Monday. 1:30 P.M.
Had Katie Dubois died in any of the ordinary ways teenagers die, from illness or an accident, from an overdose of alcohol or drugs, her funeral would have passed largely unnoticed. As it was, it ranked as one of the major media events of the year in Maine, and the city’s press corps and public personages turned out en masse.
Detectives Margaret Savage and Michael McCabe arrived early at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, home of the Diocese of Portland, a massive Gothic Revival redbrick church with a soaring two-hundred-foot spire that was crowned with a golden cross.
As agreed, Maggie positioned herself outside the main door, trying to camouflage herself behind the cluster of reporters and news photographers. She carried an SLR digital camera Starbucks had given her that was fancy enough to look professional. Her job was to shoot head shots of everyone entering or leaving the church. The camera’s endless buttons, dials, and levers baffled her when Starbucks first handed it over. He set it on full automatic and told her just to point and click. So far she was doing okay.
McCabe went inside. He’d been in the cathedral a couple of times before, for Christmas concerts with Casey and last year with Kyra as well. Each time the church’s soaring, luminous white-and-gold interior briefly seduced McCabe into a fantasy of returning to the religion he’d abandoned twenty years before, something he knew would never happen. He stood alone in a quiet corner, watching the faces of the mourners as they filed in. He felt self-conscious in his only suit, a dark gray pin-stripe he once thought pretty dapper. He hadn’t worn it since leaving New York and only managed to get the trousers buttoned by sucking in his gut.
The organ was playing something sonorous and sad. People filled the pews, pressing themselves into every corner of the large church. The misnamed Mayor Short seated himself near the front, directly behind Katie’s family. The city council came in a group, all in gray or blue suits like McCabe’s. A sprinkling of state legislators and local celebrities arrived. Chief Shockley showed up in full dress uniform, Bill Fortier trotting along by his side. McCabe was surprised to see Terri Mirabito. She didn’t see him. He’d never seen her at a funeral before.
Teachers and tight clusters of teenagers, many openly weeping, were everywhere. McCabe recognized the boyfriend, Ronnie Sobel, from a photo in the murder book. Tobin Kenney came alone and sat alone. A young woman seated with some students, another teacher, McCabe supposed, beckoned Kenney to join her, pointing to an empty seat next to her. He shook his head and stayed where he was. She shrugged and turned away.
McCabe examined the faces as people entered and sat down, registering those he recognized, studying those he didn’t, filing their images away in the hard drive he carried in his head. He wondered if the murderer was among them. There was no way of knowing.
The Most Reverend Leo F. Conroy, DD, ThD, STL, Bishop of Maine, presided over the requiem mass. He greeted Katie’s coffin at the door of the cathedral. McCabe was sure the elegant mahogany box had cost the Ceglias more than they could afford. People always pay too much when they bury their child. The bishop sprinkled the coffin with holy water and intoned the words of the De profundis.
Then the pallbearers, six of Katie’s classmates, carried her coffin and placed it down just outside the sanctuary, feet facing the altar. It was at that moment that McCabe saw the woman’s face. She was standing against a wall on the opposite side, her face crossed diagonally by a deep shadow. He watched her stand motionless until he was sure. Yes. It was the same woman he’d followed down Exchange Street and lost.
She sensed his gaze and turned so that she was looking right at him. He nodded, almost imperceptibly, in her direction. She acknowledged the gesture. He glanced around and saw no one else watching him. He moved toward her. The congregation was standing, singing a hymn. She watched him come and didn’t move away. The hymn ended, and a voice from the altar echoed through the otherwise silent cathedral. ‘For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.’
McCabe stood next to the woman. ‘Who are you?’
‘I can’t speak to you here.’ She spoke with an accent. French, he thought.
‘Then where?’
‘I’ll be in touch. Please don’t follow me.’
‘How do I know you’ll call?’
‘You don’t. You’ll have to trust me.’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked, but she was already leaving and didn’t hear his question. He started after her, then stopped. He’d wait for her call.
McCabe continued scanning faces in the church. But even if he’d known where to look, he wouldn’t have seen the tall, dark-haired man looking down at him, eyes peering through a small opening high above the altar, one hand unconsciously scraping the edge of a scalpel along the back of the other, the razor-sharp blade whisking away a dozen dark hairs.
‘Let us pray.’