The Stolen Ones (28 page)

Torresdale was a neighborhood in the far northeast section of the city, bounded by the Delaware River to the east, Holmesburg to the south, and Bensalem in Bucks County. Long before there was a Main Line, this area of the city was considered the poshest address in Philadelphia. Torresdale was still home to Holy Name University.

The house was a large Edwardian mansion on a slight rise, one of the last surviving riverfront estates, just a few doors down from historic Glen Foerd. On the front grounds were a lily pond, a rose garden and a huge weeping hemlock. To the right, along the banks of the Delaware, was a boathouse, which looked to be in the process of restoration.

When Jessica and Byrne turned into the driveway, Jessica was struck by the meticulous care of the grounds. There was a landscaper pruning the hedges that bordered the path down to the river.

‘I think we’re underdressed,’ Jessica said.

Byrne put the car in park, cut the engine. ‘A badge is the best accessory,’ he said.

The woman who answered the door was in her sixties. She wore a high-collar black dress, buttoned to her throat, closed with a beautiful cameo brooch. Her fingers were long and delicate, her face powdered and smooth.

‘May I help you?’ she asked.

Jessica held up her ID. ‘My name is Jessica Balzano, this is my partner Detective Byrne.’

The woman looked dumbstruck for a few moments.

‘The police?’ she finally asked, a slight tremble in her voice.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Jessica said. ‘Please don’t be alarmed. Nothing’s wrong.’

The woman remained silent.

‘Does Martin Léopold live here?’ Jessica asked.

The woman brought a hand to her throat, fingered the brooch. ‘Yes.’

‘Is he in?’

Another hesitation. ‘I… of course. Yes.’

‘We’d just like a word with him,’ Jessica said. ‘If he’s available.’

After another pause, the woman opened the door fully. ‘May I take your coats?’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Byrne said. ‘We won’t be that long.’

The foyer was octagonal in shape, with raised panel walls, and gleaming white quarry tile. Jessica noticed there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.

The woman gestured toward a room off the foyer.

‘Please wait in here.’

The library was imposing. Three walls held polished mahogany bookshelves, floor to ceiling. There was a fire in the fireplace. A pair of dogs, young Weimaraners, circled and sniffed both Jessica and Byrne, then went back to their station beneath the table, their dark chocolate eyes shifting back and forth, their wagging tails betraying their excitement.

While Byrne perused the titles of the books on the shelves, Jessica scanned the rest of the room. There were oil paintings on the walls – one huge canvas was of an imposing man with a white beard, dressed in a late-twentieth-century naval officer’s uniform. Another painting was of a beautiful valley with a church steeple in the distance.

The floors were lustrous hardwood. There was a stunning Sarouk rug. The house was clearly built at a time when the railroad men made their fortunes.

A few moments later Jessica heard the sound of hard soles on the quarry tile of the foyer.

‘Detectives.’

Both Jessica and Byrne turned to the sound of the voice.

The man entering the room was possibly in his seventies, but his posture was perfect, his eyes bright and clear. He wore a dark gray cardigan, black slacks, soft loafers. His hair was a gleaming silver, fluffy, as if just washed. He crossed the room to Jessica first, extending a hand.

‘I am Martin Léopold.’

Jessica took his hand. It was soft and smelled of a very expensive emollient. For a moment she thought the man was going to kiss her hand. He was that elegant.

‘Jessica Balzano, Philly PD,’ she said. ‘Thank you for seeing us.’

‘You are most welcome.’ He turned to Byrne. ‘Martin Léopold.’

As Byrne introduced himself, the two men shook hands.

The woman stood in the opening to the foyer, looking a little relieved now that Léopold was in the room and apparently the world was not coming to an end. At least for the moment.

Still, she seemed stuck in space.

‘It’s all right, Astrid,’ Léopold said to the woman.

He turned to his two guests. ‘May I offer you something? Coffee? Tea?’

Both Jessica and Byrne held up a hand. ‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Jessica said.

‘The coffee is a Fazenda Santa Ines,’ Léopold said. ‘A yellow bourbon. Astrid makes a beautiful cup. Might you reconsider?’

Jessica looked at Byrne, back. ‘That would be lovely.’

Lovely
? Who the hell says
lovely
? This place, this man, was having an effect on her.

Astrid waited a few more seconds. Léopold dismissed her with a nod. She closed the French doors, but Jessica could see the woman’s silhouette behind the frosted glass. After a few more moments she padded off.

Before they got down to business Jessica made a quick scan of the wall of photographs opposite the fireplace. The pictures were of Martin Léopold, in this very room, posing with three former mayors of Philadelphia, the sitting governor and various luminaries from the world of Philadelphia art, medicine and industry.

Léopold turned back to his guests.

‘And how may I assist the Philadelphia Police Department?’ he asked.

‘It’s our understanding that you wrote a book about dream therapy,’ Byrne said.

‘Yes,’ Léopold said. ‘A few years ago. More than that, now.’

‘Can you explain what dream therapy is?’

Léopold thought for a moment. ‘Briefly stated, dream therapy is employed by behavioral therapists in an attempt to understand a patient’s psychology by recording and analyzing the patient’s dreams.’

‘How available is this therapy?’ Byrne asked.

‘The interpretation of dreams goes back to the Egyptians and the Greeks, although I will say that most of the interest in it over the years has been shamanistic, used in the creation of prophecy.’

‘Are you saying the field is not taken seriously?’

‘Oh, it most certainly is. There have been great strides in the last one hundred years, especially in the area of lucid dreaming.’

‘What is lucid dreaming?’ Byrne asked.

‘Lucid dreaming is where the subject
knows
that he or she is dreaming.’

Jessica made a few notes. ‘What can you tell us about the research that was being done at the Delaware Valley State Hospital?’

Léopold took a few moments before responding. ‘I believe you are referring to a man named Godehard Kirsch.’

‘Yes,’ Jessica said.

Léopold walked over to the fireplace, stoked the logs. He replaced the stoker in the rack, then reached into the pocket of his cardigan, took from it a leather tobacco pouch. He held up his pipe, an expensive-looking Calabash. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Not at all,’ Byrne said.

‘It is my last remaining vice,’ Léopold said. ‘Although, at my age, it is one of the few in which I can still participate.’ He sat in a tall wingback chair, next to the fireplace, motioned to Jessica and Byrne to sit down. ‘Please.’

Jessica picked a leather chair. Byrne sat on the couch. Martin Léopold began the pipe smoker’s ritual – cleaning, filling, tamping. A few moments later Astrid brought the coffee, served it.
Léopold was right
, Jessica thought. It was delicious.

‘You ask about Godehard Kirsch,’ Léopold finally said.

‘Yes,’ Byrne said.

‘Alas, I don’t know much. Kirsch was a bit of an enigma. He was an East German, so much of what he published – specifically his early work – did not make it out of the country, of course.’

‘And he worked in this field of dream therapy?’

‘Yes. It is my understanding that he came to this country as some sort of brain trust exchange. I believe it was in the early nineteen nineties.’

‘This is when he came to Cold River?’

‘Yes.’

Jessica checked her notes. This was in sync with what they had learned from Miriam Gale.

‘Did you ever meet the man?’ Byrne asked.

‘I did. Just once, and then for only a few moments. I found him quite courteous and engaging. As much as I would have loved to chat with him for hours, I was there to talk to some of his patients.’

‘Do the names Leonard Pintar or Lucius Winter ring a bell?’

Léopold thought for a moment. ‘No. Sorry.’

‘What about a man named Luther?’

‘Again, I don’t recall these names. Bear in mind, this was a long time ago, and I did not have unfettered access to patients there. Far from it. The interviews I was able to conduct were very controlled. There were always two staff members present, usually a therapist and an orderly.’

‘How many patients did you interview at Cold River?’ Byrne asked.

‘I would say no more than a few dozen. I was there in the waning days of the facility. Even though they knew I was writing, if not a scholarly work, one based on research, they saw me as a journalist of sorts. I was not trusted, to say the least.’

‘Were you allowed to ask questions about the dream research?’

Léopold nodded. ‘I was. But just in the very general sense.’

‘May I ask which field you are in?’

‘I have degrees in both psychology and neurology.’ He crossed his legs, puffed the pipe, which seemed to have gone out.

‘But all of this is ancient history in the field. The research being conducted now in this field is quite exciting. Recently, neuroscientists at MIT successfully engineered the content of dreams by replaying certain audio cues that correlated to the previous day’s events.’

‘This was done with human subjects?’ Byrne asked.

Léopold smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This was done with rats. The research centers on the hippocampus, and the way that portion of the brain encodes those things we have experienced into memory. This has fascinated researchers for a hundred years. Perhaps more.’

‘So you’re saying that the research being conducted at Cold River was in this area?’

‘I can’t say for sure. Keep in mind this is more than twenty years ago. If there was any research with human patients in this area, it would certainly not have been publicized. These experiments at MIT are less than a year old. Nobody really cares about rats, you see. But their dreams…’

Jessica checked her notes. ‘Mr Léopold, we won’t keep you much longer. Just a few more questions.’

‘Of course.’

‘When you were at Cold River, did you hear of a patient called Null?’

‘Null? As in zero?’

‘Zero?’

‘Yes, null is the German word for zero. To answer your question, there was talk of a patient around whom the secretive research centered. I imagine a doctor of German extraction may have called him Null, or Patient Zero.’

Jessica made the note. ‘One last question. Do you know what happened to Dr Kirsch?’

‘Dr Kirsch perished in a fire at Cold River. I am told that almost all of his research went up in flames that day. Pity, on both counts.’

Jessica looked at Byrne. He had no questions.

They all got to their feet.

When they reached the front door, Léopold paused. ‘One moment.’

Léopold walked slowly back into the library. A few moments later he returned, a large book in hand. He handed it to Byrne. Jessica saw the title.
Nightworld.

‘This is your book,’ Byrne said.

Léopold nodded. ‘Pages 515 and 516 concern Godehard Kirsch,’ he said. ‘I would have written more but, alas, there simply was not enough data.’

‘I really appreciate this,’ Byrne said. ‘I’ll take good care of it, and get it back to you as soon as possible.’

Léopold held up both hands. ‘Consider it a gift. If it in any way helps with your investigation, I will be most pleased.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Léopold smiled. ‘Perhaps you can return here one day when you have more time. I would love to discuss with you the hostile mind.’

‘I would be honored.’ Before Byrne stepped onto the porch he asked one final question. ‘Does the term
Die Traumkaufleute
mean anything to you?’

‘
Die Traumkaufleute
? The Dream Merchants?’

‘Yes, do you recall ever hearing it before?’

‘No,’ Léopold said. ‘But I think I now have a title if I ever write a sequel to my book.’

They rode back to the Roundhouse in silence, both absorbing what they had learned from Martin Léopold. Byrne’s theory of where Luther had found his blueprint for these murders was looking better and better.

What it did not provide, however, was what was going to happen next.

Rachel had changed her outfit four times already, and still wasn’t satisfied. She hadn’t quite gotten it through her head that this wasn’t a showing. This was
her
house.
Bean’s
house.

The buyer was due within the hour.

She had thought about calling in Denise to do a little staging, but decided against it. What would be the point? The buyer had offered $75,000 more than the house was worth. There was no way, or point, to try to improve on that.

Earlier in the day she made a ritual of burning all the maps she had collected, all the data and diagrams on the houses in her neighborhood, the dossiers she had compiled on everyone who had moved into the neighborhood over the past few years, trying to find someone who might have been the tall man in ragged clothes, trying to locate the path they had taken that night.

That episode in her life, when the raggedy man had come to visit, and where he brought her and Marielle, was part of her past.

The fact that she might never know what happened to her sister was a reality with which she would have to one day come to terms. Selling this house, and all the ghosts it contained, was the first step.

Rachel looked out the window for the hundredth time. It occurred to her that she should have gotten some other agent from the office to handle this showing. It was too late for that.

She thought about having a glass of wine to calm her nerves a little, then ruled that out.

Instead, she paced the living-room rug in front of the picture window, until it occurred to her that this is exactly what her mother used to do when she was drinking.

Rachel sat down, and waited.