Page 81 of Dead Beat

“What theory?” Alex asked.

“Turner thinks the societies may be running unsanctioned rituals, that they’re using Reiter’s house as a…”

“A dumping ground,” Turner finished. “I don’t have much proof, just—”

“A theory,” said Alex.

“Barely that.”

Darlington knew what he was about to suggest might stretch the bounds of Turner’s belief, but he couldn’t help himself. “Savin Rock was where Jennie Cramer washed up.”

“I don’t know that name,” said the detective.

“She’s a New Haven legend. A beautiful working-class girl, daughter of a cigar maker. Two cousins, Walter and James Malley, stood trial for her rape and murder, but they were acquitted.”

Dawes rose to refill the kettle. “You don’t think they were guilty?”

“I do, actually. But there may have been more to it. The Malleys ran a department store and they’re one of the few New Haven families to have enjoyed long-term success. You know this town. Boom and bust. But their business thrived even as the city changed. The last Malley’s store didn’t close until 1982. That’s over a hundred years of prosperity. What if Jennie wasn’t just a victim? What if she was a sacrifice?”

“Go on,” said Alex. “There’s more, isn’t there?”

There was, but he didn’t want to sound like a lunatic. “Jennie’s death, even the way she was found, floating near the shore at Savin Rock … It’s a direct echo of another unsolved murder.”

“I know this one,” said Dawes. Darlington wasn’t surprised. It was a case so famous it had inspired a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. “Mary Rogers. They found her body in the shallows at another tourist spot.”

“In New Haven?” Turner asked.

“New York,” said Darlington. “But here’s the thing: One of the chief suspects was John Anderson. She worked in his shop. His son built Il Bastone.”

“Let me guess,” said Alex. “No one was found guilty of that murder either.”

“No,” said Darlington. The murder remained unsolved in Poe’s story as well. “But Anderson’s son deserted Il Bastone two years after it was built. The Lethe legend is he was chased out of town by Mary’s ghost.”

“Maybe,” Alex said. “Or maybe he wanted to put distance between himself and the societies.”

Lethe had been founded to watch over the Houses of the Veil, to keep their potential for harm in check. But Darlington had said it himself: All magic is transgression. Once you broke a rule, it became that much easier to break another. Once you understood your purpose to be greater than the laws that bound you, what could really stand in your way? If you could violate the very confines of reality, why would you ever think an organization like Lethe should be taken seriously?

“Reiter wants us to know the societies haven’t been playing by the rules,” said Darlington.

“But why?” Dawes pressed. “Why would he do anything to help us?”

“He’s courting us,” Alex said. “He wants us to use the Feet of Clay, and … I think I got it wrong with Michelle Alameddine. He didn’t kill her to scare us. She was an offering. A gift.”

Darlington couldn’t hide his shock. “You can’t mean that.”

Dawes looked ill. “Like a cat with a dead mouse?”

Michelle might have been a traitor, but she was his friend and his mentor. Reiter had promised her hope in a frightening world and Darlington had long ago forgiven her for grasping at it. He had accepted that she was a casualty in a war he still didn’t entirely understand. But the idea that she had died so she could be gifted to them like a bouquet of flowers made him want to drive to Old Greenwich and finish Reiter off for good.

“It’s all part of the demon’s game,” he said bitterly. “The puzzle. The dance. They can’t resist it.”

Turner shook his head. “If Reiter wants us to use those artifacts, that’s a very good reason not to.”

Alex pushed back from the table. Her eyes were black, the forever dark of hiding places, of wells where any sound made an endless echo.

“We stop Golgarot,” she said. “We stop Reiter. Then we find a way to stop all of this. No more dead girls. No more disappearances. No more sham trials.”

“And how do we do all that?” Turner asked.