“That next fellow is John Joseph Valenti. ‘Jay-Jay’ is his street name. Anyway, Joh- Mr. Valenti hails from a nice Philadelphia working-class family. His father is a heavy-machine operator. They all moved to the Virginia suburbs ten years ago, when the builder for whom his father works landed a major paving contract in the District.”
Wonk paused. “Believe me, Dylan, this one is a real weirdo. I had a brief look at his social services report. When he was a child-a really young child-he liked to hurt animals. They caught him drowning a litter of kittens in a stream. Slowly, one at a time. He was only six years old. Can you imagine that?”
“Indeed I can. What else?”
“He was caught…exposing himself to other children.”
“No need to be embarrassed, Wonk.”
“Well, I just find that positively creepy. And not just to children. Later on, to a neighbor, an adult female living in the house next door. He stood naked in front of his window, doing…things. He was only ten.”
“Precocious little bastard, wasn’t he?”
Wonk winced. Dylan had forgotten that he didn’t like raw language.
“Anyway, there was more of that sort of thing as Mr. Valenti entered his teen years. So he was placed in a psychological counseling program. However, there were no legal consequences when he stopped attending.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
“Things grew considerably more serious when he was accused of molesting a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“His first known rape?”
The researcher’s plump cheeks reddened. “Well. Not rape, exactly. It was-what do they call it?-a kind of a fetish assault.”
“Say no more. I’ll read the file. So, what happened to him?”
“Nothing happened. As with Mr. Bracey, nothing of consequence ever happened to this individual, either. In this case, the girl was too embarrassed to pursue charges. Or perhaps it was her parents who were embarrassed; the report is ambiguous on that point. But Mr. Valenti-he was fifteen at the time-was urged again to seek counseling. He did not.”
“I am reeling in shocked incredulity. Anything else?”
“Only rumors. Very disturbing rumors, however. During the summer that he turned sixteen, Roberta Gifford, a college coed who lived on his block, went missing. Her body was discovered a week later, two miles away. She had been tortured…with various objects.”
He fell silent for a moment. Hunter stared down at the shark’s eyes in the photo.
“He was questioned about it,” Wonk continued, “but nothing came of it. He had an alibi, and so the case is still listed as unsolved.”
“What was his alibi?”
Wonk pointed at the third file folder. “Him.”
Hunter looked at it. Drew it closer. Flipped it open to the photo.
Older man, early forties.
Strong face. Large, hawkish nose.
Longish, slack sandy hair, tossed back roughly.
Eyes like an overcast November sky.
Hunter tapped the face in the photo with his forefinger. “This,” he said softly, “is the one who interests me most.”
“Adrian Dalton Wulfe,” Wonk announced. “He had hired Mr. Valenti to help him with home renovations at the time of the girl’s disappearance. Or so he claimed to the authorities.” Hunter didn’t say anything, so he went on. “And not long afterward, he also hired Mr. Bracey to assist with the yard work. That, apparently, is how the trio met.”
Hunter rocked slowly in his chair, holding the file folder level with his eyes.
“Dylan?”
Hunter remained silent. Rocked. Studied the photo before him.
“Why have you asked me to research these individuals?”
Silence.
“I gather that this is all about Dr. Copeland’s suicide this weekend. Am I correct?”
Silence.
“I assume that you intend to write about it, then?”
He stopped rocking. Lowered the file folder and met his researcher’s eyes.
“Among other things,” said Dylan Lee Hunter.
SEVEN
Arlington, Virginia
Monday, September 1, 6:45 p.m.
They stood in the hallway of the funeral home. Susanne Copeland, clutching a tissue, stared at the open door of the parlor just ahead of them, on the left. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen; her dark-red, shoulder-length hair bordered a pretty face now lined with pain and fatigue, a face that seemed to have aged ten years in the past three days.
She breathed deeply. “Okay. I guess it’s time.”
Annie took her arm gently and they began to walk slowly toward the room, followed closely by about a dozen of Susie and Arthur Copeland’s closest family members.
The funeral director who had greeted them at the building entrance had walked ahead, and now stood to one side of the parlor door. On the opposite side of the entrance a small, marble-topped table supported a spray of white roses, the visitors’ register, and a golden pen. The director smiled sadly as they approached, his hands clasped before him like a maitre d’.
“Mrs. Copeland,” he said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder, “please take all the private time you need, and let me know if you require anything, anything at all.”
She blinked and swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.”
He moved to greet the relatives following them. She glanced at Annie, then at the door yawning open before her, as if it were the entrance to hell. Annie gave her arm a supportive squeeze. Susie took another deep breath, let it out, and they entered.
Soft string music was playing over the intercom-some banal, bittersweet religious hymn. She felt Susie’s arm go rigid at the first sight of the casket. Illuminated by hidden lights, it rested in a recessed alcove to their right. It was a gleaming bronze thing lying on a bier draped in cascades of rich white fabric, surrounded by what seemed to be a solid wall of floral wreaths and displays. The sickly sweet scent of hundreds of flowers was almost overpowering.
Arthur Copeland’s face and folded hands were visible against the white satin of the casket’s open lid.
As they neared, Susie’s pace slowed; then her steps became halting, each punctuated by a little gasp. The gasps became sobs. She sank onto the kneeling pad at the side of her husband’s body.
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh Arthur! ” she cried out, her voice high and thin. She reached out a trembling hand, touched his sleeve. “Oh Arthur!”
Annie found hot tears running down her own cheeks. She knelt beside her friend, wrapped her arm around her quaking shoulders. Susie turned into her, and they hugged and cried together.
Annie didn’t know how long they remained like that. She became dully aware of the family members around them, sobbing and praying.
Eventually, Susie regained her composure. Annie helped the young widow to her feet and then stepped aside to let her lean in close to her husband’s body.
It was a cliche, she thought, but Arthur looked as if he were merely asleep. The man’s face, so anguished during the past two years, was serene now-unlined, unmarked, bespectacled, just as it had been earlier in his life. She had dreaded seeing his body tonight almost as much as Susie had; but she marveled now that there was no sign of the gunshot wound that he had inflicted to his own skull. Clearly, the funeral director was as skilled at his own reconstructive craft as Dr. Arthur Copeland had been at his. At just forty-four, Arthur had been one the nation’s most renowned plastic surgeons.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” Susie said, shaking her head. “Oh, Arthur, why? ” She touched his clasped hands, flinched a bit-the shock of the hard coldness, Annie realized-but then let her palm rest on them. She touched his wedding ring with her forefinger. Then she leaned her face over his, and began to talk to him so quietly that Annie could no longer hear what she was saying. As she spoke, she patted his loose blond strands. Smoothed the lapel of his charcoal suit. Ran her palm down his tie.
Annie had to turn away. Each of her friend’s tender gestures felt like the thrust of a knife.