“What a coincidence,” Jackaby said. “I’ve been thinking of putting that very thing on my business cards. So you’re sending us on assignment?”
“I’m not sending you anywhere. The valley is out of my jurisdiction. He doesn’t know it yet, but I have a strong feeling your old friend Officer Barker will be forwarding you an official request for a consultation by this afternoon. For all Bell need know, you’ll just be looking into a related petty theft. That should provide you ample excuse to explore the scene of the murder. Whatever did this, it started in Gad’s Valley, and if it left behind so much as a boot print, I want you to find it.”
Chapter Seven
As the morbid atmosphere of the crime scene slid away behind us, I began to process the turn of events the morning had taken. My heart thudded as I considered the reality of a second bloodthirsty killer roaming the streets, but I couldn’t help but also consider the prospects blooming before me. We would be visiting the valley after all. Even if the burglary was only a pretext, I had my ticket onto the dig site—and the fact that we would be working closely with Charlie Barker only made the notion more appealing.
Marlowe’s driver deposited us in front of Jackaby’s building, and I hurried up the walk and through the bright red door. I would have to pack, of course, and I couldn’t wait to tell Jenny the news. I bounded up the stairs toward my room, but before I could step out onto the second-floor landing, a quiet sound from above caught my ears. Something about it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I strained to listen and tiptoed up one more flight of the spiral staircase.
Jackaby’s house was an eclectic assortment of architectural styles and engineering oddities, full of abstract additions and mystifying modifications. My favorite of these was the third-floor pond. The space opened before me as I stepped off the staircase, the simple wooden landing stretching out a dozen feet before melting into lush green grass and budding clover. There were no interior walls on this floor, only the occasional column supporting a high ceiling above a rolling, living landscape. Sunlight poured in through broad windows on either side, casting a golden glow over moss-carpeted cabinets and desks draped with ivy. A narrow path of floorboards cut through the green, coming to an end near the edge of a broad pond, the waters of which bounced the sunlight up to the ceiling in rippling, ethereal waves. The pond stretched across most of the floor, both wider and deeper than it should have been given the dimensions of the house; the laws of physics were more flexible in the hands of the sort of craftsmen Jackaby contracted for his remodeling. There was something mildly unsettling and yet profoundly comforting about the slight lack of reality in this space.
The wildflowers had begun to blossom, and the air was rich with a blend of sweet perfumes, but there was something else in the atmosphere that I couldn’t quite identify. As I stepped along the walkway, a cold chill swept through my dress and I shivered. Something was wrong. Even during the coldest days of winter, the third floor acted as its own greenhouse, keeping the peaceful pond and sweeping green field warmer than the surrounding New England streets, and yet goose bumps were creeping up my arms. I was beginning to see my own breath in wispy clouds. The quiet sound crept over the water, chilling me even more deeply than the cold. Whether male or female I could not tell at first, but a voice across the pond was weeping.