The Mephisto Club

symbols, those are letters, meant to be read in the mirror.”
    Jane looked at the wall, then at the mirror. “That’s a word?”
    “Yes. It spells out
Peccavi.
”
    Jane shook her head. “Even in reverse, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
    “It’s Latin, Jane.”
    “For what?”
    “I have sinned.”
    For a moment, the two women stared at each other. Then Jane gave a sudden laugh. “Well, that’s a doozy of a confession for you. You think a few
Hail Marys
will erase this particular sin?”
    “Maybe this word doesn’t refer to the killer. Maybe it’s all about the victim.” She looked at Jane.
“I have sinned.”
    “Punishment,” said Jane. “Vengeance.”
    “It’s a possible motive. She did something to anger the killer. She sinned against him. And this is his payback.”
    Jane took a deep breath. “Let’s go into the kitchen.” She led Maura down the hallway. At the kitchen doorway she stopped and looked at Maura, who had halted on the threshold, too stunned by what she saw to say a word.
    On the tiled floor, a large red circle had been drawn in what looked like red chalk. Spaced around its circumference were five black puddles of wax that had melted and congealed.
Candles,
thought Maura. In the center of that circle, positioned so that the eyes were staring at them, was a woman’s severed head.
    A circle. Five black candles.
It’s a ritual offering.
    “So now I’m supposed to go home to my little girl,” said Jane. “In the morning, we’ll all sit around the tree and open presents and pretend there’s peace on earth. But I’ll be thinking of…that thing…staring back at me. Merry frigging Christmas.”
    Maura swallowed. “Do we know who she is?”
    “Well, I haven’t dragged in her friends and neighbors to make a positive ID.
Hey, you recognize that head on the kitchen floor?
But based on her driver’s license photo, I’d say this is Lori-Ann Tucker. Twenty-eight years old. Brown hair, brown eyes.” Abruptly, Jane laughed. “Put all the body parts together, and that’s about what you’d get.”
    “What do you know about her?”
    “We found a paycheck stub in her purse. She works over at the Science Museum. We don’t know in what capacity, but judging by the house, the furniture”—Jane glanced toward the dining room—“she’s not making a ton of money.”
    They heard voices, and the creak of footsteps as CSU moved into the house. Jane at once straightened to greet them with some semblance of her usual aplomb. The unshrinking Detective Rizzoli that everyone knew.
    “Hey guys,” she said as Frost and two male criminalists gingerly stepped into the kitchen. “We got ourselves a fun one.”
    “Jesus,” one of the criminalists murmured. “Where’s the rest of the victim?”
    “In several rooms. You might want to start with—” She stopped, her body suddenly snapping straight.
    The phone on the kitchen counter was ringing.
    Frost was standing closest to it. “What do you think?” he asked, glancing at Rizzoli.
    “Answer it.”
    Gingerly Frost picked up the receiver in his gloved hand. “Hello? Hello?” After a moment he set it down again. “They hung up.”
    “What’s Caller ID say?”
    Frost pressed the call history button. “It’s a Boston number.”
    Jane took out her cell phone and looked at the number on the display. “I’ll try calling it back,” she said, and dialed. Stood listening as it rang. “No answer.”
    “Let me see if that number’s called here before,” said Frost. He cycled back through the history, reviewing every call that had come in or gone out on the line. “Okay, here’s that call to nine-one-one. Twelve-ten A.M. ”
    “Our perp, announcing his handiwork.”
    “There’s another call, just before that one. A Cambridge number.” He looked up. “It was at twelve-oh-five.”
    “Did our perp make
two
calls from this phone?”
    “If it was our perp.”
    Jane stared at the phone. “Let’s think about this. He’s standing here in the kitchen. He’s just killed her and cut her up. Sliced off her hand, her arm. Sets her head right here, on the floor. Why call someone? Does he want to brag about it? And who’s he gonna call?”
    “Find out,” said Maura.
    Jane once again used her cell phone, this time to call the Cambridge number. “It’s ringing. Okay, I’m getting an answering machine.” She paused, and her gaze suddenly whipped to Maura. “You’re not going to believe who this number belongs