“Is that usual?” Eve asked.
“It’s not.” Jessica sat, picked up her tea. “In fact, it’s very unusual. But we try to accommodate our patrons, even those we have to squeeze funds out of.”
“When was the last time you saw or spoke with him?”
“Let me see. Oh, yes, he attended our winter gala. Second Saturday in December. I remember I tried, again, to convince him to join the Guild. It’s a hefty membership fee, but has lovely benefits. He’s the type who enjoys the opera, who knows and appreciates it, but isn’t interested in funding. Tight-fisted. I’ve seen him come or go to performances over time. Always on foot. Doesn’t even spring for a car. And always alone.”
“Did he ever speak to you at all about his personal life?”
“Let me think.” Crossing her legs, she swung one foot back and forth. “Drawing on the personal is an essential tool of the wheedle. A longtime widower, travels a great deal. He claims to have attended performances in all the great opera houses of the world. Prefers Italian operas. Oh!”
She held up a finger, closed her eyes just a moment as if to pull together a thought. “I remember, some years ago, pumping him a bit—as he’d had a couple of glasses of wine, I thought I might slide that membership fee out of him. I had him discussing whether true appreciation for art and music is inherent or learned. He told me he’d learned his appreciation from his mother when he was a boy. I said that was, arguably, inherent. But no, he said, though she had been the only mother he’d known, she had been his father’s second wife. She had been a soprano.”
“A performer.”
“I asked him just that. What did he say? It was a bit odd. She had been, but circumstances had denied her, and time had run out. I’m sure that’s what he said. I asked him what had happened, but he excused himself and abruptly walked away.”
“Would Lyle know when Pierpont last picked up anything from the box office?”
“He would, and I asked him, anticipating you. Just last week.”
“How does he pay?”
“Cash, Lyle tells me. Always, and yes, that’s unusual. But we don’t quibble about eccentricities. He always wears black-tie to the theater, which is also a bit eccentric, I suppose. So do his guests.”
“You said he’s always alone.”
“Yes. I meant whenever he gives his performance ticket to a guest.” An obliging hostess, she lifted the pot to pour more tea into Peabody’s cup. “I’ve occasionally seen other men in his box. In fact, there was a guest in his seat at the opening of Rigoletto last week.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Ah, black and white. That’s how I thought of him, actually. Black-tie—very formal—white hair, white skin. I remember wondering if he might be a relation of Mr. Pierpont. There was a resemblance, or it seemed to me there was. I didn’t see him before or after the performance, or at intermission. Or I didn’t notice.”
“Can you dig up the names of those who have been in the same box with Pierpont?”
“There never is anyone when Pierpont or one of his guests attend.” Jessica smiled as she held out the plate of cookies. “That’s rather odd, isn’t it?”
Buys up the other tickets in the box,” Eve said when they were in the car. “Doesn’t want anyone else nearby, disturbing him, or getting too close.”
“We’ll stake out the opera.” Peabody pulled out her book to key in some notes. “Maybe he’ll need another fix.”
“Yeah, we’ll set that up. His stepmother. That’s who the women represent. That’s whose picture he carries in his wallet. Idealizes and demonizes her at the same time.”
“You sound like Mira.”
“It’s what plays. He kills her, again and again—probably re-creating her actual death. Then he washes her, lays her on white linen. Her time ran out, so he sees that time runs out for the ones he picks to represent her. That’s the core of it, with the cross in the Urbans. She clocked out in the Urbans, and I’m betting on the date he’s used for his fake wife in the Pierpont data.”
“The wife thing—the wedding band. His stepmother, but also his fantasy woman,” Peabody theorized. “His bride. He doesn’t rape her, that would shatter the fantasy. Not sexual, but romantic. Pathologically romantic.”
“Now who’s Mira? We start searching for women of her description who died on or about the date in the Pierpont data.”
“A lot of deaths weren’t recorded during the Urbans.”
“Hers will be.” Eve whipped the wheel to change lanes and shoehorn herself into a minute opening in the clog of traffic. “He’d have seen to it. It would’ve been here in New York. New York’s the beginning and the end for him. We find her, and she’ll lead us to him.”
Eve heard the internal clock in her head ticking, ticking, ticking away the time. And thought of Ariel Greenfeld.
She didn’t know it was possible to experience such pain, to survive it. Even when he stopped—she’d thought he would never stop—her body burned and bled.