Eight Perfect Murders(2)

“I do. And I’m curious. Should we talk back in my office?”

She turned back and glanced at the front door. The tendons in her neck popped out against her white skin. “Will you be able to hear if a customer comes in?” she said.

“I don’t think that’ll happen, but, yes, I’ll be able to hear. It’s this way.”

My office was more of a nook at the back of the store. I got Agent Mulvey a chair and went around the desk and sat in my leather recliner, its stuffing bulging out from the seams. I positioned myself so that I could see her between two stacks of books. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot to ask you if you wanted anything? There’s still some coffee in the pot.”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, removing her jacket and putting her leather bag, more of a briefcase, really, on the floor by her side. She wore a black crewneck sweater under the coat. Now that I could really see her, I realized it wasn’t just her skin that was pale. It was all of her: the color of her hair; her lips; her eyelids, almost translucent; even her glasses with their thin wire rims almost disappeared into her face. It was hard to know exactly what she looked like, almost like some artist had rubbed a thumb across her features to blur them. “Before we start, I’d like to ask you to please not discuss anything we are about to talk about with anyone. Some of it is public record but some of it is not.”

“Now I’m really curious,” I said, aware that my heart rate had accelerated. “And, yes, absolutely, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Great, thank you,” she said, and she seemed to settle in her chair, her shoulders dropping, her head squaring with mine.

“Have you heard about Robin Callahan?” she asked.

Robin Callahan was a local news anchor who, a year and a half ago, had been found shot in her home in Concord, about twenty-five miles northwest of Boston. It had been the leading local news story since it had happened, and despite a suspicious ex-husband, no arrests had been made. “About the murder?” I said. “Of course.”

“And what about Jay Bradshaw?”

I thought for a moment, then shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“He lived in Dennis on the Cape. In August he was found beaten to death in his garage.”

“No,” I said.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then what about Ethan Byrd?”

“That name rings a bell.”

“He was a college student from UMass Lowell who went missing over a year ago.”

“Okay, right.” I did remember this case, although I couldn’t remember any of the details.

“He was found buried in a state park in Ashland, where he was from, about three weeks after he’d gone missing.”

“Yeah, of course. It was big news. Are those three murders connected?”

She leaned forward on her wooden chair, reached a hand down to her bag, then brought it back suddenly, as though she’d changed her mind about something. “We didn’t think so, at first, except that they’re all unsolved. But someone noticed their names.” She paused, as though giving me a chance to interrupt her. Then she said, “Robin Callahan. Jay Bradshaw. Ethan Byrd.”

I thought for a moment. “I feel like I’m failing a test,” I said.

“You can take your time,” she said. “Or I can just tell you.”

“Are their names related to birds?” I said.

She nodded. “Right. A Robin, a Jay, and then the last name of Byrd. It’s kind of a stretch, I realize, but . . . without going into too much detail, after each murder the local police station closest to the crime received . . . what appeared to be a message from the killer.”

“So they are connected?”

“It seems that way, yes. But they might be connected in another way, as well. Do the murders remind you of anything? I’m asking you because you are someone who is an expert on detective fiction.”

I looked at the ceiling of my office for a moment, then said, “I mean, it sounds like something fictional, like something from a serial killer novel, or something from an Agatha Christie.”

She sat up a little straighter. “Any particular Agatha Christie novel?”

“The one that’s jumping to my mind is A Pocket Full of Rye for some reason. Did that have birds?”

“I don’t know. But that’s not the one I was thinking of.”

“I guess it’s similar to The A.B.C. Murders as well,” I said.

Agent Mulvey smiled, like she’d just won a prize. “Right. That’s the one I’m thinking of.”

“Because nothing connects the victims except for their names.”

“Exactly. And not just that, but the deliveries to the police station. In the book Poirot gets letters from the killer signed A. B. C.”

“You’ve read it, then?”

“When I was fourteen, definitely. I read almost all of Agatha Christie’s books, so I probably read that one, too.”

“It’s one of her best,” I said, after a brief pause. I’d never forgotten that particular Christie plot line. There are a series of murders and what connects them are the victims’ names. First, someone with the initials A. A. is killed in a town that begins with the letter A, then someone with the initials B. B. is killed in a B town. You get the idea. It turns out that the perpetrator really only wanted to kill one of the victims, but he made it look like a series of crimes done by a deranged serial killer.