BLACK NOTICE. PATRICIA CORNWELL

Her face was impatient, her lips moving fast as she talked to someone, and almost instantly a maid appeared with a small silver tray bearing a liqueur glass. Madame Chandonne, ~ if that’s who the woman was, sipped .her drink. She lit a cigarette with a silver lighter and walked out of view.

I walked fast to the tip of the island, less than a block away, and from a small park there I could barely make out the silhouette of the morgue. I guessed it was but several miles upriver, on the other side of the Pont Sully. I scanned the Seine and fantasized that the killer was’the son of the obese woman I just saw, that for years he had bathed nude here without her knowing, moonlight shining on his long, pale hair.

I imagined him emerging from his noble home and wandering to this park after dark to dip into what he hoped would heal him. How many years had he waded in that frigid, dirty water? I wondered if he ranged about the right bank, where he watched people who were as estranged from society as he was. Maybe he even mingled with them.

Stairs led down from the street to the quai, and the river was so high it lapped over cobblestones in murky ruffles that smelled faintly of sewage. The Seine was swollen from unrelenting rain, the current very strong, and an occasional duck flowed past even though ducks weren’t supposed to swim at night. Iron gas lamps glowed and dashed flakes ‘of gold in patterns over the water.

I took the cap off the bottle of Advil and poured the pills on the ground. I carefully ventured down slick stone stairs to the quai. Water lapped around my feet as I swished the plastic bottle clean and filled it with frigid water. I snapped the cap back on and returned to the taxi, glancing back several times at the Chandonne home, halfway expecting cartel criminals to suddenly spring out after me.

“Take me to the morgue, please,” I said to my driver.

It was dark, and razor wire not noticeable during the day reflected light from cars speeding past.

“Pull into the back parking lot,” I said.

He turned off the Quai de la Rapée into the small area behind the building where vans had been parked and the sad couple had waited on a bench earlier in the day. I got out.

“Stay right here,” I said to my driver. “I’m just going to walk around for a minute.”

His face was wan, and when I got a better look at him, I realized he was very wrinkled and missing several teeth. He looked uneasy, his eyes darting about as if maybe he was thinking about speeding away.

“It’s all right,” I said to him as I got a notebook out of my satchel.

“Oh, you’re a journalist,” he said with relief. “You’re here working on a story.”

“Yes, a story.”

He grinned, hanging halfway out his openwindow.

“You had me worried, madame! I thought maybe you were some sort of ghoul!”

“Give me just a minute,” I said.

I wandered around, feeling the damp cold of old stone and air blowing off the river as I moved around in the darkness of deep shadows and took interest in every detail, as if I were he. He would have been fascinated by this place. It was the hall of dishonor that displayed his trophies after his kills and reminded him of his sovereign immunity. He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he pleased and leave all the evidence in the world and he wouldn’t be touched.

He probably could have walked from his house to the morgue in twenty or thirty minutes, and I envisioned him sitting in the park, staring at the old brick building and imagining what was going on inside, what work he had created for Dr. Stvan. I wondered if the odor of death excited him.

A faint breeze stirred acacia trees and touched my skin as I replayed what Dr. Stvan had said about the man who had come to her door. He had come to murder her and had failed. He returned to this very spot and left her a note the next day.

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