Therewas no mistake.

    Theman they had found dead that morning, Kenneth Arnold Beckman, the lead suspectin an eight-year-old murder case - that case being the bludgeoning to death ofa young woman named Antoinette Chan - was posed inside a building on Federal,the same place where Antoinette Chan had been found.

    Eightyears before it became the Beckman crime scene it had been the Chan crimescene.

    'Thesuspect in an unsolved homicide gets murdered himself and placed in the samelocation as his victim,' Jessica summed up.

    'Yep,'Byrne said.

    'Asin exactly the same place. Posed in exactly the same position asthe original victim.' She held up both the photograph and her cellphone.'Kevin, these are absolutely identical crime-scene photos, only the secondmurder, our murder, was eight years later.'

    'Eightand change, but yeah,' Byrne said. 'These are the facts as we know them.'

    Thetwo detectives looked at each other, knowing that this case had just crossedthe line. It was now more than a vendetta murder, more than some act committedin the fiery grip of passion.

    Jessicaglanced again at the photographs. Some inner bell began to peal. InPhiladelphia's history, any large city's history, there were many unsolvedmurders, victims of insanity and fury who for years went unavenged, evilechoing across time.

    Therewas just such a legacy in the City of Brotherly Love, shame and guilt andmadness that ran beneath the cobblestone streets like a blood river. Staring atphotographs taken eight years apart, at the ragged flesh of two victimsconnected in a way neither she nor her partner yet understood, DetectiveJessica Balzano wondered how much of this history they were about to see.

Chapter 14

    Ifloat in darkness. i have always been nocturnal, eluding sleep, embraced bywaking dreams.

    Herethe screams are scuttled and still. It is a place of repose and reflection, aplace of wintry silence. For many years I have felt at home here.

    Iplace the body on the ground. It is the third note. There are eight in thismeasure. Harmony and melody. I prop the leg against the low headstone. Themusic swells as I leap into the air, bringing down my full weight. The bonesnaps. The sound echoes across the wet granite, the moonlit grass. I take therecorder in my hand, play back the sound. The cracking of bone is brightpercussion.

    Imove among the dead, listening. The departed speak softly to me, etudes ofgrace and humility. Soon my movements become fluid, an exaltation of thismoment, a dance of death. Le danse macabre. Around and around I twirl. I amfree here.

Death at midnight plays a dance-tune,

Zig, zig, zag, on his violin.

    I spinamong the deceased, thinking about the next days, days leading up to AllHallow's Eve, when all the world's departed will rejoice.

    Soonwe will dance, the detective and I. We will dance, and in our embrace we willfind that we are of the same heart, the same mind, two damaged souls sippingfrom a tarnished cup of blood.

Chapter 15

    Tuesday,October 26

    LucindaDoucette looked at the bathroom floor, thinking: I live in a world full ofpigs.

    LeJardin, a modern 300-room hotel near Seventeenth and Sansom streets, in theheart of Center City, was a monolithic gray edifice with angular blackwrought-iron railings around its seventy balconies, a model of Europeanmodernity at the corner of what was now being considered Philadelphia's newFrench Quarter. Managed by a Belgian multinational firm that also managedproperties in Paris, Monaco and London, Le Jardin, which had been completelyrenovated in 2005, catered to the upscale business and leisure traveler, withits highly polished mahogany trim, its frosted French doors, its expensiveFrench amenities.

    Inaddition to the guest rooms there were six suites on the penultimate floor, allof them with views of the city, along with a presidential suite on the top floorthat had breathtaking views of the Delaware River and beyond.

    ForLucinda Doucette, along with everyone else who worked in hotel housekeeping,the views were less than scenic, although sometimes just as breathtaking intheir own right.

    Likeall hotels, Le Jardin lived and died by its 'star' ratings - Orbitz,Hotels.com, Expedia, Hotwire, Priceline.

    Andwhile the management looked to online sites for input and feedback, there wereonly two accommodation ratings that really mattered: Mobil and AAA.

    Mobil'shopped' hotels every few years. The American Automobile Association, on theother hand, was far more exacting, some might say stingy, with their Diamondratings, and thus were the most feared and respected of all the organizationson whose assessment of accommodations, dining, and travel the success of anyhotel depended. Disappoint AAA, and the drop in business was palpable withinmonths.

    Whatit all boiled down to was comfort, staff, accommodation, and cleanliness.

    LeJardin was rightfully considered an upscale establishment, consistently ratedat four stars, and this was something the management guarded fiercely.

    LucyDoucette had worked in housekeeping at Le Jardin for just over a year, startinga few days after her eighteenth birthday. When she first got on staff she foundherself visiting the various travel websites with some regularity, checking theguest reviews, the user opinions, especially in the area of cleanliness.Granted, if she wasn't doing her job, she would certainly have heard about itfrom the director of housekeeping, a chilly, no-nonsense woman named AudreyBalcombe who, it was rumored, held a Master's Degree in communications from theUniversite d'Avignon and had apprenticed as a hotelier with Kurt Wachtveitl,the legendary former general manager of the Mandarin Oriental, Bangkok.

    Still,Lucy took pride in what she did, and wanted to hear about it, good or bad, fromthe guests themselves. One review on trip- advisor.com had given Le Jardin asingle star (there was no option for zero stars, or this guest reviewercertainly would have used it) in the area of cleanliness, going so far as tocompare the hotel to a locker room at an inner-city YMCA. The reviewercomplained specifically about entering the bathroom upon checking in, only tofind the toilet unflushed. Lucy thought that the guy who'd written and uploadedthe review, not the toilet, was the one full of shit - there was virtually nochance of this ever happening - but nonetheless, for the next two weeks, sheworked doubly hard on her floor, the twelfth floor, checking and thenrechecking the toilets before clearing the rooms for the arriving guests.

    Mostof the time her work ethic was its own reward - God knew the pay was not - butsometimes, not often, there were unexpected perks.

    Oneguest, about five months earlier - an elderly, refined man - stayed for sixdays and when he checked out he left Lucy a one- hundred-dollar tip beneath thepillow, along with a note that said To the girl with the haunted eyes: Goodjob.

    Hauntedeyes, Lucy thought at the time. She wore sunglasses to and from work forweeks afterward.

    Rightnow Lucy wanted to choke the man staying in 1212. In addition to the spilledcoffee on the chair, the stained pillowcases, the broken beer bottles in thetub, the overturned breakfast tray, the hair- clogged sink, and the shampoo andconditioner bottles which had somehow ended up under the bed along with twopairs of stained and streaked underwear, every towel was soaking wet and hadbeen piled on the floor. And although she was used to this, this time it wasparticularly gross. In one of the towels was a copious amount of what lookedlike vomit.