approached the apartment on City Line, there was already a pair of homicide detectives on the scene. Bobby Lauria and Ted Campos.
When they entered the apartment, Simon Close was in precisely the same position he was in the photograph.
Bobby Lauria briefed Byrne and Jessica on what they knew.
'Who found him?' Byrne asked.
Lauria looked through his notes. 'Friend of his. A guy named Chase. They were supposed to meet for breakfast at a Denny's on City Line. The victim didn't show. Chase called twice, then stopped over to see if something was wrong. Door was open, he called nine-one-one.'
'Did you check the phone records from the pay phone at Denny's?'
'Didn't need to,' Lauria said. 'Both calls were on the vic's answering machine. The caller ID matched the phone at Denny's. He's legit.'
'This is the POS you had the problem with last year, right?' Campos asked.
Byrne knew why he was asking, just like he knew what was coming. 'Yeah.'
The digital camera that took the picture was still on the tripod in front of Close. A CSU officer was dusting the camera and the tripod.
'Check this out,' Campos said. He knelt next to the coffee table and, with his gloved hand, maneuvered the mouse attached to Close's laptop. He opened the iPhoto program. There were sixteen photographs, each of them titled, successively, KEVINBYRNEI.JPG, KEVINBYRNE2.JPG, and so forth. Except none of the photographs were comprehensible. It seemed as if each one had been run through a paint program and had been defaced with a drawing tool. A drawing tool colored red.
Both Campos and Lauria looked at Byrne. 'Gotta ask, Kevin,' Campos said.
'I know,' Byrne said. They wanted his whereabouts for the past twenty-four. Neither of them suspected him of a thing, but they had to get it out of the way. Byrne, of course, knew the drill. 'I'll lay it out in a statement back at the house.'
'No problem,' Lauria said.
'Got a cause yet?' Byrne asked, happy to change the subject.
Campos stood up, walked behind the victim. There was a small hole at the base of Simon Close's neck. It was probably caused by a drill bit.
As the CSU officers did their thing, it was clear that whoever had sewn Close's eyes shut-and there was little doubt as to who that was- had not gone for quality of workmanship. The thick black thread alternated from piercing the soft skin of the eyelid to an inch or so down the cheek. Thin rivulets of blood had trickled down the face, giving him a Christ-like visage.
Both skin and flesh were pulled tight, in an upward direction, dragging up the soft tissue around Close's mouth, exposing his incisors.
Close's upper lip was pulled up, but his teeth were together. From a few feet away, Byrne noticed that there was something black and shiny just behind the man's front teeth.
Byrne took out a pencil, gestured to Campos.
'Help yourself,' Campos said.
Byrne took the pencil and gently leveraged Simon Close's teeth slightly apart. For a moment, his mouth appeared empty, as if what Byrne thought he saw was a reflection in the man's bubbled saliva.
Then a solitary item fell out, rolling down Close's chest, over his lap, and onto the floor.
The sound it made was slight, a thin plastic click on the hardwood.
Jessica and Byrne watched it roll to a stop.
They looked at each other, the significance of what they were seeing registering at the same moment. A second later, the rest of the missing rosary beads tumbled out of the dead man's mouth like a slot machine paying off.
Ten minutes later, they had counted the rosary beads, carefully avoiding contact with the surfaces, lest they disturb what might be a usable shred of forensic evidence, although the probability of the Rosary Killer tripping himself up at this point was low.
They counted twice, just to be sure. The significance of the number of beads that had been stuffed into Simon Close's mouth was not lost on anyone in the room.
There were fifty beads. All five decades.
And that meant that the rosary for the last girl in this madman's passion play had already been prepared.
61
FRIDAY, 1:25 PM
At noon, Brian Parkhurst's Ford Windstar was found parked at an indoor garage a few blocks from the building in which he was found hanged. The Crime Scene Unit had spent the early afternoon combing it for trace evidence. There was no blood evidence, nor any indication that any of the murder victims had been transported in the vehicle. The carpeting was a bronze in color and did not match the carpet fibers found on the first four victims.
The glove compartment held the expected-registration, owner's manual, a pair of maps.
It was the letter they found in the visor that was most interesting, a letter containing the typewritten names of ten girls. Four of the names were already familiar to police. Tessa Wells, Nicole Taylor, Bethany Price, and Kristi Hamilton.
The envelope was addressed to Detective Jessica Balzano.
There was little debate about whether the killer's next victim would come from the ranks of the remaining six names.
There was much room for debate about why these names were in the late Dr. Parkhurst's possession, and what it all meant.
62
FRI DAY, 2:45 PM
The white board was divided into five columns. At the top of each was a Sorrowful Mystery. AGONY, SCOURGE, CROWN, CARRY, CRUCIFIXION. Beneath each heading, except for the last, was a photograph of the respective victim.
Jessica briefed the team on what she had learned from her research, from Eddie Kasalonis as well as what Father Corrio had told her and Byrne.
'The Sorrowful Mysteries are the last week in Christ's life,' Jessica said. 'And, although the victims were discovered out of order, our doer seems to be following the strict order of the mysteries.
'As I'm sure you all know, today is Good Friday, the day Christ was crucified. There is only one mystery left. The crucifixion.'
A sector car had been assigned to every Catholic church in the city. By three twenty-five, incident reports had come in from all corners. The three o'clock hour-noon to three were the hours it is believed that Christ hung upon the cross-had passed at all Catholic churches without episode.
By four o'clock they had gotten in contact with all the families of the girls on the list found in Brian Parkhurst's car. All the remaining girls were accounted for and, without causing undue panic, the families were told to be on guard. A car was dispatched to each of the girls' houses for protection detail.
Why these girls were on the list, and what they had in common to get on the list was still unknown. The task
