The Survivors Club

by Lisa Gardner

  “I tried to pull them away from my throat,” she said flatly.

  “Were they covered with something?”

  “Yes. They felt rubbery, like he was wearing latex gloves, and that made me think of Trish . . . worry about Trish.”

  “What about his face. Did you go after his face, try to scratch him? Maybe he had a beard, mustache, facial hair?”

  She had to think about it. “Nooooo. I don’t remember hitting his face. But he laughed. He spoke. He didn’t sound muffled. So I would say he didn’t have anything over his head.”

  “Did you hit him?”

  “I, uh, I got him between the legs. With my hands. I had knit my fingers together, you know, as they teach you in self-defense.”

  “Was he dressed?”

  “Yes. He had clothes, shoes. I guess he’d already done that much.”

  “What was he wearing? You said you hit him between the legs, what did the material feel like?”

  “Cotton,” she said immediately. “When I hit him, the material was soft. Cotton, not denim. Khakis, maybe some kind of Dockers?”

  “And higher?”

  “I hit his ribs . . . Soft again. Cottony. A button. A button-down shirt, I guess.” She nodded firmly, her head coming back up. “That would make sense, right? For that neighborhood. When he walked away he would be nicely dressed, a typical student in khakis and a button-down shirt.”

  “Like Eddie Como was fond of wearing?”

  “Exactly.” She nodded her head vigorously.

  He nodded, too, though his motion was more thoughtful than hers. After a moment, he twisted around on the bench, looked out onto the water. Sun was high now. The beach quiet, the sound of the water peaceful. Just them and the sandpipers, still trolling the wet sand for food.

  “Must be a great place to come on weekends, recover from the demands of owning your own business,” he said presently.

  “I think so.”

  “Does your mom still come?”

  “She likes to sit on the deck. It’s a nice adventure for her and Toppi, once the weather gets hot.”

  He looked at her sideways. “And Trisha?”

  She kept her voice neutral. “She liked it, too.”

  “Tell me about her, Jillian. Tell me one story of her, in this place.”

  “Why?”

  “Because memories are good. Even when they hurt.”

  She didn’t say anything right away, couldn’t think of anything, in all honesty. And that panicked her a little. It had only been a year. May twenty-fourth of last year. Surely Trisha couldn’t fade away that quickly. Surely she couldn’t have lost that much. But then she got her pulse to slow, her breathing to steady. She looked out at those slowly undulating waves, and it wasn’t that hard after all.

  “Trisha was mischievous, energetic. She would crash through the waves like an oversized puppy, then roll on the beach until her entire body was covered in sand. Then she would run over to me or Mom and threaten us with bear hugs.”

  “And what did you do?”

  She smiled. “Made faces, of course. Trisha could tell you. I’m not into water or gritty sand. I take my beach experience on oversized towels with an oversized umbrella and a good paperback novel. That’s what made it so funny.”

  She turned to him finally, looked him in the eye. “Tell me about your wife. If memories are so good, even when they hurt, then tell me about her.”

  “Her name was Cindy, she was beautiful, and I loved her.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Hiking up in the White Mountains. We were both members of the Appalachian Mountain Club. She was twenty-seven. I was thirty. She beat me going up Mount Washington, but I beat her coming down.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She was an electrical engineer.”

  “Really?” Jillian looked back at him in surprise. Somehow, she had pictured this phantom wife as someone . . . less brainy, she supposed. Maybe a blonde, the perfect foil for Griffin’s dark good looks.

  “She worked for a firm in Wakefield,” Griffin said. “Plus she liked to tinker on the side. In fact, she’d just come up with a new type of EKG before she got sick. Got the patent and everything. Cindy S. Griffin, granted a patent for protection under U.S. copyright laws. I still have the certificate hanging on the wall.”

  “She was very good?”

  “Cindy sold the rights to her invention for three million dollars,” Griffin said matter-of-factly. “She was very good.”

  Jillian stared at him. She honestly couldn’t think of anything to say. “You don’t . . . you don’t have to work.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Three million dollars . . .”

  “There are lots of reasons to work. You have money, Jillian. You still work.”

  “My mother has money. That’s different. I want, need, my own.”

  Griffin smiled at her. “And my wife made money,” he said gently. “Maybe I also want, need, my own. Besides”—his tone changed—“I gave it all away.”

  “You gave it all away?”

  “Yeah, shortly after the Big Boom. Let me tell you, if going postal on a suspected pedophile doesn’t convince people that you’re nuts, giving away millions of dollars certainly does.”

  “You gave it all away.” She was still working on this thought. Trying to come to terms with a police detective who must make, what, fifty thousand a year, giving away three million dollars. Well, okay, one point five million after taxes.

  Griffin was regarding her steadily. She was surprised he was telling her all this. But then again, maybe she wasn’t. He hadn’t really needed to come to her home last night in person. He really didn’t need to clarify her donation to Father Rondell face-to-face. Yet he kept showing up and she kept talking. They were probably both insane.

  “When Cindy first signed the deal,” Griffin said, “first negotiated selling the rights, it was the most amazing thing. For five years she’d been working on this widget, and then, voilà, not only did she make it work, but she sold it for more money than we ever thought we’d have. It was amazing. Exciting. Wonderful. But then she got sick. One moment she was my vibrant, happy wife, and the next she was a doctor’s diagnosis. Advanced pancreatic cancer. They gave her eight months. She only made it to six.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When Cindy had earned the money, I liked it.” He shrugged. “Hell, three million dollars, what’s not to like? She took to shopping at Nordstrom, we started talking about a new home, maybe even a boat. It was kind of funny at the time. Surreal. We were two little kids who couldn’t believe someone had given us all this loot. But then she got sick, and then she was gone. And the money . . . It became an albatross around my neck. Like maybe I’d made some unconscious deal with the devil. Gain a fortune. Lose my wife.”

  “Guilt,” Jillian said softly.

  “Yeah. You can’t get anything by us Catholic boys. Probably a shame, too. Cindy wasn’t like that. Up until the bitter end, she was thinking about me, trying to prepare me.” Griffin smiled again, but this time the smile was bittersweet. “She was the one who was dying, but she understood I had the tougher burden to bear.”

  “You had to live after she was gone.”

  “I would’ve traded places with her in a heartbeat,” Griffin said quietly. “I would’ve climbed gladly into that hospital bed. Taken the pain, taken the agonizing wasting away, suffered the death. I would’ve done . . . anything. But we don’t get to choose which one of us dies and which one of us lives.”

  Jillian nodded silently. She understood what he was saying. She’d have given her life to save Trish.

  “So here we are,” she said at last. “I gave my money to a suspected rapist’s son to assuage my guilt. And you gave yours to . . . ?”

  “American Cancer Society.”

  “But of course.”

  He smiled at her again. “But of course.”

  “How long has Cindy been gone?”

  “Tw
o years.”

  Her voice grew softer. “Do you still miss her?”

  “All of the time.”

  “I’m not doing a good job of getting over Trish.”

  “It’s supposed to hurt.”

  “She wasn’t just my sister. She was my child. I was supposed to protect her.”

  “Look at me, Jillian. I can bench-press my own body weight, run a five-minute mile, shoot a high-powered rifle and take out pretty much any shithead in this state. But I couldn’t save my own wife. I didn’t save my own wife.”

  “You can’t fight cancer.”

  Griffin shrugged. “What is someone like Eddie Como if not a disease?”

  “I didn’t stop him. I was late, so late. Then I was down in Trish’s apartment, seeing her on the bed. And I knew . . . I knew what had happened, what he had done, but then he came at me. Knocked me to the floor, and I tried. I tried so hard. I thought if I could just break free, find the car keys, go after his eyes. I’m smart, I’m well-educated, I run my own business. What’s the point of all that if I couldn’t break free of him? What’s the point if I couldn’t save my sister?”

  Griffin moved closer. His eyes were dark, so blue. She thought she could drown in those depths, but of course they both knew that she wouldn’t. And then she thought that maybe he would touch her again, and she didn’t know if that would be the nicest thing to happen to her, or the very worst.

  “Jillian,” he said quietly. “Your sister loves you.”

  Jillian put her head in her hands then. And still he didn’t touch her. Of course he didn’t touch her. For he was still a homicide detective and she was still a murder suspect and it was one thing to catch her as she was falling and quite another to cradle her against his chest. And then there was a new sound in the background. Another vehicle, bigger this time, more guttural, the sound made by a white news van. The press was finally as smart as Sergeant Griffin.

  And Jillian cried. She wept for her sister. She wept for Sylvia Blaire. She wept for the grief it had taken her a full year to finally confront. She wept for those moments in the dark apartment, when she’d tried so hard and failed so smashingly. And then she wept for those days, not so long ago, when Trish had run happily along this beach. Days and days and days that would never come again.

  And then she heard the guttural engine die. She heard the van door slide open, the sound of feet hitting her gravel drive. She raised her head. She wiped her tears. She prepared to fight the next war. And she thought . . .

  Days and days and days that would never come again . . .

  CHAPTER 24

  Maureen

  GOING AROUND THE HOUSE TO THE FRONT DRIVE, GRIFFIN saw good ol’ Maureen, already out of the van and adjusting her mike. Griffin knew immediately from the light in the reporter’s eyes that they were in trouble. Maureen’s gaze shot from him to Jillian and back to him.

  “Hey, Jimmy,” she called out. “Come out here. I need you to get a shot of this.”

  Griffin knew better than to rise to the bait. He found himself taking another step forward, positioning himself between the emerging cameraman and Jillian. Not that Jillian required a shield. She’d already wiped her cheeks, touched up her mascara, squared her shoulders. From mini-breakdown to pale composure in ten seconds or less. If he hadn’t actually witnessed her crying, he wasn’t sure he would’ve believed it himself. And, frankly, that worried him a little.

  “What ya doing, Griff?” Maureen asked with naked speculation.

  “Police business.”

  “Didn’t know you made house calls.”

  “Didn’t know you wanted to be arrested for trespassing on private property.”

  “She can’t have me arrested. It’s not her property. It’s her mother’s.”

  “I have power of attorney over my mother’s affairs,” Jillian spoke up. “So, yes, I can.”

  “Oh.” Maureen finally faltered. But then she brought up her chin and gave them another dazzling smile. “Then I’ll only take a minute of your time.”

  “No comment,” Jillian said.

  “I haven’t asked the question yet.”

  “Whatever it is, the answer remains no comment.”

  “Oh, well, Mr. and Mrs. Blaire will be very sad to hear that.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Blaire?”

  “Yes, the parents of the slain college student? They flew in from Wisconsin this morning to claim her body. Very nice people. Apparently Mr. Blaire owns a dairy farm which supplies milk for all that wonderful Wisconsin cheese. Sylvia was their only daughter. The real apple of their eye, quote, unquote. They were so proud of her getting a scholarship to an Ivy League school. The first member of their family to get a college degree and all that.”

  Maureen smiled again. Griffin had to fight back the urge to wring her neck.

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with me,” Jillian said.

  “Well, they want to meet you, of course.”

  “They want to meet me?”

  “The head of the Survivors Club? Absolutely!”

  “I’m not the head of the Survivors Club. There is no head of the Survivors Club.”

  Maureen waved her hand carelessly. “Oh, you know what I mean. You are the woman whose face has been in the news. They really do want to speak with you.”

  “Why?”

  “To ask you why you didn’t save their daughter, of course.” Maureen smiled. Jillian stiffened as the arrow struck home.

  “Maureen—” Griffin growled.

  “You need to leave,” Jillian said.

  Maureen ignored them both. “Do you still believe Eddie Como was the College Hill Rapist? What about reports that Sylvia Blaire was also tied up with latex strips? What does this new attack mean for the allegations against Como? And even more importantly, what does it mean for the safety of the women in this city?”

  Maureen stuck out her microphone greedily. Jimmy homed in with his camera. And Griffin took three steps forward, never raising a hand, never touching a hair on either reporters’ head, but effectively blocking their shot with the broad expanse of his chest.

  “The homeowner has asked you to leave,” he said firmly. Ominously.

  “Don’t you mean the murder suspect?”

  “Maureen . . .”

  “What ya gonna do, Griffin, seize my tape?” Maureen dropped her microphone. Far from being intimidated, she stepped right up to him and jabbed her finger into his chest. “I have First Amendment rights here, Sergeant, so don’t you go threatening me or my cameraman. I don’t care if you think freedom of the press is the root of all evil. As far as I’m concerned, a little fourth-estate action is exactly what we need around here. For God’s sake, a man was gunned down at our own courthouse yesterday morning. Now another young college student is dead. And what are you doing about it? What is she doing about it?” Maureen jerked her head toward Jillian. “Something about this whole case stinks and I have not only a constitutional right but a civic obligation to do something about that.”

  “Maureen Haverill, defender of the free world,” Griffin drawled.

  “Goddamn right!”

  “You’ve been reading your own press briefings again, haven’t you?”

  “You son of a bitch—”

  “I am sorry Sylvia Blaire is dead.” Jillian spoke up quietly, unexpectedly. All heads swiveled toward her.

  “What?” Maureen said.

  “I’m sorry Sylvia Blaire is dead,” Jillian repeated. “Her family has my deepest sympathies.”

  Maureen stepped back from Griffin, motioned furiously at Jimmy, and quickly adopted her most serious reporter’s expression. The woman could cry on command. Griffin had seen her do it once by plucking a nose hair. “Do you believe Eddie Como was the College Hill Rapist?” she asked Jillian, thrusting her microphone forward.

  “I believe the police conducted a thorough and responsible investigation.”

  “Ms. Hayes, another young girl is dead.”

  “A tragedy we should
not lose sight of.”

  Maureen frowned. “Surely you understand there is a connection between Sylvia Blaire’s attack and the College Hill Rapist.”

  “I wasn’t aware that the police had made any such connection.”

  “You don’t want the police to make any such connection, isn’t that true, Ms. Hayes? Because if the police did make a connection, that would mean the police were wrong about Eddie Como. That would mean you were wrong about Eddie Como. You and your friends have spent the last year persecuting an innocent man.”

  “I have spent the last year aiding the police and the district attorney with their investigation into who brutally raped and murdered my nineteen-year-old sister, Trisha Hayes. I want justice for what was done to my sister. I think anyone who has lost someone they love can understand that.”

  “Even at the expense of an innocent man?”

  “I want the man who brutally killed my sister. No one else.”

  “What about allegations that you and your group, this so-called Survivors Club, contributed to a miscarriage of justice by whipping the public into a witch-hunt mentality, desperate for an arrest?”

  “I think the citizens of Providence should object to being characterized as an angry mob.”

  Maureen scowled again. Jimmy made the mistake of choosing that moment to home in on her face with the camera. She furiously waved him off.

  “Sylvia Blaire is dead,” Maureen said.

  Jillian was quiet.

  “Eddie Como is dead.”

  Jillian remained silent.

  “From the RISD parking lot, the police have another, unidentified body at the morgue. That’s three dead people in a space of twenty-four hours.”

  Jillian still didn’t say anything. Maureen changed tactics.

  “The day the police arrested Eddie Como, you said you were pleased they had gotten their man. You stood with Meg Pesaturo and Carol Rosen on the steps of City Hall and all but publicly branded Eddie Como as the College Hill Rapist.”

  “The police had compelling evidence—”

  “Another girl is dead! Raped and murdered just like your own sister!”

  “And I am sorry!”

  “Sorry?” Maureen trilled, “Sorry doesn’t help Sylvia Blaire. Sorry doesn’t give Mr. and Mrs. Blaire their beautiful young daughter back.”