Trembling harder, she clutched the edge of the closet door to steady herself and turned. 'Okay, I'm convinced. This isn't… No one lives like… Something's wrong.'

'But I haven't shown you the best part, or I should say the worst.' With a stark expression, Craig nodded toward a door. The bedroom. What you'll see in there…No, don't cringe. It won't make you sick. I've promised you that several times. But I need to know. What does it mean?'

His footsteps echoing, Craig crossed the room and opened the bedroom door.

As if hypnotized, Tess stepped forward.

TWENTY-TWO

The bedroom was almost as empty as the living room. Plain draperies but no carpet. There was something in the corner, but here the draperies had been shut, the room too shadowy for Tess to be able to identify the murky shape.

She groped along the inside wall and found a lights witch. However, when she flicked it, nothing happened.

There's no lamp,' Craig said. 'And the overhead bulb doesn't work.'

Then how did Joseph keep from stumbling around in the dark?'

Instead of answering, the lieutenant pulled the draperies open.

Hazy sunlight flowed in, making Tess blink as her eyes adjusted. Abruptly she blinked for another reason, because what she saw in the room bewildered her.

The murky object she'd glimpsed dimly in the corner was a mattress on the floor. No. Not even a mattress. A pallet, six-feet long, three-feet wide, one-inch thick, made of woven hemp.

'Joseph didn't exactly pamper himself,' Craig said. 'No pillow. No sheet. Just that one blanket. I looked. There aren't any others in the closet.'

Tess's forehead pounded. With mounting confusion, she noticed that the blanket the lieutenant referred to had been folded at the bottom of the pallet with the same meticulous care that the towel and washcloth had been hung so neatly on the rack in the bathroom.

'And there's your answer for how he kept from stumbling around in the dark,' Craig said.

The pain in her skull increasing, Tess frowned toward where the lieutenant pointed and shook her head. Next to the pallet, a dozen candles stood in saucers.

'Somehow I don't think he was just trying to save on his electricity bill,' Craig said.

To the right of the pallet, Tess squinted at a plain, pine, three-shelved bookcase. Feeling pressure in her chest, she walked toward it, examining the titles. The Consolation of Philosophy, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Holy Bible: Scofield Reference Edition, Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Art of Courtly Love, The Last Days of the Planet Earth.

'I guess he never heard of the New York Times bestseller list,' Craig said. 'Philosophy, religion, history. Heavy. I'd hate to have spent a weekend with him. Not many laughs.'

'He wasn't boring,' Tess said, distracted, continuing to examine the shelves. 'Several books about the environment.'

'Yes. That's something else you and he shared in common.'

Trembling no matter how hard she tried to control it, Tess drew her index finger past a book called The Millennium and noticed a title that wasn't in English. The volume was bound in well-worn leather and looked very old.

'Can I take it out?'

'As long as you put it back exactly where you found it,' Craig said.

With care, she removed the book from the shelf and examined its dry, cracked cover. El Circulo del Cuello de la Paloma.

'Looks like Spanish,' Craig said.

'Right.'

'I'm still working on English. Can you read it?'

'No.' Tess exhaled, frustrated. 'I took a few courses in high school, but I don't remember the vocabulary.'

'Below the title,' Craig said. 'Abu Muhammad 'Ali ibn Hazm al-Andalusi.' He stumbled over the words. 'I assume that's the author's name. It barely fits across the cover. Muhammad? Sounds Moslem.'

Tess nodded, wrote the title and author's name on a notepad, then opened the book. Its pages were brittle, the entire text in Spanish. Impatient, she returned her gaze to the bookshelf, in particular toward the Scofield Bible. Earlier, something about it had troubled her. It didn't look right. She cautiously replaced the Spanish book and withdrew the Bible, finding that its covers slanted inward. With a frown, she stared inside and discovered, shocked, that most of its pages had been removed. A straight line showed where a knife or scissors had been used to cut out the pages.

'Why would-?'

That's one of many things I want to know,' Craig said.

Tess read the names of the sections at the top of the heavily underlined, remaining pages. 'He cut out everything except the preface and… " She flipped more pages. 'John's Gospel, John's Epistles, John's Book of Revelation. I don't understand.'

'You're not the only one. And this…' Craig pointed.' Whatever the damned thing is. On the bookshelf. This is the weirdest of all.'

Tess raised her eyes. She'd noticed the object when she walked toward the bookshelf, but it made so little sense that she'd postponed examining it in the hope that the other things in the room would help her interpret the grotesque image.

The object was a statue, or to be exact a bas-relief sculpture, one foot tall and wide, fashioned out of white marble. It depicted a long-haired, muscular, handsome man straddling the back of a bull, jerking the struggling animal's head up, slashing its throat with a knife.

Blood cascaded from the wound toward what appeared to be wheat growing out of the ground. At the same time, a dog lunged toward the blood while a serpent sped toward the wheat and a scorpion attacked the bull's testicles.

To the right and left of the grisly scene, torch bearers watched. The torch on the left was pointed upward, the torch on the right pointed downward. And above the torch bearer on the left, a bird -

–  an owl! hard to tell -

–  stared with fixated eyes toward the slashing knife and the cascading blood.

'What does it mean?' Craig asked. 'Since I first saw it this morning, the thing's been haunting me.'

Tess had trouble speaking. Her mouth tasted bitter. Her shoulder blades felt frozen. 'It's… Horrible. Repulsive. Disgusting.'

'Yeah, just your ordinary everyday decoration around the house.'

Attached to the wall behind the statue, imitating the torches that flanked the eerie grotesque scene, were candles in holders, one facing up, the other down. A saucer had been set beneath the latter candle to catch the melting wax when it fell.

'Joseph didn't have a lot of respect for the fire code,' Craig said. 'If the landlord had known about all these candles, your friend would have found himself and his few belongings out on the street. It's a wonder he didn't burn down the building.'

'But this is crazy.'

'It sure as hell spooked me.'

'Look, there's no way I can borrow the Bible and the Spanish book, right?' Tess asked.

'Homicide would have my ass if I let you.'

'Well, can I at least take pictures?'

'You've got a camera?'

'Always. A reporter's habit.'

'Okay. But I want you to promise,' Craig said. 'You won't publish the photographs unless you're given permission from Homicide or me.'

'Agreed.'

'Then be my guest,' Craig said.

Tess removed a small 35mm Olympus from her burlap purse and took several closeup photos of the statue from different angles. Then she opened the Bible and photographed the most heavily underlined pages. Next, after putting the Bible back on the shelf in the spot where she'd found it, she photographed the entire bookshelf and finally the pallet flanked by candles.

She put away the camera. 'All set.'

There's one other promise I want you to make,' Craig said. 'If you learn anything from those photos, I want to hear about it in case it's something we haven't already discovered.'