The Mephisto Club

shallow incisions and dried in brick-red lines running down the sides of the torso.
    Her gaze moved to the right arm, lying at the corpse’s side. She saw the ring of bruises, like a cruel bracelet marking the wrist. She looked up and met Jane’s gaze. For that one moment, all anger between the two women was forgotten, swept aside by the vision of Sarah Parmley’s final moments.
    “This was done while she was still alive,” said Maura.
    “All these cuts.” Jane swallowed. “It could have taken hours.”
    Kibbie said, “When we found her, there was nylon cord around the remaining wrist and both ankles. The knots were nailed to the floor, so she couldn’t move.”
    “He didn’t do this to Lori-Ann Tucker,” Maura said.
    “That’s the victim in Boston?”
    “She was dismembered. But she wasn’t tortured.” Maura circled to the corpse’s left side and stared down at the wrist stump. The incised flesh had dried to a leathery brown, and the soft tissues had contracted to expose the surface of cut bone.
    “Maybe he wanted something from this woman,” said Jane. “Maybe there was a reason to torture her.”
    “An interrogation?” said Kibbie.
    “Or punishment,” said Maura, focusing on the victim’s face. She thought of the words that had been scratched on her own door. On Lori-Ann’s bedroom wall.
I have sinned.
    Is this the reward?
    “These aren’t just random cuts,” said Jane. “These are crosses. Religious symbols.”
    “He drew them on the walls, too,” said Kibbie.
    Maura looked up at him. “Was there anything else on the walls? Other symbols?”
    “Yeah. Lots of weird stuff. I tell you, it gave me the willies just to step in that front door. Joe Jurevich will show you when you go to the house.” He gazed at the body. “This is all there is to see here, really. Enough to tell you we’re dealing with a very sick puppy.”
    Maura closed the body bag, zipping the plastic over sunken eyes, over corneas clouded by death. She would not be performing this autopsy, but she did not need a scalpel and probe to tell her how this victim had died; she had seen the answer engraved on the woman’s flesh.
    They wheeled the gurney back into the refrigerator and stripped off their gloves. Standing at the sink, washing his hands, Kibbie said, “Ten years ago, when I moved to Chenango County, I thought this was God’s country. Fresh air, rolling hills. Folks who’d wave hello, feed me pie when I made a house call.” He sighed, shut off the faucet. “You can’t get away from it, can you? Big city or small town, husbands still shoot their wives, kids still smash and grab. But I never thought I’d see this kind of sick stuff.” He yanked out a paper towel and dried his hands. “Certainly not in a village like Purity. You’ll see what I mean when you get there.”
    “How far is it?”
    “Another hour and a half, maybe two hours. Depending on whether you want to risk your lives speeding on back roads.”
    “Then we’d better get going,” said Jane, “if we want to find a motel there.”
    “A motel?” Kibbie laughed. “If I were you, I’d stop in the town of Norwich instead. You’re not going to find much in Purity.”
    “It’s that small?”
    He tossed the paper towel into the trash can. “It’s that small.”

TWENTY-SEVEN
    The motel walls were paper-thin. Lying in bed, Maura could hear Jane talking on the phone in the next room.
How nice it must be,
she thought,
to call your husband and laugh out loud together. To share a public kiss, a hug, without first having to glance around, looking for anyone who might know you, and disapprove.
Her own call to Daniel had been brief and furtive. There’d been other people talking in the background, others in the room listening to him, which was why he’d sounded so reserved. Was this how it would always be? Their private lives cut off from their public lives, and never an intersection between them? Here were the real wages of sin. Not hellfire and damnation, but heartbreak.
    In the next room, Jane ended her call. A moment later, the TV came on, and then Maura heard the sound of running water in the shower. Only a wall separated them, but the barrier between them was far more formidable than wood and plaster. They’d said hardly a word since Binghamton, and now, just the sound of Jane’s TV was an escalating annoyance. Maura pulled a pillow over her head to shut out the noise, but it could not muffle the whispers of doubt in her mind.