There were already two teams watching Thompson's family members. If one of them was an accomplice they would be targeted.
Jessica looked across the lot to see someone trying to get through the police cordon. It was David Albrecht. He wanted to talk to Jessica. The uniformed officer held him back, glanced over.
'Let him through,' Westbrook said.
Albrecht came running up, out of breath.
'What did you want to say?' Westbrook asked.
'I was across the street, getting exterior shots of the building when I saw Detective Balzano come out of the front door.'
Albrecht gasped for breath. He held up a finger.
'Take your time,' Westbrook said. 'Would you like some water?'
Albrecht shook his head, gathered his wind, continued. 'Okay, okay. So I saw Detective Balzano go into the diner, and a few minutes later she came out with a coffee, and walked over here.' He indicated the parking lot, which was now teeming with crime-scene personnel. 'At first, I didn't think there was a shot, you know? I mean, a parking lot is a parking lot, right? Not the most exciting backdrop. We're not talking Robert Flaherty here.'
Albrecht looked at Jessica and Dana Westbrook, perhaps expecting a reply or a reaction. None was forthcoming. He continued.
'So anyway, I'm looking at the way the trees back here sort of frame the lot, the way that half-wall sort of provides a horizon, and I saw Detective Balzano pacing back and forth, and I thought it looked pretty good.'
He turned, pointed to his van across the street. 'I set the camera on my tripod, framed the shot, locked it down, then went into the back of the van for a filter. I wanted to use a Circular Polarizer because I wasn't getting much contrast. It took me a few minutes to find it, and when I came back around she was gone. Just papers blowing around in the wind. I looked and saw that her car was still down the block, so I knew she didn't leave. I figured she either went back into the diner or back into the apartment building. I figured I just missed her. Then I looked next to the building and… and I saw her lying there.' There was a slight hitch in Albrecht's voice.
'And you didn't see the assailant?' Westbrook asked.
'No, ma'am,' Albrecht said. 'I didn't. Not at first.'
'What do you mean, not at first?'
'I mean I didn't see him live.''
Westbrook looked at Jessica, then back at Albrecht. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'I didn't realize I was rolling.'
'Rolling?' Westbrook asked, clearly getting a little agitated.
'Yeah. When I put the camera on the tripod I started shooting. I have to admit, I'm just getting used to this camera. It's brand new. I hit the button by accident. It's a little embarrassing, but that's what happened.'
'What are you saying?' Jessica asked.
'What I'm saying is, I just watched the replay, and I think we have it.'
'Have what?'
David Albrecht held up the camera. 'I think we have footage of the killer.'
Chapter 53
Christa-Marie Schцnburg sat in a large burgundy leather chair, her pale white hands folded in her lap. Even from across the room, the first thing Byrne noticed were her eyes. Not only were they a strikingly deep amber — he had noticed the same thing twenty years earlier — but they had not changed. Two decades, two difficult decades of incarceration, psychiatric treatment and dealing with whatever demons had possessed her to begin with had not hardened her eyes in the least. They were a young woman's eyes, still as arresting as they'd been when she was the brightest star in the classical-music firmament.
Her hair had turned a soft, shimmering silver.
She was wearing a black silk pantsuit.
On the table next to her was a pair of reading glasses and an open book.
Byrne crossed the room and found that he was at a loss for words. What power did she have over him?
Christa-Marie stood, still as slender as ever, but standing this close Byrne saw the faint lines that etched her face, her forehead, the papery skin on her hands. Still, with her cascade of silken hair, she was a beautiful woman. Perhaps even more elegant than before.
He had not stood this close to her since the night he had put her in handcuffs.
He took her hand. His first instinct was to lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. He realized at the last instant that this would have been inappropriate, to say the least. Still, the urge was present. She made the decision for him. On tiptoes, she leaned in and grazed his cheek with her lips.
She had been twenty-eight the last time he had seen her. She was now almost fifty. She had escaped, or postponed, so many of the things that can happen to a man or woman in those years. Byrne found himself wondering what he looked like to her, what the landscaping of his face and body by his job and habits and life had done to the image she might have retained from that day in 1990.
Without a word she gestured to the other chair by the windows, perhaps five feet away. Byrne sat down, but for some reason did not sit back. He leaned forward, the way one might do at a job interview. Music played softly in the background. It was a cello piece, with piano.
After a few long minutes Christa-Marie spoke.
'It was her last studio recording, you know.'
'Who?'
'Jackie du Pre,' she said. 'She toured in 1973, and they savaged her. I wonder what they would have said of me.'
After she was sentenced in 1990, Byrne read a few books that had been written about Christa-Marie. The comparisons to Jacqueline du Pre were as specious as they were expected. It was said of Jacqueline du Pre that on her final concert tour, due to her illness, she could no longer feel the strings and had to play by sight. Byrne, having never played an instrument, having never been considered great at anything — he was only world-class at screwing up romantic relationships — could only imagine the horror and heartbreak of something like this happening to someone so gifted.
In Christa-Marie Schцnburg's case, her skills had not eroded in the least when she was sent to prison. She was still, at the moment of her incarceration, one of the most celebrated and revered cellists in the world. Here, looking at the woman so many years later, he wondered which fate was worse.
'We came from the conservatories in those days,' she said. 'I went to Prentiss. My teacher was a childhood friend of Ormandy. They might never have found me if not for him.'
Christa-Marie arranged herself on the chair, continued.
'You know, there really weren't all that many women back then. It wasn't until much later that playing in a major orchestra, at least one of the Big Five — Boston, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia — was seen as a job, a full-time job that a woman could do. Gainful employment, as they used to say.'
Byrne remained silent. While he was sitting there he felt his cellphone vibrate three separate times. He couldn't answer. Finally he just said it:
'Christa-Marie, I need to ask you something.'
She sat forward in her chair, expectant. In that instant she looked like a schoolgirl. Byrne held up the note card.
'Why did you write me?'
Instead of answering she looked out the window for a few moments. She looked back. 'Do you know those scrolls on the bottom front of the cello? The holes cut there?'
Byrne glanced at the cello in the corner. He saw what she was talking about. He nodded.
'Do you know what they call those?' she asked.
'No.'
'They're called the F-holes. Can you imagine a group of young students hearing this for the first time?'
