The sound of her doorbell startled her awake. Groggy from her nap, she sat up on the couch and saw that it was already two in the afternoon. That could be Daniel at the door.
Scattered newspapers crackled beneath her bare feet as she hurried across the living room. When she opened the door and saw the man who stood on her porch, she suddenly regretted not combing her hair or changing out of the bathrobe.
“I’m sorry I’m a little late,” said Anthony Sansone. “I hope it’s not inconvenient.”
“Late? I’m sorry, but I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Didn’t you get my message? I left it on your answering machine yesterday afternoon. About coming by to see you today.”
“Oh. I guess I forget to check the machine last night.” I was otherwise occupied. She stepped back. “Come in.”
He walked into the living room and stopped, gazing at the scattered newspapers, the empty coffee cup. It had been months since she’d seen him, and she was struck yet again by his stillness, by the way he always seemed to be testing the air, searching for the one detail he’d missed. Unlike Daniel, who was quick to reach out even to strangers, Anthony Sansone was a man surrounded by walls, a man who could stand in a crowded room yet seem coolly apart and self-contained. She wondered what he was thinking as he looked at the clutter of her wasted Sunday. Not all of us have butlers, she thought. Not all of us live the way you do, in a Beacon Hill mansion.
“I’m sorry for bothering you at home,” he said. “But I didn’t want this to be an official visit to the ME.” He turned to look at her. “And I did want to find out how you’ve been, Maura. I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’m fine. It’s been busy.”
“The Mephisto Society’s resumed our weekly dinners in my house. We could certainly use your perspective, and we’d love to have you join us again some evening.”
“To talk about crime? I deal with that subject quite enough at my own job, thank you.”
“Not in the way we approach it. You only look at its final effect; we’re concerned with the reason for its existence.”
She began picking up newspapers and stacking them into a pile. “I don’t really fit in with your group. I don’t accept your theories.”
“Even after what we both experienced? Those murders must have made you wonder. They must have raised the possibility in your mind.”
“That there’s a unified theory of evil to be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls?” She shook her head. “I’m a scientist. I read religious texts for historical insights, not for literal truths. Not to explain the unexplainable.”
“You were trapped with us on the mountain that night. You saw the evidence.”
On the night he spoke of, a night in January, they had almost lost their lives. That much they could agree on, because the evidence was as real as the blood left in the aftermath. But there was so much about that night that they would never agree on, and their most fundamental disagreement was about the nature of the monster who had trapped them on that mountain.
“What I saw was a serial murderer, like too many others in this world,” she said. “I don’t need any biblical theories to explain him. Talk to me about science, not fables about ancient demonic bloodlines.” She set the stack of newspapers on the coffee table. “Evil just is. People can be brutal and some of them kill. We’d all like an explanation for it.”
“Does science explain why a killer would mummify a woman’s body? Why he’d shrink a woman’s head and deposit another woman in the trunk of a car?”
Startled, she turned to look at him. “You already know about those cases?”
But of course he would know. Anthony Sansone’s ties to law enforcement reached the highest levels, into the office of the police commissioner himself. A case as unusual as that of Madam X would certainly catch his attention. And it would stir interest within the secretive Mephisto Society, which had its own bizarre theories about crime and how to combat it.
“There are details even you may not be aware of,” he said.
“Details I think you should be acquainted with.”
“Before we talk about this any further,” she said, “I’m going to get dressed. If you’ll excuse me.”
She retreated to her bedroom. There she pulled on jeans and a button-down shirt, casual attire that was perfectly appropriate for a Sunday afternoon, but she felt underdressed for her distinguished visitor. She didn’t bother with makeup, but simply washed her face and brushed the tangles from her hair. Staring at herself in the mirror, she saw puffy eyes and new strands of gray that she hadn’t noticed before. Well, this is who I am, she thought. A woman who’ll never see forty again. I can’t hide my age and I won’t even try to.
By the time she came out of the bedroom, the smell of brewing coffee was permeating the house. She followed the scent to the kitchen, where Sansone had already pulled two mugs from the cabinet.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of making a fresh pot.”
She watched as he picked up the carafe and poured, his broad back turned to her. He looked perfectly at home in her kitchen, and it annoyed her how effortlessly he had invaded her house. He had the knack of walking into any room, in any house, and just by his presence laying claim to the territory.
He handed her a cup, and to her surprise he’d added just the right amount of sugar and cream, exactly as she liked it. It was a detail she hadn’t expected him to remember.
“It’s time to talk about Madam X,” he said. “And what you may really be dealing with.”
“How much do you know?”
“I know you have three linked deaths.”
“We don’t know they’re linked.”
“Three victims, all preserved in grotesque ways? That’s a rather unique signature.”
“I haven’t done the autopsy on the third victim, so I can’t tell you anything about her. Not even how she was preserved.”
“I’m told it wasn’t a classic mummification.”
“If by classic you mean salted, dried, and wrapped, no, it wasn’t.”
“Her features are relatively intact?”
“Yes. Remarkably so. But her tissues still retain moisture. I’ve never autopsied a body like this one. I’m not even sure how to keep her preserved in her current state.”
“What about the owner of the car? She’s an archaeologist, isn’t she? Does she have any idea how the body was preserved?”
“I didn’t speak to her. From what Jane told me, the woman was pretty shaken up.”
He set down his coffee cup and his gaze was so direct it almost felt like an assault. “What do you know about Dr. Pulcillo?”
“Why are you asking about her?”
“Because she works for them, Maura.”
“Them?”
“The Crispin Museum.”
“You make it sound like a malevolent institution.”
“You agreed to view the CT scan. You were part of that media circus they organized around Madam X. You must have known what you were getting into.”
“The curator invited me to observe. He didn’t tell me there would be a media circus. He just thought I’d be interested in watching the scan, and of course I was.”
“And you didn’t know anything about the museum when you agreed to participate?”
“I visited the Crispin a few years ago. It’s a quirky collection but it’s worth seeing. It’s not that different from a number of other private museums I’ve visited, founded by wealthy families who want to show off their collections.”
“The Crispins are something of a special family.”
“What makes them special?”
He sat down in the chair across from her so their gazes were level. “The fact that no one really knows where they came from.”