The 3rd Victim

by Sydney Bauer

  ‘You walked in on this drama?’ continued Joe.

  ‘Yes. Sienna met me at the door. She told me Eliza had been taken and she had called 911. I could already hear the sirens in the distance. She was understandably distressed and I was concerned for her welfare so I called Dick Davenport and asked him to meet me here immediately.’

  ‘The doctor,’ confirmed Joe.

  ‘Her doctor, yes.’

  ‘The paramedics had been called, they would have seen to her.’

  ‘That is most likely true but, once again, Dick is a friend. The paramedics examined Sienna briefly on their arrival but soon understood that Sienna was physically unharmed and in the care of her physician. Besides, they were soon asked to accompany the police upstairs.’

  This would have been the case. The paramedics would be required to be on hand in case the child was located, in the bedroom or thereabouts.

  ‘Did you go looking for the baby?’

  Hunt hesitated.

  ‘The baby,’ Joe pushed on. ‘Mrs Walker told you her daughter had been taken. Did you go looking for her?’

  ‘The police arrived moments after myself. I had no time to check her bedroom if that's what you're asking.’

  It was. Joe knew any normal human being's first reaction to being told a child was missing would be to check the empty bedroom for themselves. Either Hunt was lying or he wasn't your average Homo sapien. Either way, Joe was already wishing he had a warrant for this wanker's DNA – even filed a mental note to attempt to get one if it came down to it, so he could cross-check his statement with the evidence.

  ‘You saw no one else in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No sign of forced entry?’

  ‘No.’

  Joe took a breath. ‘And do you have any take on who might be responsible for the child's disappearance?’ Joe used the word on purpose. He knew there was no way an experienced cop like O'Donnell would have shared the particulars of the case with this suit – which means for all Hunt knew the child had been abducted – not slaughtered as the evidence in the blood-soaked bedroom suggested.

  ‘You think Eliza may still be alive?’

  ‘You think she's dead?’

  Hunt shook his head. ‘Sienna told me about the state of the bedroom – and you are from Homicide so I suppose I … I certainly hope I'm wrong, Deputy Superintendent, but I am also a realist so I won't get my hopes up.’

  Get my hopes up. Jeez this jerk was something.

  ‘And in answer to your question, no – I have no idea who may be responsible.’

  Joe did not respond, merely held Hunt's stare before taking a step to his left. ‘I appreciate your help, Mr Hunt, and perhaps you could wait a moment while we question Mrs Walker. I'd like Detective McKay here to take a statement from you and your doctor friend over there before we –’

  ‘Mrs Walker cannot be questioned at this point,’ said Hunt, his smooth face devoid of emotion.

  Joe met his eye. ‘You her attorney now, Mr Hunt?’

  ‘Did I introduce myself as her attorney?’ asked Hunt, his voice even, cool. ‘Believe me, Deputy Superintendent, I have no desire to interfere with your investigation, but Mrs Walker is currently under the influence of medication and therefore not in a fit state to answer any of your questions.’

  ‘You sedated her?’ asked Joe in horror, knowing there was no way the paramedics who checked on her would have administered any form of sedation without first making their case to the police.

  ‘I'm not her physician, Deputy Superintendent,’ Hunt replied calmly. ‘The medication was administered by Dr Davenport.’

  And that was when Joe had finally had enough. ‘Mrs Walker,’ he said, pushing Hunt aside and ignoring the movie-star-looking doc who rose at his approach. ‘My name is Deputy Superintendent Joe Mannix of the Boston PD. Myself and Detective McKay here are extremely sorry for your loss, but I am afraid we need to ask you a few questions regarding the events that took place here this evening and …’ But Joe could see it was no use – the woman did not even make eye contact, just continued to stare straight ahead.

  Joe met Hunt's eyes once again and the man did not blink, simply stood in the middle of the living room, still, quiet, composed.

  Joe turned to Frank. ‘Frank, I want you to go upstairs and drag that team of paramedics down here. I want you to ask them to take Mrs Walker here to Mass Gen. She is clearly unresponsive and I think it best that she's examined by a trauma specialist who can, if necessary, treat her for shock.’

  ‘Deputy Superintendent.’ It was the doctor with the blonde hair and the square jaw. ‘My name is Richard Davenport and I am Mrs Walker's physician. I appreciate your concern but I can assure you that at this point, psychologically, emotionally, she is better off in a familiar environment surrounded by her friends.’

  ‘You see her objecting to the hospital idea?’ asked Joe, gesturing at the catatonic shell of a woman before him.

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘You her GP?’

  ‘I'm her specialist.’

  ‘What kind of specialist?’

  ‘Her OB/GYN.’

  Joe could barely contain himself – her freaking gynaecologist was passing himself off as her shrink. He nodded at Frank, who was already headed for the stairs. ‘Don't worry, Doc,’ said Joe as his attention returned to Davenport, ‘we'll make sure Mrs Walker is well taken care of.’

  ‘Might I at least accompany her to the hospital?’

  ‘You might not,’ answered Joe. ‘You and your friend need to stay right here and give your statements to Detective McKay.’

  But Davenport was not a quitter. ‘Deputy Superintendent, I understand you have Mrs Walker's best interests at heart, but I am afraid –’

  ‘And so you should be,’ interrupted Joe, unable to help himself as his eyes flicked once again toward Hunt before refocusing on the woman before him. ‘Mrs Walker, can you take my hand?’ Joe asked gently as he attempted to help the woman to her feet.

  But she did not answer, her hands barely twitching as her soupy blue eyes drifted slowly toward Joe. In them he saw nothing for the longest of moments, until she blinked, and he recognised it – a look of pure sorrow, of deep-seated hopelessness and, Joe was sure of it, fear.

  5

  The following morning

  When David reached the harbour he took a moment to catch his breath. He loved it here, especially at this time of morning when the sun kissed the horizon and the early ferries and fishing trawlers tracked snail trails across the surface of the slick blue expanse. Life was good, he thought as he lifted his hands from his knees and stretched tall – the adrenalin of his hour plus run, which started at his Washington Street apartment and took him on a full circuit of the city before ending east at Commercial Street near the US Coast Guard Station, still flowing fast through his veins.

  This was what it was all about, his thought continued as he checked his Tag and started walking west, back home, so that he could spend the morning with his two ‘best girls’. Family, friends, fresh air, good health – and for the first time in a long time, a career that was not pulling him in a million different directions. It had been over six months since he had returned from his home city of Newark, where he had defended one of his oldest friends in a case that had exhausted him – physically, mentally. Since then he had settled into a routine of defending smaller, less complicated cases, finding more time for Sara and his one-and-a-half-year-old, blonde-haired, green-eyed daughter, Lauren.

  Fifteen minutes later, Sara met him at their 23rd floor apartment door, immediately putting her finger to her lips.

  ‘Shh,’ she whispered before her face broke into that perfect, high-cheek-boned smile. She used her finger to beckon him toward their bedroom where, from the corner of the doorway, she pointed at Lauren who appeared to be in the middle of some sort of ‘fashion parade’ in the nearby walk-in closet.

  ‘What's she doing?’ asked David, Sara's smile contagious.

 
; ‘Go see,’ replied Sara, giving him the slightest of pushes into the bedroom.

  And so he did. ‘Lauren,’ he called. ‘What are you up to, honey?’

  ‘Daddy!’ she cried, turning to face him now, the widest of smiles on her pretty olive-skinned face.

  David laughed as he held his arms out toward her – his daughter was draped in an ensemble that included one of his business shirts, four of his ties, his baseball mitt, an old NY Yankees cap and a pair of mismatched loafers which swallowed her tiny feet whole.

  ‘Lauren Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘I can see that, and you make a very good me – a better me than me I think.’

  ‘Silly daddy,’ she smiled as he scooped her up and she wrapped her arms around him. ‘Lauren lawler.’

  ‘Three lawlers in one family.’ He pulled back to see her smiling face. ‘Sounds dangerous.’

  Lauren squealed again.

  ‘Okay, Laurel and Hardy,’ said Sara, moving around them and quickly crossing the bedroom to check her reflection in the bedside dresser mirror. ‘Mummy has to go, but she won't be long.’

  ‘You're going out?’ asked David, not recalling her telling him she had something to do this morning.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ she said, still looking at herself. ‘God, look at this mess.’ She tugged at her long chestnut hair. ‘I rang the salon, they said they had a cancellation and could fit me in as long as I was there within half an hour.’

  ‘Your hair looks fine,’ said David, half pleased she was doing something for herself and half disappointed at them not being able to hang out this morning. ‘I like it long.’

  ‘Long I can live with, but dry, shapeless …’ She moved across to kiss him before grabbing her handbag from the bed. ‘It won't take long, I promise. In the meantime, here …’ Sara grappled inside her bag to retrieve a pacifier, a drinking cup and a packet of wet wipes.

  ‘What else have you got in there?’ joked David, trying to juggle his daughter and the paraphernalia that seemed to follow her. ‘A submarine, a condominium?’

  ‘Wish it was. We could use a little more space around here.’ Sara smiled as she tickled a giggling Lauren on the tummy. ‘You're going to need supplies – and I left some cereal in her blue container in the refrigerator but you may want to take her to Mick's. She loves his home-made oatmeal, and he spoils her rotten.’

  Sara was referring to one of their favourite eating haunts, the harbour-side café Myrtle McGee's, and its proprietor, the larger-than-life Mick.

  ‘Uncle Mick,’ cried Lauren, lifting her mitt in the air.

  ‘Well I guess that's settled,’ said David, now thinking ahead. ‘Actually, Joe left a message on my cell saying he wanted to catch up. I might call him and see if he wants to meet us for a late breakfast.’

  ‘Uncle Joe!’ exclaimed Lauren.

  Sara smiled. ‘He probably feels guilty for running out on us last night. I know he finds those things trying but … I kind of had fun,’ she said.

  ‘Must have been your date,’ said David, kissing her quickly on the cheek before she scooted past him heading for the door.

  ‘Don't get into too much trouble,’ she added as she grabbed her keys from the entryway table.

  ‘Trouble is our business – we're lawlers don't forget.’

  ‘That's what I'm afraid of,’ she grinned, before moving swiftly out the door.

  *

  ‘Well, well, well, what do we have here then?’ Mick McGee tossed his kitchen towel over his broad shoulder before placing his hands on his hips. ‘I would like to think it was the cutest toddler in Boston but –’ the round-faced, cherry-topped Mick grinned – ‘it seems to me that this mornin' she's been hijacked by some high-powered business tycoon.’

  It had come down to some serious bargaining, Lauren agreeing to lose the mitt, the Yankees cap and the loafers in return for keeping the shirt and three of the four striped ties.

  ‘Lauren Daddy,’ announced a delighted Lauren, now reaching out for Mick.

  ‘So you are, but not to worry,’ smiled Mick, taking the toddler in his arms. ‘With any luck you'll grow out of it –’ he winked, ‘and end up just like your mother.’

  ‘She doesn't get the joke, Mick,’ smiled David.

  ‘Who said I was joking?’ beamed Mick before turning his attention back to Lauren. ‘What say you sit up in the highchair behind the counter with me while Daddy and your Uncle Joe have some breakfast?’

  ‘Joe's here already?’ asked David, who had only called him a half-hour ago.

  ‘He's hibernating in the booth at the far back corner.’ Mick used his thumb to point behind him. ‘That is what grumpy old bears tend to do, right?’ He tousled Lauren's hair.

  ‘Joe's in a mood?’ asked David.

  Mick nodded. ‘But knowing our friend Mannix, he probably has good reason – said something about attending that abduction last night.’

  ‘I heard about it,’ said David, recalling the report he had heard on the car radio on his way to Mick's. The news bite had sent a momentary shiver of fear up his spine – David's whole attitude to crime had shifted the moment Lauren was born.

  ‘You'll yell if she's too much of a handful?’ said David.

  ‘Miss Bacall a handful?’ said Mick. ‘Never! You go chat while me and my girl here chow down on some hot porridge with banana.’

  ‘Thanks, Mick,’ said David as he turned to make his way slowly toward the figure at the back of the room.

  6

  There is a millisecond, just before you open your eyes, when your lashes resist the movement. It is like they cling together for comfort, holding tight to that world where light, and all the bad things illuminated by it, remain safely out of reach.

  Sienna Walker's long, black lashes were matting at their tips, clinging to the darkness until the basic human instinct to check on her surroundings kicked in – and with it came the memory, the realisation of where she was, and the gravity of the loss she had suffered.

  ‘Eliza,’ she said, the most important word in her universe now catching in her throat. ‘My sweet little girl,’ this time louder, the panic exploding like an A-bomb in her chest. ‘Oh god …’ She arched her back before contracting into a curl, and then, in reflex, moving to wrap her arms tightly around her knees. But her hand jerked back. It was connected to a tube, the tube to a bag of clear, unidentified fluid.

  She shuddered, her blue eyes stretching wide as every last detail gushed violently through her brain. She could see her – Eliza, her beautiful baby girl – the rise of her cheek, the extraordinary length of her eyelashes, the soft blonde wisps of her hair. But then her vision started to shrink, inwards, from the sides, as a thick sea of red oozed into the corners of her memory and obliterated her daughter from her mind's eye.

  Eliza was gone, she knew, and she wondered at the finality of it all as the confusion gave way to grief and the grief to utter despair and the despair to resolve to keep the inevitable anger at bay.

  Half of her wanted the fury to come, but the other half knew that the rage inside her would be her only weapon against what inevitably lay ahead. He would be here, she thought. Not here in this room, but close by, always close by.

  Sienna shut her eyes again and allowed the fog to swallow her. Choose your battles, she told herself, repeating the advice her father had given her so many times in her youth. Accept the consequences of your actions, his mantra continued. She knew that no amount of grieving would bring her daughter back. What is done is done, the third of his quartet of truisms now slipping its way past the shadows, and finally: prepare in haste for what is to come, for clocks only move in one direction, once they have been set.

  7

  Forty minutes had passed and David was on his third coffee by the time Joe had finished. He had checked on Lauren twice, the second time finding her curled up under a blanket on a bean bag in the room just beyond Mick's kitchen. Mick had her in eyeshot and was fawning over her like a muscle-bound mother hen, shooing David away every time he
came to ask if watching her was any trouble.

  ‘Wow,’ said David as he sat back in his seat. ‘I can see why this whole thing feels strange, Joe. I mean, besides the coincidence of Daniel Hunt's involvement, there's the murder of the kid so close to the recent death of the father.’

  ‘That's exactly what I was thinking,’ said Joe, obviously relieved that his attorney friend didn't dismiss his concerns outright.

  ‘But on the other hand,’ continued David, sensing it was also his ‘job’ to help Joe find the logic in the happenstance, ‘when you think about it, all those coincidences can be explained. As big of an egotist as Daniel Hunt appears to be, what he says makes sense. He could well be feeling a sense of responsibility after the husband's death. And tragedies have been known to happen in sequence – thank god not often, but every now and again.’

  Joe did not answer, perhaps pondering David's reasoning, and so David went on.

  ‘Did you look into the circumstances surrounding the husband's accident?’

  ‘Yeah – and they check out,’ conceded Joe. ‘Jim Walker was on the road. He had some meetings in New York and more in the morning somewhere further south. It was late, he was tired, so he fell asleep at the wheel. He swerved across to the other side of the road and crashed head on into an eighteen-wheeler.’

  David shook his head. ‘It's sad, but it happens, Joe. You said you ran a background check on the Walkers and it came up clean.’

  Joe nodded. ‘I'm still digging, but the initial story is just like Hunt told it – the Walkers are both only children and both of their parents are deceased. The husband got his law degree with a Masters in Business from Princeton and the wife was born in the UK, where she went to Oxford and got her graduate degree in the history of art and architecture. She met Walker while on a sabbatical to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and they were married a few months later.’

  The Isabella Stewart Gardner was one of Boston's and America's most respected art galleries. ‘Sounds like a whirlwind Ivy League match made in heaven,’ said David.