The Survivors Club

by Lisa Gardner

  “Hence all the blackjack millionaires out there,” Griffin observed dryly.

  “I’ve won,” Dan said immediately. His face held that flush again. “Hey, I’ve won a lot!”

  “How much are you down, Mr. Rosen?”

  The lawyer faltered. He didn’t seem able to meet anyone’s eye. After several moments, when the silence ran long, Vinnie raised his arm to smack the man again. Griffin waved the bookie off.

  “Mr. Rosen?”

  “I owed eighty thousand dollars,” Dan said gruffly. He ran his right hand through his hair, leaving the brown strands standing up on end. “Only twenty now. I, uh, I liquidated my brokerage account. Otherwise, they weren’t going to give me any more money. And then . . . Well, then I wouldn’t have any chance of getting ahead, would I?”

  “Who’s they, Mr. Rosen?”

  “Why don’t you ask Mr. Pesaturo?” Dan said bitterly.

  Griffin looked at Vinnie.

  “Not with that tape on,” Vinnie said.

  “I’m working on a murder here—”

  “Not with that tape on.”

  Griffin sighed, shut off the Pocket Memo. “Let’s hear it.”

  “I might be aware of Mr. Rosen’s predicament.”

  “You think?”

  “Hey, man needed money, and I happen to know people who don’t mind loaning a few bucks every now and then.”

  “Percentage?”

  “Well, you know how it is in banking. The interest rate on the loan is dependent upon the level of risk. Look at him.” Vinnie shot Dan Rosen a disparaging glance. “Eighty grand down at jack? He’s high risk.”

  “You’re charging him a hundred percent?”

  “Fifty. We’re not completely unsympathetic.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jillian raised a hand, finally interjecting herself into the conversation. “You mean to tell me that you—”

  “My associates,” Vinnie amended.

  “Fine, your associates are loaning Dan money for his gambling habit with an interest rate of fifty percent?”

  Vinnie nodded. She turned to Dan. “And you are taking the money at that rate?”

  “One good day,” he said immediately. “That’s all you need. One good day, and the loan is repaid and I can get the credit cards down, maybe even make an extra payment on the mortgage. One good day.”

  “Oh God,” Jillian said. “Poor Carol.”

  Dan deflated again. Griffin turned the recorder back on. “Is it correct to say, Mr. Rosen, that you used the sixty thousand dollars you liquidated from your brokerage account to repay loan sharks?”

  Dan nodded. Griffin gave him a look. “Yes,” Dan said belatedly into the minirecorder.

  Griffin turned to Vinnie. “And can you, Vincent Pesaturo, verify—through sources—that such a transaction took place?”

  “Yeah. My sources, they say such a thing took place.”

  “Vinnie Pesaturo, did you order a hit on Edward Como? Did you arrange for him to come to harm in any way?”

  The questions came out of left field, but Vinnie didn’t blink an eye. He bent lower, so his mouth was directly above the recorder. “No, I, Vincent Pesaturo, did not order a hit on Eddie Como. If I, Vincent Pesaturo, wanted that piece of garbage dead, I would’ve done it myself.”

  “Or ordered a hit in prison,” Griffin muttered. Vinnie smiled, looked at the recorder and didn’t say a word.

  “Tom Pesaturo,” Griffin spoke up again. “Did you order a hit on your daughter’s suspected rapist, Edward Como?”

  Tom looked a bit more defensive. “Nah,” he said slowly. “I decided against it.”

  “Tom!” his wife gasped.

  “Daddy!” Meg seconded.

  He shrugged. “Hey, I’m a father. After what that bastard did to my daughter, I’m allowed to think these things. But I didn’t do anything.” He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Sounded like the police had a good case. That DNA and all. And I figured . . . I figured the trial might be better for Meg. She could face down her accuser and all. I, uh, I read someplace that sometimes that’s better for the victim, you know. Gives her some sense of power back, control. That kind of thing.”

  “You read about rape victims?” Meg asked.

  “Kinda. I saw this article . . . in Cosmo.”

  “Cosmo?” Vinnie exclaimed.

  Tom Pesaturo huffed his shoulders. “Hey, she’s my daughter. I want what’s best for her. ’Sides, there was a long line at checkout, and you know they got all those women’s magazines just sitting right there, decorated up with half-naked cover models. Of course I started looking. And then, well, I saw the title for the article. And then I kind of opened up the magazine. And hey, it was a really long line and, and . . . It was a good thing to read.”

  “You are a sweet man, Tommy Pesaturo,” Meg’s mother said. She slipped her hand into her husband’s and squeezed.

  “Ah well,” he said. Everyone was looking at him now. He turned bright red.

  A tapping sound came from the back of the room. Heads turned to Libby, who was staring at Griffin expectantly.

  “Oh,” he said belatedly. “Um, Olivia Hayes, did you hire someone to kill or harm Edward Como?”

  Olivia made a motion with her hand, which he took to mean no. She was using her left hand to flip through her picture book. Toppi came closer, leaning over her shoulder as Libby tapped on one picture, flipped several more pages, then tapped on two more pictures.

  “She’s pointing out Jillian, Carol and Meg,” Toppi said. She looked at Libby. “The Survivors Club?”

  Libby tapped once, flipped through the book, tapped again.

  “The number one,” Toppi said. “The Survivors Group, plus one?”

  Single tap.

  “That means yes,” Toppi translated for the group. She knelt down. “I don’t know what that means, Libby. Do you mean the other victim? Sylvia Blaire?”

  No response.

  “Do you mean the Survivors Club should be four people?”

  Libby frowned, then tapped once. This tap was clearly reluctant, however. The statement still wasn’t quite right.

  “Why four people?” Meg asked.

  “It can’t be an open-ended question,” Jillian spoke up. “She knows what she wants to say, but you have to help her find it by using yes or no questions.”

  She was studying her mother now as well. It was hard to read the look on her face. Some compassion, some yearning, some resignation. Then Libby looked at her as well. The softening of her features was immediate and obvious. A mother looking at her daughter. A mother, looking at the only daughter she had left.

  “Yes or no question,” Tom muttered.

  “Four people, four people,” Vinnie was saying.

  “A bigger Survivors Club,” Meg mused.

  Then all of sudden, Jillian’s eyes grew wide. “I know what she means. Oh my God, why didn’t we think of it before?”

  In her wheelchair, Libby leaned toward her daughter, waited for her daughter to speak the words from Libby’s head.

  “Sergeant Griffin asked all of us if we were involved in Eddie’s death, because we’re Eddie Como’s victims. We have the best motive.”

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Jillian turned toward Griffin now. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dazed. “But what’s the other major statistic in rape cases, Griffin? That rape is a largely unreported crime. That in fact, something like only one in every four rapes is ever brought to the attention of the police.”

  Griffin closed his eyes. He understood now as well. “Ah, no.”

  And in her wheelchair, Libby went tap, tap, tap.

  “Ah, yes,” Jillian said softly. “Meg, Carol and I are the women who came forward, the women who called the police. But that doesn’t mean we were the College Hill Rapist’s only victims. It is quite feasible, it’s very probable, that there’s at least one other woman out there. Another woman, another family, and a whole host of other people who wanted Eddie Como dead.”

  CHAPTER
27

  Griffin

  BY 6:30, THERE WAS STILL NO WORD ON CAROL, BUT Griffin had to go. Waters was waiting for him, plus he had work to do. He left the subdued group inhabiting one corner of the waiting room, an odd sort of family. Dan had started off slightly apart, but then Jillian, of all people, had moved to the seat beside him. Maybe Dan was grateful. It was hard to tell. He should be, Griffin thought. He gave Jillian one last glance, then headed out the door.

  In the parking lot, he was immediately assaulted by the gathered press.

  “Any word on Carol Rosen’s condition?”

  “Are you prepared to make an arrest?”

  “Is Carol Rosen’s attempted suicide connected with Eddie Como’s murder?”

  Griffin ignored them all and climbed into his car. In all honesty, there weren’t as many reporters present as he would’ve thought. Then he turned on the radio and found out why.

  Tawnya Clemente was holding a press conference in downtown Providence. At a law firm. Where her new attorney was announcing the fifty-million-dollar wrongful-death suit he was planning to bring against the city of Providence and the Providence Police Department on behalf of the Como family.

  “As recent evidence indicates,” the lawyer boomed, “Edward Como never should have been arrested by the Providence Police Department. Indeed, the premature and irresponsible indictment of Edward Como as a serial rapist set in motion the events leading to the tragic death of this young man, shot down in front of the very courthouse where he would’ve shortly been found innocent. Yesterday was a dark, dark day in the halls of justice. The city of Providence turned on one of its very own sons. Now the city must make restitution. The city must make amends.”

  On cue, Griffin’s cell phone rang.

  “Are you listening to this?” Fitz yelled into his ear. “Holy mother of God, I am having a heart attack. My heart is literally fucking exploding in my chest. I’m gonna die on this thankless, shitty, fucking nuts job, and then my wife is gonna sue this city for seventy-five million just so she can stay ahead of the Comos. Jesus H. Christ. I should’ve arrested Tawnya when I had the chance.”

  “You have a wife?” Griffin said.

  “Eat my shorts, Sergeant!”

  “I take it you had another lovely afternoon.”

  “Blockbuster,” Fitz moaned. “Goddamn kid seems legit. Showed us the computer records of Eddie’s transaction, then practically cried as he told us how he’d been too scared to come forward earlier. His sister goes to Providence College and he was so sure Eddie was guilty, he didn’t want to do anything that might set the College Hill Rapist free.”

  “So on the one hand, the kid from Blockbuster did see Eddie that night, but even he’s still convinced that Eddie is guilty?”

  “The DNA. Some people really do believe in that stuff. Why the hell aren’t any of them ever on juries?”

  Griffin had turned onto the highway. The lack of sleep the night before was starting to catch up with him. So much information, and he couldn’t seem to get his brain to process half of it.

  “Is this kid the basis of Tawnya’s claim?”

  “Maybe. I’m guessing, though, her lawyer’s mostly focusing on last night’s assault on Sylvia Blaire. That case is consistent with the College Hill Rapist attacks and since that happened after Eddie was dead, Eddie couldn’t have done it, meaning he couldn’t have done any of them.”

  “Meaning the heat is on to resolve what happened to Sylvia Blaire.”

  “Would you believe the mayor just gave us carte blanche on the Blaire case?”

  “Oh, you big boy you.”

  “Yeah, apparently you can spend a small fortune on manpower and high-priority forensic tests without coming close to the expense of a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit.”

  “I take it you’re fast-tracking the tests on the DNA sample?”

  “Oh yeah. We’re trying to get results by first thing tomorrow morning. Please let it be an ex-boyfriend. About the only thing that will save our asses now is for it to be an ex-boyfriend. Oh, and when we pick him up, he’s gotta confess that it was a copycat crime and he learned all the details from reading some Internet site, www.IWannaBeARapist.com, or something like that. Ex-boyfriend. Confession. Yeah, that’s about what it’s going to take to salvage my career.”

  “I think you stood a better chance of having the heart attack,” Griffin said.

  “Probably.” Fitz sighed again. He still hadn’t gotten any sleep and it showed in his voice. “Hey, Griffin, did Carol Rosen really try to commit suicide?”

  “We found her passed out with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills. I understand that she’d probably been drinking as well.”

  “Ah, shit.”

  “I’m sorry, Fitz.”

  “It’s the Blaire case, isn’t it? Has everyone wigged out. Press is going nuts, people are phoning nine-one-one if the bush outside their house moves . . . It’s a copycat. How hard is that for people to grasp? Sometimes you get copycats.” Fitz sounded desperate. He knew it, too. He sighed again, then said gruffly, “It’s not her fault, you know. Whatever happened, whatever mistakes we may or may not have made . . . It’s not her fault, not Jillian’s fault, not Meg’s fault. We’re big boys over here. We handled the case the way we handled the case.”

  “Fitz, did you guys ever try to find any additional rape victims?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jillian and her mom raised an interesting point. Rape is a largely unreported crime. Sure, we have three known victims of the College Hill Rapist. But that doesn’t mean they were his only victims.”

  Fitz was silent for a moment. “Well, we ran the details of the case through VICAP to see if we’d get any hits. No crimes matching these descriptions came up in any other states. Of course, that’s not exactly foolproof. Another victim might not have filed a police report. Or maybe she did, and the police department still hasn’t gotten around to entering it into the database, etc., etc. D’Amato waited six months before going to the grand jury, just in case we could find any other women willing to come forward and add their charges to the package. That’s one of the reasons he didn’t mind Jillian and her group going on TV all the time. He figured if anything would influence another victim to come forward, it would be seeing Jillian, Carol and Meg standing tall.”

  “But no one came forward?”

  “Not that we ever heard of.”

  “But that doesn’t rule out the possibility . . .”

  “Griffin, there is no way of ruling out that possibility. You could interview every woman in this state, point-blank ask her if she was ever raped, and still not rule out the possibility because one of them might lie. We’re cops. We can’t focus on the impossible. We have to focus on the probable.”

  “I can account for everyone’s money,” Griffin said abruptly.

  Fitz was clearly stunned. “No shit.”

  “Yeah. I even asked Vinnie Pesaturo if he arranged for a hit. He said no. And call me crazy, but I actually believe him.”

  “In other words, you just ran out of suspects.”

  “I ran out of suspects for this theory,” Griffin said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning maybe it wasn’t a vengeance case. Maybe it was about something else. You tell me, Fitz. Why else would someone want Eddie Como dead?”

  Griffin had no sooner set down his cell phone from that call than it rang again.

  “Sergeant Griffin,” he said.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Lieutenant Morelli! My favorite LT. Have I told you how lovely you look today?”

  “You wouldn’t know how lovely I look today. You haven’t bothered to see me today. Funny, but my memory of the primary case officer’s job is to keep the higher-ups informed. To actually be at headquarters overseeing information, generating theories and keeping the ball rolling. What is your memory of the primary case officer’s job, Sergeant?”

  “Good news,” Griffin said hastily. “We’re
making lots of progress.”

  “Oh really? Because I’ve been listening to the news, Sergeant, and it seems to me that this case is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “It’s the fifty-million-dollar lawsuit, isn’t it?”

  “That’s one problem.”

  “And the fact that the public is now convinced there is a serial rapist on the loose, and they’re all about to be raped and/or murdered in their sleep?”

  “That would be another problem.”

  “The mayor is getting calls, and the colonel is getting calls and the media is having an absolute field day at our expense?”

  “Very good, Sergeant. For someone who’s never around, at least you’re keeping up-to-date. Detective Waters taking pity on you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Griffin acknowledged.

  “Well, that speaks highly of Detective Waters. Whom, I understand, you have running around Cranston looking for associates of Eddie Como. That sounds an awful lot like you’re poaching on Providence’s rape case. Are you poaching on Providence’s rape case?”

  “I’m being thorough,” Griffin said carefully.

  “Sergeant, don’t make me kill you.”

  Griffin smiled. He’d always liked Lieutenant Morelli. He took a deep breath. “Here’s the problem. We started out with a basic theory. Eddie Como is an alleged rapist, ergo the most likely suspects in his murder are the rape victims.”

  “I remember that conversation.”

  “Pursuant to that angle, the financial crimes detectives did a full workup on the three women and their families. That yielded two good leads: Jillian Hayes and Dan Rosen have both made substantial cash withdrawals with no identifiable recipient.”

  “They could’ve hired the gunman.”

  “They could’ve. Unfortunately they didn’t. Jillian Hayes donated her money to a Cranston parish, as confirmed by the parish priest. And Dan Rosen blew his money at Foxwoods, as corroborated by Vincent Pesaturo. It appears Mr. Rosen has a gambling problem.”

  “Which means you now have a problem.”

  “Yeah. At least as it stands now, none of the known victims and their families make good suspects, not even Vinnie Pesaturo.”