On Harrow Hill

“Mr. Mason?” Mike Morgan had come to the side of the car. “Mr. Mason, I’m sorry, I know how difficult this is, but would you feel able at this point to look at the victim’s face and tell us whether or not the victim is your wife?”

Gurney was beginning to wonder if Mason had understood the question when he finally responded, distractedly. “Yes, I . . . I’ll do that.”

“The medical examiner will be bringing the victim’s body over this way in just a moment.”

A rolling stretcher emerged from the barn, guided by Fallow and pushed by his assistant.

Gurney and Mason exited the Prius. A cool breeze had come up, the sun was gone, and small dark clouds were scudding across the sky. The green of the lawn had lost some of its vibrancy.

“Dave?” Kyra Barstow was calling to him from the front porch of the house, her hand raised to get his attention. “There’s something here you need to see.”

He glanced at the approaching stretcher, which he now saw was bearing a dark plastic body bag. He hoped that Fallow would have the delicacy to open the zipper just far enough to show the woman’s face without revealing the god-awful wound to her throat, and he knew that Morgan was quite capable of handling the formality of the identification process.

He made his way around the official vehicles and followed Barstow into the house. The front door, the newel post and banister of the staircase leading to the second floor, and several spots along the hallway had already been dusted for prints. In the living room, one of her Tyvek-suited assistants was going over the rug with a noisy trace-evidence collection vac.

“Up there,” she said, indicating the staircase.

He’d only climbed a few steps when he saw it.

On the wall of the landing at the top, illuminated only by weak window light reaching it from the adjacent bedrooms, there was a message painted in large dripping letters.

I AM

THE DARK ANGEL

WHO ROSE

FROM THE DEAD

Whether it was the meaning of the message, or the likelihood that it had been written in the blood of the dead woman in the barn, or the suggestion it conveyed that the dreadful work of this “angel” might not be over, the sight of it on that dim-lit wall gave Gurney gooseflesh.

He went back down the stairs and out onto the porch. Barstow followed him out.

“We need to know more about Tate. I can’t tell whether he’s psychotic—or trying to create that impression—or whether something else is going on.”

“Something else . . . like what?”

“I wish I knew. Most homicide cases, your first hypothesis is often pretty close to the truth. But this Tate thing is a whole other animal.”

She seemed fascinated by this. “The guys who leave messages at murder sites, they do tend to be the crazy ones, right?”

“They’re the ones with a hunger for recognition, justification, admiration. The messages are directed at an imagined audience. The wording sometimes reveals mental deficits, delusions, emotional disorders. But once in a while, all that craziness is being faked. I’ve had cases with perps who came across as total maniacs, when in fact—”

A sound not far away stopped him—a small, wavering moan—barely audible, yet as full of pain as a scream.

Greg Mason was standing in front of his car, between Fallow and Morgan, looking down at the face in the open end of the body bag. His own face was contorted with misery.

“Poor man,” said Barstow softly.

Gurney watched as Morgan helped Mason back into the passenger seat of the Prius. He remained there, bent over, speaking to him, while Fallow zipped up the body bag and, with the help of his assistant, rolled the stretcher over to their cadaver-­transport van.

Gurney followed them.

“Dr. Fallow?”

Fallow turned and regarded Gurney with an unblinking lack of expression.

“Doctor, if there’s anything you can share with me at this point, even if it’s just a guess, it could be extremely helpful. The time factor in this case—”

Fallow cut him off. “There’s always a time factor. Everything is always needed immediately.”

Gurney was starting to back away when Fallow surprised him with a rapid-fire recitation of facts.

“Slight blue paint residue on the lower edge of the neck wound. Multiple hair follicles torn from the scalp, consistent with the body being dragged by the hair to its final location. Right carotid and right jugular severed. Substantial quantity of blood had been drained from the body and removed from the site. Evidence of a sharp blow to the upper parietal bone of the cranium, consistent with the use of a tool similar to the one used to kill the Russell dog.”

“Upper parietal?” said Gurney. “Does that mean she was struck on the top of the head?”

“Yes.” Without another word, Fallow strode away to his Mercedes, while his assistant loaded the stretcher and body bag into the van.

Soon both vehicles, Mercedes first, were heading along the gravel driveway, out of the grassy clearing, and into the shadows of the pine woods.