by Lisa Gardner
“So you went after her sister?”
“Sure. That’s what reporters do. One source says no, find another source that’ll say yes. I need a yes. My mom needs a yes.”
“When was your mother diagnosed with cancer?” D.D. asked.
“Six months ago.”
“And you sent the first letter to Shana . . .”
“Three months ago, give or take.”
“And the first woman was killed by the Rose Killer,” she filled in, “what, six, seven weeks ago?”
Sgarzi stiffened. His hands had fisted unconsciously by his sides. His eyes narrowed warily. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, here you are, ostensibly trying to sell a book that features a thirty-year-old case very few people—no disrespect to your family—even remember, and all of a sudden, a fresh string of murders occur with ties to your book subject. Interesting, if you ask me. Might even say convenient.”
“Wait a minute—”
“Where were you Sunday night?” Phil asked.
“Fuck you!”
“You invited us in,” D.D. said mildly. “Said we could talk crime.”
“I’m a reporter! I look for the truth. Something you might want to give a try. I mean, unless you don’t really mind women being murdered in their own beds.”
“How do you know that?”
“Please, that detail is common knowledge. What you should know, without me having to tell you, is that Shana Day is just as crazily clever now as thirty years ago.”
“How would you know? She never wrote you back.”
“She didn’t. But again, trick to this trade is to keep on digging. I tracked down some of her fellow inmates—”
“She’s in solitary.”
“They all share a corridor. Think they don’t talk across the hall? Let alone cross paths in medical, or on their way to visiting hours. There are opportunities enough to socialize, even in solitary. It’s not like they have anything else to do.”
“Who did you talk to?” D.D. asked, eyes narrowing.
“Please, like they’d even be willing to talk to you. As you can imagine, they’re not so partial to law enforcement. Whereas, a good-looking guy like me . . .”
“Just tell us what they said,” Phil spoke up.
“Shana has a friend.”
“Who?”
“A fan. From way back. Maybe even someone she knew in the neighborhood, or foster care. No one really knows, but a supporter from all those years ago, who keeps in touch, even performs small favors for her.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, spies on her sister.”
“Dr. Adeline Glen?”
“Yep. Shana’s obsessed with Adeline. Her sister’s job, apartment, car. Adeline has everything Shana’s ever wanted. Course she can’t let it go.”
“And how do Shana’s former fellow inmates know all this?”
Sgarzi shrugged. “Things Shana said, alluded to. But also . . . Things Shana would know. Including about her fellow prisoners. Apparently, her little friend would research for her, because if anyone got in an argument with Shana, suddenly she would start making very specific threats. You know, stop humming that same goddamn song, or the next time your drunken whore of a mother takes your six-year-old son to Billy Bear’s day care, they’ll both be sorry. Crap like that. But very detailed crap. Enough so, the other girls did what Shana said. She spooked them then, she scares them now. I’m not kidding. Research among yourselves. Shana’s rep reaches far beyond prison walls. She may have her sister and all the prison officials thinking she’s some depressed lonely soul, but take it from me, it’s all an act. She’s running the biggest con in MCI history. Pathetic prisoner by day. Homicidal genius by night.”
D.D. stared at Sgarzi. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think.
“One hundred and fifty-three,” Phil said.
“What?”
“One hundred and fifty-three. You’re the supposed expert on Shana Day. Tell us what that number means.”
Sgarzi frowned at them. “Hell if I know.”
“You research Harry Day, Shana’s father?”
“Course.”
“Then, what did it mean to him?”
“You mean, like a lucky number?”
“Was it?”
“Beats me. I’ve never run across mention of a lucky number before.”
“Address?” D.D. asked. “Significant to him or his victims?”
Sgarzi shook his head, looking as confused as they felt.
“What about for Shana?” D.D. pressed. “Your cousin, her foster family, where did they live?”
“Not at one hundred and fifty-three anything.” Sgarzi’s gaze suddenly sharpened. “So what’s the significance? Is it a clue from the Rose Killer? A code you have to crack? I can work on it. First dibs on the story, though. Full quid pro quo.”
“Please,” D.D. informed him. “You gotta pay to play, and so far, you haven’t told us anything we didn’t already know.”
“I gave you Shana’s friend.”
“What friend? You mean her imaginary friend? The one she talks to but no one has ever seen? You might as well have told us to track down Casper the Friendly Ghost.”
“She’s got eyes and ears beyond prison walls.”
“Already knew that.”
“She spies on her sister.”
“Knew that, too.”
“Really?”
“Dr. Glen isn’t as dumb as she looks. Wait, she looks plenty smart. And she is a professional psychiatrist with few illusions about her own gene pool. Come on. We want something good. Why do you think Shana is connected to the Rose Killer?”
“For starters, the whole removal of skin. And not just because Harry Day was known for keeping such things as trophies, but because I know what Shana did to my cousin. Come on, fourteen-year-old boy. Of course I had to sneak in my uncle’s study and look at the photos. I mean . . .” Sgarzi’s voice broke off. For all his bravado, thirty years later, his composure grew strained. “When I read the details of these latest two murders in the paper, first image that flashed through my mind was the picture of Donnie’s arm, his stomach. I . . . I knew what had been done to those women. Because I’d seen it before. In the photos of my cousin’s body. Tell me I’m wrong, Detectives. Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong.”
D.D. and Phil couldn’t do it. For once, they were the ones to glance away. Because both had reviewed Shana’s thirty-year-old handiwork in the past twenty-four hours, and Charlie Sgarzi was right. The parallels between what she’d done to her victim, what her father had done to his victims and what the Rose Killer was doing now . . .
“Shana Day didn’t kill those women,” Sgarzi continued now. “And obviously, Harry Day didn’t kill those women. But if skinning is the signature mark of the crime as well as the calling card of both father and daughter . . .”
Sgarzi paused. D.D. already knew what he was going to say next.
“Well, there’s one family member left. . . .”
Chapter 20
MY FIRST ISSUE WAS properly disposing of the formaldehyde solution.
After the interview with Shana, I’d called my receptionist and told her to cancel my remaining appointments for the week. Pessimistic? Preparing for the worst? My adoptive father had been right; just because I didn’t feel pain didn’t mean my family couldn’t hurt me.
My sister knew something. The interview request, the Boston detective’s questions, none of them surprised her. That was my biggest impression from the morning. The police could pat themselves on the back, even congratulate me for getting Shana to “volunteer” the mystery number 153. But I knew my sister better than that. This was a game for her. And she had willingly shown up to play, which already told me it was her match after all. We were the ones
catching up.
I’d been honest; I didn’t know what 153 meant. But Shana did, and if she said we would be letting her out of prison in the morning, at which time she’d be staying in my condo, sleeping in my bed and wearing my clothes, I believed her. The prediction was too specific to simply dismiss.
And it terrified me.
Formaldehyde. I possessed an entire collection of vials filled with the preserving agent and single strips of skin. It all had to go. Now.
Would the fact I kept my “collection” tucked beneath the floorboards of my closet surprise you? I can tell you as a professional that even the smartest people are driven by forces more powerful than logic. Compulsion. Obsession. Addiction.
Now I headed into my massive walk-in closet. The left-hand bureau, made of cherrywood and appearing built-in, in fact pulled straight out. I squeezed myself behind it, then went to work on the exposed floorboards, each with telltale scratches around the edges. I’d created this hidey-hole myself, the first weekend after I’d moved into my new, luxurious high-rise apartment. My first homeowner’s project. Does that tell you something?
Tucked beneath the floorboards was an ordinary shoe box. Nothing special. Black lid, faded gray-blue sides, brand name long since worn off. The kind of battered old box that might contain faded photographs or other precious family mementos. I pulled it up, holding it in two hands, then weaseled my way back out, clutching my treasure tight against my chest.
In my bathroom now. A modern white marble, chocolate cabinets, gray and blue glass-tiled affair. I placed the box on the creamy marble countertop, next to the second sink, the one that should be used by my husband or live-in companion, or the long-lost love of my life. The sink that for the entire time I’ve lived in this unit has never had a drop of water in it.
Now I removed the black top of the shoe box to reveal a padded, silk-lined interior completely at odds with the exterior. Vials. Numerous slender glass vials, each one the approximate size of a test tube, each with a rubber-stoppered top. No mason jars for this daughter of Harry Day. The gene pool had been moving on up.
It occurred to me I’d never counted the vials. Even now, I had a tendency to take it in as a whole. The collection. I didn’t count individual pieces, amassed on and off over nearly ten years. The psychiatrist who didn’t want to know what she didn’t want to know.
I closed my eyes. Pretended I was my own patient. How many vials did I think were in the box? A similar exercise to asking the alcoholic how many drinks she thought she’d had last night.
I went with twelve. An already shockingly high number. Rounding up, I told myself, because the answer on the tip of my tongue had been eight. So again, like the alcoholic who somewhat understands she has a problem—I want to say I had three drinks, but it was probably more like five . . . Forced honesty. If I’m not really in denial, then I don’t really have a problem.
I opened my eyes, counted the glass vials.
Twenty-one.
I swayed on my feet. Had to grab the smooth edge of my bathroom countertop to catch myself.
Twenty-one.
No. How? Not possible. Couldn’t be . . .
I counted again. And again.
And a curious sensation washed through me. Like my soul, taking in the awful, horrible truth, literally drained from my body. Sank from my head down to the heels of my feet, onto the bathroom floor, where it disappeared down the shower drain. Not a soul at all, but a dark spirit returning to the netherworlds from which it came.
I couldn’t . . .
I picked up a vial at random. Computer Tech, it said. I suffered a sudden image of a police snapshot from my father’s closet. Flowered Shirt, that mason jar had read in the forty-year-old police photo. A single, random detail that had been all that was left to tie the contents of the jar to the young woman who’d once lived in that skin.
My body started to tremble. I wanted to sit down, but I fought the instinct. Better to remain standing, to force myself to confront my own guilt.
“But no pain,” I heard myself whisper. “The lidocaine. They didn’t even know . . .”
Because after denial comes rationalization. I’m not really a monster like my father. He butchered young women, held them hostage and tortured them for days. So I removed a very small sliver of skin from my sleeping partners. They never even flinched, rolled over, felt the loss. An innocent token of our single night together. For the record, some might even have agreed willingly to such terms: I’ll give you one night of mad, passionate sex, no commitments, no obligations; all you have to surrender is a thin noodle of derma, which you’ll grow back in a matter of days. . . .
I held up the vial marked “Computer Tech.” Then stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Look at that nice-looking, obviously successful middle-aged woman. I wonder what she’s holding in her hand . . .
Then I remembered the sight of Detective Phil’s blood on my finger. The feel of it. The smell. The overwhelming desire to taste.
My knees gave out. I sank to the cold tiled floor. Because being someone who suffered from a rare genetic condition, I knew firsthand that nurture would never be enough. We were all products of nature as well. And this was my nature. This glass vial, clutched protectively to my chest.
Filled with formaldehyde and human skin.
My sister could not discover this. No one, absolutely no one must know. I had failed, been weak, succumbed to some kind of genetic obsession. But I could beat this. Sure. Why not? Except, of course, first I had to survive this strange, frightening week where the ghost of my father once more roamed the streets of Boston, and young women died and my crazy sister knew things she shouldn’t.
First order of business, dispose of the evidence. The box, the vials, the formaldehyde solution, the strips of skin. All of it must go.
Except how? Formaldehyde is actually a colorless gas, primarily used in aqueous solutions for preserving specimens. In addition to being poisonous in high enough concentrations, it can negatively impact the upper respiratory system and irritate the skin and has been linked to several kinds of cancer. Needless to say, safe disposal of formalin solutions generally involved identifying the solution as a hazardous waste and following proper protocols.
But I couldn’t risk being documented turning over hazardous waste.
The easiest thing would be to dump the clear solution down the drain, or flush it down the toilet, relying upon the city’s water system to successfully dilute the relatively small amount of formaldehyde. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if that was foolproof from a forensics point of view. For one thing, the pungent smell might linger, a particular odor no one would mistake for toilet bowl cleaner. Also, later on, should my sister’s scheme lead to a law enforcement sweep of my home, would they be able to still determine even a trace of formaldehyde in, say, the ring around my sink, or trapped in my pipes? I honestly didn’t know; such things never came up in medical school.
I would have to remove the solution from my unit. Take it elsewhere for disposal. As well as the strips of skin, the glass vials, the box.
A mall. A large public space where I could visit many stores as well as public bathrooms without arousing suspicion. Maybe discard one item here, one item there. Then maybe a trip to the grocery store. A woman, just running her errands.
It could work. As long as I was calm and inconspicuous, and remembered there were cameras everywhere. If there was one thing I had learned from my sister over the years, the best deceit was covered in layers of truth. Of course I went to that mall with the Ann Taylor store. Of course I picked up milk and bread. Why wouldn’t I do those sorts of things?
A rough plan forming in my mind, I took a calming breath and got to work.
Latex gloves. A larger, single glass container to hold all the formalin solution, maybe a mason jar? But that would look strange. Anyone who saw a woman walk into a public restroom with a gla
ss jar filled with a mysterious liquid, especially in Boston, post–marathon bombings . . . Not going to work.
Stainless steel water bottle. I had four or five in my kitchen cupboard. I picked my least favorite, an innocuous metallic blue with black top, which I placed on the bathroom counter to my right. Added to that a quart-size sandwich bag, opened to my left.
Single strip of skin placed in the ziplock bag. Couple of tablespoons of solution poured into the water bottle. Quick work, really. A decade of collecting dismantled in less than fifteen minutes.
I sealed up the bag, then the bottle, both of which would fit easily in my oversize purse.
Of course, I now confronted the matter of the twenty-one empty glass vials.
I could wash them. Run them through my dishwasher, then remove them to my office. Glass vials in a psychiatrist’s office, not too strange. But would a trace of the formaldehyde remain in the rubber stopper? Not to mention my fingerprints . . .
Gallon-size freezer bag this time. Two of them. I removed the rubber stoppers, then double-bagged the glass vials. Then got out a stainless steel meat mallet and proceeded to pulverize the contents of the freezer bags, reducing the empty tubes to glass fragments small enough to flush down a toilet, at another stop along the routine errands/evidence disposal field trip.
The gallon-size bag also went into my purse, as well as a bag of rubber stoppers, to be tossed in a random Dumpster. The box was easy. It was, after all, only a shoe box. I removed the silk scrap, folded it up and placed it in my closet. The foam cushion I threw away. The box I broke down for deposit in my apartment building’s recycling center.
If any of those three items were traced back to me, what did it matter? Yes, Officer, I recognize that empty box. Used to have it in my closet. But I recently tidied up the place, throwing it away. End of story.
Done at last, I stripped off the latex gloves and placed them in my purse. I would throw them away as well, but at a separate location. Like a trail of guilty bread crumbs, scattered across the greater Boston area.