“It’s gotta be religion,” said Riker. “That altar with the mannequin is giving me the creeps. I say he’s nuts, but I can’t see him hacking up those bodies or slipping a pick into Starr’s back.”

“He did something.”

CHAPTER 5

Gregor Gilette carried a steaming cup of coffee to the kitchen table and set it down beside the morning newspaper. By lowering the window shade only a little, he demolished every tall building above the tree line of Central Park. Five flights above Fifth Avenue traffic, it was almost possible to believe that he was no longer in Manhattan.

He glanced across the table at an empty chair and an empty space where Sabra might have been, if their only child had not been slaughtered. At some point in the past decade, acknowledging Sabra’s absence had become a part of his daily routine, and once more, he sat down to breakfast without her.

As he unfolded his newspaper, the jewel of his ring flashed a dazzle of blue light, calling for his attention as it often did. The stone was cheap. He wore it because it was the very color of Sabra’s eyes.

The doorbell rang precisely on the appointed hour, and that would be Detective Mallory.

Gregor ushered his young guest into the kitchen and poured her a generous portion of coffee. Visually, she had lost nothing in the transition from ball gown to blue jeans. But her manner had altered. He thought she seemed somewhat mechanical in the small civilized comments of “How are you, sir?” and “Sorry to bother you so early.” Of course, he realized she was not at all sorry to bother him, and now, done with courtesy, she launched into the business of her visit.

She settled a laptop computer on the kitchen table by her cup. “I need more information on the night your daughter died.” She opened the computer, and then reached into her blazer pocket to draw out a plastic device with a ball at its center, which she plugged into her machine. “You were planning to have dinner with Aubry that night?”

“Yes. I was to meet her at a cafe in the West Village.” He felt a vague disquiet. The night of the ball there had been conversation. This was interrogation, cold and impersonal.

“You brought her roses.” She began to tap on the keyboard, not meeting his eyes, almost disconnected from him.

“Yes, the roses were red.”

“Was it a special occasion?” Now she did look at him, and he wished she had not, for she might as well have been regarding his chair and not the man who sat close to her, sharing coffee.

“No. The flowers were to brighten Aubry’s apartment-a gift from her mother. Sabra was a woman of extreme color, and Aubry was very austere. So, every time we saw our daughter, Sabra would give her a gift of color-a scarf, a bright ceramic bowl. Sabra believed one could die for lack of color, so she continued to feed color to her child.”

“Where was your wife the night of the murders?”

“Sabra was visiting her mother, Ellen Quinn.”

For a moment, he thought Mallory was going to challenge that statement, but her voice was casual as she said, “I had the idea Sabra and her family didn’t get along very well.”

“They didn’t. But my mother-in-law was getting on in years, and Sabra was too big a person to hold a grudge against a lonely old woman.”

“Do you know why Aubry wanted to meet Quinn at the gallery that night?”

“No, Detective, you have it wrong. It was Jamie who chose the meeting place. Aubry called me to say she would be late for dinner, because her Uncle Jamie wanted to see her.”

And now he saw suspicion in her face, as though she had caught him in a lie, and he was puzzled over this. But as quickly as he put this together, the trouble in her eyes had resolved itself.

“You’re sure she didn’t ask to meet him!”

“Quite sure. She said Jamie wanted her to meet him at the gallery.”

“She spoke to him?”

“No. He left her a message at the ballet school. When I couldn’t reach Jamie by phone, I called the school’s director. Aubry had used Madame Burnstien’s phone to call her uncle at the newspaper. Her message had been garbled-too many instructions for the school receptionist to write down in a hurry. It was a clerk at the newspaper who told Aubry to meet her uncle at the gallery. When I spoke to that clerk, she looked up the name of the gallery on the message carbon.”

“Did you and Quinn ever speak about this?”

“I honestly don’t remember. There were so many things to distract me from the small details. My only child was dead, my wife was falling apart… there was the funeral to deal with.”

“Who broke the news to Sabra?”

“Jamie did. He took care of everything. He made the funeral arrangements and hired security men to keep people away from us. Sabra was going to pieces. Then, as I told you, she left me and checked herself into an institution.”

“You left for Europe after that?”

“Perhaps nine months later-only after it was made very clear to me that Sabra wouldn’t see me. The breakup of a marriage is a common piece of damage when two people lose a child. I had been in Paris for only a year when I heard she left the institution and disappeared. I did what I could to find her, but I failed.”

“Would you like me to find Sabra for you?” She looked up from her computer.

“The best private investigators in New York are still looking for her. I never stopped trying to find my wife. So, I thank you for-”

“The best PIs are ex-cops. They get most of their information from old buddies on the force. Now I’m a cop, and I’m better than the best you’ve got. And the service is free.”

He liked arrogance, but he mistrusted youth. “My people have been working the case for years. They’re familiar with every-”

“I’ll bet you didn’t have one decent photograph to give them.”

“No, I didn’t.” He smiled at this reminder of Sabra’s eccentric camera hatred. “I gave the investigators a photograph of my daughter. Aubry bore a strong resemblance to her mother.”

“Sabra was in her forties when she disappeared. Now she’s twelve years older. Your detectives are looking for a family resemblance to a twenty-year-old girl.” She tapped the laptop computer with one long red fingernail, and then turned it so he could see the full screen. “This is an identity kit.”

He leaned closer to examine a photograph of Aubry. “It is a strong resemblance to Sabra.”

“But the daughter wasn’t an exact copy of the mother, was she?”

“No. Aubry was very pretty, but Sabra was striking, dramatic. My wife was a great presence in every room she entered… But the day of the funeral she seemed small and tired. The ordeal added years to her face. Grief is an exhausting thing.”

Mallory revolved the ball device wired into her computer. “I’m aging the photo of Aubry.” A moment later she said, “Here, take a look at this.”

He left his seat at the table to stand behind her chair. And now he was looking at the woman his daughter might have become. Mallory was adding wrinkles to the brow. It was cruel, this aging process, but fascinating. She had taken away the softness of Aubry’s face and created lines around the mouth. The delicate nose was slightly enlarged, and the eyes were given their own lines. The black hair had been lightened with strokes of gray.

“That’s very good,” said Gilette. “Sabra’s eyes were a bit larger and more expressive.”

Mallory enlarged the eyes.

“Sadder,” said Gilette.

She dragged down the corners of the eyes.

“And the mouth was wider, the chin a little stronger.”

When she was done, he said, “That’s what Sabra looked like on the day of the funeral.”

Mallory folded down the top of her computer and picked up her car keys, preparing to leave him. Now she put the keys down again. “One more thing-how well did Andrew Bliss know your daughter? I have an old newspaper article that quotes him as a personal friend.”