CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Francois Nugent’s brain thrummed day and night with thoughts of revenge. He couldn’t forgive himself for his sister’s death, and was certain his parents felt the same. He saw reproach in their every gesture, every word. It was his fault she was gone, his fault she ventured into the dark and dangerous world of downtown clubs—his fault, all his fault. He couldn’t stand to be around them, to see the sadness in their eyes as they planned for their only daughter’s wake.
Saturday morning he awoke with the idea of banishing the thought from his mind. He couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. He was consumed by guilt as if it were a virus that had invaded his blood, contaminating from within. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling of his spacious bedroom. The Murray Hill townhouse lay quiet all around him. His parents’ money meant nothing to him now. He took no comfort in the plush Persian carpet in his bedroom, the hand-carved headboard over his bed, imported from Malaysia, or the thick marble staircase leading down to the first floor. Nothing gave him joy—not the high ceilings of the library where he had spent many happy hours, nor the sliding door leading to the living room, which he had loved as a child because of the way it slipped open so silently into the recess of the wall.
He ran a hand through his uncombed hair and yawned as he stumbled down the grand marble stairs and turned the corner into the little hallway leading to the kitchen. He could see his nanny, Flossie O’Carney, standing over the stove, her face enveloped in the cone of steam seeping from the teakettle. Her blond hair curled in tight ringlets around her forehead, and her cheeks were pink with the flush of youth and virtue.
Francois had confused feelings about Flossie. At times she felt to him like more of a mother than his own often absent, emotionally conflicted mother—but he also had carnal urges toward her. Seeing her bending over the stove, her plump round bottom jutting out, he longed to grab her by the hips and bury himself in her firm flesh, pumping until he was exhausted and spent, until she took him in her round white arms and hugged away all the bad things in the world.
He crept up behind her and was about to put his hands over her eyes when she turned around.
“Oh!” she gasped, clutching her ample chest. “You gave me a terrible fright—nearly startled me to death! What do you mean creeping up on a person like that?” she scolded, wagging a finger at him.
He longed to take that finger in his mouth and suck on it until he made her moan.
“Sorry,” he said, feigning contrition he did not feel. He liked startling Flossie—enjoyed seeing her gasp and grab her bosom, imagining it was his hands on her chest instead of her own. He would squeeze and squeeze, until she bent backwards over the stove and he had his way with her on the white enamel kitchen table. They would send the big wooden pepper mill clattering to the floor in their hurry to consummate their mutual lust, the force of their ardor brushing aside every obstacle in their way.
Francois was a virgin, but this did not prevent him from imagining any number of sexual escapades. If anything, it increased his tendency to fantasize. He had the normal raging hormones of a boy his age, but so far had lacked the opportunity to plunge into the world of sexual experience, other than with himself. Flossie did not know it, but she had been a star player in his masturbatory fantasies since his early adolescence.
In the steampunk world Francois was not in the minority. The elaborate Victorian garb, silk top hats with goggles, and leather bodices camouflaged a surprising number of virgins. As they were often of superior imagination and intelligence, what they lacked in sexual experience they made up for in inventiveness and flair. The air in steampunk clubs pulsed with the energy of sublimated sexuality, which is probably why Francois felt so at home there.
“What are you doin’ up at this hour?” Flossie asked, her plump cheeks as round and inviting as the other, more intimate cheeks Francois so longed to see.
He shrugged and plopped down into a chair at the kitchen table. “I just woke up.”
Flossie’s forehead crinkled with concern. Her face was so expressive, he thought, her bright little blue eyes filled with motherly care and affection. “Are you still having trouble sleeping, then?” she said.
“No,” he lied. “I just felt like getting up.”
“And what’ll you be having for breakfast?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. Flossie was, strictly speaking, a nanny, but lately she did most of the cooking as well, the expensive private French chef having run off with a “hoochie-koochie girl,” as Flossie called her. She was in fact an exotic dancer at the Kit Kat Klub downtown, and it was just as well the chef had left, since Francois’s parents were horrified to hear he was dating a stripper. It wasn’t moral indignation as much as an affront to their aesthetic sense—she was that horror of horrors, “tacky.”
Francois sometimes thought that the worst sin in their world was to lack taste—it seemed to bring more scorn and censure than character flaws such as dishonesty, greed, or even cruelty. His parents gave lip service to condemning such behavior, but he could see their eyes light up with righteous indignation only when someone offended their sense of decorum and propriety.
Oh, well,
he thought—another indecipherable link in the chain that both bound him to and separated him from his parents. Or, as the Pink Floyd song said, another brick in the wall.
But Flossie was a different story. She sat across from him, resting her elbows on the table, emitting a wonderful aroma of lavender and lemon balm. He could breathe in her scent forever, losing himself in her warmth and kindness. He longed to unpin those blond curls and let her hair down over her shoulders, flowing like yellow leaves around her white neck....
“Well?” she said. “What’ll it be this morning, then—oatmeal or a nice fried egg?”
He sighed and rested his head in his hands, aware of a certain self-dramatizing quality in his attitude. “I’m not hungry.”
She frowned and wagged another finger at him. There was something so intriguing about the gesture that he thought about other ways he could deliberately provoke this response. It was provocative—he wondered if she knew this.
“Now, you can’t go about all day without breakfast,” she said. “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times. So what’ll it be then, eggs or oatmeal?”
There was something reassuring about Flossie’s insistence on mundane physical realities like breakfast. She was so different from his parents, with their philanthropic zeal and global consciousness. He was sick of all their do-gooding. What good had it really done anyone? They were always flying off to take care of some wretched orphans they’d never see again, leaving their own children to feel abandoned and neglected in the fancy Murray Hill townhouse. And now Candy was dead and there was only him.
But Flossie knew what was important: eggs or oatmeal. She cared about
him
, cared whether or not he faced the day with food in his stomach.
“I’ll have eggs
and
oatmeal,” he said, leaning back in his chair with the self-satisfied smile of an oil baron.
Flossie grinned, displaying pink gums over her large, prominent teeth.
“That’s my boy, now!”
Francois watched as she bustled around the kitchen preparing his meal, humming happily to herself. If only everyone could be more like Flossie, he thought, the world would surely be a better place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The city of Philadelphia suffered from an identity crisis. It boasted of its glorious history as a hotbed of the Revolution—host to the Constitutional Convention, the signing of the Declaration, as well as home of the great Franklin himself—and all at a time when New York had capitulated to the British, remaining a Tory stronghold. In spite of this, the City of Brotherly Love suffered from a chronic case of low self-esteem, forever envious and resentful of its more glamorous, illustrious East Coast cousin. And so Kathy Azarian enjoyed rubbing this in to some of her father’s more insufferable companions from time to time.
She was on her way to a gala dinner in honor of Fred Bremer, a renowned forensic sculptor, who had cracked so many cold cases that his name was known even outside the field of law enforcement. He had been featured on true-crime shows on television; one of the cases he helped solve was the subject of a full-length documentary. Kathy’s father had known and respected Fred for years, and the Philadelphia Police Department had decided to honor Bremer by bestowing him with a special Lifetime Achievement Award. Since Antrias Azarian had worked closely with Bremer on a number of cases, he had been chosen to present the award. Naturally enough, Dr. Azarian invited his daughter to go with him.
She had invited Lee to join her, but he was still running a fever, and had gone back to bed after delivering a lecture at John Jay College that morning—or so he said. Sometimes when he was depressed he wouldn’t tell her, so she wasn’t sure what was really going on. He was ashamed of his affliction, and though she reassured him that she understood, the truth was she didn’t. She had never been depressed in her life, not even after her mother died. Very sad—but not depressed. There was a difference, she knew, from watching him suffer. Sometimes she wished she could experience what he was going through, but most of the time she was grateful she didn’t. She wasn’t sure she would handle it all that well, and from what she had read, it was pretty awful.
Kathy looked out the window of the cab at the rain-soaked streets, the sidewalks shiny and glistening in the lamplight. She sighed and leaned back in her seat. She loved rainy nights, and wished she were at home gazing out the window rather than attending a formal dinner. She loved her father, and was honored he asked her to come, but she never enjoyed these events. There would be speeches and toasts and expensive, mediocre food, and, worst of all, lots of small talk. Sometimes when she caught herself recycling the same stories she was so bored that she could hardly stand listening to herself. She wondered if everyone felt the way she did, or if there were people who actually enjoyed small talk, and liked telling the same stories about their lives over and over.
—Well, I once had this case where the killer actually turned out to be the butler!
—So the butler actually did do it?
—Yes, isn’t that crazy?
—It sure is. Not only that, but the murder took place in a country house!
—You don’t say?
The problem with these formal affairs where she met a lot of people and saw others she ran into once every couple of years was that they required so much mindless chitchat. At the end of the evening it was as though she had been nibbling on hors d’oeuvres for hours without eating any real dinner—she was still hungry.
She smiled when she thought of how Lee liked to tease her about her appetite. It’s true she was lucky in that she could eat a fair amount without gaining weight, but she didn’t eat as much as he thought she did. Often during the week she would skip lunch, too busy to take a proper break from her work; other days she would eat fruit or salad for dinner. But when she was with him, for some reason she was always ravenous. So she let him think that she was as voracious as he thought. It amused her, and he obviously enjoyed teasing her about it.
She cared about Lee—even admitted to loving him—but the disquietude in him troubled her. He was a gentle man, yet at times he was filled with rage. She didn’t know what to make of it, and sometimes it frightened her. Her father was so utterly protective of her, his only child, and she couldn’t talk to him about it. She had several intimate girlfriends, but most of them lived in Philly and hadn’t met Lee yet.
The cab pulled up to the Public Ledger Building. Kathy paid the driver and got out. Because Fred Bremer was a member of the prestigious Vidocq Society (as was her father), the dinner was being held in the Down Town Club dining room, the same one where the Society had its monthly meetings. She entered the building under the graceful marble arch, passing into the cavernous rotunda, with its idealized statue of Ben Franklin. Instead of the fat, balding satyr depicted in most paintings, he looked positively heroic, carved out of shining marble, standing tall and straight on his white granite pedestal. No Philadelphian was more universally admired by the city’s residents than Franklin—and with good reason. If ever a man straddled the dual demands of politics and science, it was Franklin, she thought—he achieved greatness in both realms.
She walked through the carpeted lobby of the Down Town Club and into the expansive dining room, where the festivities were being held. The party was already gathering steam. A steady hum of voices rose over the clinking of glasses and pop of champagne corks. She recognized the chief of police, a tall Irishman with black eyebrows, talking to a svelte blonde who had politician stamped all over her. Kathy moved through the crowd, looking for her father. She recognized several members of the Vidocq Society, some of whom caught her eye and smiled at her.
There was the slim, shy Asian pathologist whose name escaped her—Wong? Huang?—she couldn’t quite remember. Standing next to Ms. Wong/Huang was the boorish Russian blood-spatter specialist who always tried to hit on her. Boris Borinsky, she called him privately, though his name was really Alexis Chernekov. He raised his glass—probably vodka—and winked at her.
She flicked him a quick smile and continued her beeline for the bar. A drink would help soften the edges, make the evening go faster. She tried to stop thinking about how much she longed to be wrapped in a blanket on her window seat, gazing out at the rain through the panes of her tall bay window.
She ordered a rum and Coke from one of the black-and-white-clad bartenders. It was an open bar, and all three of them were being kept busy. She doubted there was a teetotaler in the entire room, though probably half of them should be. She grabbed her rum and Coke and turned around quickly—too quickly, as it turned out. Her drink collided with a sandy-haired man in a tuxedo, spilling all over his jacket.
“Oh, I am
so
sorry!” she gasped, irritated with herself. “That’s what I get for not looking.”
Surprise and displeasure passed over his face for an instant; then he laughed. “That’s okay,” he said, plucking a napkin from one of the tables and wiping his jacket. “These things happen. That’s what we all get for mixing business with pleasure,” he added with a grin. “My name’s Peter Sandstrom.” He extended his hand.
“Kathy Azarian,” she said, shaking his hand. His grip was warm and firm, like his voice. “Please forgive me—I—”
“I’ve forgotten about it already. See? Good as new!” he said, pointing to his jacket.
“Well, I appreciate that, but if you’d like me to pay for your dry cleaning—”
“Dry cleaning?” He snorted. “I don’t go to dry cleaners. All those noxious chemicals—bad for the environment. Please, let’s talk about something else, okay?” His eyes searched the crowd briefly, as if looking for someone, which gave Kathy a chance to study his face.
She had to admit it was a very handsome face—almost ridiculously so. Big wide eyes of the palest blue, rimmed with light brown lashes, and high cheekbones over an unbelievably sensuous mouth. It occurred to her that you could lose yourself in that face.
“Do people ever tell you that you look like Peter O’Toole?” she asked.
“All the time,” he laughed. “Too bad I’m not an actor.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“I’m too shy, and besides, I have no talent.”
“Well, shyness can be cured—but I guess no talent is a deal breaker,” she said, taking a good stiff swallow of her rum and Coke.
“Cheers,” he said, raising his glass. “I guess after a couple of these I would be willing to act, but the audience would have to be even more smashed than me.”
She laughed, displaying her pearly teeth—from her mother’s side of the family.
“Some of these people are already three sheets to the wind,” she remarked, looking around the room, which had filled up even more since she arrived. The din of voices had increased in volume as well, and Peter had to lean into Kathy to hear her. Not that it was any hardship—her cheek brushed against his honey-colored hair, and her stomach lurched like a roller coaster between her ribs. He wasn’t that tall, maybe five foot ten, she thought. Being short herself, she didn’t especially go for tall men—Lee Campbell was the tallest man she had ever dated. At the thought of him, a little prickle of guilt fluttered through her head. But the nearness of Peter Sandstrom was distracting, and the rum was beginning to make anything seem possible.
“Law enforcement and alcohol go together—probably always have and always will,” he said.
Behind them, someone laughed at a joke—a full-throated, old-fashioned guffaw. Peter looked in the man’s direction and rolled his eyes. He was a rotund fellow with muttonchops who looked as if he had stepped out of a nineteenth-century political cartoon. It was the face of a Daumier caricature, dissipation etched in the thick lips and heavy jowls.
“I hope he has a designated driver,” Peter remarked.
“What do you do?” she asked. She was enjoying this party more than she had expected to.
“I’m a specialist on computer crime—identity theft, that kind of thing. What about you?”
“Forensic anthropology.”
“Ah, yes—the bone lady.”
She felt the heat creeping up her neck. Luckily, her olive complexion hid most of her emotional responses, including blushing. Having Armenian ancestry had its advantages.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve never met a skeleton I didn’t like. I haven’t seen you at Vidocq meetings. Are you a member?”
“I’m being considered for membership, actually.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
“You’re a member?”
“No, but my father is.”
The Vidocq Society was an organization of forensic professionals named after Eugène François Vidocq, an eighteenth-century French criminal who later became a policeman. He was considered by many to be the father of modern criminal investigation. The Society always had exactly eighty-two members, one for each year of Vidocq’s life, and was by invitation only. They were dedicated to solving cold cases presented to them from around the world by both law enforcement professionals and private citizens.
“Who’s your father?” Peter asked.
“Antrias Azarian.”
“The pathologist? Wow—he’s legendary.”
Kathy laughed. “Don’t say that in front of him. He doesn’t like to think of himself as old enough to be legendary.”
“How refreshing—a man with vanity,” Peter replied. “Looks like you’re in need of a refill. What’s your poison?”
“Rum and Coke, thanks.”
Watching him weave through the crowd, Kathy was glad she had come tonight after all. Her future floated in front of her, vague and promising as the misty rain hugging the streets of Philadelphia.