The Mephisto Club

“Then what happened?”

“I asked him why. Why he’d do something so terrible. And you know what he said?”

“What?”

“‘You should have been nicer to me.’ That was his answer. That’s all he said. Then he smiled and walked out of the barn, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.” She paused. “That’s when I did it.”

“How?”

“I picked up a shovel. It was leaning up against the wall. I don’t even remember reaching for it. I didn’t even feel the weight of it. It was like-like my arms were someone else’s. He fell, but he was still conscious, and he started to crawl away.” She released a deep sigh and said softly, “So I hit him again.”

Outside the night had fallen quiet. The bitter weather had driven pedestrians off the street, and only an occasional car glided past.

“And then?” asked Jane.

“All I could think of was how to get rid of the body. I got him into my mother’s car. I thought, maybe I could make it look like an accident. It was nighttime, so no one would see anything. I drove the car over to this quarry a few miles out of town. I rolled it over the edge, into the water. I assumed that someone would eventually spot it. Someone would report that a car was down there.” Lily gave a disbelieving laugh. “But nobody did. Can you imagine that?” She looked at Jane. “Nobody ever found it.”

“So then you went on with your life.”

“I graduated from high school. And I left town, for good. I didn’t want to be there if they ever found his body.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Jane said, “You realize you’ve just confessed to murdering Dominic Saul. I’ll have to place you under arrest.”

Lily didn’t flinch. “I’d do it again. He deserved it.”

“Who knew about this? Who knew you killed him?”

Lily paused. Outside, a couple walked past, heads bent against the wind, shoulders hunched inside winter coats.

“Did Sarah and Lori-A

“They were my best friends. I had to tell them. They understood why I did it. They swore to keep it secret.”

“And now your friends are dead.”

“Yes.” Lily shuddered and hugged herself. “It’s my fault.”

“Who else knows?”

“I never told anyone else. I thought it was over with.” She took a breath. “Then Sarah received that postcard.”

“With the reference to Revelation?”

“Yes.”

“Someone else must know what you did. Someone who saw you that night, or heard about it. Someone who’s now having fun tormenting you.”

Lily shook her head. “Only Dominic would have sent that postcard.”

“But he’s dead. How could he?”

Lily fell silent for a moment, knowing that what she was about to say would surely sound absurd to this coldly logical woman. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Detective?” she asked.

As Lily could have predicted, Jane gave a snort. “I believe we get one shot at life. So you can’t afford to screw it up.”

“The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife. They believed that everyone has a Ba, which they depicted as a bird with a human face. The Ba is your soul. After you die, it’s released, and can fly back to the world of the living.”

“What’s this Egyptian stuff have to do with your cousin?”

“Egypt is where he was born. He had books and books from his mother, some of them quite old, with incantations from Egyptian coffin texts, magical spells to shepherd the Ba back to life. I think he found a way.”

“Are you talking about resurrection?”

“No. Possession.”

The silence lasted for what seemed like forever.

“You mean demonic possession?” Jane finally asked.

“Yes,” said Lily softly. “The Ba finds another home.”

“It takes over some other guy’s body? Makes him do the killing?”

“The soul has no physical form. It needs to command real flesh and blood. The concept of demonic possession isn’t new. The Catholic Church has always known about it, and they have documented cases. They have rites of exorcism.”

“You’re saying that your cousin’s Ba has hijacked a body, and that’s how he’s managed to come after you, how he’s managed to kill your two friends?”

Lily heard the skepticism in Jane’s voice, and she sighed. “There’s no point in talking about this. You don’t believe any of it.”

“Do you? I mean, really?”

“Twelve years ago, I didn’t,” said Lily softly. She looked at Jane. “But I do now.”

Twelve years underwater, thought Jane. She stood shivering at the edge of the quarry as engines rumbled and the cable groaned taut, tugging against the weight of the long-submerged car. What happens to flesh that’s been steeped in water through the algal blooms of twelve summers, through the freeze and thaw of twelve winters? The other people standing beside her were grimly silent, no doubt dreading, as she did, their first glimpse of Dominic Saul’s body. The county medical examiner, Dr. Kibbie, lifted his collar and pulled his scarf over his face, as though he wanted to disappear into his coat, wanted to be anywhere else but here. In the trees above, a trio of crows cawed, as though eager for a glimpse, a taste, of carrion. Let there not be any flesh left, thought Jane. Clean bones she could deal with. Skeletons were merely Halloween decorations, like clattering plastic. Not human at all.

She glanced at Lily, who stood beside her. It must be even worse for you. You knew him. You killed him. But Lily did not turn away; she remained at Jane’s side, her gaze fixed on the quarry below.

The cable strained, lifting its burden from the black waters, where chunks of fractured ice bobbed. Already a diver had been down to confirm the car was there, but the water had been too murky, the swirling sediment too thick to clearly view the interior. Now the water seemed to boil, and the vehicle surfaced. The air in the tires had caused it to flip upside down when it had fallen in, and the underside emerged first, water streaming off rusted metal. Like a whale breaching, the rear bumper broke the surface, the license plate obscured by a decade’s worth of algae and sediment. The crane’s engine revved harder, the piercing whine of machinery drilling straight into Jane’s skull. She felt Lily cringe against her and thought that the young woman would now surely turn and retreat to Jane’s car. But Lily managed to hold her ground as the crane swung its burden away from the quarry and gently lowered it onto the snow.

A workman released the cable. Another rev of the engines, a nudge from the crane, and the car rolled right side up. Water streamed from the vehicle, staining the snow a dirty brown.

For a moment, no one approached it. They let it sit there, draining water. Then Dr. Kibbie pulled on gloves and trudged across the now-muddy snow to the driver’s door. He gave it a tug, but it would not open. He circled to the passenger side and yanked on the handle. He jumped back as the door swung open, releasing a sudden rush of water that drenched his boots and trousers.

He glanced at the others, then focused again on the open door, which continued to drip. He took a breath, steeling himself against the view, and leaned inside the car. For a long moment he held that pose, his body bent at the waist, his rump poking out of the vehicle. Abruptly he straightened and turned to the others.

“There’s nothing in here,” he said.

“What?” asked Jane.

“It’s empty.”

“You don’t see any remains?”

Dr. Kibbie shook his head. “There’s no body in this car.”

“The divers came up with nothing, Lily. No body, no skeleton. No evidence at all that your cousin was ever in that water.”

They sat in Jane’s parked car as flakes of falling snow gently settled on the windshield in an ever-thickening veil of lace.

“I didn’t dream it,” Lily said. “I know it happened.” She looked at Jane with haunted eyes. “Why would I make it up? Why would I confess to killing him if it wasn’t true?”