The Mephisto Club

really useful field it is,
she thought as she took out her notebook. “What’s the species name again?”
    “Here, give that to me.” He snatched away her notebook and she watched him write down the name, scowling as he did it. This was not a nice old guy. No wonder they hid him away in a broom closet.
    He handed back the notebook. “There. Properly spelled.”
    “So what does this mean?”
    “It’s the name.”
    “No, I mean what’s the significance of this particular shell?”
    “Is it supposed to mean something? You’re
Homo sapiens sapiens,
this is
Pisania maculosa.
That’s just the way it is.”
    “This shell, is it rare?”
    “Not at all. You can easily buy them over the Internet, from any number of dealers.”
    Which made the shell little more than useless as a way to track a killer. With a sigh, she put away her notebook.
    “They’re quite common in the Mediterranean,” he said.
    She looked up. “The Mediterranean?”
    “And the Azores.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m not really clear exactly where the Azores are.”
    He gave her a sour look of disbelief. Then he waved her over to one of the cases, where dozens of shells were displayed, along with a faded map of the Mediterranean. “There,” he said, pointing. “It’s these islands here, to the west of Spain.
Pisania maculosa
ranges throughout this area, from the Azores to the Mediterranean.”
    “And nowhere else? The Americas?”
    “I’ve just told you its range. Those shells I brought out to show you—they were all collected in Italy.”
    She was silent a moment, her gaze still on the case. She could not remember the last time she’d really studied a map of the Mediterranean. Her world, after all, was Boston; crossing the state line was the equivalent of a foreign trip. Why a seashell? Why
this
particular seashell?
    Her eyes then focused on the eastern corner of the Mediterranean. On the island of Cyprus.
    Red ocher. Seashells. What is the killer trying to tell us?
    “Oh,” said Von Schiller. “I didn’t know anyone else was here.”
    Jane had not heard any footsteps, even on the creaking wood floors. She turned to see a young man looming right behind her. Most likely a graduate student, judging by his rumpled shirt and blue jeans. He certainly looked like a scholar, with heavy black-framed glasses, his face washed out to a wintry pallor. He stood so silent that Jane wondered if the man could speak.
    Then the words came out, his stuttering so tortured that it was painful to hear. “P-p-professor Von Schiller. It’s t-t-time to c-c-close.”
    “We’re just finishing up here, Malcolm. I wanted to show Detective Rizzoli some examples of
Pisania.
” Von Schiller placed the shells back in their box. “I’ll lock up.”
    “B-b-but it’s my—”
    “I know, I know. Just because I’ve gotten on in years, no one trusts me to turn one stupid key anymore. Look, I’ve still got papers on my desk that I need to sort through. Why don’t you show the detective out? I promise I’ll lock the door when I leave.”
    The young man hesitated, as though trying to come up with the words to protest. Then he simply sighed and nodded.
    Jane slipped the evidence bag containing the shell back into her pocket. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Von Schiller,” she said. But the old man was already shuffling away to return the box of shells to its drawer.
    The young man said nothing as he led Jane through the gloomy exhibit halls, past animals trapped behind glass, his sneakers setting off barely a creak on the wood floors. This was hardly the place a young man should be spending a Sunday evening, she thought. Keeping company with fossils and pierced butterflies.
    Outside, through the gloom of early evening, Jane trudged back toward the parking lot, her shoes crunching across gritty snow. Halfway there she slowed, stopped. Turning, she scanned the darkened buildings, the pools of light cast by streetlamps. No one, nothing, moved.
    On the night she died, did Eve Kassovitz see her killer coming?
    She quickened her pace, her keys already in hand, and crossed to her car, which now sat alone in the lot. Only after she’d slid inside and locked the door did she let down her guard.
This case is freaking me out,
she thought.
I can’t even walk across a parking lot without feeling like the Devil’s at my back.
    And closing in.

NINETEEN
    August 1. Phase of the moon: Full.
    Last night my mother spoke to me in my dreams. A scolding. A reminder that I have