Shesat back down.

    'MyMelina was beautiful, but not so smart always. Especially about the men. Likeme. I never did too well in this area. Three husbands, all bums.'

    Shelooked out the window, then back at Byrne.

    'It'sa sad job what you do?'

    'Sometimes,'Byrne said.

    'Alot of times you come to people like me, give us bad news?'

    Byrnenodded.

    'Sometimesgood news?'

    'Sometimes.'

    Annalooked at the wall next to the stove. There were three pictures of Lina - atthree, ten, and sixteen.

    'SometimesI am at the market, I think I see her. But not like a grown-up girl, not like ayoung woman. A little girl. You know how little girls sometimes go off on theirown, in their minds? Like maybe when they play with their dolls? The dolls tothem are like real people?'

    Byrneknew this well.

    'MyLina was like this. She had a friend who was not there.'

    Annadrifted away for a moment, then threw her hands up. 'We have a saying inGreece. The heart that loves is always young. She was my onlygrandchild. I will never have another. I have no one left to love.'

    Atthe door Anna Laskaris held Byrne for a moment. Today she smelled of lemons andhoney. It seemed to Byrne that she was getting smaller. Grief will do that,he thought. Grief needs room.

    'Itdoes not make me happy this man is dead,' Anna Laskaris said.

    'Godwill find a place for him, a place he deserves. This is not up to you or me.'

    Byrnewalked to the van, slipped inside. He looked back at the house. There wasalready a fresh candle in the window.

    Hehad grown up in the mist of the Delaware, and always did his best thinkingthere. As he drove to the river Kevin Francis Byrne considered the things hehad done, the good and the bad.

    Youknow.

    Hethought about Christa-Marie, about the night he met her. He thought about whatshe had said to him. He thought about his dreams, about waking in the night at2:52, the moment he placed Christa- Marie under arrest, the moment everythingchanged forever.

    Youknow.

    Butit wasn't you know. He had played back the recording he'd made ofhimself sleeping, listened carefully, and it suddenly became obvious.

    Hewas saying blue notes.

    Itwas about the silences between the notes, the time it takes for the music toecho. It was Christa-Marie telling him something for the past twenty years. Byrneknew in his heart that it all began with her. It would all end with her.

    Helooked at his watch. It was just after midnight.

    Itwas Halloween.

Chapter 70

    Sunday,October 31

    I listento the city coming to the day, the roar of buses, the hiss of coffee machines,the clang of church bells. I watch as leaves eddy from the trees, cascading tothe ground, feeling an autumn chill in the air, the shy soubrette of winter.

    Istand in the center of City Hall, at the nexus of Broad and Market streets, theshortest line between the two rivers, the beating heart of Philadelphia. I turnin place, look down the two great thoroughfares that cross my city. On each Iwill be known today.

    Thedead are getting louder. This is their day. It has always been theirday.

    Iput up my collar, step into the maelstrom, the killing instruments acomfortable weight at my back.

    Whata saraband.

    Zig,zig, zag.

Chapter 71

    Themassive stone buildings sat atop the rise like enormous birds of prey. Thecentral structure, perhaps five stories tall, one hundred feet wide, gave wayat either end to a pair of great wings, each of which bore a series of towersthat fingered high into the morning sky.

    Thegrounds surrounding the complex, at one time finely manicured, boasting EasternHemlock, Red Pine, and Box Elder, had fallen fallow decades earlier. Now thetrees and shrubs were tortured and diseased, ravaged by wind and lightning. Aonce impressive arched stone bridge over the man-made creek that ringed theproperty had long ago crumbled.

    In1891 the archdiocese authorized and built a cloister on top of a hill, aboutforty miles northwest of Philadelphia, establishing a convent. The mainbuilding was completed in 1893, providing residence to more than four dozensisters. In addition to the vegetables grown on the nearby fifteen acres offarmland, and grain for the artisan breads baked in the stone ovens, thefertile land around the facility provided food for shelters throughoutMontgomery, Bucks, and Berks counties. The sisters' blackberry preserves wonawards statewide.

    In1907 four of the sisters hanged themselves from a beam in the bell tower. Thechurch, having trouble attracting novitiates to the nunnery, sold the buildingsand property to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

    Fiveyears later, with four new wings built onto the original building - includingtwo tiered lecture halls, a pair of autopsy theaters, a state- of-the-artsurgery, and a non-denominational chapel built into one of the apple groves -the Convent Hill Mental Health Facility opened its doors. With its two hundredbeds, sprawling grounds, and expert staff, it soon gained a reputation as athoroughly up-to-date hospital throughout the eastern United States.

    Inaddition to its main purpose - the treatment and rehabilitation of theemotionally disturbed - the facility had a secure wing maintained and staffedby the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. In its twentybeds slept some of the most notorious criminals of the early twentieth century.

    Bythe early 1950s the facility's funding had begun to dry up. Staff were laid off,buildings were not maintained, equipment became outdated and plagued by timeand disrepair. Rumors of inhumane conditions at Convent Hill circulated. In the1970s a documentary film was made, showing deplorable and sickening conditions.Public and political outrage followed, with a million dollars being pumped intothe coffers.

    By1980 Convent Hill had once again been forgotten. More gossip of corruptioncirculated, as did tales of incalculable horror. But the public can only beoutraged about something for so long.

    ConventHill closed for good in 1992 and its inmates and patients were moved to otherstate-run mental health facilities, as well as to correctional facilitiesthroughout New York and Pennsylvania.

    Overthe next eighteen years the grounds were bequeathed to the elements, thevandals, the ghost-hunters and derelicts. A few attempts were made to securethe facility, but with its nearly two hundred acres and many points of entry,much of it surrounded by forest, it was impossible.

    Thefieldstone wall near the winding road that led up to the entrance still bore asign. As Kevin Byrne and Christa-Marie Schönburg approached, Byrne noticed thatsomeone had altered the sign, painting over it, rewording the message. It no longerannounced entry to what had once been a state-of-the-art mental-healthfacility, a place of healing and rehabilitation, a place of serenity and peace.

    Itnow announced entry to a place called Convict Hell.

    Asthey drove the twisting road leading to the main buildings, a thin fogdescended. The surrounding woods were cocooned in a pearl-gray mist.

    Byrnethought about what he was doing. He knew the clock was ticking, that he wasneeded back in the city, but he also believed that the answers to many of hisquestions - past and present - were locked inside Christa-Marie's mind.