Catch Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “But never heard of a Munchausen’s mom resorting to secret infanticide. Where’s the fix, outpouring of public support, the emotional satisfaction? Makes me wonder what else Charlene fails to remember. What else she might have done.”

  “I would never—”

  “Look me in the eye, Charlene.” Detective O, suddenly rounding the table, walking closer. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not a killer.”

  I opened my mouth. I closed my mouth. I opened my mouth again, and a word came out, but it wasn’t what I expected.

  “Abigail,” I whispered.

  “What about Abigail?”

  “Abigail,” I repeated mournfully. And my hand came up. I reached out, as if to touch someone who wasn’t even there.

  “Charlene—” Detective Warren began.

  But I didn’t wait to hear anymore. They didn’t have a warrant. They couldn’t arrest me, they couldn’t hold me.

  In the back of my mind, I realized this might be the last chance I ever had.

  One year of intense training later, I sized up my opponents. Then I turned and fled.

  Chapter 30

  “OH YEAH, she’ll never guess we’re onto her after that conversation. Subtle. Smooth. Confidence-building. I bet Charlene’s headed home right now to make us both friendship bracelets. What do you think?” D.D. snapped.

  Detective O scowled, pulled out a chair at the conference table, and dropped into it. “She’s guilty. You know she’s guilty. Did you see her face? ‘Tell me you’re not a killer, Charlene.’ She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it!”

  “Crap, we’re going to have to assign a patrol car to watch her. Course, we don’t have any proof she’s a suspect, let alone the budget for a patrol officer. Double crap.” D.D. also pulled out a chair, took a seat. The manila file was in front of her. She didn’t open it. She’d studied the crime scene photos at 5 A.M., her first night away from baby Jack.

  Interestingly enough, it was not the tiny skeletons that had bothered her. The finger bones the size of grains of rice. The unfused cranial plates of the little boy, collapsed into a heap like a pile of yellowed rose petals.

  The girl had mummified slightly, delicate skin shrink-wrapping her tiny frame, keeping her bones more intact. At first glance, the remains appeared to be a macabre doll, complete with long dark hair. It was only upon closer inspection you realized this had once been a real baby, twelve to eighteen months old, who’d probably sat up, crawled, taken a first step.

  No, it wasn’t the impossible tiny corpses that had gotten to D.D. It was the blankets. Pale pink with dark pink polka dots for her, dark blue teddy bears against a light blue background for him. First Christine Grant had murdered her children. Then she’d wrapped them up in their own baby blankets. There was something fundamentally maternal about that gesture.

  Something…incredibly fucked up.

  One P.M. D.D. was feeling the weight of a long night. She didn’t want to open that file again. She just wanted to go home to Jack and hold her baby close.

  She pushed the folder away, pinched the bridge of her nose, and tried to figure out what to do next.

  “I think she’s Abigail,” Detective O said.

  D.D. opened her eyes, peering at the sex crimes detective blearily. “Say what?”

  “Sybil. Wasn’t that the case? A girl so horribly and ritualistically abused by her mother that she developed multiple personalities to protect herself.”

  D.D. stared at her.

  “Sounds like Charlene was horribly and ritualistically abused. Maybe same thing happened, except with a twist—she didn’t just adopt the names of her dead siblings, she adopted a personality for each of them, as well. So, say, this Abigail she was telling us about—”

  “The baby with brown eyes…”

  “In real life, yes. But then Charlene’s mother killed it, and Charlene…absorbed…Abigail instead. Protector personality. Charlene isn’t killing sex offenders. Abigail is. Hence a brown-haired, blue-eyed shooter, running around Boston murdering sex offenders, while introducing herself as Abigail. Oh, oh, oh. And the notes within the notes. Maybe tightly wound Abigail, the protector personality, is the one writing everyone has to die sometime, in the perfectly formed script, while Charlene, some little piece of her who knows killing is wrong, quickly scrawls the second message, catch me. A plea for help. One note with two different messages, representing two different personalities.”

  D.D. stared at the young detective. She frowned. Then she stared some more. “I think we just fell into a Lifetime movie.”

  Detective O shrugged. “Most fiction starts with a kernel of truth. Dissociative identity disorder is a recognized and diagnosable psychiatric illness. Besides, do you have any other explanation for the note within the note, let alone a Charlie clone running around Boston shooting pedophiles, then introducing herself as Abigail?”

  Come to think of it. “No. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you call Charlene and ask if she’ll kindly return to HQ for a mental health eval? Given how much she currently likes you…”

  “Playing nice wasn’t working,” O insisted stiffly.

  “Really? When’d you try it?”

  “Oh please, this from the Queen of Bitch.”

  “Queen of Bitch?”

  “Hey, I’d take it as a compliment.”

  “Hey, I do. But fact remains, our strategy walking into this meeting was to not spook the suspect. As co-interviewers, we’re supposed to back each other up, not screw each other over.”

  “It worked,” Detective O declared flatly. “She’s starting to break. You heard her—no alibi for last night’s shooting. And hell yes, she feels helpless and wants to rescue other kids and the cops can’t do enough, etc., etc. She wants to tell us. Now it’s just a matter of bringing her to the point where it feels better to tell us exactly what she did than to keep it bottled up inside.”

  “Maybe,” D.D. muttered, less convinced. She picked up a pencil, tapped its eraser on the polished surface of the maple wood table. “If Charlie’s past makes her a killer,” she mused out loud, “then what else in her past makes her a target?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we have two investigations leading us to one subject: Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Just to keep things confusing, she appears to be the perpetrator of one series of crimes, while being the potential victim of another series of crimes. She shoots pedophiles, while counting down the days to her own murder. There’s a crazy kind of logic there, but I still can’t decipher it.”

  “Her past may not have anything to do with her friends’ murders.”

  D.D. arched a brow. “You mean she just naturally attracts psychopaths? First her mother, then a random stranger who decided to murder the ones she loves?”

  O shrugged. “Sure the mom’s dead?”

  “The twin Rosalind and Carter tattoos seem a slam dunk. I mean, there could be other deceased Jane Does of the same approximate age and description. Perhaps even deceased Jane Does with the same pineapple-shaped birthmark. But a deceased Jane Doe of the same approximate age, description, birthmark, and tattoo honoring two dead babies…”

  “All right, all right. The mom’s dead. Well, think about what Charlene said: How did her mother wind up so crazy when everyone else in the family appears so normal? Except, if Charlene’s running around Boston shooting sex offenders to death, she’s not really that normal, is she?”

  “Meaning, maybe neither is the aunt?” D.D. murmured.

  “Once you’ve established two homicidal maniacs in the family, what’s a third? Though it makes you wonder what they talk about at family reunions.”

  “I once read about a family with two serial killer brothers. And here was the kicker—they murdered independently of one another. Two separate homicidal rampages.”

  “Several cases of cousins operating as killing teams. So definitely something to be said for pruning certain family trees.”

  “You gonna look up the aunt?�
� D.D. asked, pushing back in her chair.

  “I’ll background the aunt. Given that she’s in town, timing seems right for a face-to-face interview. What are you going to do?”

  “Go home. Get some sleep.” D.D. paused. She wanted to be present for the aunt’s interview. Then again, she could barely keep her eyes open, and she was hitting the point of nonsensical cranky that was more hurtful than helpful. She’d advised her unit that this investigation was a marathon not a sprint. Perhaps she should take her own advice. Interesting.

  Not to mention that tomorrow was the twenty-first. Game day. Definitely, she wanted to be fresh for game day.

  “I’ll sleep a couple of hours first, then pick up Jack from day care,” D.D. determined out loud.

  “Coming back to the office?” O asked.

  “Maybe after dinner. We might have something from the handwriting expert by then. Plus a report from Neil and Phil on their visit with our third victim’s family. Oh, and I’ll follow up with Grovesnor PD, make sure they get Charlene’s handgun. One thing’s for certain.” D.D. rose to standing, glancing at her watch. “For Charlene Grant there’s not much time left.”

  “No,” O agreed. “There certainly isn’t.”

  Chapter 31

  NINE P.M. FRIDAY NIGHT. Twenty-three hours to go.

  Sun gone. Temperature plummeting. Sky dark.

  My aunt had left, checking into a hotel for the evening. Tulip had left, going wherever the dog that was not my dog went. I paced my tiny room. I loaded and unloaded my gun.

  I thought of my mom. I struggled to remember two tiny siblings, a baby sister and a baby brother, who’d never had a chance at life. Apparently, memory is a muscle, and having atrophied mine for most of my life, I couldn’t magically now fire it to life. I tried to picture a house, a yard, a family pet. A woman, a smell, something, anything that felt like my old life.

  In the end, I downed two aspirin, then shadow boxed in front of my mirror.

  The woman looking back at me was gaunt. Purple bruised throat. Slicked back brown hair. Crazed blue eyes.

  I looked like my mom, twenty years later.

  Abigail, Detective O had called me. Abigail…

  I punched the mirror. Suddenly. Quickly. One two three, bam, bam, bam. Shattered it with my bare hands. Then, watched the broken fragments rain down onto the wood floor, a shower of silver.

  And for a moment…

  The kitchen. Fingers of silvery moonlight. Fire, climbing the walls.

  My landlady, Frances, knocked on the door. “You okay?”

  “Sorry. Um…accident. No problem. All’s well.”

  I studied my bleeding knuckles. A mirrored shard of glass protruded from the back of my left hand. I picked out the glass. I licked at the welling blood.

  Then, even though I’d be an hour early, I left for work.

  OFFICER MACKERETH CAUGHT me in the parking lot. He’d just pulled up in his police cruiser. He popped open the driver side door, got out, spotted me walking down the dimly lit sidewalk behind him, and changed his direction from the warmth of the station to the cold of the street, where I was hoofing it from the T stop.

  “Charlie,” he said, and there was something in his voice that was already a warning.

  I drew up short, one streetlight behind me, one streetlight ahead of me. I planted my legs, left foot forward, gloved hand on the flap of my messenger bag.

  Mackereth saw my change in stance and paused ten feet back, his right hand dropping to his holstered weapon, his own weight going forward, onto the balls of his feet. We stood like that for a full fifteen, twenty seconds, him haloed by one streetlight, me haloed by another. Neither of us at an advantage, neither of us at a disadvantage.

  “You carrying?” he asked finally.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I know. Call came in today. Shepherd is waiting for you inside to take the twenty-two. What’d you do, Charlie?”

  I didn’t answer his question, my mind already racing ahead. Boston PD, had to be. They’d figured out what I’d done to Stan Miller. Detective O had basically admitted as much, trying to wheedle a confession out of me. I didn’t know how, but they were putting together the pieces. Maybe Tomika had told a friend of a friend. Maybe someone had spotted me entering the building not once, but twice that night.

  Maybe it just made sense. I mean, a girl like me, growing up the way I grew up. Maybe murder and mayhem had always been only a matter of time.

  How’d you know they were suffocated, Charlie? How’d you know?

  Because I knew. Rosalind’s pale little body, wrapped snug in a pale pink polka-dotted blanket. She’d loved that blanket. Had clutched the soft fleece in her tiny fists, had sucked on the satin trim.

  I’d wrapped her up. Afterward.

  Take care of the baby, Charlie. Don’t let her cry. Can’t let her cry. Mommy will hurt us both if she cries.

  Oh God, what had I done?

  “Charlie?”

  Officer Mackereth. Not stepping any closer, right hand still hovering at his waist. Ten feet between us. Car went by, then another. My hand was trembling on my leather messenger bag, though I couldn’t have told you why.

  “I’m going to die tomorrow,” I heard myself say. “Sometime around eight P.M. I will be strangled to death, and I won’t fight back. No sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. I will welcome my own death.”

  Officer Mackereth, watching me.

  “I’m a good shot. Good fighter, strong runner. I don’t want to die like my friends. I’ve already spent too much of my life taking shit. If I’m going out tomorrow, I want to take the killer with me.”

  “Charlie—”

  “I need my gun. I know you don’t trust me. Hell, you don’t even know me. But I need my gun. One more day. Twenty-three hours. No, thirty-six. Sunday morning dawns and I’m still alive, Boston PD can have it. I’ll hand it over to you. Let you personally take it to them. I’ll accept whatever happens next. I promise.”

  “What’d you do, Charlie?”

  “Randi’s dead. Jackie’s dead. Nobody knows why, nobody knows how, and nobody sure as hell knows who. But they were my best friends, Tom. I loved them too much, I understand that now. But they never complained. They loved me back and I owe them for that. Tomorrow night, eight P.M. A killer’s coming for me and I’m gonna make him or her pay. It’s all I got left, Tom. Nothing worth living for. Only something worth dying for.”

  Officer Mackereth stepped closer to me.

  “If I ask you to hand over your bag?” he asked quietly, hand on his holster.

  “Please don’t.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “Probably.”

  “Where’s your dog?”

  “She didn’t leave a note.”

  He sighed. His hand didn’t come down, but his shoulders did. “I don’t know what to do about you.”

  I said nothing, left him to the weight of his own consideration.

  “Look me in the eye, Charlie. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t do whatever it is Boston PD thinks you did, and I’ll let it go. Turn around, pretend I never saw you.”

  I looked him in the eye. I didn’t say a word.

  He sighed, heavier this time. His gaze appeared genuinely sorrowful. “Kinda liked you, Charlie.”

  “Kinda liked you, too.”

  “Guess I shoulda known. I have a habit of being attracted to train wrecks. Hero complex, my sister tells me.”

  I had to smile. “I have a habit of wanting more than I can have. Guess we’re both consistent.”

  “Doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “I don’t know any other way.”

  He took another step forward. Eight feet between us. Then six, five, four. Strike distance. One step forward and I could punch him, overhand right to the head. Or simply pop open the messenger bag and start firing.

  I thought of Randi. I thought of Jackie. I wondered if their last moments had been like this. Willing themselves to fight back,
or simply waiting for it to be over.

  Officer Mackereth finally paused, close enough he could touch his nose to mine, the frost of our mutual breaths mingling in the frigid night air. His hand remained on the butt of his weapon, not drawing it, but protecting it.

  “Five P.M., Charlie.”

  “Five P.M.?”

  “That’s when I’ll pick you up. Tomorrow night. I know about your friends. Did my own research. Someone wants to take a swing at you, he can deal with both of us.”

  I didn’t say anything, just gazed up into his face. His expression was set, his blue eyes resolute.

  “Sunday morning,” he continued firmly, “you’ll hand over your twenty-two, as promised.”

  I nodded.

  “I can’t help you after that.”

  I nodded again.

  “You saved my life the other night, Charlie. Guess I feel I owe you one. But as of Sunday morning, consider us even.”

  His hand shifted. I thought he might touch my cheek. Maybe I even anticipated his gloved fingers on my icy cheek. Or his warm lips brushing across my mouth. Or his body, strong and solid, pressed hard against my own.

  I’m cold, I thought, but realized what I really meant was that I felt too alone.

  Officer Mackereth turned. Officer Mackereth walked away.

  I waited another minute, standing in the darkness, resisting the urge to call him back.

  His burly form disappeared inside the police station. Behind me, another car whizzed by. I waited until the street appeared clear, the parking lot empty.

  Then I opened my messenger bag. I retrieved my Taurus. 22 semiauto, wrapped it in my scarf, and buried it in a snow mound beneath a prickly bush at the edge of the parking lot.

  By firing my twenty-two in Stan’s apartment, I’d tied myself to his death. Meaning if Detective Warren got her hands on my Taurus, I’d be going to jail. Maybe I should just hand it over. Maybe, at this stage of the game, prison would be safer for me.