Ipush through the huge rusted gate, drive along the overgrown lane. I park inthe pooled darkness, remove my shovels. The voices calm for a moment. All I canhear, as I begin to dig, is the slow, inexorable descent of leaves falling fromthe trees.

Chapter 44

    Byrnecouldn't sleep. The images of the four corpses rode a slow carousel in hismind. He got up, poured himself an inch of bourbon, flipped on the computer,logged onto the Net, launched a web browser. He cruised the headlines onphilly.com, visited a few other sites, not really reading or comprehending.

    Haveyou found them yet? The lion and the rooster and the swan? Are there others?You might think they do not play together, but they do.

    He gotonto YouTube. Once there, he typed in Christa-Marie Schönburg's name. Evenbefore he was done typing, a drop-down window opened, listing a number ofpossibilities.

CHRISTA-MARIE SCHÖNBURG BACH

CHRISTA-MARIE SCHÖNBURG HAYDN

CHRISTA-MARIE SCHÖNBURG ELGAR

CHRISTA-MARIE SCHÖNBURGBRAHMS

    Byrnehad no idea where to begin. In fact, he really had no idea what he was doing,or exactly what he was looking for. On the surface he imagined he was lookingfor a portal, admittedly obscure, to the case. Something that might triggersomething else. Something that might begin to explain Christa-Marie'simpenetrable note to him. Or maybe he was looking for a young detective who hadwalked into a house in Chestnut Hill in 1990 and there began a long, darkodyssey of bloodshed and tears and misery. Maybe he was really looking for theman he used to be.

    Thefinal entry on the list was:

    Christa-MarieSchönburg Interview

    Byrneselected it. It was three minutes long, recorded on a PBS show in 1988.Christa-Marie was at the height of her fame and talent. She looked beautiful ina simple white dress, drop earrings. As she answered questions about herplaying, her celebrity at such a young age, and what it was like to play for RiccardoMuti, she vacillated between confident career woman, shy schoolgirl, enigmaticartiste. More than once she blushed, and put her hair behind one ear. Byrne hadalways thought her an attractive woman, but here she was stunning.

    Whenthe interview was complete Byrne clicked on the Bach entry. The browser tookhim to a page that linked to a number of other Christa-Marie Schönburg videos.Her entire public life was shown in freeze-frames down the right-hand side ofthe page - bright gowns and brighter lights.

    Heclicked on Bach Cello Suite No. 1. It was a montage video, all stillphotographs. The photographs in the montage, one slowly dissolving into thenext, showed Christa-Marie at a number of ages, a variety of poses andsettings: in a studio, smiling at the camera, a side view on stage, a low-anglephotograph of her at nineteen, a look of intense concentration on her face. Thelast photograph was Christa- Marie at nine years old, a cello leaning againstthe wall next to her, almost twice her size.

    Byrnespent most of the next hour watching the YouTube offerings. Many werecollage-type videos, assembled by fans, but there were also live performances.The last video was Christa-Marie and a pianist in a studio, playing Beethoven'sSonata No. 3 in A. At the halfway point, in close-up, Christa-Marie lookedup, straight at the lens, straight at Byrne.

    Whenthe piece finished, Byrne went to the kitchen, took two Vicodin, chased it witha swig of Wild Turkey. Probably not the prescribed way, but you had to go withwhat worked, right?

    Helooked out the window at the empty street below. In the distance was the glowof Center City. There was another body out there, another body waiting to bediscovered, a raw, abraded corpse with a strip of blood-streaked paper aroundits head.

    Heglanced at the kitchen clock, although he didn't need to.

    Itwas 2:52.

    Byrnegrabbed his coat, his keys, and went back out into the night.

Chapter 45

    Lucysat on the fire escape, wrapped in her dark blue afghan, one of the few thingsthat had survived her childhood, one of the few things that she could stuffinto a nylon duffel bag and take with her when she moved on, which she had doneso many times in the past two years that she had nearly lost count.

    Shelooked in the window. She had rented this room, a third-floor room in a trinityon Fourth Street, about two months earlier. The family was very nice. Anelderly couple with no children, they had welcomed her like a granddaughter,and for the first two weeks had invited her to dinner every night.

    Lucy,having had no experience with real family life, had begged off with a varietyof excuses until the couple - Tilly and Oscar Walters - had gotten the hint.

    Thenight was calm, the sky was clear, and for the first time in a long while shecould see a few stars. Maybe they had been there all the time and she hadforgotten to look. Perhaps the darkness was inside her, had made its nest inher soul, and refused to leave, refused to let up.

    Shewrapped the afghan more tightly around her, but she wasn't really all thatcold. Maybe it was all those years in drafty apartments, all those years whenthe heat was turned off, all those years huddling around an electric stove in winteruntil the electricity too was turned off.

    Sincethe day the plane came out of the sky, she had tried everything to make thefeeling go away. Drugs, alcohol, men, religion, yoga, all manner ofself-destruction and abuse. Men. Quite often the men she chose - boys,really - filled in any small gaps in the abuse, making her hell complete.

    Andnow she was in trouble. She always knew she would eventually get caughtshoplifting, even though she was good at it. Her mother had sent her intostores from the time she was only three years old. In the first few years shewas only the diversion, doing the little-cutie bit to distract store ownerswhile her mother boosted cigarettes or alcohol or, once in a great while, atreat for Lucy.

    Buttoday she had gotten caught, and she was going to go to jail. Even thoughDetective Byrne said that wasn't going to happen, she wasn't so sure. She hadwanted to tell him about the man in 1208, but for some reason she couldn'tbring herself to do it.

    Andnow, sitting on this rusting fire escape, she began to cry. It was the firsttime for years. She tasted the salt on her lips. She felt pathetic.

    Itwas worse for the little girl who'd been killed. Little Stacy Pennell. Sergiohad told her the story.

    In1999 a ten-year-old girl, whose family had lived in Le Jardin when it had beenan apartment building, had been down in the laundry room with her older sisterCyndy. Cyndy, whose job it was to watch her runt of a sister, couldn't bebothered, it seemed. When Cyndy wasn't looking, Stacy had grabbed the keys fromon top of the dryer and snuck out of the laundry room.

    Sergiosaid that when Stacy got off the elevator she probably did not notice the manstanding in the stairwell at the end of the hall, just a few feet from theentrance to the Pennell apartment.

    Whenthey found Stacy later she had been brutally murdered, her throat cut from earto ear. Sergio said her body had bite marks on it.

    Ithad happened in Room 1208.

    Itcouldn't have been coincidence, Lucy thought. It just couldn't. The man in 1208had been there for a reason. Some other little girl was going to be hurt.