Look at this.”
Vito frowned at the screen. It was the chair he’d envisioned, covered in spikes. Restraints were attached to the chair’s arms and front legs. “What the hell is that?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night-kept thinking about the way he’d posed their hands. So I got up and Googled medieval effigies. Sophie was right, by the way. The poses of our victims are exactly like the tomb effigies I found online.”
Vito didn’t want to think about Sophie right now. He’d done enough of that during the night while he tossed and turned. “That’s nice,” he scowled, focusing on the screen. “But what about the chair? Please don’t tell me this is available on eBay.”
Nick looked back at the screen, troubled. “It might be. But this site belongs to a museum in Europe that specializes in medieval torture.”
“A torture museum?” It was real, then. That chair existed in a museum. One also existed right here in Philly. “I can’t begin to imagine how she suffered. How both of them suffered. And we haven’t even started on the others.” He pressed his fingers into the back of his skull, a headache forming there. “How did you find this site?”
“I thought about what Sophie said about disembowelment being used as torture during medieval times. I Googled ‘medieval torture’ and this is one of the top results. This chair has over thirteen hundred spikes.”