Death Notice. Todd Ritter

couldn’t agree more. Perry Hollow had experienced its share of tragic deaths. Accidents. Brutal falls. But what Nick described seemed so cruel and hateful that she couldn’t quite believe it. Making someone bleed to death implied premeditation and planning. You needed to be prepared to do it.

      “It gets worse,” Nick warned. “Do you want me to go on?”

      Kat didn’t, but it was her job to say yes.

      “The killer did more to George after he was dead.”

      “The lips,” Kat said. “They were sewn shut.”

      “That’s not what I was talking about.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “When you cut open a corpse, there’s very little bleeding because circulation has stopped and most of the blood has settled. There’s some leakage, but it’s minor. Wallace said there was an unusually large amount of blood on George Winnick’s lips.”

      “There was,” Kat replied. If she closed her eyes, she could easily picture the reddish ice crystals that had coated his lips. It was the first time she had ever seen frozen blood, and she hoped to God she’d never see it again.

      “That means,” Nick said, “that George was still alive when his lips were sewn shut.”

      Kat’s mind whirled, imagining what such an act sounded like to the victim. Was it silent? Or could George hear the thread slipping through his skin, his flesh pulling together as it did so? If Kat concentrated, she could hear it, something not unlike the sound of a shoelace passing through the eyelet of a sneaker.

      Trying to force the sound from her head, she asked, “Then what was the time of death?”

      “That’s the problem. Wallace couldn’t tell for certain. It was definitely within twelve hours before you found him, but he couldn’t pinpoint it more than that.”

      “Why not?”

      “After George bled out,” Nick said, “the killer pumped liquid into his body.”

      “Jesus,” Kat muttered. “What kind?”

      “Part water, part formaldehyde.”

      “Formaldehyde? Are you sure?”

      “His body was filled with it. That’s why Wallace can’t pinpoint an exact time of death. The mixture killed off the microorganisms that cause decomposition. It slowed down rigor mortis. The right carotid was engorged, although that could have been from the tube.”

      Kat’s voice rose with disbelief. “There was a tube?”

      “Not when you found him, but the incision in the artery had been widened by something. The assumption is that the killer inserted a tube into it. That’s how he was able to get the formaldehyde and water mixture into the circulatory system. It got the job done, but it was pretty rough. Not at all like the professionals.”

      “Professional who?”

      “Morticians,” Nick said. “After George Winnick bled to death, the killer tried to embalm him.”

      NINE

      Henry lay on his weight bench, grunting against the 250-pound barbell he pushed away from his chest. The muscles in his arms tightened as he held the weight aloft for three seconds. When he lowered it, the tension eased, flooding his muscles with a satisfying warmth.

      “One,” he said.

      He raised the barbell again. He paused three more seconds. He lowered it.

      “Two.”

      Henry’s routine included a workout in a corner of his apartment filled with exercise equipment. One hour of each day was devoted to honing his body to its full potential. Although pushing forty, he possessed the strength and agility of a much younger man.

      “Three.”

      With his face looking the way it did, Henry knew peak physical prowess was the only thing that kept people from pitying him completely.

      “Four.”

      And he didn’t want pity.

      “Five.”

      He wanted to be left alone.

      While he worked out, music blasted from a CD player against the wall. Puccini’s Tosca, one of his favorites. Opera was still relatively new to Henry. It was only in the past five years that he had become obsessed with it. Now it was the only music he listened to. Especially the tragedies. What he heard in the music, other people missed. The tales of doomed love, mistaken identity, and broken hearts of epic proportions were melodramatic, yes. But they were also true. You could love someone so much you would kill for them. Your love could be so strong that if they died, a large part of you died with them. Opera was tragic. So was life.

      Finishing another set of reps, Henry lowered the weights and—breath heavy, heart thumping—paused to listen to the music. It was “E lucevan le stelle,” Cavaradossi’s third-act aria in which the doomed painter recalled memories of his lover, Tosca. The aria was sung in Italian, and Henry knew every word. He was fluent in Italian, having learned it in his old life. Before the accident. Before Henry Ghoul.

      E lucevan le stelle.

      Henry repeated it in English, like a prayer. “How the stars seemed to shimmer.”

      Closing his eyes, he focused on the music, on the lyrics, on the perfect voice singing them. It reminded him of Gia. Sweet Gia. His Italian rose. The aria could have been written about her.

      Entrava ella, fragrante.

      “How she then entered, so fragrant, and then fell into my arms.”

      Usually, he would have been enthralled, swept up in the aria’s embrace. But that day was different. The aria—and thoughts of Gia—put him in a dark mood, which was accompanied by an itching restlessness.

      L’ora è fuggita … e muoio disperato.

      “My last hour has flown and I die hopeless.”

      E non ho amato mai tanto la vita.

      “And never have I loved life more.”

      Henry left the room without bothering to turn off the CD player. His apartment, located above a used-book store on the end of Main Street, was large by modern standards. But that evening, the place felt absolutely tiny. As he roamed restlessly inside it, the walls seemed to constrict around him.

      He had to get out. Just for a little bit.

      His steps quickened in the hallway as he headed for the front door. By the time he was outside, he was at a full jog—legs churning, arms pumping. He picked up speed to tackle the slight incline of north Main Street. When it flattened out at the end of the street, he kept the same pace, streaking over the sidewalk.

      The stares of strangers confronted him as he passed. Blurs of faces trying to get a good look at him. Henry ignored them, soon becoming unaware of how many people he flew by or if they were staring. He also ignored the cold, which his flimsy workout clothes did nothing to ward off. He focused only on the steady exhalation of his breath and the rhythmic slapping of his feet on the pavement.

      The sadness that overcame him in his apartment dissipated outdoors. He knew the melancholy would wash over him again at some point. No matter how fast he ran, Henry knew he couldn’t outrun his pain.

      After he had sprinted at full speed for about fifteen minutes, a cramp stabbed his midsection. He slowed himself, legs winding down until eventually he came to a stop at the corner of Maple and Oak streets. Bent forward in exhaustion, palms resting on his knees, he noticed a large Victorian mansion dominating the corner.

      McNeil Funeral Home.

      Henry had never been inside, but the exterior impressed the hell out of him. Three stories tall with white siding, it