“You doing OK, Ari?” she asked warmly. Considering his timorous personality, she’d always found it ironic that in Hebrew his name meant “Lion.”
“I’m good.” He paused. “How are you and Jayson?”
She noted that he hadn’t asked about her husband, just her son, but she decided not to remind him that she was a married woman.
“Just turned three. He’s talking now. He’s a real mama’s boy. Yeah, we’re good.”
“That’s great.”
“Yeah.”
“So, how do you do it? Working, mothering, everything?” It was a subtle compliment bordering on flirtation, and she noticed.
“Lots of day care.” Get to the case. Ask him about the tips. “Hey, I heard about these calls the last couple days. The homicides. That someone tipped off the police.”
Silence.
“Off the record, I was wondering-”
“Amy Lynn, I’m not supposed to-”
“I know, I know. But I won’t use your name. I’ll just say, ‘an anonymous source,’ just like we did last time.”
“Yeah, but last time they almost found out.” He’d lowered his voice. “I could lose my job. They’re really worried about leaks with this one, he’s been killing two people every day-” He cut himself short.
“Two people a day?” She jotted the words “Mounting Death Toll Shocks City” on her notepad. “So they think he’ll kill again before tomorrow?” She spoke without thinking, slipping into reporter mode.
“I didn’t say that.” Slightly defensive. Not good.
“Of course not. No, you didn’t say anything.”
“Maybe I should go.”
Quick.
“You’re right, Ari. Really, look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. The last thing I’d ever want to do is get you in trouble.”
Wait. Wait.
“Don’t worry about the story. Really. I can… It’s not that big of a deal.”
Wait.
More, a little more.
“It’s really good to say hi, though. Good to hear your voice. I should probably go.”
Wait.
“Good-bye, Ari-”
“Hang on.”
Oh yes.
“One thing.” He spoke even softer than before. “But I didn’t tell you, though. You have to promise.”
This was good. Very good. “No, of course not. You didn’t say a word.”
“I didn’t take either of the tips the guy called in, but I heard people talking.”
She waited, pen poised on her notebook.
“He said dusk was coming, that Day Four would be over soon, that he wouldn’t stop until he was done with the story. I don’t know what it means. No one does. That’s it. But don’t print it, OK? Just say something like ‘the police are investigating the calls.’”
“I promise, I won’t print it.” It was a promise she wasn’t sure she could keep, but it was the right thing to say at the moment. “I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt our friendship. You know that.”
“Yeah, thanks… um. Hey, I’ve been wanting to give you a call. It’s been awhile since… Maybe we could meet for dinner?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’d be great.” She needed to end this. She glanced at the closed door to the room she was in. “Wait, here comes my editor. I need to go. OK? I’ll call you.”
“OK-”
She hurriedly said good-bye, ended the call, and looked down at her notes: dusk… day four… he’s telling a story… two victims each day.
Maybe the note John left in the pot of basil has something to do with the story the killer is telling.
Slowly she wrote out the words to the note, thinking carefully about each one: “Must needs we tell of others’ tears? Please, Mrs. Greer, have a heart.-”
Wait.
She’d missed a word before. A crucial word-we.
“We tell of others’ tears.”
Her heartbeat quickened.
Maybe John was in the media as well.
He’s one of us.
She pulled up the Denver News’ staff roster on her computer and began to search for anyone who might have recently written a story about dusk, or the fourth day of something, or someone who’d been off duty at the times of the murders.
She would start there. Then move on to other media outlets until she found the man who’d sent her the flowers.
I was deeply troubled by the two stories I read in The Decam-eron.
If our killer really was reenacting the stories told on day four, when he came to the ninth tale he would commit one of the most shocking crimes I’d ever heard of.
The tenth tale was less gruesome, but it left the door open for even more crimes.
My time was slipping away.
I checked out the copy of the 1947 translation of The Decameron and hurried back to police headquarters.
Even though I was anxious to share what I’d uncovered about story number nine, I knew that in order to understand the broader context of The Decameron connection, we needed to start with the first story told on day four.
That was Jake’s story and he was already waiting in the conference room when I stepped inside.
Kurt and Cheyenne arrived less than a minute later, and the meeting began.
39
3:34 p.m.
Kurt got things under way. “This guy has been escalating, and we have a lot to cover. Let’s be thorough, but let’s be concise.” He nodded to Jake. “Talk to us.”
Jake glanced at his notes. “In the introduction to the first story, the storyteller Fiammetta says ‘needs must we tell of others’ tears,’ in reference to the goal they have of telling tragic stories on this day. John simply inverted the first two words to make it into a question directed at Amy Lynn.”
“Since the words weren’t in order, an online search engine wouldn’t have found the phrase,” Cheyenne said. “Clever.”
If there’d been any doubt at all, that reference locked in the connection between the killings and The Decameron.
I caught myself tapping my finger against the table. Stopped.
Jake went on, “This first story is about a father who has some men strangle his daughter’s lover. He sends her the dead man’s heart in a golden bowl, she pours poison over it, drinks it, and dies.”
“And I’ll bet she’s found holding his heart against her own,” I said.
Jake didn’t have to glance at his notes. “Yes.”
I had a horrifying thought, but one I couldn’t shake: John made Heather drink a bowl of poison that contained her boyfriend’s heart.
“Wait,” Cheyenne said. “The anonymous caller said that Day Four would end on Wednesday-that’s ten days after Heather and Chris disappeared. And there are ten stories told about others’ tears. So that means-”
“He’s reenacting all ten stories,” Kurt said.
Stillness climbed through the room.
“Well,” Jake said at last. “I’m not sure how he’ll reenact the second story: it’s about a priest who pretends to be the angel Gabriel in order to have sex with a woman who’s beautiful but not all that bright.”
“What happens to the priest?” Kurt asked.
“He’s caught, humiliated, sent to prison.”
“He’s not killed?” I said.
Jake shook his head. “But he is left for a while in the forest, chained to a tree with a mask fastened over his face so he couldn’t call for help.”
“The woman?” asked Cheyenne.
“She survives too.”
Kurt stared thoughtfully at the wall for a moment and then said, “I don’t know of any priests from the area who’ve been caught recently in sex scandals, but I’ll check with Lieutenant Kaison in Sex Crimes, and I’ll give Missing Persons a call.” He scribbled some notes on his pad.
“All right,” Jake continued. “Third story: this one reads like a medieval soap opera. It covers a three-way love triangle gone bad. Really convoluted. In the end, though, one man is poisoned and a woman is killed with a sword.”
“So that must be Ahmed Mohammed Shokr’s poisoning and the stabbing death of Tatum Maroukas on Wednesday,” Cheyenne said.
“Those are my three stories,” Jake concluded.